My Trees Don't Like Me!

It's a bit blurry, but you get the idea. I spent some time outside earlier today pulling up volunteer tree seedlings from flower beds and doing some pruning on three trees. I think this was mostly from the flowering crabapple tree, but some might have been from the holly and the Japanese maple. I haven't been on any blood thinners for at least a year and a half. When I was on coumadin, both of my forearms were constantly bruised.

Cousins

Wow! Two posts in one day! But when I pulled this up, I realized that I hadn't posted anything about Robbie's arrival.

Now on to the cousins part. Last weekend some of us got together for the first time in 25 years.

Eight out of 21, when we're scattered from Florida to Washington, isn't bad. That's our grandparents' graves we're visiting. We also went out to the farm our parents grew up on. The house there burned in 1949 or '50, but the barn was still there when we last got together. It's gone now. but when we found the artesian well emptying into an old bathtub (I'm sure the bathtub wasn't there when Daddy was growing up), we knew we were in the right spot. I have a picture from 25 years ago of my father and uncle sitting on the edge of that tub talking.

Before going out to the cemetery and the farm, we spent several hours at a church talking and eating. One of my cousins who had organized the reunion suggested that we go around the room and each tell a story about our parents or grandparents. Of course, it didn't quite work out in that orderly way, because one story would remind someone at another table of something, but the whole storytelling time was wonderful!

As you can tell from all the gray hair, we shouldn't wait another 25 years to get together again.

Robert Glenn Rickards III

He arrived on July 3, which just happened to be his daddy's 25th birthday. He weighed 8 lbs, 14.4 oz and was 21 inches long. Mommy and baby are doing well - and so is daddy.

And even Grammy.

I have no idea when I'll meet him in person.