Grandma and Grandpa's birthdays

My mom and dad have birthdays that are three days apart. Grandma's is the 24th and Grandpa's is the 27th. This year they are 81 and 84 years old. We have other obligations tomorrow so we went down to their house today to bring gifts and visit. While we were there we had lunch and did a little cleaning for them. Grandma Shirley, Grandpa Bob with the kids and their dog Missy. Compared to our dog, Missy seems huge. She is goat sized! Speaking of big, I was surprised to see that Spark is almost as tall as Grandma Shirley!

Dehorning goats

We have not dehorned our goats in the past, mostly because a dehorner is expensive considering it is only used once a year. Anyone here without horns was not born here and anyone with horns was. However, we have found that people buying goats want them dehorned. They have this idea that goats are crazed and dangerous if they have horns. The horns can look kind of intimidating. Our buck is super frindly and loving but his horns are HUGE, they are about six inches across at the base, and the spread from side to side is over two feet (you can look back in the blog to see a picture).

We have found the horns a handy way to get them to go where we want when they, the goats, don't want to go in that same direction. The horns sort of act like handle bars you can steer them with. All of our goats are quite docile, either because of the way we treat them as pets, or, we have just had the luck of the draw with goat personalities.

Since we are having trouble selling them with horns, this year we decided to dehorn them. Not having a dehorner ourselves, Dad asked a friend to come over and help. He came today and did all eight kids. It isn't a very nice process, the kids yell and it smells like burning hair. They recover quickly and in mere moments act as though nothing has happened.

Here is little Elenora after having her horns burned off. The kids aren't born with big horns, just little "buds" on their foreheads. The scabs will fall off in a couple of days and new hair will grow back to where it will look like nothing ever happened to them. It actually looks worse than it is in this picture, the bigger black areas look better soon.

There are some distinct advantages to have dehorned goats. They can't get their heads stuck in fences or feeders. They fight each other a little nicer, It must hurt more to smack foreheads together than bumping horns. They also don't use their horns as weapons and they aren't able to stab another goat which could cause infection. Goats are horrible at getting along with each other so they do fight, a lot. There is a pecking order and one of them is always jockeying to be in the first spot, the prima doe. The buck, if he is in with the does, takes the dominant spot but the does still fight for their spot in the hierarchy line. When Spark was little they would try to be dominant over him and we never let him be with the goats without one of us right by his side. Now that he is taller and stronger to where he can handle the goats with authority, they know that all of us are dominant over them. We, thankfully, only have one doe who uses her horns for fighting and we have never had anyone get stabbed and get an infection, although we know other goat owners who have.

Dancer at homeschool baseball

Fielding

I was yelling at her to look so I could take a picture during the game, this is her "MOM!" look.

She connected with the ball!

Made it to first!

Go Dancer Go!!!

Safe on third

Leaving third

Running for home

Spark's home run

It's a hit!!!

Running hard for first base

Coming into first

Leaving first base

Coming into home

Home run!!!

Service/repair men make me uneasy

We had a service man out to hook up satellite internet for us because we just can't stand the slow dial up internet anymore. I loved the price, $9.95 a month, but it just wasn't meeting our homeschool needs. He came and put the dish on the house and then needed to come inside to set up the computer program part. It took what seemed like forever and he was right in our dining room also known as where we do school. We did school in the living room but it still seemed weird to be conjugating verbs with a stranger listening to us. Lunch was also put off until after 2:00 p.m. because he was right at the kitchen counter and I felt too odd to go in there and make lunch.



He was barely out of the driveway when it quit working. Dad called him and he was going to try to find a new modem for us and come back. Meanwhile, Dad had to go to bed because he is working tonight. The service man comes back about 3:30, hooks up the new modem and it still doesn't work. He has no idea what could be wrong, but he being a patient, diligent man, he keeps replacing parts, wires, and tapping on the key board etc.



Dad has to get up at 5:45 for diner and it's now getting on to 5:25. I haven't started anything, because once again, I don't want to be cooking in the kitchen with him sitting at my kitchen counter. I also don't want him here after Dad has left for work and it is just me and the kids. That would make me really uncomfortable. I try very hard not to have people come and do work or buy animals when Dad is not home. Actually, I would probably feel the same way about a service woman, it's more just trying to go on as normal with someone else in the house. He was a very nice, polite man whom we had gotten to know over the last seven hours but that doesn't mean the kids and I want to be alone with him in our house. So I pray, "Please God, let this work so he can go home to his family and we can get on with dinner before Dad has to get up for work." I didn't hardly have the last word out when he announced that it was working! He was planning on his day being done about 1:00, and he was still at our house at almost 5:30, so he quickly said to call if we had anymore problems and was off. Good news, it is still working perfectly!

