My Brother-In-Law's Shindig, Redux

Today, we went back to the site of my brother-in-law's shindig. This time, it was to help clean up. The small props were packed up on Saturday evening and Sunday and returned to their owners. However, the stage still had to be disassembled, packed up and returned. The "hay bales," really coarse straw, had to be removed - they were great to sit on, but livestock could not digest that stuff, and so, they had to go. All of the paper plates, cups and napkins that had gotten blown around had to be policed up. It took several hours for my brother-in-law, my children and I to get this all done.

Now, the real work started - helping my mother-in-law go through 50+ years of accumulated stuff. Lots of stuff was simply thrown away. Other stuff was piled up for my wife, my sister-in-law and my brother-in-law. This a real slow going. So many items have a story behind them and this makes for slow going and lots of long-winded stories from my mother-in-law of when her children were growing up, of her childhood and her relatives during the Depression, World War II and the Korean Conflict.

Also helping out was my brother-in-law's dog, Barfly. No, that is not a spelling error. No, I do not mean cartoonist Bill keane's dog in Family Circus, Barfy

Barfly is an Australian Sheep Dog, supposedly. I have never seen a dog marked like this. She has no tail: I do not know if someone docked it, or she is naturally docked. The dog was found, as a young puppy, sitting outside a bar for several nights; thus, the name Barfly.

Barfly, the Dog