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<\/a><\/p>\nThis month, we celebrated twenty-three years of wedded adventure, but that’s not the whole story. We met, fell in love, and got married in Loveland, Colorado, have slept under the same roof for twenty-five years, and been metaphysically aligned for twenty-seven.<\/p>\n
We wrote a mission statement: “Team together to avoid negative influences and create a life of challenge and fulfillment by following our hearts.” We pledged our love, respect, and faithfulness, and vowed to share all our joy and abundance as well as our burdens until the end of time. Our life together has been extravagantly romantic. “Let’s keep it that way!” we tell ourselves whenever waves flap our little boat.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
CANADA DAY<\/h3>\n
Our friend Shelley hosted a party July 1st for Canada Day, and her three daughters made Bloody Caesars for all. Shelley’s oldest pulled out Camille, the doll from her childhood, activating maternal instincts and making her boyfriend nervous.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Come to find out we’re growing a variety of canna lily known as Bengal Tiger in our front yard. Thank you, Luke!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n John brought his girlfriend Lauren for a lovely visit. Camille visited our friend, Linda and came away with a beautiful flower arrangement featuring an enormous sunflower. Then Tami came by with peach-colored gladiolus from their yard. We added some of our own yard flowers to create a monster bouquet.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Our day lilies are shockingly vibrant and contrast nicely with the cool pastel blue of our newest gladiolus.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Linda also gifted us a bright red canna lily which we planted in our pond garden to go with the echinacea, sunflowers, and glads. She said it is a variety called “The President” but that we didn’t have to call it that. Since we received this new lily so close to Canada Day, we decided to refer to it as “The Prime Minister.”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Judy putters around in her barn while her three horses wait expectantly. Camille and Judy have begun to dress the horses up and take them for walks. \u00a0Mary is wearing a red bareback pad. Aaron has the white rope halter, and the gray with the red lead rope is Yogi. They are sweet, magnificent animals \u00a0who love the attention.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A “Quorn Meatless Chicken” sandwich with one of Shelley’s garden tomatoes, lettuce, home-baked bread, and lightly-pickled cucumber and onion slices.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Reaching for the the water cup over the rain barrel, Bob\u00a0pressed his fingers into the pulpy body mass of a gray tree frog (Hyla versicolor.) A day later, Camille had the same experience when she took hold of the porch banister.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n That night, what a chorus! The next morning our rain barrel was full of frog eggs. Love and babies make the world go round.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n When is a pear a peach? When the sun turns the clouds pink. Our pears are really coming into their own this year.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We are growing two varieties of pears, the round, crisp Asian pears that we fell in love with while living in China, and the traditionally pear-shaped American pears. Bob did some reading and discovered a method for ripening American pears so that they, too, are crisp when eaten.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This is the time of year we go all Irish, and potatoes insert themselves into nearly every meal. Read all about our potato habit here: Potatoes!<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Our divine daughter Emily and her slightly impish little boy, Nolan. How they do grow on.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n On the last day of the month, Andy and Bob spent the afternoon working on Andy’s dam project. When Camille got home, we asked Andy to take a picture of us for our Anniversary. It was Bob’s job to fiddle with the camera until he got the lighting right, and Andy and Camille’s job to move around the yard until we were appropriately lighted. Thank you, Andy!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Here is one of two photos that Andy took (we began this essay with the other one.) You’re looking at two old romantics, happy as can be in their own damned back yard after twenty-some odd years. We’ve got just about as much comfort and joy as we can stand, and yes, we think we’ll keep this up.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We were attracted to each other. We became friends. We ventured into dangerous territory. We fell in love and moved in with each other. We moved down the street to a bigger house. Then we collected our horses and rented a farmhouse on two acres. In 1994 we got married right there in the front yard. Life was good – no, great. We celebrated every day with laughter, love, and good food. The tradition continues. We are indestructible. Love conquers all.<\/p>\n THIS MONTH’S QUOTES:<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for.\u201d – Bob Marley<\/span><\/p>\n “Those who turn to God for comfort may find comfort, but I do not think they will find God.” – Mignon McLaughlin<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIf your wife locks you out of the house, you don’t have a problem with your door.\u201d – Anne Lamott, from\u00a0Bird by Bird<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n The easiest way to locate a page or photo from past issues is with this handy Search Engine<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Get the back story via our blog at Plastic Farm Animals<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Romance, alcoholic beverages, peachy pears, potatoes, ponies, frogs and much more. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n TWENTY-THREE YEARS <\/p>\n \n This month, we celebrated twenty-three years of wedded adventure, but that’s not the whole story. We met, fell in love, and got married in Loveland, Colorado, have slept under the same roof for twenty-five years, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[223,418,357,419,64,29,313,420,358],"class_list":["post-11100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photo-album","tag-andy","tag-anniversary","tag-canna","tag-frog","tag-horses","tag-john","tag-judy","tag-pears","tag-potatoes","odd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/troutsfarmtoo.com\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/troutsfarmtoo.com\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/troutsfarmtoo.com\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/troutsfarmtoo.com\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/troutsfarmtoo.com\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11100"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/troutsfarmtoo.com\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11133,"href":"https:\/\/troutsfarmtoo.com\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11100\/revisions\/11133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/troutsfarmtoo.com\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/troutsfarmtoo.com\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/troutsfarmtoo.com\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>\u00a0 <\/a><\/p>\nFRONT YARD LILIES<\/h3>\n
<\/a> \u00a0<\/a><\/p>\nFRIENDS AND FLOWERS<\/h3>\n
<\/a> \u00a0<\/a><\/p>\nGREAT GOBS OF COLOR<\/h3>\n
<\/a> \u00a0<\/a><\/p>\nPOND GARDEN<\/h3>\n
<\/a> \u00a0<\/a><\/p>\nIN HER ELEMENT<\/h3>\n
<\/a> \u00a0<\/a><\/p>\nLUNCH<\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nGRAY TREE FROG<\/h3>\n
<\/a> \u00a0<\/a><\/p>\nA LONG NIGHT OF SINGING LATER<\/h3>\n
<\/a> \u00a0<\/a><\/p>\nPEACHY PEARS<\/h3>\n
<\/a> \u00a0<\/a><\/p>\nDELICIOUS<\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nPOTATOES FOR THE IRISH<\/h3>\n
<\/a> \u00a0<\/a><\/p>\nFAMILY<\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nCOUNTRY GENTLEMAN<\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nANNIVERSARY PORTRAIT<\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nIN THE BEGINNING<\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n____________________________________________________________<\/h3>\n
____________________________________________________________<\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n____________________________________________________________<\/h3>\n
[Troutsfarm]<\/a>\u00a0* [July, 2017]<\/a><\/h4>\n
____________________________________________________________<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"