Dairy Daze...and Now Beyond

Every year it's always fun to see which iris will bloom first.  At first I thought it was a race between the yellow and blue one: The Yellow Iris   Or the Blue...  (I think this is supposed to be a "Blue" iris) I wish I'd taken the time to focus the camera.  Ellen always gets frustrated with me and my lack of camera skills.  Haha... And actually the yellow won between these two, but it was this one that came in first.  It just popped right out and surprised me.   Unfortunately it's a bit damaged because I covered all of them night before last. The temps got down into the lower 30s.  Gail's thermometer said 30 degrees, ours only said 32, but ours is under the carport, so it's probably not exact. There are quite a few blooms coming on, and after they did all that hard work to produce them, I didn't want them to get frozen, so I hauled out the old sheets.  Of course now the stems are a bit wonky, but that is OK, the blooms will be lovely anyway.

A bit different from the winter sunsets of a couple of months ago.  The grass is green, the trees are starting to get green, and the sun is doing its level best to shine through the clouds. Spring is almost my favorite season of the year. 

 I have heard that saying pretty much all of my life, off and on.  "Never say never, because that is exactly what will happen to you."  Maybe that is right.   I have said never a few times in my life and at least twice it has indeed happened to me. My first never was when I was a teen.   I was never having children.  Ever.  My mom knew better. This is the result of my first never.  Haha...  On Monday she and her team did their presentation at FBLA State competitions in Springfield.  They came in 5th place; very excellent, but just one spot shy of qualifying to attend Nationals.  They were bummed, but proud of themselves at the same time. My second never, of course, involves the first photo above; teaching. When I graduated from high school my father was determined that I would go to college.  I had very little drive when I was in my teens; no clue of what direction I wanted to take in life.  I was content to enroll and attend the local university there in Northern California;

  All around me my neighbors have irises blooming...even as of over a week ago.  Here my irises are just now throwing up bloom stalks...or whatever they are called.  It looks like I will have quite a few blooms this year.  I am excited to see what they will give me. The irises blooming this Spring will be a bit bittersweet though.  Many of them were given to me by a precious lady from church.  Betty.  Betty loved her flowers; she always had lovely flower beds all around her house.  She had irises around her house, and down her drive, I believe.  In any case, quite a few years back I'd mentioned at a ladies meeting that I wanted to start growing irises, so she said she'd give me some when she separated hers in the fall.  I wish I'd written down all the different colors she gave me, but I quite remember she gave me yellow.  They are all so lovely.  About 2 years ago I bought myself 4 different colors of irises; two different "black" irises, and two different "b

 Yesterday we went to the Preferred Pump Customer Appreciation barbecue in Springfield.  This is the company Gary gets his water well supplies from...well...one of the companies.  Every spring they have a barbecue.  It is a pretty big deal; they have 66 stores all over the US and every year they have two big retreats.  You earn points with every purchase, which you can use as credits to attend one of this trips.  I think they always go to Las Vegas, and then this year there vacation trip is to Aruba.  They have an entire hotel booked for 3 weeks, and you pick the week or few days when you can attend.  They do this for customers and employees alike.  I think if you don't get enough points with them you can pay for it, but I am not sure how that works.  We don't do that big of business to worry with such, and we neither one would be very comfortable anyway, since most of the vacation pictures they show involve alcohol in some way or another.  The other pictures they show of their

 Above is the lunch I had yesterday at the house where I do caregiving once a week.  The H House I will call it.  Mr and Mrs H had their 68th anniversary last week.  He was 17 and she was 20 when they got married.  They are both in their 80s now.  I don't recall if she ever held a job outside the home.  They raised 4 children on the farm; a dairy.  One son passed away here a couple of years ago.  His brother still runs beef cows on the farm there.  All of her married life, I suspect, Mrs H has always cooked 3 meals a day, because when I arrive there at 8 AM it isn't long afterwards that she is wondering what we are going to cook for lunch.  Generally it's simple sandwiches or potato soup, but yesterday it was steak, leftover pulled pork and roasting ears.  I took a picture to send to Gary, since he appreciates such things.  Someone of the family had given them the steak, I believe, the pulled pork was leftover from another day and the roasting ears had been on sale. Gary an