BRY'S FARM

Dear Family,

We had a great trip to Michigan.  Mom and I stayed at the farm and it was gorgeous!

Bry has the farm looking really lush with all the old fences down and grass everywhere.  It was beautiful! They had some rain and the place was a rich jungle.  Here is a look from the deck towards the old sheep pasture. That great oak tress was a sapling when we first bought the farm.

 We did some work on the back forty.  I went back with the tractor and brush hog and began to reclaim more of the land.  After a while, I hit a submerged boulder hidden by the tall grass and managed to take out the hydraulic steering to the front end.  And that over a nest of yellow jackets!

I was mortified but the boulder was hidden.  Bry got under the tractor and took  pictures with the iPhone.  We then went up to Thieser Tractor Supply in South Lyon and ordered the part. Bry has a worker who is a full time employee, Lupe, who can fix anything.  He works at the farm and other real estate owned by Bry.

Bry thought, "No problem".  The next day the part came and with special tools, they went back and totally repaired the broken hydraulic steering cam.  They hooked the hoses up backwards at first so that when you turned to the right it went left.  That was repaired to the sound of a lot of Mexican music doming through the Pandora app and amplified in the barn.

Then Lupe. who is also a crack welder, fixing the trailing wheel on the brush hog.  Boy that was impressive.

I guess our plan is to work the equipment till it breaks and then do the repairs.  The chain track on the Bobcat broke and we said, "Lupe?".  He fixed that one too.

There were other builders in the barn.  Here is Scotty and James putting together a wooden catapult that Scotty designed and made. Scotty is quite a builder and carver and they have set up a gourmet workshop in our old barn.

Heidi and I went down to check the corn that Bry and I planted earlier in the summer. It was eight feet high but not quite ready and the trick is to get it before the raccoons.  It was so fun to stay at the farm when Bry, Heidi and Scotty slept over as well.

We had a big barbecue at the farm on Friday night with me at the grill cooking the flat iron steaks and franks.  Lots of other food and we all sat down for the feast.  Here is Maryanna getting another birthday celebration with donuts.

Here are some of the boys enjoying the farm, William, Peter, David and Nicky. There were hay rides and trips on all the vehicles.  Little Luke came up to me and said, "Opa, I want to ride every machine here!" I am sure he did.

Many friends were there.  Here is Rich Williams, Bryan's old friend from high school, who came to the farm as well.  He is retired and lives in Spain.  At one time he and his former wife owned a company that manufactured designer jeans.  I believe these were called, "Rock N Republic".  Mary wears the Victoria Beckham version. They were high quality jeans with a special crescent trademark logo over each back pocket and were vey expensive.  Rich did very well with this company and finally sold it.

Here is Rich, former Jean manufacturer, pointing to the trademark logo on a pair of Jeans he once made now modeled by Mary.  Kinda an interesting moment on the old farm!

Rob's wife, Eva was there also with her children. We stayed around until well into dark around a nice fire roasting marshmallows and just chatting.  Here is Eva with Anna and Elena. We set off fireworks and launched Chinese Lanterns.

Slept pretty well at the farm but somehow got a mammoth cold which is finally receding.  It was so great to be there.

Love, Opa and Oma