It has been a dry spring so far this year and that seems to have slowed down the blooming period for the flowers on the ground and flowering trees. We finally got almost two inches of rain during a 24 hour period a few days ago, which seemed to help. At the beginning of the month I noticed several turkey vultures soaring past our place, not circling but flying in a straight line north. I mentioned that to my dad and he said they were probably migrating. That was my lesson of the day because I had never seen them migrate and did not even know that they migrated. On Mothers Day our kids and their kids came out to the acreage to celebrate. The ladies went into town before lunch to do some shopping and have coffee, which left us boys sitting around outside talking and enjoying the warm morning. A couple of times the dogs took off chasing rabbits and Dean, our oldest grandson at 10, asked if he could shoot a rabbit. I said sure, and his dad Jesse told him if he got one he had to eat it. Dean said okay, grabbed his BB gun and was off. We were thinking nothing would come of it when not five minutes passed before he returned with a dead rabbit, a clean kill through the neck. Jesse proceeded to clean it in the grass, describing to the boys what he was doing and why and answering their questions. About an hour later there was rabbit on the grill next to the steaks and chicken, and true to his word Dean ate some. Later on he and I did some practice shooting at cans and sure enough he is a pretty good shot. Maybe this could become a family tradition, at least until we run out of rabbits.

For the last few weeks we have been engaged in the usual spring ritual of raking, stick picking and sawing up branches around the place. Between the ice storm last November, winter blizzards and windy days we have probably the most tree debris to clean up since we moved out here. One of the first times we walked around the acreage we counted 130 trees, most of them graceful, beautiful but frail white willows. Not the ideal tree for a windy environment. During Easter weekend we had both kids and their families out to celebrate, and our daughter brought her little Jackshund, Colt, not yet a year old. Our oldest dog, Marley, at 13 years old, has lost most of her will to play so was not very interested. Steve, our other dog, at 10 still has a little gas in the tank and so he and Colt went around the acreage together. After some time we realized we had not seen the two for awhile, and called and called for them. They had disappeared. Several of us got into two separate cars and went in opposite directions looking for them. During a pause in the search a van drove up and out hopped Steve. The driver said he found him in the grassy median of four lane Highway 20 looking scared and confused. When he opened the side door Steve jumped right in. He drove around asking neighbors if they knew the dog and someone said he belonged to us. We asked about Colt but he said only Steve was in the median. Now we had an idea what area to search and we did so, scanning the empty farm fields, driving Hwy 20, looking in culverts and ditches. No sign of him. We agreed that the young and inexperienced Colt was the one to wander off the acreage, with Steve following, because neither of our dogs will leave without one of us. For a few days after Steve stayed by our sides, lost his appetite and was spooked and skittish. There is still no sign of poor little Colt.