Aaron Ewer

One of the great things about autumn is the bounty of farm harvests and a lot of fall festivals. It must be incredibly satisfying to finally see the results of the tilling, the planting, the fertilizing and the weeding, and watering. and all the care and concern the farmers have spent on their crops.

A lot of farmers in this area grow corn and there has been a relatively new family attraction popping up all over the heartland with picking your own pumpkin, hayrides and now corn mazes.

A family in Virginia has been creating corn mazes since 1999 and each year they get a photo of it from the air so you can see the thought and effort that goes into designing and cutting these complicated mazes. Their farm is called Cows n Corn and if you live within driving distance you might want to mark your calendar for a visit to their working farm in virginia’s Fauquier County and take the kids through their maze - this year’s maze opens on Friday, August 29. If your kids are a little older, have them bring flashlights and go through the maze at night, then stick around for the campfire and hand dipped ice creams.

This summer has been really buggy. I have seen bugs and critters in my daily life that I have either never seen before EVER or some that it’s been years since I’ve seen them in the wild.

Last night a weird little creature landed on the yard swing for a few minutes and contemplated its next landing zone. It looked like a combination of a dragon fly and a bumble bee. I have never seen anything quite like it. And have no idea what it was. It flew off across the yard before I could think to pick up the cell phone and snap a photo of it.

Saturday night I was at a vending machine busy dropping quarters into the coin slot and noticed something moving at the rear of the machine. In a moment a creature slowly emerged, climbing the wall of the building behind the vending machine. It slowly crept upward and as it emerged from it’s hiding place I realized that it was a praying mantis. Now folks, I have not seen a praying mantis in the wild - EVER and the only one I’ve seen in my whole life was in my high school Biology class.

Now we are having issues with fleas on my dogs. We have not had fleas in the house or on the dogs for years. I don’t know why all of a sudden all of the dogs are digging and scratching and fighting fleas. we gave them all a bath with flea shampoo last night and tomorrow I’m going to have to stop by the vet and pick up a better flea fighter for them.

How strange that there was a big earthquake in the Los Angeles area today. I think it was a 5.8 magnitude. The center of the quake was actually about 30-35 miles east of downtown L.A., but a quake that strong is felt for many miles away. I heard that people in San Diego felt the tremors.

First reports say that there was minimal damage and that only a few people suffered minor injuries. That’s a blessing. I hope the early reports stand true. Often in a natural disaster the injury and damage reports increase dramatically over the first 24 hours.

Usually it’s northern California that gets more earthquake action, but there are serious fault lines that run down the entire length of the state. I checked the USGS web site and there have been 67 aftershocks today in that same immediate area. Those poor people must be frantic by now.

This summer might turn into a staycation for us - the cost of gas is still going up and my fun money part of the budget is drying up pretty fast.

The wife would like to just stay at home and have a little staycation instead of an expensive trip to the beach. We can fix up the backyard and maybe go on a few Harley rides to the parks and natural areas that we never seem to get around to seeing.

I’d like to put in a small pond and fountain in the backyard, with a swing and garden area for some quiet moments in the early morning or late evening when either the wife or I want to get away from it all. I’m even thinking about buying a couple of marble statues to make the garden area a little more formal and classy.

I found a website that has a great variety of marble statues and figurines - from classic to modern. I liked one that I saw and then I noticed that the same site has fountains, too. They also have planters, urns, and ornate marble fireplaces. Now I’m getting all kinds of great ideas for landscaping the yard and then we can have a year round staycation - right at home.

Last weekend was a holiday for most people but I had to work all three days, so it wasn’t much of a holiday for me. I did donate to the veterans group selling poppies at the Kroger and I watched fireworks Sunday night courtesy of the lake’s water park, so I had a little bit of celebration. Didn’t get to take advantage of any of the Memorial Day sales at the stores - actually didn’t even get to read the newspaper to see what was on sale until yesterday.

So this weekend we’re going to go shopping and do all the honey-do list items that we can cram into two days. I’ve already checked the internet for discount coupons and my favorite site had some great deals. With the price of gas at $3.85 a gallon, we’re looking harder for ways to save money on other purchases and coupons are an easy way to save with just a little forethought.

We have to buy a baby gift for the new little nephew. Right off I found discount code promotions from Fisher Price, TikeTech, Safety 1st, Kiddopotamus, Evenflo and Kidsline and we’ll be giving that top priority on Saturday morning. The hospitals send new mothers home so quickly now that it is hardly worth ordering flowers for the mother, but I wanted to send something to my sister-in-law on the good chance that they will deliver the flowers this afternoon or at the latest tomorrow morning before she heads home with the baby.

We have to do a lot of yard work on Sunday - there’s little chance of rain and the weeds have taken over parts of the lawn. I’ll get some gardening and lawn care supplies and tackle those chores Sunday morning. If all goes well, I can be finished in time to throw some steaks on the grill and settle down for the NASCAR race in Dover with a couple of cold ones. Or, if the yard work takes too long, we’ll still have the steaks but we’ll cozy up on the couch to watch some movies to wind down.