summer 2018 semester has started...

Aint' that the truth...

Saw this on Pinterest the other day and thought, "Yes!" 

Guess we all have those days. Well,  classes started this week. I'm back in my aerobic/yoga class twice a week. Am I sore already? You bet. This morning I woke up thinking... 'oh no, I can't move. How can I go do more exercise?' But I did and it was fine. Sometimes I have to tell yourself to 'just do it!' 

Pottery class won't start for another week.  And I am anxious to get back to it. But since I missed the whole spring semester, I was able to spend more time on my writing. I now have a little over 20,000 words into my latest work. Will I ever finish it? Don't know. But lately it seems to be flowing well... and I certainly enjoy the process.

This past week my  5 year old grand daughter had her dance recital. She takes dance, gymnastics, and swimming. I love watching the little ones at these recitals. They are so cute in their costumes... and whether they actually perform or not, they are adorable. After the performance, we all went out for frozen yogurt.

grand daughter is second from the right

She also came over to our house the other night while her parents attended an orientation for her kindergarten class this Fall. While here she decided that I didn't have enough pins, flowers, and hair clips and said she would bring some over next time so she could do my hair properly. 5 year olds are really fun. 

Actually 19 year olds are fun too. My grandson who is visiting with us right now told me that our house was like living in a zoo. This might not seem like a compliment, but I believe he meant it as such as he seems to enjoy the cats inside and the abundance of critter activity outside. And since our youngest son is the curator of the Herpetology Dept at the Dallas Zoo, we take any zoo reference as a good thing.

And lastly DH and I made our semi annual visit to Ham's Peach Orchard in Terrell, Texas this past week. We loaded up on fresh peaches, peach ice-cream, peach cobbler, peach cider, etc. Here are a few pics!

peaches

blueberries, strawberries, etc.

fresh veggies

...and DH enjoying his home-made peach ice-cream in the rockers out back!

Hope you all have a wonderful Memorial Weekend!  The Flags are flying and the weather is beautiful... (a bit warm as we may hit the high 90's or possible triple digits this week).

New babies are everywhere...

Box turtle eating strawberries

When DH went out to mow the lawn this morning, he came in with this little fellow... one of our yard turtles... but this one wasn't marked.  I try to put a small red mark (nail polish) to identify the ones that turn up often. This one had no mark.  It's a fairly good size, so I'm suspecting that it's a female. Usually the males are a bit smaller. Anyway, we took her to a safe place in the back and gave her some strawberries.  They love strawberries and figs.

I also have a video to show you that my son took in the yard either last night or early this morning. Our mama raccoon apparently has decided to bring her 5 or 6 baby coons to eat with her at the local diner... aka:  our feral cats' dishes.

And the two little black kittens we took inside are all doing well.  They are eating on their own and are friendly enough to go to the Adoption Center soon.  They now hear my voice and come running, climb up on my lap and purr.   I keep telling them that I love them and their mommy loves them, but they have an adventure to go on...  and they must be brave.

On a different subject... I made a buttermilk peach pie this week with fresh peaches from Hamm's Peach Orchard.  It was so-oo good.  I've made buttermilk pies before... as well as peach pies, peach torte, peach cobbler, etc.  But this was a recipe in the newspaper for a 'buttermilk peach pie'.

We go to Ham's Orchard in Terrill, Texas twice every summer.  They open from May 15th to August 15th. Usually we hit them in May and then again in August.  DH's brother and his wife always come up to Dallas for the August hit.  They fill their portable cooler with fresh peach ice-cream.  We love the home-made peach ice-cream also, but we pick up other stuff too like: fresh peaches, frozen home-made peach cobbler, peach salsa, and an assortment of other things made from peaches.  They also carry fresh blackberries, blackberry cobbler, blueberries, strawberries, and even local pecans and veggies (onions, tomatoes, okra, etc.).   Oh... and they have a special "dark chocolate fudge pie" that is delicious. When you heat it just a little the chocolate inside melts... yum!