August is here.
Hard to believe that the summer season is two-thirds over already.
The Clare County Fair is over for another year. A really great turn out when we were there on Monday evening, loads of great rides but a really sad thing that happened when, just after we left, Mounted Deputy Nicolle Shuff died of a head injury when her horse fell while responding to an emergency call on the fairgrounds. She was a very nice young person who helped us out just a few moments before when we temporarily “lost” our great granddaughter in the mob of people who were there. Seems she was always helping others.
A post on 9 & 10 News Monday said, “Deputy Nichole Shuff was taken off of life support early Friday evening. Jesse Loudenslager, Captain of the Clare County Sheriff’s Mounted Division said, ‘She just had a vibrant energy for anybody that ever knew her, and was around her and everything that she did she always put a positive spin on it.’ On Friday, more than 60 officers lined the hospital halls in Midland to say goodbye to Deputy Nichole Shuff.”
After a pretty hot and extremely dry July, we finally got some rain nearly at the end of the month. Nothing like the deluge that hit eastern Kentucky. Those poor people who lost their homes and even worse, 37 lives (Monday’s count) were lost in storms that washed away whole communities. Hundreds were still missing after floods hit early Thursday morning July 29th. Many others lost everything. And they are expecting more storms.
I am counting my blessings. Around Clare, we got just enough (about an inch) to turn the grass green again. Ours was pretty dry. And Monday we got a bit more…2/10ths this time.
School is now only a hair over two weeks away – at least around here and the kids, I’ve heard, are getting pretty excited – at least about new clothes anyway. The annual school clothes shopping is now underway!
Before we know it, Labor Day will be here again. That weekend is now only four weeks away.
Nice weather after that is a real bonus in Michigan. It could snow just about anytime!
Summer always seems so short and every year it seems impossible to get everything that you want to do – done.
One of the ways we cope with it is to make lists. Well actually I make lists. Jack just grumbles about finding time to do his “stuff.” He always starts the season by telling me all of the things he will do “this summer.”
I make lists! At least that’s what I used to do… These days, my lists are comprised of post it notes all over the computer and notes on the calendar – which, of course, I forget to look at…
Of course, it helps to be organized. We all know this is not one of my special talents. In other words, I tend to lose my lists.
Yes, I do have an organizer, but I am always forgetting to use it, even though daughter-in-law Micki once went to all the trouble of finding the coming year’s calendar to put in there at Christmas time. (I think it is still in there actually)
I just keep reverting to post-it notes and they are usually stuck all over in my home office. I just have to remember to look at them!
Anyway, for a few more weeks, it is still summer. It’s warm and beautiful out there, there’s lots of fresh stuff to eat from all of the gardens (Ours is blessing us with lots of green beans and some sugar snap peas and a few cherry tomatoes every day. There’s a story to that. I thought I bought big hearty tomatoes to plant…surprise! Oh well there’s loads of farm markets around and we have at least 60 more days till the gardens are done and the trees start turning again. Then it will be time to begin the annual “countdown to Christmas”.
And I do have a few things I’d like to do before the snow flies again, and they all revolve around going to the lake and heading up north for a little camping.
The housework and chores can wait.