I'm a Sophie Doodle Dog!

Hello dear friends.  Sophie and I have been very negligent when it comes to our blog.  I have no reasonable excuse for our behavior, so I might as well get to the business at hand! We had the first big snow of the season over night.  There's probably 7" outside as I write and the forecast is calling for another 3" tonight.  I'm like a little kid.  I love snow!  So does Sophie.  She demands to go out much more often when she realizes it has snowed.  The first order of business is to roll around on the ground until she's covered in snow.  I don't have a picture of her in today's snow, but this is from earlier in December.  She is such a clown! D My favorite farmer/husband has all the equipment he needs to clean out our farm lot and driveway.  In turn he cleans out the drives of our neighbors who don't own such. He went out a bit ago which leaves me time to write!   So much has happened since I last posted. We travel...

Six inches of rain on the farm over 3 days.  It is often annoyingly humid here in central Illinois to begin with and after all the rain, it seems even worse!   Working in the yard feels like working in a sauna! I walked out of the gym yesterday to find my sunglasses fogging up as I walked to my car.  The rain came in buckets with winds blowing, lightning crashing, and thunder rolling, then slowing down to a gentle shower. Our mailbox blew over, a first, and a dead apple tree fell over in the wind that accompanied the storm.  We needed the rain because the crops were dry. We had to hire a tree service to take out a huge tree in our front yard.  As far as I can figure, it had to be over 65 years old.  It provided the most lovely shade and I am heartbroken to had to have it cleared away.  The tree we planted to replace it looks so tiny. It was struck by lightning shortly after we remodeled the house.  The strike killed a neighbori...