Good Grief, It's Got Legs!!!!!

Take a look at the Feto-Meter above. I just noticed that the little Noisykid has sprouted a set of well defined feet and hands.

How I spent the 4th of July....on Liver Transplant Call.

Slept in, got up and did a little school work with the kids.

Spent most of the time in the school room writing checks for bills which are due at the beginning of the month. Watched the balance drop on my checkbook.

Had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch.

Went to the store with Histor the Wise to purchase stuff for college. We shall pack the stuff up and send it on ahead.

For dinner, the kids made homemade pizza. It being the 4th of July, I had to grill something. Since it was Friday, I grilled Ahi Tuna steaks marinated in Hoisin sauce. I got the idea for the Hoisin sauce from our Anniversary dinner, where I got the Chilean Sea Bass with noodles in Hoisin sauce. (Two things impressed me about that dish: one is that I was eating the preferred fish of most giant squids, and the other was that the Hoisin sauce was delicious!)

4 out of 5 Giant Squids prefer Chilean Sea Bass, with or without Hoisin sauce!!!!!!!

After dinner, I wandered out to inspect the pecan trees. I took along an air rifle and pellets just for grins. I took some shots at a Papa John's pizza box that was in a huge pile of brush that I plan on burning this Winter.



One cool thing about the air rifle I used is that it is a repeater; one can shoot seven .177 cal pellets as fast as one can pull down the underlever device. It is a sweet little German air rifle made by RWS Diana, and is called the 300R. That is it pictured above. You can't see it, but the barrel has an engraving of the goddess Diana holding aloft a rifle, with bow and arrow discarded at her feet.

The pecan trees are showing some signs of recovery from drying out. Above the dead and dry leaves, there is new growth which shows great promise. There are also some leaves which look as if they were lunch, so I shall have to figure out something to spray on the trees to keep them from being eaten.

After watering the trees, several of my sons and I positioned the hose out on our property in case any fireworks landed and started a fire.

After night prayers, the younger kids sat on the back porch while the older kids cleaned up from dinner. We enjoyed watching other people's fireworks. To rephrase a line from General Patton, I didn't want to spend a fortune setting off fireworks; instead, I went out and let some other poor soul spend his money so I could watch fireworks.

I went for a walk around eleven p.m. with the older boys, and the fireworks were still going.

At 1 a.m., right now, I still hear the report of fireworks. It is also neat to hear the coyotes join in with the sirens that punctuate the night.

Notice that I never mentioned watching TV? Well, I was free to do all those things because we don't have a television; in fact, we got rid of it 13 years ago today. I mention this every year, and it wouldn't be the same if I didn't encourage folks to trash the TV.

We drove our TV - literally - out of our house. In retrospect, I should have used IT for target practice with the air rifle!