Odds and Ends

I carry my "pocket" camera around with me most of the time and take pictures of things that I think are interesting or want to share on my blog.   When I write an entry, I usually start with a picture or pictures and work the article around those.   But, after a while, I usually end up with several pictures that I can't figure out what to do with.  Such is the case with the pictures in this entry. 

The first picture is of Tom several weeks ago.  He was setting out tomato plants in the garden.   He uses large cans he has cut the top and bottom out of to put around the plants to protect them from the wind.  And he uses cattle panel fencing to tie them to when they start getting big. He gave up on those flimsy tomato cages available at the garden centers.  First of all, they don't do a very good job of holding the tomatoes up.  And, second, they are a mess to try to store at the end of the season.

The next picture is one I took after the last rain of some sort of animal tracks in the mud at the edge of our driveway.  I was fascinated by them because they were so tiny.  Perhaps it was a baby raccoon or opossum, but normally one this small would have been accompanied by an adult animal.  And, I did not see any larger tracks with these.

Next is a picture of some pretty yellow flowers growing out near the road.  We don't mow all 5 of our acres.  There is a very large area between our house and the road that we only mow once a year.  This is where the lines for our geothermal system are buried.  (See the following blog entries if you are interested in that:
   http://windyacresnaturalfarm.blogspot.com/2010/05/geothermal-part-1.html

and:  http://windyacresnaturalfarm.blogspot.com/2010/05/geothermal-part-2.html )

Finally, here is a picture of Tom and me at Christmas time.  We were getting ready to go to a presentation of  The Messiah that was presented by an OSU choral group along with members of the Stillwater community.  Tom was one of those community members.  He sings bass and has a wonderful voice.  The performance was sold out and was absolutely wonderful.  Fortunately, the people who sang in the performance were given free tickets for family members.  So our daughter, her husband and I went.  We are so proud of our dad and husband and the singing ability he is blessed with.