Sunday was the first in a while that we did not have to say goodbye to kids and grandkids as we had no visits this week.  So, we were off to church and Sunday school.  We are really enjoying our senior pastor’s sermon series, “Making Love Last a Lifetime”, based on work by Adam Hamilton.  It is one of our favorite series of all times!  And we returned to our Sunday school class after an almost year absence, and had forgotten what an excellent teacher Dr. Paul Wilbur is, and how much discussion occurs.  The subject of study is church history, and one of the books being used is Church History in Plain Language.

This summer has been among our worst for wasps.  Consequently, we’ve had lots of wasps and nests.  In knocking one down, I was on a 6-foot ladder using an 8-foot rod.  Assuming the wasps would not fly down to my level, I knocked a huge nest down, and spiraling in formation a group of wasps flew down in my direction.  I dodged the first one, but the second got me on the top of the hand, and it immediately began to swell.  Nothing we had would relieve the pain and swelling, and the Epi-pen was out-of-date and had been trashed.  I used topical Caladryl, took Benedryl, and went to bed, sleeping a good portion of the afternoon and evening; it remained swollen for three days, then itched like crazy for a couple more.

Keeping Dunnhill in working order requires a lot of attention, and we had visits from a landscaper to add stepping stones and an additional irrigation line to Kay’s “shade” garden, and a handyman to replace some boards on the deck, power wash it, and then stain it.  The landscaper showed up, but just to review the work order (he was supposed to have done the work a month ago), and the handyman’s “helper” damaged the deck steps.  It is really difficult to get work done in our area and for the most part, the workers are expensive and unreliable.

Despite the problems encountered earlier in the week, we had several high points. We hosted my cousin and his family for a Wednesday afternoon on Norfork Lake.  What a hoot!  Daughter and son, Phoenix and William, respectively, are such good kids, and grandchild Addy is a work in progress.  Phoenix is a very bright, cute, self-assured, and precocious 12-year old young lady; she is such a joy to be around.  William has the most infectious belly laugh for an 8-year old, and he and I played together for a good portion of the afternoon; one can hardly help laughing when he laughs.  And wondering why all the Spicebush Swallowtail butterflies were around, the Chief pointed out a spice bush and we saw the beautiful blooms.

On Thursday morning, a Giant Swallowtail was sipping nectar from the butterfly bush in Kay’s east garden, and stayed still long enough to be photographed.  And as fate would have it, the camera had been accidentally turned to the wrong mode, and all the photos were grossly under exposed.  However, thanks to Lightroom 4, a few were salvaged.  There were also a plethora of Tiger Swallowtails, Pipe Vine Swallowtails, and Spice Bush Swallowtails.  evening, we had dinner with Dick and Carolyn Todd to celebrate his 70th birthday.  Dick and Carolyn have been good friends since we moved to Baxter County.  On Saturday we made the short trip to Quarry Park for a week’s worth of camping and through Kay’s perseverance, we got the best site in the campground.

We leave you with this passage from Gail Godwin’s novel The Finishing School brought to our attention in an article by Connie Schulz:

There are two kinds of people…One kind, you can tell just by looking at them at what point they congealed into their final selves.  It might be a very nice self, but you know you can expect no more surprises from it.  Whereas, the other kind keeps moving, changing.  With these people, you can never say, “X stops here,” or “now I know all there is to know about Y.”  That doesn’t mean they’re unstable.  Ah, no, far from it.  They are fluid.  They keep moving forward and making new trysts with life, and the motion of it keeps them young.  In my opinion, they are the only people who are still alive.