Hi, everyone!
The TV weather person says this summer has been “abnormally dry”. Most of the weekends have been hot and sunny! The apples are already starting to drop off Grandpa and Grandma’s apple trees, but they don’t stay on the grass very long. Now I know why! I saw this deer in our front yard one evening, eating apples! Grandma says he’s welcome to the apples, but she wishes he’d stay away from the impatiens in the window box and our new lilac bush!
Because the summer has been dry, the water level at the bay is dropping fast! Thomas has been searching for treasures in the exposed shoreline and has quite a collection. Meanwhile, I’ve been helping Grandma finish the big jigsaw puzzle. Whenever Uncle Steven’s family comes out to the bay, we have corn on the cob. I help with shucking that!
Two Fridays ago, Uncle Steven’s family came out to stay overnight. James and Thomas were both acting like cats when they arrived! By Saturday morning, they were acting like kayakers, instead! James took the small kayak, but Thomas showed everybody he could manage a big one! It was fun to be out on the water with them!
Grandma needed to be back in town for church the next day. After lunch, she took me to the Sunflower Festival at Wickham farms! Because we visited on the weekend, we had a haywagon ride to get up the hill to the flower fields!
The haywagon stops at the beds of other kinds of flowers. Visitors can pay to pick their own bouquet. I didn’t want to do that, but it was fun making friends with black-eyed susans and zinnias before heading to the sunflower fields!
The festival had just started, so some of the patches of sunflowers weren’t blooming yet. Many varieties were in bloom, and I made a lot of sunflower friends!
It was a hot day and I was getting tired. I had to take a rest before making more sunflower friends. I especially liked the big sunflower that let me take a nap on it!
We walked back down the hill to see what else was growing. There’s a lavender field and a pumpkin patch! On the way out, we passed the snack bar and the playground equipment. I don’t know what my friend LaVache would think of the Condiment Cow! I bounced around on the air mattress and rode one of the play horses. The tractor looked like it was real! Everybody has to leave via the gift shop, so I made some friends there, too!
The very next day, Grandma and Grandpa got up early to drive to Buffalo. Guess what? They came home with a new car! Grandpa ordered an electric car in March and it finally arrived! Grandpa showed me how to fuel it by plugging it into a battery charger in our garage!
Grandma didn’t have to be in church today, so we came out to the bay on Friday. Uncle Steven came out by himself that afternoon to help Grandpa in the boathouse. There’s a lot to get ready before the new front door is installed in September. Right after I made friends with the little drone a while back, it stopped responding to the controller and got caught high up in a tree. Uncle Steven found it on the ground when he arrived! Later, Grandma and Grandpa took me to the Point to watch sunset. The sun set into a cloud bank, but the clouds overhead were very pretty!
Aunt Kara brought James and Thomas out on Saturday. James helped Grandma and me buy and shuck the corn for dinner. Then it was time for water sports! Aunt Kara got into a kayak and Thomas steered it by swimming alongside. Uncle Steven got out the jet ski. Thomas and James got rides behind their dad!
There was thunder from a nearby storm, so we all had to get off the water. When the storm passed, I asked Uncle Steven for a jet ski ride. Little lion arms are too short to hold on! Thomas and James each got another ride. They enjoyed going fast!
After all the activity, everybody needed some rest time! Uncle Steven and Thomas tried to make a s’mores bonfire after dinner, but the available wood was too wet.
This morning, we had our usual waffle breakfast on the porch. Then it started to rain and stayed drippy until lunch time! That was a good time for electronics and watching a Harry Potter movie!
After lunch it cleared up, but it was time for Uncle Steven’s family to go home. Grandma and I pruned some branches hanging over the road. Now we’re having another thunderstorm! Maybe this is the start of catching up on our rain!
Love,
Lion-san
I love all the flowers! Wickham farms sounds like a pretty neat place. The sunflower festival would be to my liking. How far is that from your home or from your place at the Bay? A farm we love where we love to buy strawberries and corn and more plants a border of sunflowers several feet wide between the road and the corn fields every year just for the pleasure of passers by. We have been enjoying a lot of fresh corn this year. Today I made dairy free corn chowder. It was a lot of work with lots and lots of chopping required and took a long time and tasted good. But in truth, I’d prefer to eat corn right off the cob after steaming it a couple minutes. We too are having unusually dry conditions around here this summer. People are being asked not to water lawns or fill pools and to conserve water. We are due some rain and thunderstorms tomorrow. Hope the rain actually comes here and doesn’t pass us by as it sometimes does even when predicted. Great Aunt Betsy
Great Aunt Betsy, Wickham Farms is in the township just north of Fairport, about six miles away. Your corn chowder sounds yummy, but we like our fresh corn on the cob, too! Hope you got some rain!