Black Hawk Lake fun

Had an enjoyable but way too short visit by my granddaughter recently.  She and a local friend were treated to some tubing fun as seen here.  The granddaughter, who lives in Miami Beach, Florida, is a high school cheerleader and being a teenager, was ready to return to  city life and her upcoming practices in preparation for the fall sport season. 

I have been overly busy this month (the reason for so few posts) with preparations for the super busy weekend coming up here in small town Iowa! Sounds like it will be a very hot weekend but hope people will still enjoy our annual carnival of events and that all the RAGBRAI bikers will arrive safely.  As for the other event, my 50th class reunion... that will be a once in a lifetime event!! 

Iowa State Capitol Bldg.

My granddaughter and I had the priviliege of being part of the large crowd of people who attended the annual 4th of a July Yankee Doodle Pops performance on the huge expanse of lawn of the Iowa state capitol. I aplogize that I used the wrong setting on my camera to get a better night shot of the unique gold dome at the top of the building but you can still get some of its beauty. Fortunately there was a fairly good breeze and less humidity than the day before to make the event more comfortable than we had expected.  It was still good though to finally get back into the cool comfort of my brother's Ankeny home. May our country's leaders earnestly seek to remember what made America the greatest nation on Earth when we first had a 4th of July to celebrate!

Dream Catchers

On our special craft day this summer, 17 children made their own "dream catchers". Seen here are just two of the children in the older age group that were assisted in making more complicated items with the help of my able assistant, Marcia! Ms. Dobson from Santa Fe, N.M. ended each of her 8 library storytelling presentations with a story about the meaning of the dream catcher.  She gave each of the Sac County libraries a dream catcher. In this picture she is presenting one to the children's librarian from Sac City.

More storyteller pictures

I was having trouble adding these pictures to the previous blog so just decided to start a new blog to include these pictures of the other 6 Sac County libraries that Ms. Dobson visited. This was her first visit to the state of Iowa and she was very impressed with the closeness of all the towns and that such small towns would even have a library. I told her that Iowa is known for having good readers!

Santa Fe Storyteller- Ms. Cynthia Dobson

Sac County libraries were treated to a storytelling program by Ms. Cynthia Dobson from Santa Fe, New Mexico. She told a variety of stories from native American myths to those of different countries. One story involved her use of a string trick.  Children from all 8 county libraries got to pick an item from her special bag of props.  Each item represented which story she would tell. She added some audience participation at times to get listeners involved.  With so much emphasis now on technology, live storytelling is becoming a rare art but for those who know to appreciate it, the experience is worthwhile.

More Tree Trimming- May 2012

Six days after our "BIG WIND" on May 22nd, trimming work began on my neighbor to the west. There's was the tree from which a large branch knocked down a corner of my back fence as well as knocking off the top of their chimney! It has been an amazing experience for me to watch this particular tree service company out of Danbury, Iowa, make use of all their powerful equipment.  They are the same company that tackled the two huge trees in front of my brother's cottage on the east side of my home the very morning after the storm!  Really a great bunch of workers! Lansink Tree Service! 

May 24 Before & After Clean Up

Some before and after scenes of the great clean up job done on my brother's lawn after the wind storm of May 23rd that hit the Lakewood Drive area.