BYGTWSO!-Day 42

Today was Farm Day. K and I drove K's dad out to Grandpa's Farm. Grandpa's house is actually two houses put together. One of them is over a hundred years old. We had jobs to do around his house, so we worked inside and then Grandpa took us to lunch "up to Mike's."

Mike's is this convenience store/video rental store/gas station/diner. I had the daily special which was Tater Tot Casserole which came with white bread already buttered and cut into triangles (not toasted) and Jello with fruit cocktail and a drink. Grandpa knew everyone there, waved at everyone, and exclaimed at all the stuff he was watching happening outside by looking through the windows. Heather, our server, knows him by name and brings his drink without him asking for it because she already knows what he's drinking. It's that kind of a small town place.

After lunch, we stopped by the cemetery to visit some family graves and then returned to the farm. We decided to take a walk around the place. The corn in the midwest looks terrible this year. We saw so many fields in so many states that looked pathetic. The soybeans may still have a chance, but the drought has really damaged the corn crop. Still, Grandpa's corn looks less stressed than most.

We made our usual journey to the bridge and spied lots of raccoon tracks near the water. And yes, later in the evening, we spied a whole raccoon family. After the walk, we all took turns mowing sections of Grandpa's lawn.

K's mom showed up after work and I helped her prepare dinner (she did most of it, bless her heart). K's cousin and her husband and daughter also came out to the farm along with K's aunt. It was a nice dinner with time to visit. I didn't get great pictures of the baby, but I'll include one. Her nickname at her daycare is "Dragon Slayer." They also said she's the "ring leader" with her group. All of this at the tender age of eleven months. Just as we were leaving, Grandpa pointed to his curtains mentioning he had taken them down for washing. He asked something like, "Did I put them back right?" K's aunt got to looking and no, they weren't put back right. In fact, they were all wrong. So we all joined in for the next ten minutes fixing it all. It's funny because none of us noticed until Grandpa mentioned it. While snapping these pictures, I chuckled to myself because once again, they all wore shades of blue and once again, I had a bright red t-shirt on. I'll have to work on getting more blue so I can blend in with these folks a tad better.