I am the Daughter of an Eighty Year Old Man!

Boy, I'm not sure how that makes Dad feel, but it sure makes me feel old. We had a family get together for him in Cadeville this weekend. Several of we girls went early to help around the house and try and keep Mom from working with her one "perfectly normal" shoulder while her bones continue to knit together in the broken one.

What will remain imprinted in my mind from the weekend was the look of pure glee on Dad's face as he rode a two-foot clown bicycle- better than anyone else there. Same goes for the stilt walking. That's an eighty years old to look forward to, right?

In home front news, I got home late Sunday and Mike had just about completed putting the ipe around the sides of the deck. The next morning I saw my bedroom in the morning light and noticed water damage on the floor. I walked to the living and kitchen areas and noticed water damage on the wall in the kitchen. Rats! Rain got through the rock walls again. One more trip to the engineer and Mike says he has it licked- he has to move the flashing away from the back of the walls a bit so that water can't pool up when the rain comes down as hard and steady as it did over the weekend.

The kitchen wall will definitely need repairing. We'll see how I feel about the floor. It may just need a rug. That and a complete fix to the leakage problem.

In buzzard news...there was no sign of activity when I got home. Not surprising since Mike was out the this weekend- and the pinwheels are still up on the deck, along with a dandling water hose. However, this morning I saw two of the varmints flying towards the dead tree across the valley- usually a stopping place on the way to my much nicer deck. I went outside several minutes later, happy to see that there were no birds on the deck. Then I turned around to go inside and saw one perched on the corner of the roof right over the hot tub. Eeeeewww! I suppose I could place pin wheels on every corner of the roof, but they would probably adapt to that too.

We are thinking of motion sensor witch laugh things you get at Halloween. Any suggestions out there are welcome. (Forget termination. They are protected birds- $15,000 and six months in jail for harming them).

Oh, and they live twenty years. I just need to be HOME to fight them off. Arrgghhh!!