Is she spoiled or can she really not do it

Little Elenora still is not nursing from her mother. In fact, she really isn't interested in nursing, she will half heartedly bump her mom's udder and walk away. When one of us goes in the barn she comes barreling over to get picked up and fed. We think she just likes eating from the bottle and all the perks that come with it. It means that she gets to come inside for her night time feedings, she gets held while eating and she gets her face wiped afterwards. She also doesn't mind if you want to hold her when she is sleeping. So now we wonder, can she really not nurse or have we just spoiled her?

Dandelion coffee

What do you do when life gives you a garden and yard full of dandelions?

Make dandelion coffee.

Snoop out dandelions in your yard. If you don't have any dandelions, I am sure there are masses of people who will not mind if you dig up hoards of them out of their yards. Wash them off with the hose really, really well, no one wants to drink dirt.

Cut off the roots and lay them in a baking dish. Put in the oven at 200 until they are dry.

How long? If you plan on two hours and then go to town and forget they are still in the oven, when you get back they should be just about perfect. For a roasted flavor, turn the oven up to 375 degrees for 15-20 minutes after they are dry.

Grind them up like coffee beans. It looks a lot like teeny, tiny, wood shavings. Put about a 1/4 of a cup in the coffee maker and turn it on. We used a 1/4 of a cup because that is how much we had after the whole drying process. Pretty convenient wasn't it? Play around with the amount of "grounds" until you get a flavor you like.

The house smelled wonderful after the drying and the perking of the coffee. The taste was good, bitter like the leaves, but good. Put a shot of International Delight with Hershey's Chocolate Caramel in it and mmmmm, it's a winner. Only drawback is there isn't any caffeine for those of us who need it.

Broccoli Salad

I love this salad and I never make it at home, but that is all changing now.

Broccoli Salad

2 bunches of broccoli

1 medium onion

1/2 cup Craisins

8 strips of bacon fried and crumbled

3/4 cup mayo

1 tbsp. vinegar

1/3 cup sugar

Mix mayo, sugar and vinegar. Chop broccoli and onion. Add bacon to broccoli and pour mayo mixture over the top and toss.

We are a little backwards

Our backyard is full of goats, chickens, ducks and even rabbits running around all of which I guess we do not find exciting. This afternoon a squirrel was in the backyard dining on corn and Spark yells out, "Come quick and look, there is a squirrel in the yard!" We all sprinted over to the window to look at it and if the camera hadn't been left out in the truck I would have taken a picture of it. A squirrel we do find exciting. In our defense, it is only the second time I have seen a squirrel at our house.

Something's burning

Our rooster, Wooton, has the most beautiful tail. Well, he had the most beautiful tail. We have a heat lamp in the barn, which we only have on when we are out there because the temps have been warm enough for the little goats. We use it for a little extra light at night so we can see better in the back stalls. Wooton was sitting by where it is hooked on to the top of a stall, probably warming himself up because it is a colder night and our chickens are such babies about the weather. We are going about getting chores done and Spark says he smells something burning. Then Dad says he smells something burning. A quick look around and they saw it was Wooton's tail feathers. I was just coming in the door with a bucket of water so if he had been on fire it would have been the perfect time for it to happen. Instead, they just sort of melted on the bulb and he didn't even know it. Dad shooed him off the end of the stall and we took note of the damage that had been done to his tail. He no longer has a beautiful tail, it looks more like a trimmed feather duster at best.

Water safety

Last October, when he was filling out his interest form for 4-H projects, Spark signed up for the safety area. All of the projects in 4-H are very open ended, topics and how the kids actually do the project have unlimited possibilities hampered only by their imagination. In the area of safety, any safety issue can be chosen from kitchen to chain saw or anywhere in between. Spark chose water safety, which he decided on after taking his swimming classes this winter where pool safety was a hot topic. At the third grade level it would be hard to have enough information for a whole poster, so we expanded it to include boat and lake safety as well. He was must have really been listening in class because he knew a lot of about pool safety as well as how to be safe in the water. He does listen even when it doesn't always look like it!

