Happy Father's Day!!

My Dad is Rad

I have a dad

And he is rad

He is not bad

It makes me glad

He is my dad

He plays guitar

And not sub par

He’ll be a star

I’m right thus far

He works untils

He pay the bills

But not the frills

He don’t like frills

Or puppy mills

He don’t complain

When he’s in pain

When I’m a pain

Or when there’s rain

He’s good at floors

But not decors

He oft explores

The Mexicores.

My dad is rad

I love my dad

It’s not a fad

My dad is awesome!

Please forgive my inanity. And insanity. Thank you.

Bunnies and berries

I attended a Champagne bunny show last week. I didn't show, just watched. It was very interesting. If you had a bunny in the class, you put it in one of the cubby holes and waited for the judge to look at it. She would take each one out in turn, look at it, feel it, flip it over, and then put a coin, either a penny, nickel, dime or quarter, to remind herself where she was placing the bunny. When she made up her mind about all of the bunnies, she would start at the bottom of the class, say what she liked and didn't like about it, and hand it back to its owner afterwards. Very fast. Nothing like the sheep and goat showing I did when I was a kid where I was all dressed up in my western gear, complete with boots and neck tie, flashing smiles at the judge left and right leading my animal around the pen and setting it up, etc. (The animal is always between you and the judge! Drilled into me.)

Here are a few pictures of the judge and bunnies:

Apart from bunnies and bunny shows, one of the great things about living in the midwest are the berries growing wild. Alex and I stumbled upon a berry patch (mulberries) the other night, and armed with nothing but doggy poopy bags, we did our best at the gathering part of hunting and gathering. We ended up with this at the end of the night:

Who would have thought poopy bags would come in handy for such a use?

Later on, we transformed them to this:

(syrup)

using this

and ate them like this

We totally would have made it as hunters and gatherers.

We also welcomed the first and hopefully not last raspberry of the season into our home today.

To our chagrin, it was really the long lost hat of Mr. Finger.

He got embarrassed though and gave it up with a little coercion.

Yum yum.

The end.

Dear Rain,

When I heard that you were coming to visit on Memorial Day, I was mad. We had been planning for weeks to celebrate our anniversary that day by doing some hiking at a nearby state park. We were going to bring our dogs and spend the day outside, which we haven't done for altogether too long. But then you decided to show up. I hoped and hoped that you would ditch and we would get the day to ourselves after all, but you didn't. You came. So there we were, sitting at home deciding if we wanted to go, thinking that you might be gone by the time we made it to the state park an hour and a half later. Since this wasn't the first time recently that you have ruined on our plans and rained on our parade, we decided we couldn't let it happen again and jumped in the car with a small hope that we wouldn't cross paths with you. And we brought the umbrella.

Things didn't look too hopeful on the way there.

Rain on all sides. And a dog nose on my shoulder.

When we got there, you were falling out of the sky in buckets. So much that people huddled in the ranger station waiting for you to let up just a little so they could get to their cars.  We started out into the wilderness. We didn't have our whole lives to wait for you to be done, after all.

Everywhere we went, you were there. I complained and complained, even though Alex let me have the umbrella the whole time. You were really getting on my nerves.

You got my feet really wet.

After a while, though, I realized you weren't really as annoying as I thought.

I mean, bugs don't like you,

most people pack up and head out when they see you coming,

 and the sun don't shine through all your baggage.

That means no sunburns!

So, in the end, I have to say that I didn't mind you near as much as I thought I would. In fact, I am kind of glad you came along to celebrate my three year wedding anniversary. But don't come next time unless you are invited.

Love,

Katie