Labor Day and Summer's End

The fence line flower beds all weeded and mulched

Whew! It has been a very busy summer! 

After a year of total neglect, I did finally get all the flower beds cleaned out, the annuals and a few new perrenials planted and the beds all fertilized and mulched. What a job! 
I did some sketching but not much else in the art department. Our house is not air conditioned, and sometimes it just gets too hot in the studio. Those overhead studio lights really heat it up. 
My horse, Scottie, is doing well at the moment. He did have a bout of mild laminitis in July so we’re now keeping a close eye on him and his feet and will remove him from his beloved grass if he goes lame again. He had a very good checkup with the equine vet dentist last month. She was very pleased with his weight gain and over all condition considering his worn down teeth and chewing difficulties. 

Riding The Pines trail with a friend

We went on trail rides when it wasn’t too hot, and Scottie was eager, enthusiastic and tired less than he had last summer. All are good signs that he has fully recovered from his terrible sinus infection of three years ago and that his Cushings disease is under control. 

Back on the home front, we’ve made a big change in our lives. We just bought a 23 year old pontoon boat to add to our “fleet” of water craft. We had an old one years ago when our kids were little. We had a lot of fun on that boat with our kids and relatives and friends. It wasn’t much to look at, had no built in seating, but it did have an outhouse on the back. During a lean time we sold it. 

In the past couple of years, the kids and I have realized how much we missed that old pontoon boat, and now that we have the dogs, a pontoon boat will be much more practical and comfortable for all for taking the pooches with us out on the lakes. My husband was persuaded, and we lucked into finding a really nice used pontoon boat on Craig’s List at a really good price within our meager budget and not too far away. The owner, an older gentleman from Bloomfield Hills, Michigan was downsizing and was motivated to sell. We snapped it up as fast as we could and hauled it home two weeks ago. 

Thummbelina, our new/used pontoon boat

After some maintenance work by my husband, we got it in the water and are all eager to enjoy it this weekend. Beautiful Torch Lake is just a short boat ride away, and the weather is supposed to be great for the next two days. 

Another project I’ve undertaken this summer is to copy my mother’s Life Stories from printed sheets of paper onto my computer. I will compile them all into a book of sorts and plan to give them to anyone in the family who wants a copy. Talk about a trip down Memory Lane!  Some of the stories I’ve heard all my life, but others are brand new to me and very revealing about my mother and her unique life. 

I am a convert to writing Life Stories. It’s just too bad that more people don’t do it because so much family history is lost forever otherwise. I am writing down some of my own memories and experiences and will take another writing class or two this Fall. 

One of the reasons I’m looking forward to the end of summer and the  passing of Labor Day is because the next project on the agenda is to begin sorting through all the old photographs of my parents’ and putting them into albums. I figure that is a perfect companion project to the writing and copying of stories.  

Perhaps my mother’s book will be “illustrated” with old photographs from her past.