Starting the garden

The kids and I put the start of a garden in today. Last year Dad made a garden close to the house and so I wanted to have that one for our garden and all the ones scattered about the property can be market gardens. I want the one up by the house so that it is easier to water and is close to run out and get something without having to go out past the barn to get it. What a wonderful plan I had. It has already gone by the wayside. Our first farmers' market is May 19th so if we are going to have anything besides baked goods and rhubarb we needed to get some seeds in the ground. Dad tilled the garden this past weekend and we had a glorious half inch of rain so this garden was the best choice for putting in a few things. We got three different radishes in, they will be for the market, 18 hills of potatoes, they will be for Spark's 4-H project and two rows of sunflowers, they will hopefully grow tall enough to give a little privacy from the road. I am hoping tomorrow morning to get a few rows of lettuce in before we need to leave for town.

Hot Rock Art

The kids made hot rocks at 4-H project day and they are just so clever. There are kids in the club from 8th grade all the way down to preschoolers that come with their older siblings and all of them loved this project. The room was so quiet as they all made at least three of these rocks.

To make them, find some nice shaped rocks and give them a good bath. Lay the rocks out on a cookie sheet, heat the oven to 200 degrees and bake the rocks for 2 hours. When they are hot, and they will be very hot so use an oven mitt, set them on a piece of card board. Using crayons, draw on the rocks and the crayon will melt over the top of the rock. You can draw pictures or just let the colors run together. Here Dancer just pressed the crayon on the top of the rock and rock was hot enough that the crayon melted and ran down the sides. The next day, or when the rocks are totally and completely cool, buff the rocks with the soft cloth for a shiny finish. These probably will not hold up in the sun so we will be keeping them in the house.

Crochet dish rag

To teach Dancer how to crochet, I showed her how to make a simple dish rag. This is one is crocheted with vibrant red, white and blue cotton yarn. It is a simple chain 29 stitches. Double crochet in the third stitch from the hook and then double crochet every stitch after. End of row chain two, turn and double crochet in every stitch until it is square. It took Dancer about 10 minutes to learn the chain and double crochet stitch and she was off on her own.

We didn't know she was pregnant

I no longer believe that there are any hard and fast rules about goats and I will not believe, with 100 percent certainty, any information we think we know about goats.

Dancer and Spark, thank heavens, were outside when Klaus, our buck, started jumping on Veronica, the doe that we were pretty certain wasn't pregnant. Dancer got over there as the head was out and by the time I got out the baby was laying on the ground. Dancer quick got a scoop of grain to lure Klaus away from the baby and Veronica while I ran in the corral to get the baby. It was still in the birthing sac so I wiped the mouth and nose quick, plucked it up and brought it in the barn. Veronica was also interested in the grain and so it was a little tricky to get her in while keeping Klaus out. Once we got Veronica in she started licking the baby off, it hopped up in record time and nursed like a little champ. Dancer took this picture not long after it was in the barn so it is still wet and covered with goo. Dancer wanted to name a goat Rubyanna this year but we thought we were done kidding so the name would have to wait until next year. Not so, here is little Rubyanna!

Desdemona finishes with twins

Desdemona, who is a yearling, finished the kidding season with twins. She did not do so ungrammatically though. Just about dinner time, which seems to be the popular kidding time this year, I had a feeling I should go out and check her since it had been a few hours since any of us had been in the barn. I got there and she had a baby's head hanging out of the back of her. Goat babies need to come front feet first and then their heads. It's head was hanging out quite a ways and she had been pawing at the bedding so I don't know how long she had been like that. Assuming it was dead from the way it was drooping down, I tried to pull it out by the head but it was a no go. I was able to reach in, hook the shoulders and with a good pull it came out. As it lay on the hay I saw that it was starting to breathe. We wiped off it's face and as Desdemona started licking it it seemed to come to life. Desdemona, who wasn't very big, started pushing again and we assumed it would be the placenta. It is abnormal for a yearling to have twins their first year. A big surprise when I saw two little hooves and a nose. As she pushed more I could see that it's tongue was sticking out of the side of it's mouth. That is often a sign that the doe has been pushing a long time. Since this one looked like it had died as well I just pulled it out for her. That little one was completely in it's sack and when I broke the sac and wiped the mouth off just to be sure, it let out a little baa. Our excitement was short lived as they were barely able to lift their heads and weren't responding as they should have to the mother's licking. We worked with them for about 45 minutes and there wasn't much improvement, they weren't able to stand and often they just lay as if they were dead. It is just hanging in Dancer's hand

Desdemona is surprised by the camera flash. She had two little girls that we named Ellenora and Anastatia.


