Sunday, July 5, 2020

Dear Kids,
        Dad and I just got home from spending the night in Centerville. We shot off fireworks with Nora’s family, which is becoming a tradition with us, and then we stayed over because it was so late, and drove home early this morning.  I hope you all had a great Fourth of July!  I appreciate our country’s freedom more every year, and I’m grateful to live in such a wonderful country. 
       We left our kitties alone overnight, which I hate to do, but we left the mudroom door open so they could come in and out of the house through the garage, as they chose.  Sonia greeted us as soon as we got home, but Scout is probably well into his day of hunting.  Sonia hunts too, but I don’t know if she has ever caught anything.  They were both staking out a mouse hole (I assume) one morning last week, when I was working out near the pasture.  They were sitting on both sides of a tall bull thistle, just waiting, except when Sonia tried to dig down to the mice.  I can just imagine a terrified mouse family, looking up at those two evil faces.  It’s totally different from the mouse’s point of view.
        We had another dose of winter early in the week, and Tuesday morning Dad got a plaintive call from Julie.  She and some friends were out camping, and they woke up with two inches of snow on their tent.  She wondered if they all could go to the cabin to hang out for a while.  Of course Dad said yes.  We didn’t know the power was out there. A couple of days later, though, when we went there to work, Dad noticed the circuit breaker at the top of the power pole had been tripped.  When the power company came, they said that sometimes chipmunks get up there, and when they fry themselves, it trips the circuit.  So sad.
        Friday afternoon Dad and I went hiking on the Shingle Creek trail, about ten miles up the Mirror Lake highway.  It was gorgeous, and the air smelled of pines and spruces.  I figured I’d be OK, hiking with my trekking poles, and we only went a mile or two up the trail.  But on the way home I realized that my left hip, my good one, was hurting a lot.  In fact it felt just as bad as my right hip did last year when it cracked.  And it still hurts a lot.  I’ll probably be paying a high price for that beautiful hike.  If I decide to have a hip replacement, I can probably choose either one now.
        Did I lend my copy of the book Cold Comfort Farm to any of you?  Dad and I were watching the movie, and then I went looking for the book, and I couldn’t find it. 
        But life is marvelous.  I love you all!  Mom