Between babies, (like Chappell Monroe born to Bill and Stacey) last week,

and Cousin Camp, things have been busy.

Add to that a birthday party for Kent and Natalie and a visit to Jonesboro
for Hattie's grad school orientation, visits with friends, Becky and Derrill
in Doniphan for the weekend, and just regular family things, and life
is full.

Oh, and the plants are growing like crazy.  The peonies are reaching the end
of their furious and marvelous blooming, the irises are beginning to fade,
the lightning bugs are just beginning to be glorious, and the frogs are as
maniacal as they have ever been.

We learned last weekend that Kent's mother, Oma, has a half-sister named
Barbara who is 83 and lives in Chicago.  Oma and her sister are planning on
meeting somewhere in between Chicago and St. Louis in the not-too-distant
future.

Ancestry.com did it again!  Bill posted a picture of Oma's father, Addison, who
deserted Oma and her mother when she was a young child.  Oma never saw him
again.  He then had a daughter (born in St. Louis) by a young teenage girl.  That
daughter was left in an orphanage in Indiana.  Unlike Oma, that daughter did see
her dad from time to time, and her 6 children remember him visiting once a year
and giving each of them a dollar bill and a box of whatever he was selling at the
time.

One of the grandchildren recognized the picture that Bill had posted and she
contacted Bill, and now Kent has a half-aunt and six half-cousins that we never
knew about.

Mike and Deb are headed to Florida in a couple of days to get their furniture.
Fernnook Lodge is not really move-in ready yet, but they are bringing their
things up here anyway.

And, dad's AC went out tonight.  We were all sitting around the deck when it
began to make some very suspicious noises and went a bit beserk.  Dad has
the emergency guys coming soon (hopefully at least).

Kathleen was here the other day and it was hot and she wanted to play outside
in the sprinkler.

K--Grandma, can we play in the sprinkler?

G--No, I don't have extra clothes for you.

K--You could take us to get some clothes.

G--No, I am too busy now.

K--Grandpa could take us to get clothes while you stay  here and work.

G--No, Grandpa is too busy.

K--Hattie could take us to get clothes while you and Grandpa stay here
and work.

G--Kathleen, you sure have a lot of ideas.

K--I have to have a lot of ideas; you keep saying, "No!"

From Fernnook of old.   Uncle Jimmy, the last on the left, sent me
this today.

G'ma Opal and her chicks.  I miss her, truly I do.

Tyler put some oranges out on the hummingbird feeders and we have
been enjoying a host of Northern Orioles.

They really, really like orange slices.

The other day, I was watching Kathleen and Judah.  After they had been with
me for several hours, I changed Judah's diaper.  When I picked up the old
diaper, to throw it out, I found that it was the new one, and the old one was
back on the baby.

So, I took the old one off and put the new one on again.  But then I couldn't
close it up because I had it on backwards.  Sigh.  Four kids, 8 grandbabies,
2 on the way, and I couldn't get a clean diaper on that poor child.  Kathleen said
something along the lines of, "Grandma, I think you need a brain switch."

But, on a brighter note, she was my sous chef for the day.  She did a fine job,
though she didn't really like the feel of the hamburger when we were patting
out the patties.

We took the bull to the butcher.  He has foot problems, and we always have
a problem keeping young heifers away from the bull.  We have a pretty little
heifer that we want to keep, so it seemed like a good time to turn Mr. Bull
into hamburger.

Our hummingbirds are humming along.  I have four feeders and a dozen or
so birds are busily zipping between them.  A few days ago, I spooked an
oriole on one of the feeders.  He quickly flew off and didn't return.  Then
today I received a text from Natalie saying that she had indigo buntings,
orioles, and cardinals on her feeders (some of the birds were on her
seed feeders, but the orioles were on the hummingbird feeders.)  It wasn't
but a couple of minutes and two orioles appeared on our living room feeder.
Their bright orange is astonishing to see up close.  We tried to not make any
sudden moves.  Tyler captured this picture, but the shadows make the stunning
color hard to see.

Adeline Shirley (and her parents) made her first visit to the Farmhouse at
Fernnook today.  We had a lovely time holding and loving on her.  Tyler
planted more of his garden (he has promised me lots of okra this year)
and Jennifer visited inside with us.

I was explaining to Kathleen yesterday that Tyler & Jenn are planning on
moving to behind the old barn someday, and that she could then walk
through two fields and over a (not-yet-built) stile and could then take the
lane back to their house and visit her cousins.

She answered me back, "Wait a minute!  You mean Tyler and Jennifer used
to live in the brown house, and now they live in another house, and then
they are going to move again?  WHY DO THEY KEEP MOVING?"

She just couldn't fathom that.  But I think I explained it adequately to her.

June bugs were hitting the windows tonight.  Whippoorwills are whippering.
The moon is shining brightly.  Lovely, lovely May.