On Father's Day (15th) we had family over for dinner.  Mae & Harold were actually up to coming and I think they had a good time.

 It was a very nice day so we set everything up outside and had an outside picnic.  We had ham, potatoes, salads, garlic bread, etc., etc!

Jodi and the kids ate on their picnic quilt.

Our friends, Jerry & Virginia McCardell joined us because they didn't have anything else better to do!!
  Our thought I got a picture of Grandma and Grandpa but apparently not.  They are sitting at the table where Lynn is.

After dinner activity - Adam decided to bury Rebecca in the sand!!!

Yesterday (5-31) we spent the day taking the tree down in the back yard.  Luke Henry came and helped which was greatly appreciated.  If the tree had been to the north about 10 feet we probably would have left it but when we move the swing set it will partly be where the tree stump is.

We got all of the branches from the tree into the pickup with the help of Luke climbing up on top and mashing things down a few times. Jim will take the load to the dump tomorrow.

Here's what's left.

The tree in the back corner that is on the back neighbors property had a limb up, about in the middle of it, that was broken.  It hung down over part of the fence and into the lilacs of our neighbor on the south side.  We talked Luke into climbing up in the tree and cut off the limb.  At first he wasn't so sure about it. Tried to tell us he was afraid of heights!  Then he was afraid he was going to fall out of the tree.  This is kind of a nasty tree.  The limbs are really hard to cut, even the little ones.  As he was going up the tree he had to cut out little dead branches that were attacking him.  But here he is doing his best with a little hand saw cutting that broken branch off.

We invited him to have dinner with us. Since his folks have been gone to Utah for  a step sisters graduation we invited him and his sister over for dinner.  I fixed hamburgers earlier in the day and all I had to do was throw them on the grill.  Good thing too.  Otherwise I don't know what we would have had!

We were so tired last night it was all I could do to actually take a shower.

We've been busy around here.  I didn't think it was going to be so hard to work up the flower beds in the back for some garden.
  Last Monday I spent all day doing this little section to plant cucumbers and squash.  I used the shovel, the claw, the hoola hoe and was so tired I couldn't think straight.  There is a lady up at the end of Howard that has rabbits and Ginny pigs.  We went up there and got some rabbit manure but I'm sure it wasn't enough.  We really need to add nutrients to this soil.

This is part of it done.  Still need to put the squash in.

Tuesday I kept telling myself I needed to get out there and work the ground for the tomatoes but just couldn't bring myself to it.  I was busy Wed. morning but had a thought of a friend that has a little Mantis tiller and got up the courage to call her.  She said they lost a bolt on one of the handles but it still worked.  I asked if we fixed the handle, could we use it.

So we went and got the Mantis.

In a matter of about 1 1/2 hours Jim worked up an area bigger than the area I worked on Monday and it was so much better.  

I got the tomatoes planted but was planting cantaloupe nearly in the dark at 9:45

and I wasn't nearly as tired as Monday night.  Jim on the other hand was tired.  I so appreciated his help though.

While he was tilling I was pulling tree roots out.  Not sure where they were coming from, most likely the tree in the back corner in the neighbors yard.

 We started pulling this long root in the middle of it and had to cut it off at the fence and it ran all the way to where I have squash planted.  It was hard to pull up too.

I have been doing some looking at information on raised bed gardening and saw several ideas about putting tomatoes on something to climb instead of in cages so I'm experimenting with having them on farm fence this year.

I decided to see how zucchini would do in a barrel.