A Peaceable Sunday...

We were up so late last night after going to the fair and rodeo, we barely made it up in time this morning to shower and get to church! Living as retirees, we've gotten used to going to bed and getting up whenever we feel like it. Sometimes, we get caught!

It's only six weeks until the Mennonite Country Auction (the first Saturday in October) and this morning we started the Penny Power count-down. All over the Mennonite Church, each Sunday during the children's time, the kids take their buckets and head out through the congregation collecting every one's change. Last year they raised money for mosquito nets, this year the pennies will go towards refurbishing a hospital in the Congo. What's really interesting is that one of our members was born in that hospital where her mother was a doctor and her father served as a missionary. It is also the hospital where the late Dr. John Zook and his wife Jean worked and did surgery.

There's a new twist to the Penny Power project this year. Most of the adult members agreed to put their name in a basket. Each week a name will be drawn and that person will "match" the amount of money collected by the children. It already sounds like there is some fun conniving going on with different members about how to "stack the deck"....

Later this afternoon, we went in to Moses Lake to pick up the ingredients I needed for tomorrow night's salad supper. I was going to run in tomorrow morning, but it turns out the Menno guys are planning to play golf in Ritzville in the morning and Forry will need the car. One of the things we have discovered about our lifestyle is that we have to be more deliberate about driving. Since we no longer each have our own vehicle, we have to plan a bit more.

It turned out to be a good thing (going in today) as we were able to have Vic join us for dinner at Denny's to visit a bit. It was just dusk when we headed home. We saw three nice bucks in CRP ground along the Rosenoff Road. One had three points, the others were each two pointers.

A Quiet Day Today...

Even though I had to get going early for a 7:15 AM conference call for the Mennonite Church USA Executive Director Search Committee, I had a pretty quiet day. Forry went into Ritzville to sign some long-overdue papers for the Farm Services Agency. We have just got to get Daughter MM on a power of attorney for the ranch so that she can sign this stuff off as soon as it comes in the mail!

I spent most of the day doing laundry and found myself most annoyed at the state of my shirts. It seems like all of the ones I usually save for "good" need to be moved into the "everyday" drawer! I don't know why I think they should stay nice-looking forever... maybe because I really dislike clothes shopping?

We had some interesting visitors in the coulee yesterday morning:

There didn't used to be deer in this part of eastern Washington, but after twenty plus years of conservation programs that have promoted miles of grasslands, they've gotten very common. Our tenant Jeff has even seen a moose in the coulee!



This was the view from Auntie Violet's living room window this evening: