Sturgis Falls and other things

Llamas for Obama! That says it all, doesn't it? For me, this was the best part of the Sturgis Falls celebration parade that Ken and I went to last weekend. For those of you who don't know what Sturgis Falls is, it's basically the summer town celebration put on my the town of Cedar Falls. It's their way of paying tribute to William Sturgis, the man who founded the town and for whom the town was originally named (hence Sturgis Falls).

We went to the parade in the morning with Ken's sister Linda and family, Lisa and Matt, and his sister Maria and her family. We're definitely back in the swing of being around lots of family now, let me tell you! After the parade, we went down to the bandshell part for some food (MINI DONUTS!!!) and music. Because of all the flooding, the Sturgis Falls activities were greatly slimmed down this year. Normally, we'd have been running all over parts of the town to hear different bands and dine on such select items as the Turkey Leg, a Matt favorite, and grilled sweet corn. Given that there's no corn yet (thank you very much flood of 2008), we settled for, did I mention, mini donuts, tenderloins, strawberry smoothies, and kettle corn. All still very enjoyable. So, back to mini donuts, apparently Illinois does not believe in them. I haven't had mini donuts since I left Iowa in 2003. Man, did they taste good this year!

You may notice from this parade picture that Matt and Lisa are wearing matching NY Giants T-shirts. That's because they were fresh off their most recent trip to NYC. I believe this year they went to a baseball game of sorts at a famous ballpark, but ever the Giants fans, they show their support for this team before any other.

Here's a non-Sturgis Falls picture. A couple of weekends ago, my side of the family all got together at the Farm -- the commonly accepted term for my Grandma and Grandpa's farm out near Dunkerton, where Aunt Sheila and Uncle Roger have lived and farmed for as long as I can remember. In our family, it's just affectionately known as "the Farm." This is a picture of Audra near some flowers. She and I took a little walk around the grounds to look at trees and flowers while the grown ups talked.

To the right is a one of my favorite pictures. This is what we think is the oldest tree on the farm. I don't even know what kind of tree it is, but the cool thing about it is the one branch extending to the left. It's grown so low that it grew into the ground and then came up again. There is actually grass growing over it . Here's a shot of Audra hamming it up near this spot.

So, we're getting in some good family time since we moved back home. This 4th of July finds us enjoying some much needed time at our own place doing some house projects. We'll be meeting friend Jeff and Kelly in Dysart tomorrow morning for a parade and then a grill-out. Tonight we have fireworks in Cedar Falls and then fireworks in downtown Waterloo on Saturday night.

Back to house projects...this morning, I hacked away at a horribly overgrown and deadly rose bush in our front yard. I call it "devil bush" and Ken calls it "vile weed." No kidding on this one folks, I have scars on my hands, arms and legs from the thorns on this thing from trying to mow around it. It was so big that it was hanging over our driveway and Ken had to tie ip up with rope and a stake so that it wouldn't fall sideways. I was done with it, so I chopped it up and we hauled it away. I did leave some new growth though so that maybe we'll get roses in the future. Hopefully the landlady won't be mad. Pictures to come soon.

While I was busy with this, Ken was behind our garage desperately trying to use a pitchfork to load old dead lawn clippings into Mom's truck. Apparently the people who lived here before us liked to just dump their lawn clippings behind the garage. Here they've steadily festered into a pile of stinking grossness. Finally sick of it, I put Ken on the task of using a pitchfork to get rid of it. All had been going fine until he discovered a huge bees nest buried within it. Then, of course, he had to stop until we could purchase a can of RAID to kill them. I've never seen anyone go through an entire can of RAID in less than 5 minutes. Needless to say, the boy doesn't like bees.

In the end, the space behind the garage looks (and smells) much better and the vile weed will taunt us no more. My final words as I hacked the last bit of into smitherines...."I win devil bush." My next house project is to remove the old ugly bricks around the back flower bed and replace them with the lovely ones I got from Kathy's house post-tornado. Should be fun. Will include house pictures soon. Promise. Good news...new furnature's coming next week!!!!