A Sunny Sunday

First off, I want to thank all of you who commented so wonderfully about what I wrote yesterday morning, the loss of the birds and Hannah's eyesight.  I treasure your comments and they DO help me, because I know all of you are reading this because you have animals that are dear to you.  My little doll is here.... helping me write this.

She will be here as long as we know she is not suffering unduly.  She is a wonderful little girl, and I am heartsick at what's coming, but trying to enjoy her every day.

We had the oldest grands here this weekend, and are so thankful for Chris taking on the really heavy tasks, or the ones that require stuff like this:  (sorry for the dark pictures)

He took down the heavy hyacinth bean vines on the arbor for me, and the cypress vines on the single arbor to the right.  I harvested seeds from the hyacinth beans, and then he hauled them to the firepit that you see smoking behind the arbor. 

Keith began burning the woodpile, but the wind came up, and since it is so very dry here now, he stopped burning.

As you see, Keith is making great progress on the henhouse. 

When Chris returns in two weeks, they will be ready to start working on the interior.  Then we will get the pen up, and the birds moved before it hopefully gets too wickedly cold.

Nathan got his Halloween costume, and it was really serendipity.... he had not gotten one before coming up here on Friday evening from Garnett.  We went to Wal Mart after delivering eggs to the Good Shepherd yesterday, and I had no real hopes of finding a decent costume at this late date.

Sure enough, the aisle was denuded of decent costumes, and things were already reduced.

Lo and behold, we moved some bags around on the wall... and there was the very costume he had told me about weeks ago!  It was a men's size XL, but we figured we could cut it down, so I was able to get it for him.

Here he is in it, and if I do say so myself, it is a scary costume!

The "eyes" are on a type of glasses apparatus that rest on his ears, but actually sit below his real eyes, and he lights them up with a little button on a box that he conceals in his arm.  Really, really creepy!

Last night, there was a terrible tragedy at a town hear here, the hometown of Amelia Earhart, Atchison, Kansas.  The head house blew off a grain elevator, some of you may have seen it on CNN.  Keith was called out in the middle of the evening and responded to the incident, and was there until late in the night.  Three men were killed, three are missing, and two are in critical condition at the burn unit at K.U. today.  I prayed so hard for their poor families at church this morning, to have such a tragedy, and so close to the holidays.  OSHA and the grain company have now closed off the site, and the precarious conditions have made recovery of the three missing men very dangerous.  We are praying for all the families and friends of the men involved, and for those risking themselves to help.

So after his trip up there today, and after I took the grands to meet their mom, I came home to fix some chili for a simple evening dinner, and am about to go out and do chores. 

Here is how beautiful the day is here in Tongie:

That's the huge maple tree near the front of the house.  We're so glad for it's shade.  You see the walnut tree on the right and the one over the roof of the house are already naked.

And lastly, Keith will get me for this one... he laid down to watch football and look what happened!

Sorry, Honey (laugh)

I'm going to scoot out and get chores done, and then come in and make two batches of decorated Halloween cookies.  I'll stop by Jim and Amy's tomorrow night to take pictures of the little and middle grands before they go trick or treating.

Have a peaceful Sunday evening, my friends!