This has been a frustrating gardening season so far, not enough rain to get things started for me and rain at just the wrong time for folks trying to make dry hay, like my son-in-law Fritz. Seems he would get hay almost ready to bale and we'd get a shower. They he's spread it all out and when it's dry again, then rake it again, and then have a little shower spoil everything once more. By this time, the hay is good for mulch or bedding for the animals. For me, because the weather in May was so nice, I thought I'd try planting corn a little early. It was so dry and the nights so cold most of it never came up. A lot of small seeds acted the same they didn't get enough moisture to germinate. Because it takes me so much time to do things, I have to use a stool with wheels to move over the ground. So I hate to let a good day go by. My grandson Tom offered to spread some horse manure on my garden plot. I asked him if it was rotted manure and he told me how long it had been there but it seemed there had been some fresher manure added later. None of the seeds in this manure seemed to have any trouble germinating.

 Jim Hines come with a small tractor and pulverizes the soil in my garden every spring so these new weeds have a nice soft bed to start out in. I think because I enjoy the feel of this nice, soft soil is the reason I haven't started using my Mantis garden tractor.

 Trying to make my garden look respectable brings to mind another of Bob's stories. A man had bought an old rundown place and had started to clean up, cut brush, and improve the looks of the place. The minister of a small local church was driving by one day and stopped and said, "My, you and the Lord have certainly made an improvement in the looks of this place." The man said, "You must have noticed it when 
He had it alone." 

 Bob didn't often get into religious quotations. He was more apt to say if someone offered him a taste of something different, "A drop of that on a dog's tongue would kill an elephant."

 Just had to stop and change batteries in my hearing-aids. Don't know what difference it will make as I'm all alone unless I'm trying to understand what Monica's parrot is trying to say. Funny thing about hearing aids, you hear things that you didn't know made any noise. The parrot doesn't have to say a thing when he gets to take a bath or starts moving his toys and things about. And when we are out on the back porch, I can hear every click of Peter the cocker spaniel's toenails.

 The other day when Tom took me back up to the hearing aid place for a checkup, I was enumerating all my ailments, I said I'm 99, have Macular Degeneration, can't walk without a walker and she said, "But one thing you have is your mind." I thought to myself but didn't say anything. After paying nearly $1400 for these, I'm not so sure. But probably when I get a little more used to them, I'll be glad I got them.