Why I keep coming back

After seeing Glacier and the Tetons, I still longed for the Badlands, Black Hills, and Yellowstone. The landscape warms me so. The colors, the animals. the atmosphere. I just get happy when I see the edge of the badlands. I had a great trip. Still hate the camping, but the hotels were so seedy, that by the end of the trip, I preferred toughing it out in the tent with the bears and bison. K~

Function over Beauty

So, Rick was on his way out somewhere in the evening. He had been busy outside for a few hours prior. He said to me on his way to the gate, "Hey, do you want to see what I made?" I went out and looked in my garden to find this monstrosity sitting there!!! It is a hand made (as if you can't tell) pool heater. I was rendered speechless and just shook my head. After I rescued my "Kiss me over the garden gate" I just proceeded to take a picture. Why do I even bother!

On the flip side, Bobbi got me these lovely organizing pieces for my Birthday! Thanks Bob! They are so pretty, and will make the ugly mundane paperwork items look so much more beautiful. Guess Rick and Bobbi are not cut from the same cloth. Both items are functional, true, but well they don't seem to look the same. K~

Yeah, more flowers!

How pretty are these! K~

tomatoes

These are my tomatoes. Luckily the turtles (and rick and I) LOVE tomatoes. There are a lot of them. The plant is nearly 9' tall. Weird. The tomatoes that I planted from seed have potential for growing tomatoes. The plants look good. I just need to be patient. This has been a very good year from growing things from seed. Many of my plants have grown and flowered. Including my favorite Zinnia. My wire plant is doing well too. Can't forget about that one. It is 3 years old now. K~

It's alive

Well Bob, it seems to be determined to make it. It has a bend in it, but "Kiss me over the garden gate" seems to be making it. Now if I can just remember that it isn't a weed next spring, and pull it. I seem to do that quite often. K~

The zoo

The zoo is not too far from my house. I have people trying to camouflage into the background. I have people who often show their true colors and are not afraid to stand out in a crowd. I have those people who just hang around in their own wonderful splendor. And I have those who just float along and paddle when needed. That is what makes a house a home. It is what makes life interesting. I treasure these traits. They are challenging, but worth the work. K~

Boy's of summer

D at bat.

S at Bat

Ok, so today, I sat and watched D play baseball from 10:30 AM - 4:15 PM. There was a 15 minute break in between. I am absolutely exhausted. I can't imagine playing it for that long. Their team came in 4th out of 13. I think that was pretty good. S was done on Tuesday. So now we are done with sports until September?? Phew. K~

Our new adoptees

These are our 2 new adoptees. We named them Pinky "girl" and Bulbus McPorky "boy". They are fresh water parrot fish. I need to do more research on them. They are in their own tank and are pretty cool. They look like they are kissing and that they need lipstick on. Seriously... I am not an animal hoarder. K~

Bonsai

I got yet another bonsai. This time a ficus. Now I would love to just keep it alive long enough to learn a bit about them. Like orchids, I kill them almost instantly. I have been trying to do some sort of bonsai for years, but only dabbled in it. now I might actually try and learn something. K~

Working on the House

I have been deep cleaning for about a week now. I have vacuumed the living room and dining room walls, washed the sheers for those rooms, and vacuumed 1/2 the kitchen walls too. I do the kitchen about every 3 months, but I only do the living room dining room about 2 times a year and on a need to basis.

I am getting ready for visitors at the end of August, my parents and another dog.

The work is rewarding and discouraging all at the same time. I like to think that I got something done, but alas there is just more where that came from. I got up this morning to a full sink of dishes, one I was too tired to do last night, the floor needs vacuuming again, the table is yet again full of odds and ends. The junk drawer wont soon close and there is a new unfolded basket of clean laundry waiting for me to fold.

I try and get my kids involved, and actually do. Sometimes though the reminders and crabbing is not worth it.

