Still waiting

We are still waiting for the long hot summer all the experts promised us. It has rained every day but 2 in June. Today it is supposed to get up to 60, but we'll see. It is at least sunny. We don't have much planted in the garden, but what is there is very, very small.

Dixie has been sitting on her nest, but she has realized they aren't going to hatch, so she is getting restless and is spending more time on the pond or in the yard. We usually take the eggs away before now, to protect her health, but we had real hope this year that she would have some ducklings, but it doesn't look like that will happen.

Brian stays busy every day with one welding job after another. We have been very blessed. As soon as he is finishing up one job - someone will call him with another one. It is pretty cool. He is liking the variety and the flexibility of his schedul. He and Alicia are working on lots of lawn animals for us to sell at the Street Fair on the 15th of July.

We are having a block party at the neighbors for the 4th of July. On Sunday, they had their 50th wedding anniversary party and all their kids that can be here, are here. We were all thinking of Ron over in Iraq and missed having him here, but he is in all of our prayers all the time.

We still haven't heard if my medicaid is renewed and if Alicia still has a job. We are pretty sure it is renewed and the reviewer suggested more hours for Alicia, but the state has a mind of its own so we'll see how that turns out. I'm not too worried - more annoyed that it is taking them so long to let us know.

Alicia and I joined Joanna's getting healthy group and are working on improving our health and losing weight. Wish us luck.

King salmon fishing is over for now - waiting for the silvers to come in. We don't do the red salmon fishing anymore because Alicia is allergic and we really don't need to can up a bunch of fish that she can't eat.

Don't have any pictures to post - the yard really hasn't changed any since the pictures Alicia posted. Maybe a little greener from all the rain. Love to all, Charlotte

I forgot

I also wanted to say that dad and I went fishing monday afternoon and caught a really pretty chrome king salmon out of the Anchor River. Beautiful fish. He hooked it but let me reel it in - it was a fun afternoon.

Garden Art

Here are a couple up close pictures of the garden art that dad and I have been working on. So far we make Sandhill cranes, bears, a bull moose, and fish (halibut and salmon). The patterns are ones that I have drawn based on pictures and animals that I have seen. The bear that we make is from a drawing I did of the bear that dad killed a few years ago (Booboo) out on Unimak Island. The moose is one I drew off the horns that dad brought back last year, the body I recreated off pictures of moose from our yard when we lived in Homer and made to scale with the horn drawing. The salmon was drawn by Kyle - our friend Margret's son. The halibut was just drawn off one of our many halibut pictures. Today dad and I spent the day working on in the shop cutting more of them out. We cut some out of aluminum, and some out of steel. The aluminum ones are polished up really pretty. Then the steel ones are more rusty looking, except one of the salmon, dad polished it up really nice and shiny, then he took his torch to it and "colored" the steel with the heat, so that it changes color like a real fish. Cool stuff. I have a new appreciation for how hard dad works - metal working is tough! Its hard on the back too!!

Other than that, not much new here. My peas are up in the garden, along with the radishes too. And the rhubarb of course - we've even made pie from it too. Yum, rhubarb strawberry pie.

The cat is having trouble with all the rain we've had lately. He's just sure that if its raining out on the deck, it won't be raining out on the front porch. So he just goes from door to door trying to find the magical door that doesn't have any rain. Poor guy. :)

We've been doing some work for a ward bake/rummage sale this weekend. I'm making 2 decorated cakes and mom and I made a big batch of million dollar fudge. The boy scouts need money to go to camp, so we're all banding together as a ward to help them get what they need. Oh, and they're having a car wash too I think. Should be an all day activity saturday.

Hope you are all well. We love you. Alicia