Butterflies are Free!

It is officially spring. As I was lounging in my hammock in the back yard reading a mystery novel, 'The Last Templar', which my friend CJ had given to me, I looked up over at the flowers I had planted and there were butterflies everywhere. All different kinds of them- yellow ones, monarchs, swallowtails etc. You see if I didn't plant so many flowers and herbs there would not be any butterflies. They are a symbol of the resurrection of our life. They have gone through their life cycle and feed off the beautiful flowers that we plant. They share the blossoms with the adorable hummingbird, God's helicopter, the bees and of course the nasty red wasps. They were even flirting with each other as they flitted through the air, letting the breeze take them up higher and into the forest. I looked at them and remarked to myself, 'this is good'. The freedom of the butterflies as they wispfully hover over the colors of the blossoms remind me of how wonderful this world can be and how God has put every creature on this earth for a reason. I urge everyone to plant a flower or a vegetable so that butterflies will always be free.

Making Wine

This has been a long process. Our friends CJ and Susan and ouselves decided we would make some wine. Being the good Italian lover that I am I found a local 'Water to Wine' store and we all went in to test their wines to decide on which ones we would like to make. Now this is not an easy process so we had to test many reds and whites. Finally we narrowed it down to one red, a 'Barolo' style and one white, a Pinot Gris. We put in the concentrates, the yeast, the oak etc. and after thorough mixings and testing they were ready to age in buckets.
A month or so later we came back to visit our 'babies'. They had been transferred to clear bottles and were percolating nicely. We tasted some new wines they had, very generous tastings and bought a few bottles. CJ and Susan seem to love the process. We are taking them with us to Italy to see the real thing next year.
Last Friday was B-Day, bottling day. We came in, after we had sent our labels in to get done. Thank goodness they had not been printed yet since I had sent a picture of our old red truck instead of our house for our labels. We bottled, corked. foiled and labeled 29 bottles of each, testing some as we went. It needed aging so they put some on 'aging magnets' which helped alot. After celebrating our 'children' Lynda, CJ, Susan and myself had a great dinner and dreams of Italy danced in our heads.

Getting an Award

It's been a busy week. Besides clearing brush and burning brush I have been working in the gardens. However, I had to take time from my busy schedule to drive down to Corpus Christi to receive an award. Now, I'm not about awards, but if someone is going to give me one, I'll take it. This was a special award- Texas Educator of the Year. This was given to me by a group dedicated to the preservation of Texas history, the Sons of the Republic of Texas. It was great honor. I even met Sam Houston IV. The irony of this is that I'm probably the only Canadian that has ever received this award. To be in the Sons of the Republic you must be able to trace your ancestry back to someone who fought in the Texas Revolution. The dinner was very good with chicken Dijon as the main course. They served an excellent chilled pecan pie for dessert. My wife Lynda accompanied me to Corpus and we got to see the beach at Corpus, probably for the last time. By the way the dollar is now at 1.35.4 to the Euro. I hope when I retire it will be better. Nothing I can do about it, but it deserves watching. We are planning our next trip to Italy as I write.

The Apple of My Eye

If anything stops us from moving to Italy it will be our grandson, Blake. He is so adorable and smart. Everyday we watch him on the webcam. Our daughter is set up in her basement and we see him doing all sorts of tricks. He talks and walks all over the place. His latest trick is to push his large Fisher Price piano all over their basement. He gets into corners and sometimes can manouver himself out of tight jams. He resembles a little old man pushing a walker, but only twice as fast. I guess we will be able to watch him on the webcam in Italy. By then he will be able to talk to us in sentences and God only knows what other 'tricks' he will have up his sleeve. He is only nine months old but it seems like evry day there is something new he does. Our daughter and her husband are moving back to Texas soon and will 'only be five hours from us instead of ten hours as they are now. All you who have grandchildren can relate to what I have said. I'll keep you posted.