August already!

Today was Eli's last day at Pioneer. No more shoot bags and tassle bags for him! He thinks he made over $700. Pretty impressive. And I'm especially impressed that he worked so hard for so long in such awful (hot!) conditions.

Here he is with his buddies Chris and Finn at Pioneer.

He's now talking about working Pioneer again next year, maybe even being a corn measurer, who carries a heavy metal pole around to measure the shoots and the height of the corn. He may not have enough seniority to do that--may be more shoot bags and tassle bags.

Meanwhile, he is really looking forward to going back to our volunteering at the Humane Society. He misses the kitties, and I'm sure they miss him.

Robbie has also been busy working--in lawn care with his business, BAGELS. He hasn't been mowing much, but has done a lot of weeding and some mulch-shifting. It seems to be fairly steady work; every time we go to church, he gets another job from our friends there :-)

Driving to the jobs gives him some good driving practice. He's getting quite good at it.

On the days he hasn't worked, he's done some engineering--he built this binary counter out of LEGOS.

What's a binary counter? Well, ask Robbie. This device counts marbles that go down a shoot. But it counts them in binary--on or off. The marbles cause switches to go in an on or off position . . . I told him to make a movie of it and put it on YouTube . . .

I've been busy getting the guys here and there . . . haven't had much sustained time to do Coe stuff, but have been doing some freelancing. And crocheting! Here's a tiny mushroom I made.

And an armadillo!

He goes inside his shell, too.

Bruce has been going to see presidential candidates . . . of course, it's only Republicans who are campaigning, and a lot of nutty ones. He's seen Bachman, Santorum, and, today, Ron Paul. Ugh. All in the name of (political) science!