We needed to run Dancer to her 4-H Lock-In so we left them with the mother and expected the worse and hoped for the best when we returned. When we got back they were alive. Both of them were terribly small, they had no horn bumps and on one of them the hooves had not grown down over the end of their feet yet so our best guess is that they are premature.




Since there was no hope of them nursing, we milked the mother for the colostrum and brought them in the house to the recycle bin NICU. We worked and worked to get a little something in their stomachs. After a good hardy nap, one was able to stand and move a little bit but the tinier one was breathing really hard and couldn't stand. Another feeding and the bigger one was pretty good and the little one was able to stand. When we brought them out this morning they were both able to toddle a few steps but not nurse.



Tonight they are both able to get up and get around and eat from the bottle but not nurse from Desdemona, who is not happy that her babes are not in the barn with her, although we bring them out for visits. Hopefully in a couple of days they will be strong enough to go out with her and be nursing. I was so excited too that we hadn't had any goats living in the house this year.

Monkey Duffel Bag

Dancer is going to 4-H Lock-In tonight and made this lined duffel bag for the occasion. It is McCall's 3136. This went together very nicely for her, no adjustments need at all. It was her first zipper that she had put in and she did it perfect without any help! She is getting really good at sewing.

This is unacceptable!!!

"This new housing assignment is totally unfair", complained Klaus the buck. "I mean look, I've fathered 6 kids so far this year, with more to come, and I'm kicked out of my comfy stall, forced to live out in the corral in some bachelors shelter without a soft spot to lay my head".

"I'm down with the male hanging out in a waiting room during the birth; bragging ,handing out cigars, accepting congratulations and shaking hands. But afterwards I should be able to live in the home or homes as the case may be. Am I not the king of my castle(s)?".

"I am not taking this laying down!!! As soon as I can bust out of this fence I'm calling the ASPCA", mumbled the disgruntled caprine through a mouthful of cud.

Klaus is actually living high on the hog this week. He has lots of room, all the hay he can eat and the company of all the pretty nanny goats that aren't kidding this spring. But then if you know goats, you know they are ALWAYS complaining about something.

Bounce, bounce, bounce

We are taking care of the neighbor's dog this week while they are lucky enough to be vacationing. One of the benefits of doing so is being able to bounce on their trampoline every day.

Millie is next with Joe

Charlie

Here's Charlie! Yesterday I was just getting ready to start dinner when Dancer looked out and said "I think Calliope is in labor." We run out there to see and there is a little goat laying on the ground with her looking over it. She had a daze expression on her face like, did that just come out of me?! We scooped it up and brought them both in to the barn because it was cold and windy. She started to lick it off and sort of understand that this was her baby. We didn't want to wipe it off to much because we wanted her to bond with it since she seemed so confused about it. Dancer kept her on task for about 45 minutes because she would keep going off to eat. We had to run to baseball, by the time we got back she had it up and dry but it didn't look like it had eaten. Dancer got it in position to nurse and he took right to it. This morning Calliope is still just standing by it but I think she is going to turn out to be a good first time mom.

Two goat births on the same night

We have been patiently waiting for the goats to start kidding. We were going to town yesterday evening and checked them again right before we left. Maggie was acting kind of odd so we decided to put her in the birthing suite just in case she would have them while we were gone. When we got back home, we ran out to the barn and there she was with two little babes! We don't think we missed the birth by much because they were still laying down and covered with the birthing slimy stuff. We wiped them off and gave them a little drying with the hair dryer because they were starting to shiver. She kept licking and licking them so they never really did get very dry. She had a boy and a girl. Spark wanted to name them and he choose Zeke and Gabriella. All of our girl goats have four syllable names so it we think of names all year and keep a list. Maggie's name is really Magnolia. Here are the chicken all lined up watching Maggie. They look like the peanut gallery.

