Mel’s Minni Mart is one of the last places in the country where you can still buy food for a quarter. In fact, you can buy a Capri Sun juice for a quarter, a homemade cherry mash for a quarter, you can even buy an ice cream sandwhich, or a snickers, for 2 quarters. And if you don’t have any money, volunteer to do a little work, and they won’t charge you for your snacks! (But be careful what gossip you tell, Mel is in charge of writing the column for the local paper.)

The antique mall up the way has some great items. The display case to the left houses egyptian pottery for $16,000. The store atendent was getting a little ancy with us two back there and made a few causual swing-bys.

The nook.

Joel’s tree fell into the neighbor’s house, so a day was spent fixing chainsaws, wheeling wheelbarrows full of flinstone sized lumber, and watching charles and his brother devise a plan to bring the limb down safely.

Found an inflatable raft for sale at target, and took it out for a voyage on a little known lake . (Heidi volunteered to inflate it). On the second adventure, there were two guys on the bank fishing for catfish. They got a pretty good chuckle out of seeing the Banana Ship afloat carrying two sailors.

A storm rolled through Lincoln Monday evening and a couple places got walloped by the wind and hail. I saw a motorhome tipped over and sitting on its side, large branches on top of cars, corn stripped and blown over, as well as a trampoline tossed into a ravine and dangling from a tree limb.

Lani and Adam came home to visit before their move to the east coast. as a result, a four hour portrait session took place. the little squirt ended up peeing on her twice while he was in the nude. the poor little guy, twenty years from now, he’ll probably hate me because of these pictures.

took Adam fishing. he didn’t catch anything but Ron let him reel in a catfish he hooked using marshmellows as bait.

Joel’s been shooting a series on bees recently, and being around the house, i have been helping gas them, catch them, and pose them. i had mentioned to him the field of sunflowers that i photographed earlier as a good place to get some “sexy photos” of insects. So, we loaded up ALL his photo gear and took off for the location. Initially, we had planned to take the service road right up to the field, but unfortunately, it was too muddy. So, using a ladder as a stretcher, we pilled all the photo gear on to it, and gurnied it in. Once there, much to our dismay, the field is spent and only a handfull of plants still had yellow petals. Making the best out of a bad situation, we lugged in the generator, and spent 3 hours running between several blooming sunflowers trying to capture images of bees. (this is one photo shoot i’ll never forget). (the bottom photo is Joel walking the generator back to the truck)

went home for the weekend after joel returned. main reason for the trip was to get myself a new cell phone, but the plan fell apart. took my camera out on the lake for the first time. i had it tripple wrapped in plastic and also an underwater housing. the contraption was too bulky so ended up pulling it out and using my body as a shield from the water.

went fishing over on orval’s. when we first got there, we were greated by a beaver slapping his tail against the water. likewise, as we left, we were ushered away by the same antic. about 30 small crappie were dead and floating, don’t know if it was due to the warm temps or dad spraying the beans.

went over to andrews hoping to get some photos of him breaking in his new horse; unfortunately, he was out bailing.

after the hair cut, muldoon was soo ashamed / scared of his new look. gone was his boistorous attitude, and a timid shy hound with tail between his legs was left. luckily the trauma wore off after a few days of running on the trails and seeing other “smaller” dogs.

bohemian tractor pull involved strapping four youths to an old tractor after having spent the entire day in 100 degree weather, eating kolaches, drinking beer, and wearing czech costumes.

went out for a bike ride and happened upon a field of sunflowers. stayed and shot for about an hour. saw 3 white tale dear, 2 pheasants, and a lot of cone flowers.

motorcycle roadtrip to Seward got sidetracked due to a heavy downpour of rain attacking us as we were 5 miles away. a quick u-turn and we found a perfect place for a picnic and photos.