Sunny September

I am really excited...the plum trees are loaded this year!

 So, I went out and picked......

and look what happened! :-)

On the way to play pickleball at the school,
I spotted this wind-damaged canola field.

Glad we combine our canola "straight" 
instead of swathing it....

 Looks like we're getting an update on our track

The train was about ten cars long....

 Bambi has been eating the apples 
from our flowering crab apple trees

 Bob decided we needed to close up the camper
when he got back from 3 1/2 weeks at Jimmy's

 The trees and lake were really pretty that day.

The "second-last (vegetable) of the season"

Final "fruits of the harvest"

Our first frost of the season--

only thing left in the garden is a row of carrots

which are always sweeter after a frost.

Temp at 8 a.m on Friday, Sept. 28th

On Jett's birthday, the 29th,

we headed to Minot for the Norsk Hostfest

Darci Lynne and her friends
performed in the Great Hall

"Oscar" was learning how to talk to girls

 I thought it was funny that "Edna" was an old lady :-)

 "Katie" sang "Summertime"

 This was the crowd in the concert hall

 The "Ringling Five" (actually seven) 
are Montana ranchers who write their own songs
They are really funny!

 A Neil Diamond Tribute was led 
by Matt Valine, nephew of Bobby Vee

 Bobby's son Tommy played the bass fiddle

Julie (Matt's wife) sang with Matt and Tommy
while another of Bobby's sons, Jeff, played the drums

Cold or not, we have a beautiful sunrise in North Dakota

A "Gusty" August

Hot and windy describe August so far...

On August 7th and 8th, 
friends Terry and Lola from Tennessee came to visit

in their RV. We had met them at our park in Texas
and introduced them to "pickleball."

 Terry got a ride in the boom bucket and the combine
the day they arrived and helped Bob load a 
combine pickup header that he had sold.

 Lola and I opted out...

 On Wednesday we stopped at the school en route

to the International Peace Garden.  They met

We'el Turtle in Dunseith on the way.

The floral clock greeted us at the entry.

 We walked the full length of the garden,
visited the 911 Memorial, the Peace Chapel,
the Cactus Solarium, the Game Warden Museum,
and had perfect weather for seeing the flowers.

 The displays of cacti and other succulents

 have doubled in the last few years.

 From the Peace Garden, we went to 
Mystical Horizons, stopped at our
camper for some refreshments, and then
headed to Rugby.

 We arrived in time for hamburgers and ice cream
and enjoyed the car show, craft vendors,
and concert in the park.

 The sun was actually orange when we were
leaving Rugby,  but my the camera didn't capture it.

 We now sport "Tennessee" tees and have a box of 
"Moon Pies" and some new spices for our next meal.

 Our guests had unhooked their car for the drive up and down
the gravel road.  Terry "reconnects" before heading to Medora.

We had a great "Tennessee" visit!

The weekend after Terry and Lola left, 
the museum in Rugby had a two-day festival.

 The first day we traveled to the 
Dakota Territory Air Museum in Minot.
They have expanded to several buildings
and twenty-five planes.

 One of the buildings was cooled by this "cool" fan!
The temp was 102 in Minot...

This plane was flown by a famous Doyle in Minnesota.

The Fair was on Sunday and Bob 
had to help at the Germans from Russia booth.
The temp when we got home was still high!

A few days later we began harvesting wheat.

 Unloading the semi at the farm...

Bob is in the tractor watching the truck unload.

On the 20th, I played pickleball in Rugby

and two ladies came from Maddock to join us.

Bob left to help Jimmy on the 22nd,
Cody and the guys were working on machinery in the yard.

I was working in the house when I heard
Steve S. from Rugby fly over in his spray plane.

 It's always exciting to watch him fly over...

and try to get a great close-up like this one!

Before.....

 I was trying to figure out why the 
air-conditioner didn't work very well.
We have had this for several years,
and I didn't know that there were 
two filters.  The top one has been
cleaned several times, but the lower
one apparently has never been cleaned.

After....I removed the back cover

(14 screws) and brushed the

filter with a soft toothbrush...

then used my new hand vac. :-)

 August 30th: Cousin Myron came with his stump grinder
to clean up the mess made by our fallen trees.

 He had a pretty cool machine to help him!

 Finishing the Canola harvest..Marcos 
is dumping the grain from the cart into the semi.

Marcos is Cody's hired man from Brazil.