Happy birthday Grandpa!

The girls and I were at the farm from Nov. 29 - Dec. 1. Dad's birthday was on the first. Greg had to work on the 29th and 30th, and we had tickets to Gordon Lightfoot on the evening of the first, so Greg wasn't able to come with us. Auntie Dawn was working, which meant that Corbin was with Mom. It also meant that Emily and Corbin were able to wrestle for three days. Because Corbin is only 1 1/2, he thinks that whatever wrestling moves Emily teaches him can be honed to perfection on Sophie. Needless to say, we had to keep our eyes open.

We had DQ ice cream birthday cake for Dad on the 29th, since it was the only night during our visit that all of us could be together. It was fabulous - he still hadn't snuck away to his chair in the living room, so we didn't have to drag him out of there to sing happy birthday and cut his cake. In fact, when I brought the cake up to the kitchen from the basement freezer, I walked right by him and he didn't notice?!? Priceless.

While the girls and I were out at the farm we were able to have a tour of Martin's yard. He, Dad and his father-in-law Mike ripped out all of the poplar trees from the west side of the quonset. There are only three remaining; they were on the north side of the row, and had been separated from the rest of the row by a trail out to the field. The old hill that Dad made when he made the dugout was used as fill dirt. Gravel was hauled in to cover the fill.

Gone are the low spot where we used to fill our rubber boots with water each spring. Gone is the tree that I climbed and carved at the age of twelve (yup, Greg, I was twelve). Martin looked for the tree, but couldn't find it. He had climbed it a couple years ago, so he knew that my carving was still intact. It would be so cool if I could have a slice of that tree with my initials. We may find it one day, as the trees were dragged to the back of the yard. Martin plans to cut some of them up some day. The pile is huge; there is a  lot of fire wood there.

Here are the pictures from the last three days.