September ALREADY

These pictures are for the GRANDCHILDREN.  Can you see the little guy in this first picture.  We heard a loud noise coming from the flowers.  It sounded almost like a duck.  It surprised us how much noise this little frog made  (Click on the picture and it will open up full screen.  Then scroll through the pictures with the arrow keys. Hit escape to go back.)
This is one of the prettiest frogs I've ever seen.  He wasn't a bit shy about having his picture taken.

The next little fellow is sitting on Malanie's hand. Melanie is a young lady (about 20) who was hired to help put up Christmas lights last winter, and then after Christmas she went to BYU Idaho.  Now she is back.  She will be helping us through Christmas, after that she will head back to Idaho to school.

These little salamanders are so cute.  We have seen two different colors so far.  This dark one with yellow spots was found in the garden and he is the only one we have seen like him.  We have seen a lot of bright orange ones in the gardens.  This orange fellow in the next picture is one that Mike found when he was walking up the trail to Patriarch Hill.
We have deer, groundhogs, squirrels and chipmunks, moles and skunks, and even a beaver.  I think the salamanders are the cutest of all.  When our children were young, our son James had TWO Salamanders.  He named one Sally and the other Mander.  (I thought that was brilliant myself)

The weather is starting to cool down and fall is in the air.  It has actually been quite nice.  It is chili enough in the mornings for a sweater, but the days have been perfect.

It has been raining about once a week.  The day we took this picture of the rainbow we only had a few sprinkles.  I should have taken the picture 5 minutes sooner.  It was gorgeous, but started to fade before I shot this picture.  It is still a beautiful sky.



The same day, just a little earlier, we took the picture of the monument with the sun reflecting from it.  I have even seen the trees reflected in the monument like you would see in a clear pool of water.  The picture of the monument was taken when the sun was nearly down.  During the day the top triangle will glow from the sun is shining and it is almost too bright to look at.

There is no higher quality granite in the world than the granite from the Rock of Ages Quarry in Barre (pronounced berry)  The obelisk (that's the name for the tall shaft of the monument) is the largest in the world made of high quality granite.  Even though it was put up more than 100 years ago (1905) it still shines like glass when the sun is reflecting on it.
 This picture was taken when the sun was nearly down.  During the day the top triangle will shine.  When the sun is shining, it is too bright to look at.

This is a picture of the quarry.  We went on a tour of the Rock of Ages Quarry a week ago Saturday.  It was very interesting.  The quarry used to hire thousands of people.  In fact almost the whole town of Barre was supported by the quarry.  Now, because of modern technology, fourteen men do the same amount of work as thousands had previously done.  The one good thing about this is that the price of high quality granite has gone down to a price most people can afford.  Marble headstones do not last, but this high quality granite lasts basically forever.  All the granite from the Barre quarry goes to make headstones and monuments.  We learned an interesting thing this week.  When Junius Wells first went to the owners of the quarry looking for a perfect stone 38 1/2 feet long they could not find a piece of granite in any of their sites. About that same time they bought the next door neighbor's quarry and that very day they bought it they found the piece of granite used to make this amazing monument.

Well hope you are all enjoying September.  IT WILL BE OVER BEFORE YOU KNOW IT.
LOVE TO EVERYONE.