July 2, 2005

Robert & Lori's mansion in New Hope...	Sunday morning we all went to Mt. Pleasant for church.  Bro. Elvin Shank preached an evangelistic sermon.  After the service and the standard visiting with friends the whole Showalter family drove down to New Hope for dinner at Robert & Lori's.  She had a wonderful meal: Grilled chicken thighs, scalloped potatoes, corn, salad, caramel custard, strawberries and angel food cake.  We left right after lunch to head back to SC.  Got back home around 9:00.  Wonderful and marvelous to be back home again after 5 days away.
A delicious Sunday dinner by Lori.	Monday morning I headed off to work.  Ina Sue was supposed to take the day easy to continue her recuperation.  Instead she washed & ironed the clothes, tied up the tomato plants and took care of the punkin.  I picked up my car today from Byer's Tire.  After about 3 weeks and a $2000 bill my car has a running engine that doesn't slurp oil....  I'm afraid that after all the trouble it caused, Joe Byers will be happy to never see that car again.... After I got home from work I picked a bunch of overgrown cukes from the garden and cut them up for cinnamon cucumber rings.  I also made up two batches of french bread.
A baby robin outside Papa's garage	Tuesday was a rainy day.  I had another pretty hectic day trying to catch up from the time off last week.  Ina Sue finished up the ironing then cleaned the oven.  For supper she made us a reuben loaf and a vegetable casserole that we both thought was delicious.  After supper she cooked up some chicken while I caught up the webpage journal.
Scattering of the corn flakes...	It rained again on Wednesday.  I spent the morning on a service call to an Owens Corning plant in Aiken to hook up a network printer.  Ina Sue did some work on Carolina Sue's scrapbook.  In the afternoon she took the baby to get her 1-year shots.  Carolina did not enjoy a single one of the 4 shots they gave her!  The vaccinations seemed to make her feel pretty rough and fussy for the next several days.  Ina Sue grilled us hamburgers on the grill and fixed a cucumber salad with fresh peaches & blackberries for dessert.  After supper and the dishes I went over to the school around 8:00 to do some more work on the cubby-holes.  Got home a little after 12:00.
Installing the ceiling in the school gym.	Carolina Sue felt terrible on Thursday.  Ina Sue said she acted so pitiful it was almost cute....  Due to comforting the baby, Ina Sue didn't get everything done that she wanted to.  She did get a new dress cut out though.  I had service calls to two radio stations in Barnwell this afternoon.  I was stuck at the WIIZ until after 9:00 so I missed out on seeing my daughter before she went to bed. :(  After I got home we fixed us pina-coladas and lounged around enjoying them.
Rebecca Jo Strite (Kent & Rhonda's)	I took Carolina Sue along with me to work on Friday to give Ina Sue a break.  I had a day pretty full of service calls and I just dragged her along.  She actually seemed to enjoy being out of the house and the customer's all seemed to enjoy her as well.  By 3:30 she was getting tired and hungry so I dropped her off at home and went on into the shop by myself.  Ina Sue spent her relaxed morning cleaning the house, and doing some cooking & baking.  She fixed us a delicious pepper steak recipe over rice, with corn and cucumber salad on the side.  After supper I mowed the front and side yards so the place wouldn't look completely terrible over the weekend.  Soon after I got done a tremendous thunder storm blew up.  The power went out for about a half hour and we just sat out on the front porch and enjoyed the awesome display of light and sound...
Duane's Jenna with our truckload of corn.	We got up at 5:00 Saturday morning and got everything together for our big corn processing day at Nevins.  We got there soon after 7:30 but it was about 8:30 before Kent, Karen, Kari & Duane got there with a very large truckload of corn.  We paid Harlan Heges for 2,000 ears but they threw in some extra on top of that.  The whole family jumped into the tasks of husking and silking.  Even with all the help it was still after 1:00 before the last ear was silked.  It looked like tons of corn sitting there in ice chest after ice chest.  Nevin, Duane & Milton used three outdoor cookers to process the corn, then the rest of us worked at cutting it off, creaming some of it, then putting it in containers.
Husking & silking as a family project.	It was a pretty hot day but with lots of fans blowing on us and the shade of the garage it wasn't too bad.  The guys outside with the cookers had the hardest time with the heat.  Carolina Sue and Jenna enjoyed taking a swim in one of the corn tubs that we filled with water.  We cut corn and cut corn as the seemingly endless procession of chest full of corn kept coming in from the cookers.  The last ear was finished a little before 6:00 then came the big job of cleaning up.
Jenna & Carolina sneak a bath to cool off.	We had brought along a supper of pig BarBQ to take to Kents to welcome their new addition.  However, by the time we finished up the corn we were completely tuckered out so we sent the food home with Kent in an ice chest and hurrried back across the river.  We were beat by the time we got home so we quickly unpacked and all got to bed fairly early.  Oh, the grand total of corn frozen by the Strite gang today was 480 pints!  We all think that next year we will probably be able to sit the season out....
Duane & Nevin man the cookers....	While the rest of us cut off the corn.