Last week, I took a little vacation. My good friend (we'll call her Al) came down from Omaha to spend time with me and the cicadas in Nashville. Since we were to be without children for three days and are creative sorts, I had hoped to get in some art time. Instead, I sat and stared while Al sewed a cool, little sock-doll. I hope she wasn't terribly disappointed with my lack of motivation, but it was really nice (for me) to just sit with nothing pressing to do and have adult conversations.

On my return to The Funny Farm, I found that Chris had gotten a lot accomplished. He had mowed the lawn (a three-hour task), taken Joe to two baseball games, hung most of the sheathing on the 20-foot-high west gable, gone to visit his grandmother, and kept the house clean. The profanely long list of recently watched kids' shows on Netflix revealed how he was able to accomplish all this while keeping an eye on the three kids. So, on Sunday, guessing that the kids might be suffering from vitamin D deficiency as well as mush brain, I set up the wading pool and let the kids play outside...
while Chris and I finished the sheathing on the gable walls.

Memorial Day was spent with a little work around the farm, then an afternoon at my folks' place for a cookout. In the evening, I started up the tractor and spent a little time bush-hogging. The cicadas seemed to think I (or the tractor) was an ideal mate, and I was constantly swatting them away. The grass had gotten quite high in the north field, and after 5 or 6 circuits, the tractor started to overheat. It looks like I'll just have to take it a little at a time in order not to overwork our poor little International.

Today is laundry day, and I am taking advantage of this heat. Someday, it would be nice to get a real clothesline set up...