End of a Long Weekend

That should be End of a Long WEAKend, since I have been tired out all weekend.  Two drives down to Garnett did not help, even though it's only 75 miles, 10 of it is through Lawrence, and KU is back in session.  The town is packed, and driving through the traffic is heart-stopping sometimes.  We saw a terrible wreck today when going back down south, and paramedics working on some poor person. 

However, the drive was all for a good cause... this one had a great birthday weekend:

After our movie yesterday, he got a birthday haircut from his dad, they went to a barbecue at a friend's house... their "adopted cousin" Nick spent the night, and the boys stayed up until 2 AM.  They had cake and ice cream after breakfast this morning, before coming out to my house so we could head down the road.

First, we had a walnut-throwing contest:

This one must have gone farthest

I finally got them to hold still for a picture

Jacob, "cousin" Nick, Nate, Jim, and Jax in front, styling for the camera

The dogs love this little boy

He was very brave Friday night.  His parents bowl on Fridays, and the league had it's first night Friday.  While playing at the bowling alley, Jax fell and cut his head open. They took Madison, Jake, and Paiton home, and then took Jax to the emergency room.  For four hours he laid in a big bed, waiting for the doctor to come in.  A shot of numbing agent (and he didn't even cry) he bore the three stictches like a little man, only whimpering a little on the third, according to his dad.  I'm very proud of him!

In other news,

I found these two on the (yes, CHRISTMAS LIGHTS) this morning on the porch, before I even did chores before church. 

Their babies are getting very big, and are almost ready to launch. We have found that they usually choose early morning.  Out of last year's hatches, we lost two out of each four.  The others all flew away fine. 

Here is what the nest is looking like now:

I know it's blurry, but you get the idea.  They are almost ready to take off. Remember, this nest is directly over our front door... we are hoping they don't try to launch when Ranger is laying there.

And finally, a last burst of color from Daylillies that have already bloomed once.  You can barely see the butterfly bush behind them that is also having a second burst of color.  Behind them is a trellis, up which is growing cypress vine.  We had so much of this last year, and it had lovely little red and green flowers. This year it did not grow until after the heat wave, and has not bloomed yet, but is now going crazy on two trellises.  I spoke with a market gardener when I stopped to buy some corn on the way home, and he told me that his tomatos did not bloom (like ours)... we got very few tomatos, but it was a very good year for potatos and onions. 

By the way, the corn was so tough, even our ears were given to the vultures chickens.