The new header picture

About my new header picture:  Of course I have already posted pictures of the finished Oliver 1855 project, but our daughter has a professional-quality camera, and Cliff wanted some real glamour shots of his tractor.  She took a LOT of pictures and posted them on Facebook.

The picture my son chose as the best one had one little flaw; a green metal stool had been left in place after Cliff used it to climb up and put a different pipe on the tractor.  He suggested that Rachel have somebody photoshop the stool out of the picture.  Since Rachel works for a company that does photo-processing for professional photographers, she has the resources and knows the right people to work such magic, and the resulting photo is the one on the header.   Here's a slideshow of most of the pictures she took that day.  Unless you are a tractor aficionado, you'll probably want to skip the slideshow.

Toward the end, you'll see some pretty young ladies in the pictures; they are granddaughters Natalie and Monica.

First thing I read this morning on the Internet was that there was an earthquake in Oklahoma, and that it was felt by some in Kansas City.  Now that's getting a little too close to home.  Many years ago when we lived on our first acreage, Cliff and I were lying in bed one morning and felt a small earthquake.  What a strange feeling.  (Added later:  Cliff tells me he felt the quake last night and thought the dog was under the couch moving it, which would have been a feat in itself because our couch only clears the floor by about an inch.  I was asleep by then, therefore blissfully ignorant.)


Iris is 100% herself, back to watching TV with us and attacking any animals that show up on the screen.  Last night I knew she was fine when she started devouring the dog food that had been untouched for twenty-four hours.