Some Weeks Are Like That

The temptation is to ask “why?” Or “why me?” I suppose we all ask that question from time to time and I was tempted to ask it last week. It began Wednesday, the day after Jana and family arrived with a load of dirty laundry. The dryer decided to go on strike and stopped producing heat. A couple of trips by the repairman and it was fixed – at a price that caused me to consider purchasing a new one. But the clothes came off the temporary line and back into the dryer.

All’s well… until Saturday. This was birthday party day. We celebrated Joyce’s and Lilly’s birthdays in the evening. Ginger and her friend, Debbie came down from Salem for the weekend and we invited Mike and Joanne over for the festivities. Korak fixed a dinner of Carne Asada, chicken, salad, beans, chips and watermelon. He made the chips -- yummy, good. All of it. About the time we ready to serve strawberry shortcake someone announced, “we don’t have any water!” The usual simple fixes didn’t fix it. So here we are, Joyce and I plus 6 overnight guests and no water. I’m thinking, this is getting old. Remember last winter when Ginger, Joyce and I were on our way to LA? No water. And this has happened before. What to do? Simple. Run a hose to the neighbors, fill the RV tank so anyone who wanted could take a shower, and fill a bunch of buckets for the house bathroom. This worked nicely and Sunday afternoon – after church and after a nice brunch at The Brewery (a restaurant, not a drinking hole) – we installed a new capacitor and relay at the well head. Again… all is well.

In addition to all this excitement, this has been a work week. Korak has about worn me out!!! Last week we spread 10 yards of bark and today we spread 10 yards of gravel. And in our spare time we put in a nice rock border along the ditch in front of the house and some 2x4 borders in a couple other places. I’m tired. Let’s look at some pictures.

 There was time to take in the Josephine County Fair and let the kids ride and ride and ride.

Debbie, Princess Lilly, and Ginger at the Great Early Birthday Party.

Joyce liked her new camera. It is a Nikon Coolpix and hopefully is easy to use – and it has a Lithium Ion battery. No more AA stuff.

Jana is holding a life-like rubber 22-week fetus. Tiny isn’t it? She is 17 weeks in the picture and is at 19 weeks now.

There is a forest fire burning near Cave Junction – about 25 miles from us. A couple days ago the wind was blowing just right to give this rather dramatic view. You can see the smoke rising up and blowing off to the north.

And then let’s close with this one. It speaks for itself.