we have turtle eggs. the last time we visited up north, ephelba saw a snapping turtle mother come lay her eggs in the back yard. later we went out there and looked where they were. she hadn’t picked a good spot, really. it was very close to a large ant nest. and we read that the ants would find and eat the eggs. so we took them and moved them with us back home. the eggs were duced difficult to find. for future reference, the turtle mother digs at a slant to bury her eggs, and not straight down. so at last we found them and now we have a lovely scientific experiment being conducted on our back porch. boy is very excited. first, though, we found out the snapping turtles are nowhere near endangered or threatened or anything like that. they’re about as common as dirt, which comforted us. so if we screw up, we haven’t help doom a species to extinction. we know right where we are going to let the babies go when they hatch out. there is a lovely nature center nearby which is crying out for turtles. we’ve had the eggs for about six weeks, but the eggs will need at least another four weeks before they hatch. we are really hoping hard that it all works out. even if snapping turtle adults are not all that pretty, the babies are bound to be cute. and not too bitey.

we also have tomatoes. they have exploded out of the ground. the plants are as tall as me. i've never seen that. and they are covered with blossoms and small, round, green tomatoes. it is so satisfying to go out there and look at them. to think that they started from so small a seed! and all the pain in the ass they were in the seedling stage. jeez! carry them in at night so they don’t get frosted, carry them out in the morning so they can get some sunlight, pick them up after a storm knocks them over, keep children from poking them, and then remember to water them. [right now, ephelba is messing with me as i write this. she simply can’t stand it when i write something and am not paying attention to her. you should see her, dancing around, hopping from one foot to the other; wondering aloud if she has to poop. at last she goes to bed and i may finish] so soon we will have actual eating tomatoes. i think we will have enough to try and sun dry some of them. that will be cool. and i am so looking forward to this wonderful meal we are going to have: caprisi salad- sliced tomato and fresh mozzarella cheese drizzled with olive oil; thinly sliced cold roast pork, some lovely bread, and really cold white wine. of course i don’t tell the tomatoes this. they would just curl up and die if they knew. we just enjoy them for their own sake, as far as they know.

we have some peppers, too. i don’t know what exact kind they are. last winter i had purchased some dried chile peppers, they looked like ancho peppers or something like that. so i saved the seeds, and just for a little experiment, planted some. now we have six knee high pepper plants that all seem to have a lot of blossoms and some even have the little baby peppers growing, too. i hope they turn out to be tasty, though of course, we don’t tell the peppers that. so lots of growing things around here.

boy is growing. his shoes no longer fit. we’ll have to get him up against the measuring wall and see how far he’s gotten since last summer. boy lost a tooth recently. just for fun, we’ve really been pushing the tooth fairy thing. boy is so confused. ephelba has been so good at making the switch (of tooth for money) that boy cannot figure out how it happened. yet he can’t quite let himself believe in the tooth fairy either. it makes him squirm all over trying to deal with it.

airplane mechanic school is going well. we’ve been covering electricity all this month. a subject that i know oh so well from my dark days at the ‘U.’ anyway, all they are teaching here is ‘beginning electricity 101 lite,’ so its nothing that i haven’t seen before, but its just a hoot to listen to all the pissing and moaning coming from all the folks around me. oh its so hard! they cry. shit. they don’t know from hard. they haven’t even had calculus! they should try a real circuit analysis class! it all makes me feel like i am getting very stupid. nothing at that school has made me tax my brain, except to memorize shit. or spend hours looking up references to obscure aviation regulations. we keep hoping it will get better. when we get to reciprocating engines, or even turbine engines. that will be cool. can’t wait. just hang on till then.