Garlow Reunion

On October 13th Barbara, Sheri, and I attended the Garlow reunion held in Hazelton, KS at the community center. Each year we would take Barbara's mother to this gathering. When she passed away the family was very helpful and comforting to us and we wanted to be sure that we extended our thanks to them.

























One of the best things about reunions is the feed that they put on. It seems that each cook tries to outdo the other cooks and we get to enjoy the results!











One of the guys raises pumpkins and then decorates them. He donated these to the reunion for an auction to raise money for the group. The one in the center on the back row has been traveling with us since we left Anthony on the 15th of October.

Basement ready for occupancy

The work rehabing the basement continued for most of the summer. The result of our sweat and toil look good. All of the furniture is back in place and it is livable.

Several things that the rehab allowed us to do was to correct some errors that we had made previously and now we have tile floors instead of the carpet. The recovery from future water intrusions should not be so catastrophic!

So enjoy the pictures, we are proud of the results!

Geophysical Study

During the later part of the summer they began a geophysical study of the surrounding area. Previous studies had been conducted by driving down the county roads and vibrating there and taking readings. This study is being done in a very comprehensive manner.

They lay cables over many miles and also across the fields in a diagonal pattern. Then they take the trucks out and follow a preset pattern and vibrate the ground at certain intervals. If you look under the trucks you can see the pads that they compress down on the ground when they vibrate.

Normally they use two trucks in tandem to get the proper volume of vibrations and they have extra trucks so that they can use them when the wind increases. It seems that the instruments are so sensitive that if the wind rises above 30 miles per hour the friction of the wind across the ground causes interference and they need additional help with the vibrators.

All of these pictures are taken of the trucks in our wheat field which had just been planted. There is a couple of wells directly south of our farm so we hope this brings good results for us!

Best Buddies

There is no greater bond than a dog and his master! As Barbara's mother continued to fail and she was moved into a nursing home, we were able to bring her dog Pepe in to spend some time with her. As you can see in this picture, he snuggled up to her and she stroked him with her good hand. These visits brought some peace to her in her final days. Shortly after this visit she passed away on July 16th at the age of 85.

Since that time Pepe has adopted Barbara and the two of them have become quite close do to the mutual loss they share.

Forty Fifth Anniversary

Just wanted to throw this in as it was taken after we got finished having a nice meal with Greg, Sheri and the Grandchildren to celebrate our 45th wedding anniversary.

Water in Basement

With all of the rain this spring and early summer we had water come into our basement. There was so much moisture that the ground became saturated and it seeped into the basement through cracks in the concrete walls and holes drilled into the floor by termite exterminators earlier. The trailer holds our carpet and padding that we had to take up. All of the furniture was moved up to the garage with the help of Greg, Sheri, Nicholas, Shane and Kimberly.









Since this is a walkout basement it did not get very high but did get high enough to soak up into some of the walls which ruined them and they had to be torn out and replaced to prevent black mold.











There were no workers availble to help with the restoration so Barbara and I took it on ourselves when we had a break from going to visit with her mother in the hospital.

Sheri visits Grandmother Doris

Since Grandmother Doris was unable to come up to the Graduation where Sheri got her Masters Degrees because she was in the hospital, Sheri came down the next day to show her the gown and hood.













Sheri here is reading a Certificate of Appreciation for Support given to Doris by the College for her support of Sheri during her studies.

After Graduation Party

We all went to the local community center to have an after Graduation party for Sheri.
Here we paused long enough to have a picture taken of the graduate and the immediate family. Shown in order are Neal, Shane, Nicholas, Sheri, Greg, Kimberly and Barbara.
Here Sheri poses with the rose that her Grandma Doris sent up to her. Grandma Doris was unable to attend as she had suffered a stroke which paralyzed her right side and she was in the hospital. Doris had been looking forward to attending this for a long time and was very upset that she could not.
A number of friends and relatives attended the party and shared the sandwiches as well as the cake and ice cream.

Sheri gets her Masters Degrees!

A very proud day! Our daughter Sheri recieved two Masters Degrees in Human Resources. She did this while raising a family and holding down a full time job!

In this picture her husband Greg is placing the Hood on her to denote the advanced degrees.
Now this looks like a couple that had just acheived a long sought after goal! Don't they look happy or is it relieved?
Dena, Neal's sister, along with her husband Mike and daughter Jeri made the trip down from Topeka to attend the graduation ceremony. Sheri was very happy to have family attend and help her celebrate this achievement.

2007 Wheat Harvest

Our weather turned wet this spring and there was a late freeze on Easter weekend.
The combines finally were able to get into the field after several days of no rain which allowed the fields to dry up enough that they would not get suck. It turned out that this was the last day that this condition was available to anyone in the area as the rains returned with no dry spells to allow for any more harvest and the wheat that had not been frozen was ruined by too much moisture.

The results of the havest was very disappointing in that we only got 15 bushels per acre this year. It turned out that since we had been able to harvest on the only day anyone could for the entire season, we were the fortunate ones!

Aunt Hazel's 90th Birthday Party

Aunt Hazel, not really a relative but a close long time family friend, celebrated her 90th Birthday at the Anthony Community Care Center in May of this year.

We took Barbara's mother Doris, shown here in pink, and she and Hazel had a wonderful day. Doris by this time was beginning to fail health wise and was on oxygen full time.

The ladies talked about their grandchildren and of many past adventures they shared over the years.

Geocaching at home!

I am going to attempt to bring the site up to date after not having blogged for the entire summer and fall because of personal problems that occurred. As I go along I will highlight some of the events of the past months and then I will try to be better at keeping the blogs coming.

Dena came down to visit from Topeka and she and I took a moment out and went Geocaching in the area. We were fortunate in that we found three caches during our outing.

One cache was at the Anthony 9/11/2001 Memorial in the city park. It is nice to have a cache there as it brings people to the memorial.
This cache is the second one we found at the Anthony Lake. It was off of the road 50 feet or so through high weeds and was a sneaky hide. They took a rock and drilled a hole just large enough to glue a medicine bottle to it and placed the log in there and when the rock is in place with the cache on the bottom it is hard to find! When we turned the rock over we were surprised to find the cache.