Happy Birthday Grandma Dixie!

Please, Doug, don’t talk about anything politically sensitive on my 82nd Birthday!!! At this advanced age, I might have a stroke. Then who would you have to annoy?I love hearing about your children, frozen cabbage football, snakes, raccoons, and your very beautiful wife. Also, I’m glad to hear that June may be leaving the rehab center, and glad too that you don’t call it a “you know what home.” We call it a “Waiting for God Home.” However, the idea doesn’t sound too bad on some days–especially when it’s time to prepare dinner or we find problems with our irrigation system. Time to call a nine-year-old boy to live with us. Don has a new printer, but he doesn’t know how to connect it. Ill bet that Lori could do, but one should never count on me for such things. See, Don’s degree from CAL Teck. is no better than my measily two from CSUS. I’m glad he doesn’t read the blog unless I make him. I intend to celebrate every day this week. Love all of you, Grandma Older Than Dirt

No I won’t talk politics today, just for her on her birthday. She deserves a great day. You see she’s one of those rare people that cares for others more than she cares for herself, just like my Mom. She’s always taking care of someone, family or not, or helping them out of some sort of jam. She’s pretty smart for a democrat (sorry) and has a few faults like sometimes talking  during bridge and worrying about other people too much but other than that, she’s pretty great. She’s a great mom, grandma and yes, even a great mother in law. We hope she has a great birthday and many more to come.

Yesterday the misses and I were determined to make some sort of progress on the house and all its clutter. We started upstairs and went through some drawers and my closet to get rid of some stuff. That’s about all we rooted out but at least we made a little progress. I did some laundry, vacuumed, and made some ribs for dinner. This was after a trip to 3 different stores exchanging some clothes and getting more groceries. The youngest was on crutches most of the day and had his friend Jack over from about noon until 5pm. He had another friend call to play but was already booked. That’s the play king for you, you have to get your request in early! Meanwhile the oldest and I went to the park to hit 4 buckets of baseballs and then I promised to take him back to fly his kite. It was pretty windy so he was excited to give it a try. He had his kite so high in the sky that all the string was out. It swooped and soared with the wind and danced in the sky like a great bird. He had a blast and so did I, just seeing my son flying his kite without a care in the World. Good times.

Today we’re back at it, there’s only something like 30 some days left in the school year. The rain and wind are coming in strong this afternoon, I’m sure baseball will be cancelled. Tomorrow the high is supposed to be 21 with a low of 10 and a foot or more of snow! All this on April 9th, you have to love Colorado.

Over the weekend the misses said we should go buy a small farm somewhere. How fun would that be? Yes it’d be a lot of work but just think of how great it’d be to grow your own food and have animals running around. This may sound funny to you but all the big investors from Warren Buffet to George Soros to Jim Rodgers are all ditching the stock market to buy farm land. Of course they aren’t going to go work it themselves but you get the point. Food and clean water will be the new gold and silver in the coming decades, no question about it. Besides I can’t think of a better environment for the kids to grow up in than on a farm or a ranch. We’d much rather have them getting up taking care of their animals and doing some hard work than sitting on the couch watching the boob tube or playing video games. Truth is, so would they. Both boys would love to move to a place with a little property and some animals. Look out Steamboat, sooner or later, we’re coming!

But first, time to worry about taxes. I just found out we owe a bit more on April 15th. It’s not as bad as I thought as we’ve been paying in more and more but it’s still a months or so worth of salary. It seems we pay more and more and get less and less. I’ll save the rest for tomorrow as I feel myself drifting into politics.

So here’s a toast to Grandma Dixie, we’ll call later! Have a great day, we all miss you and love you very much. God Bless.