Hey from the Kaisers
We don’t have much news from our corner of the universe but I always enjoys y’all’s updates so I’ll try to come up with something even if it's a little rambly lol.
Tim & I keep doing the same things we always do: work (more than we'd like) and relax (not as much as we'd like). For having so few kids around, I should have loads of time on my hands... but I don't. Between babysitting grandbabies and keeping the fridge stocked (but not OVERstocked because suddenly NOONE likes leftovers) and keeping the flowers watered (oh, that's new! Sarah planted a few flowers/bushes for me and I've enjoyed keeping them alive (so far)) and keeping things fairly clean around here (which shouldn't take that long because noone's here to dirty it up, right?)(WRONG)... I still don't have much time on my hands. Which is fine. I'm grateful for health and strength to just keep plugging away. I try to get at least one walk in everyday, sometimes two; because it's good for me, blah blah; and when I do have 'extra' time, I like to do a puzzle. Which hasn't happened much lately, because fruit trees are loaded and my next major task is thinning. And thinning. And thinning. I've started but have much to go. Garden looks great! Grass came in wonderful where we planted it last fall and probably once a week we comment on how nice it looks. Tim has already made the comment about life with no fruit trees.... but we're not ready to cut them over quite yet... Oh, I did get an orphan (one) tomato plant from a neighbor and planted it in a bucket thingy but it's looking yellow and not great and it might die and I really don't even care if it does. My nephew Samuel Knapp is doing full-time farmer's market this year and I need to support him IF I decide I can't live without home grown frozen green beans or home grown potatoes or tomatoes etc. So, yeah. So far we like this kind of gardening.
Last week Tim & I took a few days away to TN, staying in the same cabin we honeymooned in in 1992. We went there again in 2002 with 6 kids and oddly the cabin was much smaller than we had remembered it. This trip it was back to its nice spaciousness that we remembered from our honeymoon. We had a great time in TN and weren't really ready to head home... except it had poured down rain the night before we left so we knew trails would be very muddy and un-fun. But we had good weather, great hikes, saw lots of bears (one was on a remote trail which was kind of neat but kind of unsettling… by the time Tim saw it and told me, all I got to see was its tail end disappearing down the mountain which was just fine by me. I’ve always wanted to see a bear on a hike and this seemed to be the best view lol) and some elk and deer and NO snakes as well as historical pioneerish buildings which are really neat except why on earth do ppl think they have to write their names everywhere and deface these beautiful old structures??? It's crazy disrespectful and uglifies the beautiful things. Stupid ppl.
Anyway. Back home to mowing (which Kaitlyn does (hooray) because she is done with school (for GOOD)) and watering my flowers and thinning fruit trees and babysitting etc.
Kids are doing well. Nothing much has changed except school is done for the year except for Sarah who has to take a couple summer courses in order to graduate on time (which is how ISU is set up; explain that to me, hmm?). Coreena graduated and is ready to start working next week! Jewel finished up one of her accounting classes with a solid 90.08 for the A (!!) and is working part time for 360YC (old news) and part time for Nate Koch Consulting (new news). So far I think she likes her new routine and job. Josh is working fulltime at the turkey farm again. He seems to like it... he at least likes the paycheck ha. I mean how much can anyone like caring for turkeys? They're actually rather gross things. Very smelly and messy. Anyway, Josh has also spent some time (as many of us have) hunting for arrowheads; it's an ongoing hobby that's rewarding to many. With fields now covered by crop, this hunting is almost done for the year. There's always next year though!
Horses are good. Sarah gives riding lessons a couple days a week; grandkids are always glad for rides also. Cows/calves are good. Brandi is good but she's pretty annoying sometimes. Cat population is down to four which is much more reasonable than last report of 18 or so.
And that's about all I can think of right now so I'm going to sign off. Time to get some thinning done before I go play with dead turkey at the good ol' TFest.
Hope to see some of you at the reunion next month.
