Summer is almost here

Gate, Chateau St. Jean

Summer is almost here. I'm having to mow the lawn every 5-6 days now. We have been fortunate that we've gotten enough rain to keep it from drying out completely, but there have been times when that was a close call. It's supposed to start raining in another few hours and may rain most of the day tomorrow.

Calgary was a good trip. Many of the usual attendees were not there (economy and the flu), but still a reasonably good conference thanks mainly to participation from local folks. Canadians do throw a good party.

Linda has another week or so of school, and then she will be out for the summer. Two weeks ago we drove out to Cooperstown for the day. It was fun photographing at the Farmer's Museum. Hopefully, we will be able to squeeze in some more short trips before she has to go back in September.

We started trapping chipmunks on Saturday. So far, we have five of the little guys, and one gray squirrel. I think the population is still down thanks to the major reduction we did two years ago. I've sealed off the obvious openings into the house, but we still have something scratching around in the walls/ceiling.

This image is from our trip to Napa/Sonoma last July. We got to Chateau St. Jean before the tasting room was open, so we wandered around in the garden for a while.