Saturday, August 21, 2010

It's Apple-Picking Time!



These are busy days at the Sweetwood Orchard. Mary and I spend part of the morning tending to our apples.

The previous owners clustered four trees together down the hill in the back 40 providing us, neighbors, groundhogs, deer, birds and worms with both red delicious apples and granny green apples. There might even be some macintosh.

Last year they ripened when we were in Florida and by the time we got to them, they were in bad shape. It was a sad harvest. With an earlier vacation this year, we spied some ripening apples and harvested a few pounds today.



Those VERY red things in the basket are actually tomatoes from the neighbors who were nice enough to bring us some of THEIR harvest. We sent them home with a bag of apples!

Mary plans to make both applesauce and apple pie this year!

The downside: With vacation over, apples ripening, football training camp over and schools opening everywhere, reality is starting to set in. Summer is nearly over! Sigh...

More later,


Mark

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

How I Shot Our Summer Vacation

Mary and I got back from Florida Sunday and we had a terrific time! The weather was awesome, the Americano Beach Resort was fabulous as always and we had a blast with Mom and Dad.

I also shot some of my best Florida pictures ever. Here are a few:


This storm cloud spawned a tornado warning one afternoon. We watched and watched for a tornado or water spout, to no avail.


One morning, we spied this boat during sunrise.


Shot from our beach-front room, I captured this sunset one night.


Shot from the pool deck at the Americano, a nice late-day walk along the beach.


Another game of volleyball at one of our favorite haunts, the Ocean Deck.


The area near the Main Street Pier has been spiffed up and new ride have been added.

More later!


Mark

Tuesday, August 03, 2010

Uncle Keith

My Uncle Keith was memorialized in a service in Colorado Tuesday. He died July 27 after post-surgical complications.

Here is a nice tribute his family put together:

The Obituary of Retired SFC Keith William Sweetwood

Reading the obit, I was struck by the reference to his wedding to Aunt Linda which was in Elwood, Ill. way back in 1967. My Dad, brother Eric and sister Karen and I all had roles. I had to try and light candles which involved fire and what seemed to be a large crowd. My Dad rescued my attempts, as I recall.

My grandma had earlier chronicled his Vietnam service in a poem, "An Undeclared War" which is somewhere in my vast collection of everything. It was published in the Joliet newspaper and was a pretty good bit of writing. I knew I got it from somewhere...

Three years later after that wedding, my grandma was gone and things were just never the same. Looking back, 1967 seems like such an innocent time. Or maybe I was just a more innocent me.

More later,

Mark
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