We started the morning with a hearty pancake breakfast to fuel us up for a day of commaraderie and fruitful labor.

Since the ground was wet, we opted to work indoors. We found plenty to keep us busy including updates to the sound system and rearranging furniture in preparation for next week’s tea party.

It was a spring offensive! 37 volunteers from Hanover Baptist and the Bailey family descended on the Bailey farm to help in tree felling, lawn raking, clean-up, and fence removal.

God gave us perfect weather as men, women, and children arrived with their Bobcats, pickup trucks, chainsaws, rakes, pruning shears, hammers, crowbars heavy duty wire cutters, and strong backs. We started at 8:00 AM, though Ward and a few of the men were quite early. By noon, the place looked sooo different. It was a special blessing that so many children and teens came out. They effectively mixed work with play, which sped things along and brightened everyone’s day.

Here are some photos of this fruitful event

Click one of the small pictures to get a blow-up, then use your arrow keys to step through the larger pictures. Just click on the large picture to see the thumbnails again.

Hanover members are bursting with talent: singers, storytellers, comediens, chellists, violinists, readers, writers, percussionists, poets, and pianists. I don’t even know how to describe Matt’s mystery talent!

The fellowship hall was standing room only as the festivities began a little after 7:00 (we waited for the hot, crispy chocolate chip cookies to emerge from the oven). The Webergs warmed up the audience with a harmonious rendition of “Happy Birthday” for Tim French and Kim Emons.

Loren Land started the program with “Benny the Bunny,” a unique version the prodigal son Bible story. Over the next couple hours, members of the Pizana, Lowe, Weberg, and Snell clans played a multitude of musical instruments, Pastor Crookshank told jokes and read a poem he wrote in the fourth grade, and Rachel Pizana read an essay she wrote on Napoleon. Emily Weberg recited Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky.” The last official act was Stephanie Weberg who gave a presentation on blood, complete with corny jokes.

The evening concluded with a positively precious acapella rendition of “Jesus Loves Me” by one of our littlest members, Isabelle Weberg.