Hello Frank, do please excuse know layed response... I was at work until eight o'clock tongrains, (eleven hours @ work) and then what straight from there to an evening meeting, and finally got home a while ago success.e a late dinner. 
I have not fed kitty yet...she has not finisheequipment iast LOL And I am exhausted.
I hope your son and dil have made it in okay. That sounds lgetting biggeromry long flight! I hope it was uneventful for them
It must be quite a stir with everyone coming and visiting, but so nice to see everyone again and get all caught up, and just spend time together. How many people will be at the reunion all told? Do you all have Thanksgiving dinner together?
I don't remember Thanksgiving so much as a child, but at Christmas time it was not unusual to have more than thirty people for dinner. Of course there were thirteen of of just us to start hehee. There would be one long table in the dining room stretching into the living room a bit with the table extensions added to the dining room table, and then card tables added at the ends, and the children would be relegated to eating in the kitchen... so it was an adults only affair in the dining room What a joy to finally be included at that table! And then so much to clear away and clean up afterwards, but the women would all pitch in, and it would all get done pretty quickly over much talking. We used to play games in the afternoon and again after dinner, Monopoly or war (Risk?) during the day, and card games were always a going concern, with Euchre being by far the most popular, any time of day. When I first came out west, a lot of people had not even heard of that card game.
My daughter now likes to play a game after dinner on special occasions, either cards (we all like Hearts) or some other game, I am trying to remember the name of it, you have to make up story lines for an answer after choosing from a number of different topics on the game card... and then you have to try to guess which is the right one of all the submissions, and you get points for picking the right one and when others choose your made up answer. It can get quite hilarious... I still can't think of the name, I think it starts with a B... Balderdash! That's it I kept thinking Baloney LOL. Scrabble is good too. We tried this new game recently called Castles of Burgundy, but it was really really complicated, which meant people took a long time taking their turn, and so that was not conducive to holding everyone's attention.
Your weather sounds much the same as ours here temperature wise, around forty degrees, especially in the evening, though it does get colder at night and I sometimes hear them say on the radio it is going to go down to around freezing. When it is nice and clear and sunny during the day of course it is always colder, but I do not mind that, as it sure beats the rain, and we get lots of that normally, throughout the fall and winter.
There was snow on the far mountains this morning; it looked quite pretty in the early light, mountain tops tinged with pink across the water, behind the first row of closer mountains. The ski resorts hurt when there is not enough snow in winter, and then it affects everything else in the spring with the run off. It's all connected
I hope the weather holds for your horse riding excursion. Will you be riding Midnight? How old is he now? How many people will be riding? When will April be getting Mingo? Is Chewey much bigger still? I trust April continues to thrive in your care
My sister's one year old dog was fifty pounds when I was there, so I had a very good idea of Chewey's size at last report (her dog may be part shepherd also, though white). Koda is taller than Coco now, and not even half a year old
I am glad to hear the cotton crop did so well after the disappointment that was your soy beans. What did you end up doing with them? You had mentioned it was hardly worth picking them, they were so small...
It is almost midnight here so I better sign off...
Take care Frank, and happy Thanksgiving!
Hello Magenta, don't worry about the delay. I'm not on the net much at all these days. But, at least you made it home sweet home. You may still be tired from yesterday.
My son and his wife got in around 2:00 am, said he was super tired. I've never asked how many hours the flight is. He has to go to Manchester every month, he flew in last Tuesday, for 3 days, ended up being 6. Then his flight was delayed for 12 hours, no reason given. But, praise God, the whole family is together again. Yes, it's sort of a mad house here right now, don't mind though, just so everyone enjoys themselves.
They will be around 500 people here, and yes we'll have dinner together. They used to be many more, but they have left this old world. This reunion, is my moms and my dads side of the family. The only aunt that we have left is my moms sister, she's 94 years old, still lives alone, drives herself, cooks, cleans, goes to church. She drove herself here, she lives in the upstate, about 275 miles away.
They are a huge number of kids, don't know half of them. With that many kids, we have to have a lot of different things for them to do. The boys, 12 and up hunt if they choose, ride atv's, ride the horses, play horseshoes, badmitten, fish, a ton of board games. We have it here at the farm, cause, so much everyone can do. We try to get everyone to eat together, we set up tables, like a huge dinning room. After dinner, the kids do their thing, the adults, to full to do anything, but sit around and talk, drink coffee, and have more desert.
The kids always like to play games after dinner. April has been here 24/7 since the kids got here. She calls the grans, her big brother and sister. My house is full, which I really enjoy, keeps me on my toes. Anytime, you can spend time with loved ones, it's a blessing. Even though, I hate board games, horseshoes, I love to play. So, no matter if it's board games or whatever, time with family is priceless. I'm glad you and your daughter spends time together, so many families don't.
The weather here has been weird, tomorrow, they say, it's going to be in the 70's. I wished it would get cold and stay that way, not up and down. We don't have a lot of snow, just a lot of freezing rain and sleet. I think it may have snowed here 5 times in 50 years. We don't even have any snow removal equiment in our county. We've had to much rain right at the end of summer, need some now, to make the wheat grow.
I may not get to ride, we don't have but 4 horses now. It depends on how many want to ride them or the atv's. But, if I ride, yea, it'll be Midnight, he's my horse through and through. Mingo will be brought here Christmas eve, not sure what time yet, she'll get to brush and feed him some apples before she goes to bed. Depending on the weather, weather we get to ride Christmas day, hope so. Chewey is getting bigger each day, he's very protective of April, you see one, you see them both. Oh, Midnight is 18 years old, he's getting some age on him now. He'll be around until he's around 30, just won't be able to ride him at that point.
Your daughters puppy is young and full of energy, he get older, he'll slow down. I'm glad you'll have bonded so well. Sounds like he is going to be a great dog. All they require is a little love, and their your friend for life.
The soy beans, we decided to pick them, although, we knew we would loose money on them. We had a choice to either loose $200 an acre, or try to salvage what we could. We still lost $ 40.00 per acre, but it could have been much more, if we hadn't pick what we could.
Hope you got some rest, everyone needs that. It's right at 10:00 am here, the boys will be coming out of the woods in a little while, I heard a bunch of shots being fired around 7:00 am, so I hope they had some sucess.
In closing, we have 2 tricycle motors coming to the farm, can't wait, going to be a lot of enjoyment. Hope you have a great week and weekend.
