the hummers moved south

After a long hot summer trying to keep the hummingbird feeders filled, the only thing I will miss from the summer is the chirp of the hummers. If you've never lived near a large group of hummers, you may have missed their distinctive little voices, but I've been blessed. I saw one last evening but none this morning. We'll leave the feeders out for another week. Here's a snippet of what I like about summer. Happy autumn one and all. p/ap

Peach Pie

Hello from the farm west of Lake Fegan.
Weeks ago I saw an ad in the Yates Center newspaper advertising peaches for sale. I ordered a box and waited... and waited some more. Finally the call came, be there at 7 AM on Sunday morning, pick up the peaches, and if there are extra boxes, I could buy more... I could smell the aroma of ripe peaches when I drove in their driveway... I bought 3 boxes and kept one. Lucky for me that Bud is a baker... I peeled, pitted and sliced and Bud baked. Here's our pie proof!
It seems that in Yates Center, people do not use round aluminum pie pans, so we used the available square cake pan... pie still tastes fine. Just ask Bud. :)

Thinking about Poppi/Bob/Dad

Makes me smile - hope you do too!

O'Donna's garden grows

These are pictures of O'Donna's vegetable garden at the Chanute Community Garden taken on Monday, June 20. Beautiful!!!

Vacation Wednesday afternoon

Hello again.
Vacation continues on Wednesday afternoon as we travel through No Man's Land and enter the panhandle of Texas... Above is picture-proof that it's a long way to Tucumcari and all parts West!
We stopped to soak up the history of the area surrounding the Canadien River... Now we wish we had read the signs. Below, Bob and Robin look for the river...
Below, we have found it and it is dry. West Texas is in a severe drought and we believe it.

End of day 1 and home looks like the Quality Inn. Stay tuned for more Travels to El Paso...

We head for El Paso...

On May 11, 2011, we headed West and South from Chanute on our way to visit Amanda in El, Paso, Texas, estimated travel time, 2 days, 900 plus miles. We considered turning back upon reaching Wichita, but instead drove on.
Along the way, we say some sights, notable because we never got out of the car... truly they were roadside attractions... or we didn't see them. Here's one.
and of course, while we didn't actually step foot in an art gallery, that didn't keep us from the art!

and interesting signage. Wednesday afternoon is next...

breathless...

Yesterday Blaze of Glory bucked me off his back, his neck and any other of his body parts I may have touched as I fell, all with gusto. The thing that hurts the most (more than my bruised cheek, elbow and right side) is that I thought we would be fine taking a short little ride and we were obviously not on the same page about that.

I've been bucked off twice in the past 2 years, both times by the same horse... He's such a sweetie (still my opinion), but oh my, can he buck! He stood still for me to get on, stood still while I gathered up the reins, I turned him a quarter turn and the rodeo was on. I think I stayed on for 2 bucks, then I bounced on his neck a couple of times, then skidded across the ground. The worse thing was I got the breath knocked out of me and as I was lying on the ground gasping for air, I thought I might die right there.

I would have felt bad for Bud to have found me dead... but then I didn't die, got my breath and started crawling for the house when I realized I could walk... very happy about that. Bud said I looked like I was in a fight and lost... guess I was ... and I did...

In closing, I didn't almost die like my very much loved niece almost did 7 times last weekend (self-reported) but I'm here (happily so) to say that once was enough for me.

love you all, ap/p