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.

How to paint with cats

Painting at our house entails a few challenges. First there is the large amount of animal hair that floats around. (After all, we have 4 cats and a Newfie, all of which have decided that it's time to shed.) So to paint, in our house, you have to become very adept at removing hair from the wet paint. And this includes watercolor, or painting the walls for that matter. So Clyde is now getting very adept at removing the hair. But there are other problems to consider also.



For instance, paw prints do add texture to the wet paint, whether you want it or not.
See the above picture of the paw prints in the wet paint. In addition, if the paint is wet enough, the cats can paint pawprints all over your paper. Luckily that didn't happen here.



Of course, leaving the painting to dry in the sunshine on the table offers it's own challenges. The cats take up residence on the paper in order to nap in the sunshine. Don't they look comfortable?



Then there is always the choice of seating. Middle of the painting is the place of choice for Calico.

So this is the painting of a sunflower that Clyde is working on, with the help of the cats!

More Mary, Mary.......

More flowers, seems like all I'm getting pictures of. We had planned on joining the zoo today, and taking the kids, but there's something about getting up to fog and 40 degrees that just takes the fun out of it! So everyone else slept in.



I did get up before sunrise the other day, and went out to take pictures of the sunrise. The sunflowers in the garden didn't come out so well, but the singles out by the fence did. Course I had to lay on the ground to get the right take on them, but I'm thinking these would make a great painting!



Clyde is really getting into the watercolor, and now he's absconding with my camera to take pictures of what he wants to paint. So, the above is a sunflower with a bee!
We are certainly going to get different pictures now.



And here's one of our sunflowers. They are really starting to bloom, so we're going to have lots of them. We did buy some bricks so I could work on the deck, and we found some really pretty black eyed susans that we now have planted under the sunflowers.

Happy gardening!

Mary, Mary, quite contrary....

How does your garden grow?

Well, I'm not Mary, and I usually don't get much to grow. But this summer has been so WET, I swear I've been transported to Seattle. Yes, humid, wet, and cool for most of the summer. But here are some of my lovelies for your enjoyment:




The daisies, which I hope are going to survive the winter. I'm mulching with the horse manure to keep everything from hopefully freezing. I want more of these, they are one of my favorite flowers!



Here is an acorn squash. These grew magically when Clyde dropped some seeds from a squash we had, while he was putting stuff in the composter. He just pushed the seeds into the ground, and look what came up! I'm not sure, but it may be too late in the growing season here for these to do well, but I'll keep you posted.



And here is one of the first sunflowers. They are mostly over my head, and more are starting to bloom. While I may say that daisies are my favorite flower, I always plant lots of these. I think you could say that sunflowers are really my favorite.



And this sunflower is the prettiest I have ever seen. It's got such a lovely color, and so distinct.

We went to a horse show yesterday, now Clyde can hardly walk, Kory tried to buck him off (she hates latigo trails arena), and now he thinks his tailbone may be broken.
Oh, the moaning that is going on here!

I'll have pictures of that later.

Our watercolor class was cancelled, but Tom, the instructor, was nice enough to let us into the over filled Saturday morning class. So now we have a class on Saturday morning.

And now it's raining, again!!

A Little Cuteness

Here's a little cuteness to brighten your day.



We have a sunflower that is blooming, and some more with heads that haven't opened yet. I'll post a picture when they're all open so you can see the sunshine. Truthfully, we're lucky they're blooming at all. Monday we had rain, a deluge, hail, more rain, more deluge, and more hail. When Clyde got up at 1:30 a.m. to take the dog out, it was still raining. And Tuesday dawned cold, cloudy, and foggy.

It cleared for a short time, and by Tuesday afternoon we were being rained and hailed upon AGAIN!!

Today, we had a nice summery day (but only in the 70s). FINALLY!!!!

But my poor petunias look very bedraggled.

Hope you all are having a nice summer. We've practically gone from winter straight to fall.