PA State Grange President

On Monday, October 18, 2010 I was elected as the President of the PA State Grange at the annual State Session held in West Middlesex, PA. Installation was conducted by National Grange President Ed Luttrell.

Week from Hell

OK. It's now Monday morning, June 7, 2010. I hope this week is much better than last week.

Started with Monday morning and I chipped a tooth on popcorn of all things.

Then Wednesday afternoon the engine in my lawn tractor blew up.

Thursday morning we had an earthquake of 3.1 at home. Thursday evening I watched lightning strike 15 feet from the house. Shorted an outlet in the upstairs bathroom, set off the smoke detector and we got to make friends with the local fire company.

Friday we found the lightning had fried the cable splitters. Got them replaced and cable and internet were restored.

Then Sunday evening we discovered the lightning had fried the compressor in the downstairs freezer...lost about half of the meat but were able to save some before it thawed.

I sure hope this week is much better!

Wisdom Extracted?

At 9:00 a.m. 3-18-2010 I went into surgery to remove ALL four of my WISDOM teeth. I hope they only pulled the teeth and not what little wisdom I had. Was home by about 11:00. Bleeding finally stopped around 4:30 but by then the numbness had disappeared and I turned to "Chemistry"! Was able to eat a bowl of soup by 5:30...first food since 11:00 last night!

New Granddaughter

Our granddaughter, Leah Kathleen Meiss was born this morning, 3-16-10 at 9:55 a.m. 7 lbs. 1 oz, 20 in. Baby and parents, Becki and Travis all doing well. Grandma Meiss and I arrived just in time for her to go into the delivery room with Becki and her mom, Kathleen.

PA Farm Show

Well, if you've followed my posts on Facebook, you've seen our daily reports from the PA State Grange booth at the 94th PA Farm Show. The Farm Show ran from Saturday, January 9, 2010 through Saturday, January 16, 2010 and ran from 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. daily except for the final day which closed out at 5:00 p.m. I was at the booth vacuuming at about 7:30 - 7:45 a.m. each day and left most nights between 8:30 and 9:00 p.m. It makes for an extremely long week. My boss, Betsy Huber, PA State grange President, was at the booth nearly the same hours as I was, so we were both pretty well exhausted by the end of the show.

But it was well worth the time and effort. We talked to a lot of people about the Grange and even recruited some new members from around the Commonwealth including PA Ag. Sec. Russell Redding and his Executive Assistant and recently retired PA Ag. employee Phil Pitzer. We were very proud to have National Grange President Ed Luttrell join us for the entire day on Wednesday.

Thank you to all the Grangers who helped us both in the PA State Grange booth as well as in the Farmer for a Day play area for children.

After returning everything from the booth to the office Saturday evening, I got home and hit the hay at 8:00 p.m. and didn't wake up until 9:00 a.m. Sunday morning. Then I relaxed for the day. Judy and I went to a movie in the afternoon and then out to a local Irish Pub for a relaxing dinner. Now I'm ready to head back into the office Monday morning to put everything away.