Haven Heartbeats

Dear Grandma,

How are you? How's the weather been?

We are in the Sierras at my friend's house. They live about 5, 500 feet...almost 2, 000 feet more than us. The weather has been perfect here...lovely summer temperatures. Willa and I have been able to get three long walks in. I had trouble sleeping the last two nights and was too sleepy to go yesterday and today. I hope tomorrow and Tuesday will fare better. We leave for home on Wednesday. We arrived here last Tuesday.

The boys built a wigwam. Their backyard is the woods and they got their building materials from there. It is pretty clever. Matthew, on crutches, was the taskmaster and the four younger boys were his slaves, uh, I mean his helpers. It reminded me of Ramses bossing Moses around in The Ten Commandments. :) Tonight, four of the boys are sleeping in the wigwam. Here's to hoping the mosquitoes leave them alone tonight! I will take a picture tomorrow...maybe I will post it...IF I remember. :)

Today we drove down to Fresno for Mass. It was 88* in the mountains...but it got to 109* in the city. UGH! I told the kids that I begged God to never allow me to live in a place that gets that hot. I would melt...they could just bury me and be done with it. I will not do heat. At least with the cold...I always have my leggings. :)

I have done a few pages of scrapbooking here. Maybe five? I think the next five are lined up and ready to go. I am working on Anne at six-seven weeks. Slowly, but surely, I just might catch up....oh, probably not. I just keep taking more and more and more........pictures. Sigh.

Marty is at home working on fixing things.....he took the lattice off the front porch...will be sanding and staining the deck...he got the sprinkler system convinced to turn to AM after midnight now.......tried to poison the clovers in the grass, but has now resorted to using a natural way to eradicate some of the clover......he hung the big feeders for the chicks who are four weeks as of yesterday.......and he "cleaned" out the well system. He said he found a dead chick today, with no obvious reason why. I hope it is not disease. We have about 40 hens. I only got one rooster......but, lucky us........they threw a FREE rooster in our order. Marty says I only get to keep one. I have about 20 breeds...I like the variety.

Well, it looks like it is after midnight now....so I will go to bed now.

Goodnight! We all love you!

Chari