Remember the saying "You learn something new every day?"  Well, I learned something new yesterday.  We were talking to a friend we hadn't seen in a long time.   A small plane was going over.  I wondered if it was a crop duster.  It wasn't.  It was an old plane coming in for an air show we had this weekend.  We got to talking about crop duster planes.  This friend told us that they are now used for planting wheat.  I had no idea!  They do it all using GPS.  Maybe that's why we saw so many fields of wheat this year?  This was the first year we've ever had anything other than corn or soybeans in the field across the street.  And neither hubby or I can remember that field being planted.  It was harvested the normal way.  I found this interesting, so am sharing it.  It's an interesting world we are living in.  Sometimes a little scary, but God is still in control.

Well, our kids are back in school now.   I was not one of those moms who could hardly wait for school to start.  I dreaded it as much as the kids did.  I'm not sure why.  Maybe because when I was growing up, often my brother and I were the only ones at home.  My folks were divorced.  My mom was going to school, working, and had a boyfriend.  (This all happened after I was 10.)  My grandma lived with us, but she was a private duty nurse, and often worked 20 hours a day caring for someone in their home.  I guess that was common in those days.  Anyway, I remember being lonesome a lot.  My husband was an only child, so he was lonesome too.  Maybe that's why we had so many kids?

So, the week before school started I took some of the grandkids to the beach.  I dropped them off at the south end of the trail, and met them at the beach at the other end.

I wanted to sit on the pier and dangle my feet in the water, but when I walked on the pier, and started to sit, I suddenly realized that I would not be able to get up. There was nothing to hold onto. I would have had to have the kids help me, and my balance since the stroke is not as good as it used to be. So, since the lifeguard station was not in use, I went and sat on the steps. Just one of the joys of growing older. I had a book, but I mostly counted kids. I have no idea how many hours I have spent on that beach counting kids over the years. It paid off......nobody drowned.

Grandson chose a bubble gum cone. I don't know why they make it bright blue, but he enjoyed it.

Later on at home, the 2 younger ones washed the lunch dishes, while the older one took a nap (she's a teenager now.) They decided that it's more fun to wash dishes by hand than to load the dishwaasher.  I don't think they'd ever washed them by hand before.  I'll have to have them do it more often.

A lot of people in our family have summer birthdays.

Sweet little cousins.

Ride 'em Cowboy!

!

The little town near us has walking and biking trails through the woods between us and the lake. I really should walk this more often. It's only 1/4 to 1/2 of a mile one way, depending on how far you go, either to the park, or to the end of town.

The walking trail doesn't go by the water all the time, just at the bottom of the hill. That's one of my grand-daughters in the first picture. She's 12, almost 13. She'll start going to middle school tomorrow. I wish they wouldn't have to start so early. I tell people that if I were Pres. no school would start before Labor Day, I'd do away with Spring and Fall breaks, and return to Christmas and Easter vacations.  If kids could vote, I might have a chance to win.   Also I would forbid daylight savings time. Guess I'd have to be Empress to do that.
A grand-daughter, and the oldest great-grand-daughter will both start high school tomorrow.
Hard to believe how fast the time goes.

One of the best things about walking the trail is stopping at the ice cream shop. If you want to lose weight and get fit, that kind of defeats the purpose. But it is Soo Good!  I had a small lemon cone. I don't think I've ever tasted lemon ice cream before. It was very refreshing.   The red-head in the picture is my grandson's girlfriend.  She came from Rochester, N. Y. to visit him.  The other 2 are brother and sister.  This particular day we were hungry, so had lunch before ice cream.  It wasn't cheap.  I can remember buying a two scoop ice cream cone at Sav-On drugstore for a nickel when I was young.  I always got chocolate and orange sherbet.  If you ever do that, have the ice cream on the bottom and the sherbet on top.  Otherwise you have a gooey mess by the time you get to the cone.

As promised, here are more pictures.  I hope you're not tired of the birthday party yet.   If you are you can skip this post.  My feelings won't be hurt.  I didn't take pictures of the food or the adult table, but got some of the childrens' tables.

Some of the kids ate outside.

Evie is still  not fond of having her picture taken.

Some of the littles were too young to eat outside, so their parents sat at the kids' table in the kitchen with them.

This little one preferred to use her daddy's lap for a table.

Poor Izzy didn't get a table or even very many crumbs. She kept hoping though.

I was going to do a post with pictures, but a friend brought me a bunch of yellow squash  and my husband brought me 3 big bags of sweet corn.  He did help me shuck the corn, merci.  Tonight after supper I got it cooked and in the freezer.  I also made squash soup which can be frozen.  I've done a lot of baby-sitting lately, plus led the ladies missionary meeting at our church.  In between I managed to read a good book.  Now it's almost 11, so I'll say good night.

"Do as I say, not as I do."  It doesn't matter how many times we say that to our kids.  They will do as we do (plus maybe add a few things we hadn't even thought of.)  Here is a positive example of training our children.

TX daughter wanted to sweep the leaves off the porch before her grand-daughter decided to eat them. Grand-daughter loved the broom. Think I'll look for a child-sized broom to send her next time someone makes a trip to TX.

Please don't tell anyone what I labelled this post.  I don't want anyone to think that I think the little one is a monkey.  I would be in Big Trouble.  She's much smarter and cuter than a monkey.  I guess some folks do call their kids little monkeys, or give them cute? nicknames like Hannah Banana, or Tony Baloney.  I wonder why we call people honey?  Or why the French think "mon petit chou" is an endearing term.  Really, my little cabbage?  I don't know any terms like that in any other languages.  Do any of you?

Today's Reading On love I will never laugh at anyone for grieving over a loved beast. I think God wants us to love Him more, not to love creatures (even animals) less. We love everything in one way too much (i.e., at the expense of our love for Him), but in another way we love every- thing too little. No person, animal, flower, or even pebble has ever been loved too much—i.e., more than every one of God’s works deserves. From The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume III Compiled in Words to Live By

None of our pets are sick now. I'm sharing this for those of you who have lost pets recently. We get a quote from CS Lewis every day (we signed up to receive it from Bible Gateway). The above was today's quote.
God's blessings on you all today.

Some of you asked about the recipe for crazy cake.  I have 2 recipes.  Here is the one I used recently.

1 1/2 cups flour, 1/2 tsp. salt, 5 Tbsp cocoa, 1 tsp baking soda, 1 cup sugar, i tsp. vanilla, 6 Tbsp. oil, 1 Tbsp vinegar, 1 cup cold water.  Mix and bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

This is a rich chocolatey, gooey heavy cake.  I frost it with soft chocolate frosting.  Recipe follows.

1 cup sugar, 3 Tbsp. cornstarch, 6 Tbsp cocoa, pinch of salt, 1 cup boiling water.  Cook and stir until thick.  Then add 3 Tbsp butter, and 1 tsp vanilla.

I made a double recipe for a 9 x 13 cake pan.  Here is a picture of what was left after the party.

We also had a beautiful cake made and decorated by my grandson's girlfriend.

Since some of the kids had runny noses, and the rest of us didn't want spit on our cake, so I asked a young grandson to make a cake from play-dough to put the candles on. He got quite creative with it.

Our kids brought us some very special coffee.  I had read about it, but never expected to taste any.

It was a gift to them from someone in their church.

In case you can't read it, it says that it is the rarest gourmet coffee in the world. It is made from coffee beans that have been in a civet's digestive tract. It's from Sumatra.
Some in our family declined to try it. I had some and it was good but it just tasted like coffee to me. I am not a coffee expert. My son-in-law says he can drink it and it doesn't make his stomach hurt, because the acid has been removed by the digestive juices of the civet. What my husband wants to know is who ever thought of trying such a thing? I did notice that it was very smooth and mild. I don't like strong bitter coffee. Forgive me Frank, but I don't really like Starbucks coffee. I mean plain coffee. Not the fancy drinks with loads of sugar and flavorings.
My post is named coffee and corn, so here goes the corn part.

Hannah's mom and dad went out and left her with us. We were eating corn on the cob and thought she should have some. At first she didn't know what to think about it.  This is her grandma feeding it to her.

When she finally figured out it was to eat, she picked it up in one hand and chewed on the end of it.  Babies are so cute.  Everyone has gone home now, and we are alone, for awhile at least.