This is Elizabeth and baby Sneezerita right after she was born. We have never seen Elizabeth give birth before. She has always looked completely normal, we will go in the house, come out later and she will be there with two babes. That is how you want your goats to give birth. That was not the case for Elizabeth this year. I thought she was due the 25th of March but they days went by and there have been no babes. A couple of time we thought she was in labor but it never amounted to anything. Since goats come into heat every 18 to 21 days we thought that although she was just huger than huge, she must not have gotten pregnant the first time and she would have the babies next week. Last night when we were out with Maggie we realized that Elizabeth had fluffed up all her hay and was, what we thought, starting to labor. Having two goats in labor at the same time is just such as odd thing, it has never happened here before anyway. We have never even had two goats give birth on the same day. Elizabeth had a really hard time, laying down and getting up and rubbing her head on her stomach over and over. It is hard to decide when to step in and help because sometimes getting in there too soon makes things worse for them. Once the legs started coming out though since she had been pushing so long I grabbed the legs and helped her get little Sneezerita out as quick as possible. As soon as she was out she started sneezing and sneezing hence the name Sneezerita. You can see that the babe is quite big and she didn't have much goo on her. Elizabeth was still huge so we thought she has to still have another one in there. Usually with goats, once the first one is out, the second one lines up and shoots on out not long after the first. It was quite a while before she started to push again and when she did it didn't go well. By the end she was laying on her side with her legs sticking straight out and she had laid her head down with her eyes closed like she was going into shock (we have had that happen before with Maggie). I put on glove and reached inside of her. Once you stick your hand into them you introduce germs so that is one reason to wait to see if they can deliver on their own to avoid infection. I reached in and found a hoof. Then the head but not another hoof. She was just howling by now so I just started to pull it out. As soon as the head and the first leg was out I could see that it was stillborn. I could not get that goat out or figure out if it was the left leg or the right leg that was out because it was so floppy. All the fluid around this baby was also gone so it was so hard to get this babe out. My biggest concern was that her uterus would come out with the baby which really isn't fixable. Finally, finally I got that babe out of her by reaching in and pulling it out by the shoulder. Dad grabbed it quick and checked it over just in case it was alive but it wasn't. Elizabeth, thankfully, popped right up and did not go into shock. We gave her some Valentine conversation hearts for some sugar and Dad gave her a shot of antibiotic so hopefully she won't get an infection either. The baby that died was a huge boy, he had to weight well over 10 pounds. We figure that she must have just been over due and her water must have broken much earlier. The little girl, Sneezerita, was also quite big and strong, she stood up really quickly after she was born.

Worried about Elizabeth and all the babies being okay during the night we stayed up checking them until 4 AM and then kept setting the alarm to go out every couple of hours and make sure everything was okay and the babes were eating. It was a long, short night.

Maggie and her two babes today. They are starting to try and do little flippies. Baby goats are just the cutest things.

Little Sneezerita enjoying being held by Dancer.

Beware of hidden food coloring

Dancer is so very allergic to food coloring. Orange is the worst and then any derivative of orange. She was quite ill last month with a cold and took some Dayquil. She is so careful with food that when she was suffering and took the Dayquil our thought was to relieve her symptoms and it didn't register that Dayquil is probably one of the orangest products on the market. She broke out with eczema horrible, even her ankles and lower legs which she has never done before. So that was our oversight. But the other day she broke out again. When that happens we know that we missed something. We went back over everything we had eaten, what could it be? What could it be? Dad started the task of reading the labels of all the things that had touched her lips. It was pickles. Come on food manufactures, pickles? Why, oh why, oh why, oh why, would you feel you need to artificially color a pickle?

We almost always buy plain old, pickle colored, organic pickles. We were out the other night when Grandma and Grandpa were going to come over to supper so we asked them to pick up a jar on the way over. We make our own relish for hot dogs and such so we threw them in the food chopper, put them on the table and Dancer probably had no more than a tablespoon of the relish. Argh, we won't make that mistake again.

Stroke Display Board

This Dancer's 4-H fair project for the Health area. This is the first project that she has done completely on her own with no input from us. Well, except "no you are not using all that expensive card stock, go get some construction paper."

Part of the judging process is the project and the other part is an interview where they ask tons of detailed questions to see if the kid really knows what the project is about or did they just slap some information together. One of the tricks we have found to having a good judging process is to know way more info than what is on your poster or project. That and I think through homeschooling Dancer has learned to talk well with all ages of people so she usually does a good job with the interview.

Weird Egg

Egg on the left is a regular sized chicken egg, the egg on the right is the weird egg. I was a little taken aback when I found this egg in one of the nesting spots in the barn. It is about the size of a thumb. We often have big double yolkers and once in a while a little, tiny egg but this is our first one like this.

Easter Day

This is Dad's weekend to work so our Easter was enhanced by him getting put on call last night and therefore being able to spend most of the day with us. I am not good at making the holidays very exciting when it is just me and the kids when Dad works. I know I should because it is a fact of life for us that he will work every other holiday. I know that mobs of single parents are able to do it, I just am not.

The kids got up this morning and found a ton of eggs that were hidden around the house. I still don't know if they found them all. We got the kids the cutest Peter Rabbit chocolate bunnies. They are so cute it will be a shame to eat them.

We went to church where we had a fantastic sermon. A bonus was the Dad and Spark were ushers. Spark was so excited about this that he talked about it all week. When they were taking the offering he was smiling so big. They are ushers next week too and he says it will be even better because now he is all trained in.

Thinking that Dad would be working I didn't make any meal plans. When he gets up before work he isn't very hungry so it doesn't make much sense to make a big dinner, have him not eat much and put most of it back into the fridge. We went to lunch at a supper club in a little town near us. Without reservations (when you are the only supper club for miles you are successful even if your club is located in a town that has three streets) we didn't know if we could get in but they had a table available near the bar area. The hostess asked if we minded sitting at a tall table and Spark pumps his arm down and says "YES!!!" I guess we didn't mind. They serve a buffet like you would have at a wedding and it was very good. Very good that I didn't have to cook or clean up.

The afternoon was so nice that we were outside for most of it. I clean a few flowers in the flower beds and gave them a splash of water, it has been really dry that I thought they need a boost. The kids played catch to prepare for homeschool baseball that starts Wednesday.

Dad went to bed and Dancer and I made stuffed peppers for supper. After Dad left for work we walked up to the neighbors to check on their dog. They are gone for the week and we are suppose to feed it. I wanted to go up and talk with it in it's kennel once before we let it out tomorrow. I am nervous about it not coming back once we let it out. They said don't worry if it won't go in it's kennel but I know I will. I would hate for anything to happen to it on our watch.

Tonight we are watching Sound of Music. Spark says "this movie is so good that you can just start watching it at any time and it is still good." It probably helps that we have seen it so many times.

Only thing left to do is chores but we will wait until it is dark out to put the goats in the barn.

Happy Easter everyone!!!

Potato salad recipe

2 lb. potatoes - about six medium
1 1/2 cups mayo
1 tbsp. vinegar
1 tbsp. mustard
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
2 stalks celery chopped - about one cup
1 medium onion chopped - about 1/2 cup
4 hard boiled eggs

Peel, cube and boil potatoes. Mix rest of ingredients. Add potatoes and eggs when cool. For best taste refrigerate four hours before serving.

Little Robin Hoods to be

The kids decided new, tender, green branches would be just perfect for bows. They worked out really well, now all they need are arrows. Dancer is trying to get her knife open here to make the notch on the top of the bow. Yes, both my kids carry their own knives and no, they are not future gang members, knives are a handy farm tool.

Crochet wrist warmers and scarf

Dancer got a new coat for spring and so I crocheted her a few accessories to go with it. A pair of wrist warmers, the instructions can be found at CreativeYarn Because Dancer has very narrow hands I did have to alter the pattern a bit by taking out one of the chain stitches between each of the clusters in the hand. These were simple and each one took less than an hour.

The scarf pattern I just made up. I chain stitched the yarn I used for the wrist warmers and a fun fuzzy matching yarn together for the length that she wanted the scarf to be and then did two rows of treble crochet. It is very narrow but she is making a fashion statement here not keeping warm. The fuzzy yarn we got for a dollar a skein at a closeout bin at the craft store. It was so thin, like a thread, and fuzzy that I wasn't able to work with it by itself. Amazingly it matched perfectly with green yarn we had previously bought. How often does that happen?

Goodbye Ed

Our dear friend Ed died today. He will leave a deep hole in all our hearts.

We met Ed when we bought our first house 19 years ago. He lived two doors down and came over to check us out. Nothing happened the neighborhood that Ed didn't know about and since he wasn't a gossip he would go and get all the neighborhood news first hand. He was the go to person if you needed anything from a ride somewhere, a tool or something fixed. He was always on hand to help with a project and could tell if something was level just by looking at it. Every night when it was warm out Ed would have his garage door up and would be sitting out there waiting for the neighbors to start filing over. People would come and go all evening and there was always pop in the fridge and snacks on his counter for the kids. Dad and Ed fiercely competed every year to see who would have the first red tomato and other garden treats. He was like grandparent to our kids (as was his wife when she was alive) so much so that we went to their house on Christmas Eve and exchanged gifts. We were very blessed to have had him as part of our lives. You never left his house that he didn't hug you and say "goodbye Ed loves you," so goodbye Ed we love you - hugs.