My how bats fly when you're having fun!

First of all, I have to say how glad and lucky and fortunate and all I must be to come back after my weekend away to find the bat I so worried about.  He was indeed dead.  He was not dead in some corner.  I am grateful because to be honest, I was not going to search that room to find a decaying bat.  Trust me.  Thank you God for your kindness to me in this particular instance.  You won't be so kind next time.

Let's see, the second thing is that Eden has developed.....................an interest in wearing my cupped bra.  This is so terribly cute and funny and mortifying all at the same time.  I mean, first of all, these are totally not proportional to her tiny frame.  Secondly, they are already mama boobs...they are practically on her stomach.  Thirdly, Ruthie, it sure beats bouncing your elbows!!!  Eden is not embarrassed by this.  Well, she didn't seem to be at all as she carried on normally for the 2 days she wore this under her clothes, but as soon as Levi got here with his friend Ty (Ty and Eden are in the same class at school and church) she took it off and hasn't put it back on.  Too, too funny!

We forgot to close the garage door last night.  You'd think that would be no big deal, but here at the farm, the bandits are out before dark and they didn't take much time to devour all the goodies we had to offer them today.

Take a look past the bikes.

And some more towards the back of the garage.

And more still.

I was not going to lie to granddad about the garage door.  I also wasn't going to stick around to hear him yell about it, so I strapped on my "let's get serious" garb and let out a big almost depressed sigh and got busy cleaning up the stupid, putrid smelling garage.  It's only 9am.  What kind of a day is this going to be?

We spent the day working on this project.  Granddad wanted this bush/amazon/tree area cleared and so we decided to go ahead and do it.

The entire area was covered in little trees and other stalks that grew from branches that were too heavy and just lay on the ground.  Hundreds of these little trees, many of which were clustered and had to be pulled out by the roots, were beckoning us in the 90° heat to break our backs and our hands to pull them out.

Inside this area is a tree with 3 trunks and then, as you can see to the left there, over a dozen other mini trunks that amounted to nothing more than a huge inconvenience.  We still have to figure out how we are going to separate that chunk from the tree portion that we are trying to keep in tact.

As you can see, we are mostly done.  I have never sweat so much as I did during this project and should have dropped 10 pounds in the process.  Apparently it doesn't work that easily.  Hopefully we will finish it today and when we do, it will become the home of the tree house Tim intends to build.

After dinner, we drove to the farm on the west side of town to try and walk around.  We have never been out there with the kids and I knew there was some neat stuff to see.  On the way out of the lane this buck runs across the road and goes into the woods next to us and just stands there.  At this rate, come hunting season, he is a goner real quick!

Here is one of the barns at the other property.  Off limits, of course.

There is this huge, towering, dead tree in the middle of all the lush greenery.  Odd.

This looked like a chicken coup or a sheepfold or something for some kind of animals.

This is, obviously, just a bit of the farmland.  It, like the main property, is beautiful!

There is a house on the property, but you don't realize where it is until you are looking through these creepy trees and it hits you, almost secretly because of how it blends in.

Everything is so overgrown that we need to go back to put pants on to walk up to it, but this must have, at one time, been a very nice house.  It is a shame, and I am continually amazed at the contradictory mindset out here.  Such a beautiful property gone to waste, a one-time potential income property and instead it stands in shambles, probably a home for any and all animals willing to nest here.  It is so sad to me to see money and history and potential left to rot, rust and get infested with rodents. Maddening. 

In all that junk was one lone Tiger Lilly, also known as the Karen North Lilly.  It is beautiful and I may have Tim go back and dig it up to try and get it to grow here at the farm.  We will see.

We got back and put the kids to bed and ended up talking to Phil and Shelley as they had their yard sale, of sorts when out of nowhere, a kamikaze bat comes flying into the room we are in.  We jumped up ran sat there and screamed like girls...yes, Tim too...and basically panicked as Tim prodded me to get up and take care of it what with all my experience as of late.

Did he come to my rescue at all?  No.  He just sat there shouting with me and at me as I shouted at him.  Before we knew it, the bat was gone and the problem was, we didn't have a clue as to where.  We found out later, after Tim finally went upstairs to put on a shirt and pants, that the bat clearly wanted out.  I sat on the couch and Tim, armed with a full-sized mattress cover (?????) was out by the back door with it open when out of the living room the night bird was taking flight again, round and round my head.

I was yelling...I was mad at Tim for not coming in here to take care of it.   The bat was coming in by me, doing fly-bys and then leaving, just teasing me.  Tim told me to get it because he was at the opposite end of the house as the bat (conveniently) knocking on the wall by the back door to help guide the bat to the door.  A lot of good that did when I was yelling from the other room.  No way was I getting it.  That nasty thing came so close to my head.  I had full intention to take the top to the Lego's bucket and swat at it in the hopes to knock it out of flight and then somehow pick it up and shoo it outside.  Long, more dramatic story made short, the bat flew out the back door.  Lucky for Tim because I was about ready to go to bed and leave him to fend for himself and I would not have looked back.

After all that excitement and the long grueling day, guess what I got in return for all my hard work and my bravery in the line of duty?  Insomnia.  Yep.  I was awake almost all night.  I tried.  My body was tired.  My eyes were burning.  I listened to music.  I could not get to sleep.  I am about tired and frustrated to tears when I fell asleep at 4:30 only to wake up at around 10 til 5.  Lord, have mercy on all those around me today, including me.