Early Summer at Home

A small pause in the pictures from France. I went home to meet my new nephew last weekend and took these...

Whenever my dad asks me what I have planned for the afternoon, I know he has something fun in mind. Last time he taught me how to run the bulldozer and had me knock down some trees and even out some ground. This time he took me to take some pictures of the shack so that he could show them to some of his classmates at his 50th high school reunion...

He and a couple of his friends built the shack from leftover materials 51 years ago. He told me they even spent an afternoon pounding old nails straight so they could use them. They built an outhouse too, but it has been used for target practice over the years and isn't fairing so well...

He and a friend made the sign in school. They took a zero in a class that they didn't like so that they could work on it in the wood shop...

My dad and his friends used it as a hang out to play cards (hearts mostly). Some of the girls in his class used it for sleepovers. I remember having picnics here with all of my parents' friends. My brothers and their friends took it over for a while too, but now it is locked up, waiting for the next generation. They picked a very nice location for it. There isn't even a road in anymore...

And this is my dad in front of his creation...

Back on the farm, this mama cat has 5 kittens hidden in the hay mow...

My brother was finishing assembling his latest piece of equipment...

My mom has a lot of flowers in bloom...

Perhaps next time I'll see if my dad will teach me to weld. He thinks I need to learn a trade...

A nice capper to the day...

Or so I thought. My brother let me and my camera go for a ride on his go-go mobile with him after supper. That was a real capper...

Fog had settled in after the rain...

I'm not real sure why he thought it was a good idea to drive through these tall weeds. We were getting hit with all kinds of bugs...

Darkness rolled in not long after the fog, but he decided to climb the Roundtop. It was a bit bumpy, but I don't even have pictures of our trip up and down Taylor's hill. I was holding on too tight to take any. He likes to remind me that he hasn't flipped it yet as I can feel the wheels losing contact with the ground...

The old railroad bed part way up the Roundtop was a bit smoother...

But soon we were back off road on a smaller trail. He hasn't cleared the trail wide enough to go all of the way to the top yet so we had to turn around...

Heading back, he turned the headlights on...