What's better than the smell of freshly mown lawn?

Freshly baked cake? Well, if you were at our house this evening, you could sample my new kind of cake--the one I call "Crumble Deluxe". Actually, I baked a white cake in a 9x13 inch pan, then just re-oiled the pan without washing it out for the second cake. Bad idea! When I flipped the second cake upside down after it had cooled 10 minutes, a good portion of the cake remained in the bottom of the pan... My cake decorating instructors' words came to mind just then, "If you tip a cake out and some of it remains in the pan, don't throw it all to the dog. Just put it back in the pan and put it in the freezer for a while 'till it hardens together and then take it out and flip it and it will come out no problem." Sounds easy enough, right? Well, if I'd been more careful, maybe it would have worked, but as it was, I was wanting to get outside with Mom to plant flowers in the flower pots and I didn't take it easy. Somehow, as I was flipping the cake back into the pan from the cooling rack, the whole thing slid to the side and smushed and crumbled all over. What a mess--tasty, yes, but still a mess. I just left my crumbs to fall where they may and went out to help Mom. I guess I'll have to try again in the morning, and this time I'd best be more careful, as I'm almost out of eggs so I can't make too many more mistakes! Oh, did I mention that these cakes are for a graduation and a confirmation???


Mom and Jacob went to Wishek today to meet my Uncle and Aunt who brought Grandpa's pop-up camper that far for us. (The boys will be using the camper this weekend...) When they got home, they decided the camper needed to be set up and aired out for a while, so Jacob set to accomplishing the task right away. However, just as he had it pretty much up, my dad called me from the field and said that Andrew had just called him on the two-way-radio and said he heard on the news (is this getting confusing?) that there was a thunder storm coming our way soon and there was a possibility of hail, so we should get the camper and the van in the Quonset right away. So, Mom and I helped Jacob take the camper back down again quickly and I drove it into the building. All of that turned out to be for not, as it only sprinkled and the storm went to the South of us--which we really didn't mind if there was hail with it! When the sun came out again, the camper did too and Jacob set it up and got it aired out nicely this time. This picture shows Jacob getting the camper level before setting it up.



Jacob & I also mowed the lawn today, or rather I should say, we mowed part of it. We still have to mow across the road. When we were about half done with the grass around the house, the Craftsman mower (which I was driving) starting making a really loud thunking sound. I stopped the blades right away and turned the mower off. The guys didn't have much time to investigate, but they said it is probably a bearing going out or a belt. So, now we are down to the other rider mower and the push mower...


Andrew & I separated milk tonight and got 6 1/2 quarts of cream. Now we can make ice cream again! We had a few problems as separating works best with 3 people, so we had to clean up some spilled milk and cream when we were through, but it was nothing worth crying over--so we didn't. :)


Well, I should get to bed. Tomorrow is going to be another full day--plus we're losing over half our man-power as the boys are going to be leaving for the Appleseed Shoot up by Leeds. (You can visit Mother's blog for more info. about that if you like.) They'll be gone until Sunday night, so I'm afraid the house will seem pretty quite for the next couple days! I just realized that it's actually pretty quite now, so perhaps it is time for sleep?