Visiting Day

I didn't see the sign when I got up, but yesterday was Visiting Day.  The phone rang all day long and into the evening (I almost titled this "Can you hear me now?") with most welcome calls from family and friends near and far.  At one point I had three in a holding pattern!  I talked to a niece in New Hampshire and a friend in Sacramento; she and I talk maybe once a year or so, among others.  I enjoy the convenience of wireless phones, but there is one place I will not take the phone and it was hard to squeeze in a potty break.  It was grand to catch up on everyone's news, and I didn't have to dust to enjoy their company.

The only things that got done yesterday, I didn't do.  Cam came up in the afternoon to set rat traps in the feed room.  These are the old-fashioned kind with an enormously strong bar and I don't have the hand strength anymore to set the lever without losing a finger in the process.  Rats have completely destroyed that room and everything in it.  Camille brought, not Honey, but Sammi, a younger German Shepherd.  Sammi is such a happy dog with a constantly grinning face.  She and Bessie played for a bit until Sammi went to work digging for ground squirrels.  She was a dog on a mission.  Bess pooped out after awhile and just watched "the kid."

Not long after Camille left, Beau drove up unexpectedly on his big tractor.  He'd gotten my message asking for help with John Dear and had come riding to the rescue.  It seems the problem was a bit more involved than I'd thought and sundown was coming on, so he decided to take John to his house to take a closer look.  Because, of course, John wouldn't start, Beau left to get his nephew to help haul JD up the road.  I had just enough time to put the girls to bed and get back to the house (where the phone was ringing) before Beau came back.  Since I'd only be in the way, I left him to it and answered the call.  By this time, I felt like Lily Tomlin in Laugh-In as Ernestine, the telephone operator ("One ringy-dingy").

It was a good day.