Other Stuff

I've been out of the blogger loop lately.  Please accept my apologies for not commenting on your posts (though I may have read them), and for not responding to comments you've made on mine.  I truly enjoy and appreciate each and every comment, and am so very happy that you come by to check out my ramblings!  I assure you that I don't mean to be rude, and it doesn't mean I don't love you all.  It's just that, well, I've been busy doing ... other stuff.

The end of the school year gets especially hectic for those of us who are teachers, and to be honest, our brains are pretty well fried by now.  If you're a middle school teacher, you can double the mental crispiness, and if you're an 8th-grade teacher, you can double that again, and if you're an 8th-grade teacher of kids with learning and behavioral disorders, well, you get the picture.

Some other "other stuff" I've been doing includes...

... working in my flower gardens,

                                                           ... helping to build a new deck,

 and, of course, going out to our home-away-from-home in the country, which we did yesterday.

Still working on the log cabin...

 There's been a huge amount of rain in Lewis County, and the Kinneyconnick has surged far over its banks, haphazardly rearranging the surrounding landscape.
 

For instance, our little rock beach, which you can see on the right side of this photo, is now gone...

 ... having been replaced by a big pile of sticks.

Parts of the island have been scoured clean of vegetation...

... while massive mountains of flotsam and jetsam have been deposited here and there.  (What's the difference between flotsam and jetsam, anyway?)

Luckily, we left just in time to catch...

... the annual Lewis County Tractor Ride,

which is basically where everyone gets on their tractors,

and rides around Lewis County.  Who says there's no entertainment in the country?

All of this stuff  +s  up to  < time for artwork or blogging, but I hope to get going again soon.  Aren't you impressed with my awesome math skills?