End of the month update

Not too much to report....life goes on as usual. Which is a good thing, right? Tom had a birthday last week so I made him a card and baked him a blue berry pie. He wasn't home when I went to deliver it so I left it on the counter top. He called me later to say thank you and how touched he was that someone cared enough to think of him on his birthday. I'm always concerned about the people we know who live out here alone, who have no spouse or family close by. Who will they celebrate the holidays with, who will care if they get sick, who will know if they die? I guess I have some kind of character flaw because if I like someone a lot, I immediately "adopt" them into my family. My Mother Hen complex I guess you'd call it. My mom tells me I care too much about people. Yes, I actually gave a girlfriend of mine the shirt off my back because she liked it. I'm more family oriented that Pa so I hope he doesn't mind all our extra family members!

Yesterday, Pa, Tom, Wayne and I went to an auction on the other side of Show Low. 10 acres of stuff/junk was being auctioned. Two auctions were going on at the same time. The inside auction had girly stuff like wall hangings, decorations, limited addition paintings, etc. There was a cast iron replica of a wood cook stove with all the pans and pots. It was a miniature one.  I've wanted one for years. I bid $15.00 and before I could take a breath, it was up to $55.00!!!! No way was I going that high. After watching the bidding for awhile, I could see that things were going for new prices so I wandered off to see what the guys were doing. All three were disgusted because so much junk was being sold and it would have taken forever to get to the things the guys were interested in. Tom was looking for a trailer. I had my eye on a trailer with a water tank and a Honda quad. No one wanted to wait till midnight for those things to come up for bid so we left and had Chinese food in Show Low

The work on the community well has come to a stand still until checks start coming in for the cement and other items the guys need. The board already voted to have Pa and Wayne fix the well and told them they could have a check ready in two days. What a crock!!!! Now each expenditure has to be approved before anything can be done. At this rate, they might have it done by next Spring. The guys can't put in the frames for the cement until they have the money and delivery date for the cement because they don't want anyone to steal the framing.  They can't do this because of that. So it is very frustrating!!!!  The guys are chomping at the bit to get things done so we can use the well.

Both of Wayne's pregnant horses lost their babies!!! They were half way thru their pregnancies. I am so sad about it. What is so frustrating is no one knows why so he is hesitant to have them bred again. Hay is $15.00 a bale around here so horses aren't cheap to raise. He doesn't have his property fenced in yet so he can't let his horses graze on their own. I keep hinting to Pa that he should let the horses graze on our property but he ignores me.

Woo Hoo, a couple more weeks and my mom will be here. I can hardly wait, I am so excited!!!!! The garden is still producing a bit here and there. I have lots of tomatoes, small tho they be, that are in various stages of ripening. Hopefully I will have enough to can a few quarts. Something is eating my peas (4th planting) so I won't get much from there. We ate a baseball sized cantaloupe the other day which was pretty tasty. I think I will cut down the broccoli, large plants, little produce so why bother to keep watering it? There are 3 butternut squash that are about ready to pick. The zucchini and yellow squash are about done. I'm not sure what the potatoes are doing. The experiment of having them grow surrounded by a cage of straw was a waste of time. There's not a single potato in the straw. I may dig around and see if anything is in the dirt today.
That's it for now.