A second day at the zoo.....

On Sunday, we went to the zoo again. Since we've already paid for as many times as we want to go, it seemed like the right thing to do.

G and M were ready to go:


We saw the birds (this is an african crane) at the giraffe exhibit:


After watching the giraffe stampede (where they let all the giraffes outside) we saw these little creatures (and I have totally forgotten what they are):


Next up were the lions, and rockclimbing outside the lion exhibit:

Then on to the Rocky Mountain Wild exhibit. The mountain lions were being fed in one half of their pen. Food was in feed sacks so they could tear it apart. They have 3 boys and one girl all from the same litter. The boys have been fixed, and the girl is on birthcontrol, but she still attracts the boys from off the mountain:

M standing on the fence out side the lions:

The otters were out swimming, so we had to stop and see them:

Then we got to the grizzly bears. They were out walking around, not swimming like we saw before:

The two of them put on quite a show wrestling:

Then we were done, and left for home:

And this is what I found after we had been home for a couple of hours. He insists that he was reading his book, but I have evidence otherwise:
The book isn't even open!

I guess the grandkids wore him out. Meanwhile, I washed dishes, clothes, and did some other stuff.

WHAT??!!??!?

Where did summer go? It hasn't arrived yet! Oh my, we had spring all of June, July, and August.
It's supposed to be summer now. But no, our forecast is for a chance of snow Monday night. Temps in the high 20s.

Our sunflowers haven't made seeds yet.

We just got the stuff to start painting the trim on the house.

The manure pile isn't cleaned out yet.

The wood isn't split yet.



Oh, well, off to the zoo with G and M. Today's supposed to be really nice!

The zoo.....

On the Sunday of Labor Day weekend, Clyde and I joined the zoo. Yes we did. We signed up for the grandparents membership with five grandchildren. So we can go anytime we want, and not have to pay. Seriously, I think 3 trips will pay for the membership, and we still have the whole year to go. And, the best part, we don't have to see everything in one trip. Which, I have to say, is a little hard on the little ones.

So here we have Miss M perusing the map to determine where we are going:



And here she is after deciding, looking quite satisfied:



CJ is a little more leary, not knowing exactly what he's gotten himself into:



Here he is leaving the treehouse right before we went to the My Big Backyard:



And they have a pond in My Big Backyard that is full of fish. CJ had to get a close look! Any closer and he would have been in the pond with the fish:



While in the Big Backyard, we went into the upper part of the treehouse. Miss M sat in an egg and pretended that she was hatching:



We had a great time and we are looking forward to going again! But it's hard to take pictures when you're chasing kids at the same time so we didn't get many taken.

Maybe next time......

The artists

I have some very talented grandkids. They are becoming quite the artists.



Mr G drew this last spring, while he was still in 1st grade. See if you can decipher who it is and what it says. I thought is was really creative, and not something I would have expected from a just turned 7 year old.



I received the above in the mail today from Miss C, way out in Grand Junction. It's a birthday card for Grandma. She put Grandpa in it too. And isn't it nice that she only put 4 candles on the cake? She thinks I'm young!

I had one that Miss M drew of her daddy (and I knew immediately who it was) but I think I sent that home with her parents. I'll have to keep the next one to post.

CJ is quite the artist too, but he draws on himself so I have nothing to scan in from him. Maybe someday when he learns to draw on the paper! LOL!!

Patio stages One through Five.

So, it's not done, but here's the progress so far. Let me say, that this was my idea, and I have participated in each step. Clyde has done some of the heavy lifting as you will see.


First step was buying some railroad ties. After looking on Craigslist for what seemed like forever, Big R had them for 11 bucks apiece. So I ran out there the first day of the sale and bought 10. So, first step was to get the new patio outlined with the railroad ties. Here's the first layer above.


Then it was time to move the second level. These things were HEAVY!!! And they had to be cut with a hand saw. Then they had to be secured to the lower layer, which was secured to the ground with rebar. Unfortunately, the drill was good for one drill at a time. Then it was, take off the battery, charge it, and drill another hole. That was the most time consuming part.


And Clyde was THRILLED that it was taking so long! Here he is resting between drilling holes and pounding in stakes.

And here he is pounding in a stake.


Next, I had to get dirt to fill it in, and that was another frustrating thing on Craigslist. So we finally went down to Pioneer Sand and bought a large bucket load of fill dirt. Which promptly deflated one of the tires on the trailer, so we had to borrow their air compressor and pump up the tire, and then pull that almost 9 tons of dirt all the way up Black Forest Road. With my little 2500 since the big truck isn't running reliable. After spreading out the dirt, and leaving it to settle for a while, I had Clyde dump in bucket loads of sand from the pile we have in the round pen. And we spread that out to settle. Then I cleaned out the flower bed, had Clyde put sand in that, spread it out and went and bought bricks and pavers.

So today, I put the bricks and pavers in that section. Now I have patio on both sides of the tree, and it looks great. I can hardly wait to finish this, but it may have to wait until next summer. I have two landscape timbers to cut to divide it into 3 sections, and then I have to buy more bricks and pavers. But you can see how it's going to look.


Well, busy day. Still have more stuff to do before bedtime.