Grandma B

At 90 years old, one can hope to still be alive, let alone completely mobile and thriving.

My 90-year-old neighbor at home, known as Grandma B, can be seen out every day, doing various errands and tending to her intricate garden.

Although inhibited by being nearly blind and hard of hearing, she has no physical troubles and is completely there mentally. Because of her eyesight, she sports thick, black rimmed glasses, causing her eyes to look gigantic.

No one in the neighborhood knows her real name, for she chooses to be known as Grandma B to everyone.

Grandma B owns a car, and is still legally allowed to drive – resulting in her doing all her grocery shopping, banking and other errands on her own. However, her enormous family is always there to assist if need be.

Always outside, Grandma B has an abundance of fruit trees, vegetables and flowers growing in her garden. Constantly hunched over to tend to her pride and joy, her yard thrives and is beautiful to look at.

Photo Credit: http://commons.wikimedia.org

Standing outside her quaint house, it always smells wonderful, for she can be found baking her personal recipe (chocolate chip cookies) at least once a day.

Grandma B is a favorite for the neighborhood children, for she has countless life stories to share, lots of food to pick from her garden, and a cozy house with freshly baked chocolate chip cookies to accompany everything.

Although she’s approaching the top of the age scale, Grandma B is a cute, lively woman who is a joyful addition to the neighborhood.

Roadtrip

BryceTreeHDR

My Grandfather who lives in Illinois gave me his truck, so my Dad and I went back to his farm to pick it up. It is a three seat truck, and with three people, there’s a tight squeeze. We decided to bring him back with us on the trip. This was the third time we have all done this together .

 

You would expect it to be really fun. But it was really uncomfortable. We went to two baseball games because my Dad loves baseball so much. Then when we hit Colorado we had some problems. The truck broke down. We were stuck in a small town all day. I was actually kind of glad because it was an uncomfortable car ride. Plus, the situation could have been much worse. We could have been in Kansas. It’s the only place the whole way back that isn’t pretty.

Once everything was fixed we went back out on the road. Sadly we ended up back in the shop the next day. I was disappointed then because we needed to get home and we where going to have to skip the one place I wanted to go to, Bryce Canyon.

As we got closer to Bryce the weather was getting really bad. I haven’t seen that much rain in years, and we had to stop. We got the hotel closest to Bryce and I was able to go. The weather cleared up enough to go on trails and explore the amazing canyons. The rocks are bright red, and it looks different every time you go. The weather couldn’t have been better and the scenery was amazing. The wait to get there was definitely worth it.

The Dolphin Slaughter of Taiji

Sea Shepherd is a non-profit organization that was established in 1977, and continues to support marine wildlife conservation today. The SSCS (Sea Shepherd Conservation Society) uses direct-action tactics to take action and expose illegal acts in the open sea, such as destruction of habitat and slaughter of wildlife in the world’s oceans.

The organization is currently running a campaign called “Cove Guardians”, a Taiji dolphin defense campaign that is now in action in Japan. This campaign has volunteers going out to a place called the cove, filming and documenting throughout the dolphin hunt season, when about 20,000 dolphins, small whales and porpoises are killed each year.

The Taiji campaign aims to end the unnecessary hunt, and achieve permanent freedom for the dolphins and small whales of Japan.