Busy Week

Last weekend was a busy week, this week has been busy as well and today we are expecting company for this weekend.  Here are a few photos from what has been happening but not much commentary.

We headed north on August 4 to attend a cousin's birthday party. We arrived in  northern Ohio early enough to take a quick driving tour of our three favorite birding areas beside Lake Erie.

At Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge, I made a bathroom stop and noted a flyer on the receptionist's desk describing the American Lotus. I had been calling all the flowers with the big leaves growing in the water waterlilies. But now I know American Lotus grows on stems that extends well above the water.

Tom took this photo from the van at Metzger Marsh.

We had a good time at the potluck birthday party but were chased back to our van by an approaching storm since we were sitting outside.

The next day we went to the annual Smith family reunion. I have a photo of me attending it when I was six years old. The reunion has been held at a variety of places...the farm of Lena and Charles Smith, and then the farms and homes of their children. For the last ten or twenty years it has been held at what most of us call "the Ratner cabin".

There is always a potluck dinner at noon. I didn't take a photo until most people had had dessert but you can see there is some left for the nibblers.

We old folks talk and talk and talk and look at photos from reunions of the past.

 

The children have fun, too.

The reunion was lightly attended this year, probably because there was rain all morning. Some years there are close to two hundred attending. This year there were more than fifty but less than a hundred. But as Helen pointed out, "When there aren't so many people here, we get to talk with each one more. When there are a lot of people here, we get to see and say "Hi" to a lot of people."

She also told me about this beautiful fungus on one of the trees. The fungi is close to the size of a soccer ball.

When we returned home I immediately started gathering supplies for a Children's Drawing session on Tuesday. Other artists in the area teach on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. There were seventeen or eighteen young students, ages almost six through nine. Here is one drawing from the drawing session. I'll put all of them up this coming Tuesday.