BayouBoogie: June recap - Summertime fun

Summertime has brought a burst of activity, and keeping up with the blog has suffered for it. Anyway, here's a review of what's been going on in June. At the first of the month we went up to Arkansas to meet with Denise's brothers and sisters at Lake DeGray in Arkansas. It was like old times (for old folks as things turned out). but everyone seemed to slip back into their customary sibling roles.

The lodge grounds were beautiful. and the lake was clean and inviting. We rented a pontoon boat for the day and spent it relaxing.

Since we were 2/5 of the way to Illinois, we proceeded up to visit Chris and Gabby with the plan to bring Maggie back with us to spend some summer vacation with the grandparents. The girls were delightful and as cute as ever.

And while we were there, Chris whipped up some grilled elk backstrap with Steve T's patented bacon double weave wrap...mmmm

The visit ended too soon, and we took off for the long haul back to Longville with a 6 year old in the back seat. She handled it like a trooper...with Gran in the back seat to provide the entertainment and distraction. It was a tiring day all the same.

Joe's kids came to help with the entertainment while Maggie was here. They were a big help, especially Alice and Audrey.

Audrey helped Maggie with her "experiments". I think there may be another scientist in the family!

...and there were all kinds of shenanigans going on in our upscale swimming pool. Poor Roux wanted to join in but was relegated to the role of spectator only.

They took a break and spent a few days in Baton Rouge where the cousins continued making memories. Gran took them to the "Pickle-dilly" (Maggies name for it), where her eyes were proven to be bigger than her stomach.

Uncle Joe engaged her in a game of high stakes FISH...

And she generally kept everyone entertained with her Maggie-ness.

I noticed that Audrey was getting very adept at avoiding pictures...it must be her new braces. I did find one on Gran's camera, so here it is (you can run but you can't hide!) -

Meanwhile, Jack was all about learning to operate the tractor.

After our visit with Maggie was done, and we made the switch to Gabby's parents, it was time to get to work. But, first we had to celebrate Father's day and Jack's birthday. Guess which celebratory confection was home made and which came from the grocery store?

We did get to go out fishing one morning, but it was mostly big croakers. We did have a couple of keeper redfish and a speck along with a dozen nice crabs, so we were able to send some fillets home to Baton Rouge on which for Joe to work his culinary magic. It was nice to be on the water, as always.

It wasn't all play during Jack's visit. If you remember from the storm aftermath, there was quite a pile of big oak limbs set aside for firewood in the. The weeds were growing around it, and I saw this fellow on the pile enjoying some afternoon rays.

Well, if I wanted Denise to go in the pasture at all, the "snake hut" had to go. Jack obliged, and transformed the pile of storm debris into something useful.

As Jack got more familiar with the tractor, we started working on getting the south pasture in shape. I don't have any good pictures, but you can see some in the background here. I'm sure the tractor will allow us the means by which to finish off some of the heavy work that's been staring us in the face since we moved here. There's only so much once can do with a wheelbarrow, shovel and ax!

The downside to waiting so long to post is that there are too many pictures from which to choose. I'll wrap this up with a few from the critter cam.

We did get a hen turkey while we were gone, but it looks like there are only 2 surviving hatchlings. We haven't seen the gobblers since before the turkey season.