09-02-02 Regarding possible visit from the aunts

(to Aunt Lynn)

P.S.:  Oh!  We just got a letter from you!  We are always delighted to hear from you, and we love to read about your busy life with all those horses, all the while wishing we were sharing some of your chores.

          That sounds dreadful, the physical troubles your poor mother had.  Sometimes I think it's harder for the caretakers than it is for the invalid, emotionally, that is.  I guess all these sufferings on this old earth sure enough make us look forward to heaven, don't they?

Oh, Aunt Lynn, you can't imagine how happy we would be if you, Aunt Lorraine, and Aunt Lois could come to Teddy and Amy's wedding.  Look, you still have plenty of time to wean your animals from their food if you start right now.  Oooooo, hurry, hurry, get on with it!

Then, when you go home again, you can just start feeding them again, going at it slowly like they do with marooned sailors, so as not to make them nauseous.  It'll work; I'm sure it will.

Speaking of hay, here in middle and eastern Nebraska, volunteers are mowing the prairie grasses and hay alongside the roads, anywhere there was enough rain that some happened to grow, and putting it into bales to donate  to the ranchers out west who have absolutely no grass or hay at all.  Some of them have sold their cattle, hoping that, if the rains should come, they would have enough money to buy back a few.

A horse show in 104° weather?!  What do the horses think of that?  Does it bother them?  I think the event should be moved to such a place as the high meadows around Schofield Pass in midwestern Colorado, where the temperature never gets much above 80°.  Besides, the scenery is gorgeous.  Yes, I love the mountains.

On the other hand...would the thin air up there bother the horses, too?

           I think you work rings around some of us, Aunt Lynn.  Don't you get awfully tired sometimes?  Does your leg or hip ever bother you?

When I got to the last page of your letter and found the teddy bear diagram, complete with measurements, and I do mean complete, I couldn't keep from laughing.  Ah, Aunt Lynn, no wonder you were a school teacher, with your meticulous, precise ways!  I tell you, if that sweater doesn't fit that bear, it will certainly be no fault of yours.

By the way:  we have determined that this is definitely a left-handed bear, as evidenced by the fact that his left upper arm is 1/8" larger in circumference than his right.  Please do not offer him right-handed scissors; he will pout and withdraw in sullen sulkiness.

Just so you know.

Love,

 Sarah Lynn