birthday 66

Every time June 29 rolls around I get one year older. Family came and helped me enjoy the day. They watched me blow out the six candles. I blew upward to keep spittle off the perfect icing. I said a few profound words of wisdom but I forget what the gist of it was.

photo by Joel

week away

A beautiful week away on vacation! One day we biked part of the Pittsburgh to Baltimore rails-to-trails trail--well, 11 miles of it, anyway. Another day I drove 12 miles west on old U. S. route 40 to Addison, Pa., to see the extreme art of chain saw sculpting and the restored toll station.

meet Raspberry

evacuation, the fourth

The deportation program is up and running again today. At 9 a.m. we got the big enchilada, the huge groundhog mom who would stand on the rock pile and guard the four pups while they browsed. Finally, an apple slice she couldn't resist. She bared her teeth at me. Lunged at the corners of the cage. Laid on her back and tried to chew out. I was half scared for a few moments. In her eyes shame, remorse, regret, but not resignation. At Mascot she was still fighting when I pulled up the trap door an inch and she pushed it far enough to get out and leap into the Mill Stream and paddle away. She'll find the other guys. Now, the runt of the bunch remains to catch. It was watching some of mom's ordeal.

evacuation, the third

Here's the third volunteer, ready to make a deal. But he's now trauma-free, free to associate with his two siblings already deported to Mascot at exactly the same spot. One monster mom and one pup to go!

evening singing martyr hymns

With a soft rain falling on Elizabethtown last evening, I led the Foresingers in a program at a conference on the Martyr's Mirror. After a meal we took the stage at 7:00. Around the table, clockwise starting with closest: David Sauder, Patricia Martin, Lynn Sommer, Sarah Schrock, me, and Joel Alderfer. On the stage notice other two singers: Leon Miller, third from left and Stephanie Horst, second from right.

evacuation one

Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do. Of the five critters I've seen behind the barn, this is the first pup to be caught. It's parent is at least three times as big. A site says: Today, there are more groundhogs, red fox, gray fox, opossum and raccoon in the United States than at any previous time in U.S. history.

I did not water board, interrogate,terrorize, or threaten in any way. I did not follow the advice of the locals who told me to drown. I moved this guy to the township line and released him in a creek bank, far from any house.

meal with cousin

Everyone spread out for the weekend. A cousin's son I never met visited and made it special for me. Christian Lehman works at Letourneau U in Texas. He grew up in Goshen, Indiana, and the Marshall Islands which his mother calls home. My older brother and his wife hosted him. I joined them for lunch at the Taj Mahal, an Indian restaurant.

June weekend

This first June weekend I start out alone. One couple is biking in NYC. The other is weekending in Niagara Falls. And Dorcas goes to a class reunion in Maryland with three classmates.