Yesterday, we got much needed rain. It rained light and heavy for over five hours - a good soaking rain. Today, the grass is visibly growing before my eyes.

I was driving back from the store a couple of days ago, and a bluebird flew by me. They are so gorgeous, brilliant blue - the males, of course! This morning, while having breakfast with Nancy, we watched chipmunks who live under the cottage running back and forth, gathering up the butternuts which are falling; a cottontail rabbit coming out of the field; birds darting about; and beautiful butterflies on wing. Nancy told me that earlier she had watch a doe eating apples off the old apple tree just outside my cottage. Hope I get to see her sometime.

There is a schoolhouse not far from here, which closed in 1940...

I remember the Little Red School House in Sudbury, MA, which Henry Ford had moved to the Wayside Inn area. It was the same school house, where Mary's little lamb used to come and the poem was written about. The Sudbury elementary school kids would dress up in colonial clothes, as did the teachers, and they would go there for a day and be taught. They loved it. In later years, Kat was a hostess there for a summer, when she worked for the Wayside Inn.

The old Kent Hollow farmhouse...

was built in the early 1700's by one of my Waller ancestors. Of course it has since been plumbed and electrified, and added on to. But the original house is still there and intact. The grindstone against the stone wall...

was once in the creek that runs in the back of the farmhouse, and was of course used to grind grains grown in the fields. The barns near the farmhouse are original...

The above is the hay barn; below is the milking barn...

Of course they have been painted, and roofed over the years, with one side of the milking barn being completely replaced, as you can see.

As I said before I think, Nancy took the sheep barn, and turned it into a house, and it is now rented...

Around this area are several houses which Nancy built with the help of neighbors, and with her husband Fred, who was a wonderful man and did superb furniture making with old old wood. Bronson's house, where I am now, is one of those houses...

The day lilies along the side of the road and along rock fences are loving the heat...

I recall Andre Viette, a horticulturist in the Shenandoah Valley, always saying "Plant day lilies, they love the hot weather and they are easy to take care of." And boy, when you went to his place, he had them planted everywhere, in every color imaginable.

Queen Anne's Lace is also in full blossom everywhere - in the fields, along the road side, wherever there is plenty of sun - they are such a beautiful plant...

and they along with Black Eyed Susan's dot the roads everywhere I go...

I have a particular love for birch trees. I think that it comes from having spent summers at Camp Lake Hubert in Minnesota, where birch trees proliferated. They are so beautiful with their white bark, and stand out among all the darker barked trees. Around here there aren't big stands of them as there are in Minnesota, but there seems to always be two or tree standing gracefully in the woods amid all the other flora...

It is about 12:30PM here. There is a very slight breeze, but for the most part nothing is really moving, and other than a chipmunk skipping about earlier on, there are no birds or animals venturing forth in the heat. However two days ago, I took a picture of a goldfinch and a house finch sharing the bird feeder...

Such cute little guys. One time I looked out of my dining room window at Stoney Lea Lane, and saw all these little yellow things bobbing in the grass. Then all at once they took off, hundreds of bright yellow goldfinches. What a beautiful sight. I also always had house finches nesting in my hanging flower plants, so I had to be extra careful to water the plants not the babies!

Yesterday, I brought in my printer and decided to print off William Henry Hawley's letters that I had been able to revise in Iowa. So I did that and finished it up today after running to Staples for more ink cartridges. I got smart and bought of all three colors, and another black one. The machine would not let me print anything unless ALL cartridges were okay. Today I even went one step further and actually, after blundering one attempt, burned onto discs all three years of William's transcribed letters, his May 1864 transcribed diary, and a picture of him. And I double checked each disc and all those things were there. I patted myself on my shoulder. I had put them all into a folder, called "Untitled Folder" because I couldn't figure out how to title it!!! Believe me I tried, but to no avail.

Tomorrow I am going to Fairfield to meet my Cousin Sam for the first time. He is Bronson's cousin, as well as Nancy's, of course. He has a large amount of Hawley memorabilia which he just started going through and is going to share some of it for me. I am really looking for anything having to do with WHH of course, and also any family photos where we know who is who!!! Why was it that back in THOSE days, no one wrote on the back of pictures?

After Sam's I will make my way to Bridgeport, and attempt to find the family's Congregational Church, no one of which has ever answered my emails or phone calls. Also I want to go the cemetery and take pictures of the Hawley gravestones there.

Marty and I have made our planes for Molokai, and have booked our plane tickets also. So once again I will be spending Christmas on my favorite Hawaiian island.

I love you all.
A hui hou,
Sally