Mountains and Islands

It's been awhile since I've posted. Quite a lot has happened. And nothing at all has happened too. For two weeks we spent entertaining my dad, who was visiting from the Mainland. He's never been to Hawaii and never flown over the ocean. So this was a big adventure for him, to say the least. We spent two days in Waikiki, one of which was spent touring the Arizona Memorial and the Battleship Missouri. I know he enjoyed it, although it just about killed him. Dad can't walk too far or too fast these days. He insisted he would start a regimen to build his stamina and strength as soon as he gets home. Of course, he also vowed to do that weeks ago so he would be in shape for his visit here. I'm sure he walked more during the past two weeks than he has in years. Maybe in decades. Nonetheless, I think he enjoyed himself, despite the rain. We toured the island, checked out the visitor's center and museum at Volcano's National Park and ate out a lot. He loved Nori'...

I have a strange family compared to many others I know. The Steinberger clan (that's mom's side of the family) is close, yet we speak with one another rarely and see each other even less often. My cousin Amy called me today and, as always, it was great to hear her voice. Like me, Amy knows that, no matter how much time passes between calls, we're still family and will always love one another. Amy and I, and the rest of our immediately family for that matter, are not so good at keeping in touch. We're pretty bad about remembering each others' birthdays. We sometimes call on holidays, sometimes not. We often don't communicate directly for months, or even years at a time. The beauty of this system is that we never wear out a welcome; we never get sick of or irritated with each other. Because we aren't meddling constantly in each others' lives, we not only continue to love each other, but actually like each other. It works for us. Of course, regardless of ho...

Farm livin' is the life for me..... The tractor has arrived. It is very cool and quite a workhorse, I must say. The salesman made point of telling us "It's not a Cadillac" more than once. Thank goodness for that. Ron had a Cadillac once. What a piece of junk. Once, he was entertaining coworkers from Germany and, while driving them in his Cadillac to dinner, he reached to adjust the rear-view-mirror, only to have it fall off in his hand. Needless to say, they weren't impressed with American engineering and quality. Of course, these days, Mercedes and Volkwagon don't have much to brag about either..... John Deere, however, is different from General Motors. They make stuff that both works and lasts. This tractor isn't fast, but it's steady and strong. In about three hours, we cleared around two large trees and added a few feet to our accessible land. That may not sound like much, but if you'd seen just how overgrown it was, you'd be amazed. We did...