A Nice Saturday

It is another warm, humid Sunday afternoon on the plains. Thunderstorms are supposed to be on the way, but it is sunny right now. I have a batch of ribs outside, smoking over pecan wood. I haven't been able to spend an afternoon barbecuing for several weeks, so I am excited. It is my first time cooking with pecan wood, and it smells amazing. We had a fun Saturday, starting with an unexpected sight in the backyard at about 7:30. I was still in bed, and Sarah and Asher were sitting in the living room. Asher calmly told Sarah there was a big balloon in the backyard. She looked out the window, and a hot air balloon was flying by, extremely LOW, right over the fenceline. Upstairs, I got up in time to see the balloon flying by at eye level. It landed just a block or two away, in an open field near the water tower. It was part of the National Balloon Classic, a big hot-air balloon festival happening about 30 southeast of here in Indianola, Iowa. It is strange that is ended up here, since the wind doesn't often blow from that direction, but it was a nice surprise on a Saturday morning. Asher talked about it all day. Later in the morning, we headed down to the Des Moines Farmers Market. We bought ribs (the ones out on the grill right now) from my favorite family pork farmers. We also got some vegetables and a huge loaf of fresh ciabatta bread, which we brought home to make the perfect turkey sandwiches for lunch. After lunch, we drove an hour North to Boone to ride the steam train. I've talked about the steam train before, but Asher absolutely loves it. We have a set of tickets for it that we bought for a phenomenal discount last winter, and we need to use them before the end of August. It was a beautiful afternoon for a train ride. The fields and clearings along the tracks are full of all kinds of wildflowers. We can back home, ate dinner, then went for a sunset drive in the country south of Des Moines, where we saw the small farm of our dreams (some day), then came back through the hills and valleys of Madison County. Asher bought his first fishing pole this morning after church, and is very excited to go fishing. We will probably do that after work sometime this week. He and I have been talking about it all week. He is very emphatic that he is going to catch a "BIG Fissshhhh", and that he is going to throw it back in the water, and definitely not cook and eat it. I asked him if it would make a difference if I fried it up with some cornmeal and cajun spices, but he won't change his mind. He also loves playing catch with a (soft) baseball in the yard, and he wants to spend as much time as possible outside. Right now, Asher has awakened from his nap, and I need to get out and throw a little more pecan on the fire.