MORNING STORMS, SUNNY AFTERNOON

For some unknown reason today started out tense, with increasing chaos and edginess until late afternoon. The aggravation build-up nearly came to a head. That sounds like an emotional, nervous 'weather' report. I held it together though, despite big kitchen messes, bad dog behavior, people at the door, people on the phone and tons of major computer related snafus... and by late afternoon the internal storms had passed and sunny calmness came out.Chuck came home from work early again, and took Shabree over to the cabin to swim with Zach and Mathieu. You can see our cabin in the background. The pool is halfway between our tiny cabin and Reagan and Amy's house. Then later, while I was getting things together for dinner, Chuck came back and got his swim trunks so he could try to persuade Mathieu to get in all the way. The older kids had splashed too much previously, and he had retreated to the safety of the ladder, not venturing into the water again.

So when I got things organized to be able to serve dinner quickly later this evening, I went over and took some photos, and sat on Reagan and Amy's deck with them, and watched the kids.
This is Zach's dog, Buddy. Carl had been over there with Chuck the first time, but came home when he came to get his swim trunks. I took Coconut back over there too, and she had a great time running around seeing her 'cousins' and exploring all over.
This is Shabree's new horse, Starlight. She came right up to the gate to see me.
These are the other horses. Ruff, who is extremely old. Poor old guy. He looks bad, but for his age, it is amazing that he is still doing so well. He is retired. Then there is Trigger, the Shetland, and Wildfire in the round pen, where he is put to eat, because he will take Ruff's food too.
And speaking of food, I made this tonight. I read about this on Cookbook Junkie's blog about a month ago, and just now got around to making it. It is Artichoke Salsa with Toasted Whole Wheat Pita Bread Triangles. It was pretty good, but had an extremely strong garlic taste. She had warned her readers about that, so I used less, but the garlic was still pretty overpowering. Chuck loved it, though. He thought it had a little too much basil, but that didn't bother me. The pita bread would have been better with a little olive oil drizzled on and some salt added before toasting. I'll make it again. It really is good, healthy and different. Besides that, we had boneless, skinless chicken floured and fried in olive oil, BBQ beans from the supermarket deli, and leftover spaghetti.