Old Pictures

We have been busy cleaning, and sorting at Grandma's house, since her passing last month.  We are finding all sorts of things!  Some of which are pictures from years gone by.  Some are funny, like this one:

On the back it says: "If you have any mice they will leave. Virgil [my great grandpa] dont want me to send this crazy one But here goes.  We wanted to look sober so Cloris yelled out the door at us, and made us laugh. Don't share it to any one."  :)  We all got a nice little snicker out of that photo, didn't we?  It was so worth sharing.

I like this one.  It's Grandpa with his brothers.   It says "Taken July 14th 1957".  Grandpa is the third from the right.  Or the left.  Whichever way you look at it, he's the handsome one in the middle with a watch on his left wrist.

L - R: Jim, John, Lloyd, Dick, Russel

The outcome of this barn does not look good:

"Pee's barn burning Summer of 1949"

And last, but not least, my Great Grandma:

"Franzel in Bowman orchard The rear view"

Groundhogs as Neighbors

Whoever thought to call an animal a ground-hog?  I mean, really?!  A groundhog hardly even resembles anything close to a hog!  Anyway . . .

My Jack Russel dog turned sixteen years old this year.  The first year we had him, he brought in around twenty small groundhogs within two days.  He would run around in the fields, bring a groundhog in, leave it lie, go out, get another one, bring it in, let it lie, go out - . . . . You get the picture.  Corkie kept us busy disposing of his hourly door prizes. 

Now that Corkie is getting up in years, he is more interested in seeing the insides of his eyelids while lying in the shade and dreaming about his younger years.  His inactive hobby of hunting groundhogs has caused a slight increase of these so called 'hogs' around the farm. 

Groundhog hole

Our intruding visitors have wasted no time in setting up house keeping on the banks of the lagoon (or manure pit.  Whichever term you prefer to use is fine, everyone at the Liberty Livestock farm will know what you're talking about). Our neighbors are helping themselves to the beans: 

See the area that has no beans?  (It must be gleaning season in their option.)   But who could blame them for wanting to save on gasoline money by shopping for food close to home?

As comfortable as our new residents have become, they are trespassing on private property.  In hopes of getting this message across to our ground-dwellers, mom made a special beverage for the new family on the block: Pepsi and Golden Malron.  To our dismay, they weren't thirsty.  So mom and dad set up walls.  These walls have peep holes so dad can spy on them . . . While he's holding a wood stick . . . That shoots out little balls of 'firecrackers', and has the potential to put things to sleep rather quickly.

View from spy hole

Because dad is over six feet tall and we don't want our trespassers to see him over the wall, mom provided dad with a chair.

Every now and then mom and I would hear a "Ka Boom"! and see dad walk away from his breastworks with the gun propped over his shoulder in a relaxed way.  Mission accomplished for one day. 

Update: Due to the storm (mentioned in previous post), the walls got blown over.  But then again, we would have been taking the them down soon anyway. . . Either dad got all of them or they got wise, packed their bags and left.