Titus' Dedication

 

We were thankful to be able to attend Titus' dedication.  Ken and Marilyn Blake were able to be here from Germany and it was a wonderful service.

 

 

 

And then they had a party afterward.  Had a lot of friends attended.

Marilyn is a fun hostess.  They served a traditional Macedonian bread called Mejica.

 



 

 

 

I caught this moment of the 3 generations.

 

 

On Saturday, Charley and Bob attended the Draft Horse Day at the Asbury University Farm.  They have really developed a fantastic program since they days when Charley was a student in the infancy of the program.

 

In the arena, they demonstrated how the students train horses to be able to be police horses.  The horses need to put up with any surprises they should encounter while on the job.  They use obstacles, noises, people and sparklers.  Horses have been sold to agencies as far away as Maryland and California.

 

 
Charley had opportunity to run a plow pulled by two draft horses on the Mission Farm. The Mission Farm is a small garden where students learn to garden using tools and techniques you might find in a third world country.  He really enjoyed it.

But you see that plowing a straight furrow didn't happen on the first try.  It was hard work.

 

I'll give an update on the house next week.  We are making good progress.

So, another week in the Bluegrass.

 

We have basement walls

I harvested my peppers this week.  I was really proud of the results.
I grew Serrano, Anaheim, and Garden Salsa peppers.

We can now see the size and the shape.  Exciting.

Quick Update

They started to put up the concrete forms for the basement walls.  Hopefully by the end of tomorrow (Tues) the basement walls will be poured.

Exciting!

Big News!

Well.  Our big news is the addition to our family of Titus Joshua Neal.
He was born on Friday, August 30 to Joshua and Rachelle.  They had some concerns when he was first born, so they took him to Riley Children's Hospital in Indianapolis.  There turned out to be no problems, but he needed to stay there until they were sure about everything.  Wilma and I drove up on Saturday, Rachelle was released from the Marion hospital on Sunday and a friend brought her down.  Titus was sent home on Monday, Sept 2.

I can't speak highly enough of the people in the Children's hospital and the facility was absolutely wonderful!  They had only moved in 2 months ago.  Each of the babies is in a private room with a couch that Josh could (kind of) sleep on.  The nurse said in the old hospital, there would have been about 6 children in space this size and each set of parents would have had about 4 feet between their child's bed and the child next to them.

On Saturday, we couldn't hold him because he had an IV in his umbilical cord.  They had to be sure there was nothing going on.

On Sunday, when the results of a certain test came back, they were able to take that IV out and then we could hold him.  The nurse was talking about what a pleasure it was to take care of a "fat, healthy baby."  When I held him, he felt so tiny!  They have other babies they can hold in the palm of their hand.

He was ready to see mommy when she got there.  And she was ready to see him also!

 

I can't express how much I appreciate Wilma driving me up there.

 

Bob missed it all because he was at the Cedar Valley Engine Club show in Charles City, IA.  He didn't take a picture of the corn sheller, but some of his friends were baling hay.  It was a regular baler, but they were feeding it by hand for display.  He said it was a great show.

 

 

Bob went through Wheaton both going to and coming from Iowa.  He drove past our old house.  It looked pretty much the same.  They have added a raised bed for a vegetable garden between the sidewalk and the driveway.

 

 

When Bob got home, he was back to mowing weeds on the farm.  Except that they were so pretty, he referred to them as his wildflowers.  They still need to be mowed so the cattle can pasture there.  They really are pretty with the purple, yellow and white.

 

Whenever we walk out toward the animal area, the chickens come running.  It's hard to walk without stepping on them.  It's funny to watch, though.

 

 

And then, we went to the Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Circus.  It was a magical evening and we all had a wonderful time, especially J.  Claude and Sallie and us were glad we had the excuse of a child so we could go.

 

 

J is a real problem-solver.  He was playing with his hat at home the next day and it wouldn't stand up on his head - so he unrolled a roll of toilet paper and stuffed it with that.  Light weight enough to be on his head and it stood up tall.  I don't know if his parents have seen the toilet paper mess yet upstairs.



 

 Another couple wonderful weeks in the Bluegrass!  With side trips to Iowa, Illinois and Indiana.

 

Big Day - Footings

Yesterday was a big day.  They dug and poured the footings.
I still say, "It looks so small!"

We had 3 concrete trucks there all at once pouring the footings.  I asked Tyler how much each of them cost and he said about $1,000.  Charley climbed up one of the dirt piles they built from excavation and took this birds-eye picture.

 

In digging, they found this clay that several people said they had never seen before.  Paul, the excavator, said this is the type of clay you would use to line a pond.  Most of the footings are dug down into this layer and they said we couldn't have had a better foundation to build our house.  God is good!

This is the crew Tyler uses for this kind of work.  They were great!  The little boy is 6 and his school hasn't started yet so he was out there with his dad all day.  I never heard a complaint out of him that he was hot or bored!

Tyler's kids were there after school and they were all out there having fun.

This is Tyler Oberman, our builder.  Yesterday several times we heard, "He's the best!"
Last night when the building inspector came, he said we didn't need to worry about things being done right with Tyler.

And there always has to be a "peanut gallery" - right?  We can sit in the comfort of the kids' front porch and keep an eye on things.

Did you know we had monkeys in Kentucky?

 

Another exciting day in the Bluegrass.

FINALLY!!!

Finally!  They started digging!

 

 

On Friday, they brought gravel up the (new part of the) driveway.  They are supposed to do the footings on Monday.   Big sigh....  Lots of different emotions on my part.  Excitement - fear - disbelief that it is actually happening...

Today I had a perfect summer lunch.  Tomatoes and cucumbers from the garden.

 

Our friend Bruno asked why I didn't have any pictures of the cattle.  I took this picture as we were leaving one evening.  I know you can't really see the cattle, but at least you can see they exist.  We have to go through two gates every time we enter or leave.  Big pain.

If there is more than one person in the car, the rider can get out, open the gate and close it again after the car goes through the gate.  If the driver is alone, he/she has to get out and open the gate, get back in the car and drive through the gate and then get out again to close the gate.

 

Well, one day, someone was going through the gate and the cows were right by the first gate like you see in the picture below.  One of the cows got through the gate and into the neighbor's pasture that we drive through to get to our place.  Bob and I, Charley and J went down to find her and get her back in our pasture.  We left Charley and J at the gate and Bob and I drove back through the pasture.  We didn't see any cattle, so we drove back to the gate.  J said, "We didn't see her, let's go back to the house."  He was teasing us which he likes to do.

 

Actually, the cow was just up the fence a ways in the shade of the tree and when she saw Charley, she came running to him and went right through the gate.  She knew she was not where she was supposed to be.

 

 

This morning I went out to the garden early and there were lots of spider webs sparkling in the dew.

Random Thoughts

Random thoughts for the past week:

I was mowing at evening time and that is my favorite time of day.  The long shadows flow across the lawn and the fog begins to rise from the river.  So often we sit inside in front of the TV and miss all this.

We've been talking for so long about the possibility of digging for our house that we are skeptical and will believe it when we see it.  On Monday of last week, the excavator came and put his poles in the ground. 

So now, we FINALLY have some progress!  Our builder came out to set the temporary electric pole and to dig this trench.  I'm not sure what the trench is for, but I'm  glad to see some dirt.

 

J started working on a birdhouse.  The kit only included a tiny brush for painting decorations so he used his hands to paint the whole thing.

 

 

 

Sunday after church, we went to Frisch's Big Boy for lunch.  J wanted his picture taken with The Big Boy.