But I just plug away. I keep whittling at the mess and cleaning. Keep thinking that "This is what I do" and keep plugging away.

K~

Firsts for me at WRC

We have 2 baby river otters. They are truly as cute as a stuffed animals. I was baffled by their poop. It was piles of some many different blacks, grays, browns and tans, I just didn't quite understand how they digested things.
4 baby green herons. SO SO cute. They put up their heads and they look like fluffy sticks. So very very cute. These little guys were in our flight room. We have 6 enclosures in the flight room. These guys are in one. Then there are the crows that I said I had an omenesque experience a few weeks ago. One enclosure has older baby birds in it, A LOT of older baby birds. It was the first time I got pooped on.... right on the head!! then on my shirt sleeve. eeoo..

After I cleaned the poopy birds I needed to feed them. So I read their sheet and did the normal counting of how many total items I needed. I could not believe my eyes and double checked with the vet. They needed 750 meal worms and/or wax worms. 750 in one enclosure!

I finish counting them out, luckily not one at a time, and finish counting the earthworm total. 750 earthworms. That is a total of 1500 worms in one enclosure and I have 3 more enclosures to go. I have never seen that many worms in one dirt pile in my life. I hope the birds were happy. After I fed the other birds, I looked over and boy oh boy what a mess mess mess robins can make of their dirt!!

K~

To lighten my mood for the day~

Dude vs. Wild - The Desert

This is something that makes me giggle. If you have never watched Man vs. Wild or Survivor man, it may not be very funny?? but I find it to be wonderfully accurate. K~

Weeding out the fun

We did a few fun activities and had a few smiles along the way. K~

It's over

Sunset at Gull Lake

Well that is about the end of it. I am so beyond exhausted and worn out, that I just about can't stand it. We were at Gull Lake last week. From Saturday to Saturday. I had to take care of my 3 kids and my 2 in laws. I would love to blog about my experience, but alas, I can't even get through this much with out getting a head ache. I am, at this moment, an unbearable crab and very moody. Needless to say, my Occipital Neuritis is back. Hints to the weeks: 9+ pounds of bacon fried, 3 meals a day everyday for 7 people+, laundry, in law sitting, listening to the same story over and over and over again, coffee heating, being interrupted by more than just my children, Site Council rants and raves to an unnecessary level....... and on and on. All with a beautiful backdrop of a lake that I barely communed with. K~

Traveling with art

Clematis

This square came from an experiment with lines and color. It is not one of my favorites, but it was a pleasant surprise under the circumstances. I like to start with an idea, or perhaps a color scheme and just work with what starts to happen as I go along. Bobbi reminded me that many artists keep a working diary of inspiration pieces. I kind of felt like a true artist for a moment, because I have many pieces of inspiration that I have either tucked away or in a computer file. I love to work with color so much that it is hard to be patient and take time to finish a piece sometimes. I like to work on my stitching as well. This too takes time and memory. Both of which I am short of these days. And yet, I try and fit it in as I go about my day. Trying new things and keeping excited as I go along. This medium has truly allowed me the opportunity to travel with my art. Yeah! K~

my zoo

Meet Boris and Natasha. They are my adopted Russian Tortoise. Boris is the one in the foreground. He, of course, is eating. He eats continuously. It is a great thing, because he will be happy and healthy. Natasha is the smaller one. She seem more shy. She has a healthy appetite too. Everyone seemed fine with there arrival, except Yuri. He welcomed them with open mouth and biting jaws :-)

Then there is sweet little Puff. Showing all that he can still look tough.
K~

There, i hope that's better!

Well, since Rick's back is out, it was up to me to decide how to handle the Rank Plant Growth. So I thought "what would work best for weeds/rank plant growth..?"
Why a weed whipper of course. So after one and one half hours on almost non stop weed whipping. I think I got the yard handled.
Gee, I hope that wasn't too annoying for the neighbors?? K~

Love the Badlands

These are a few photos I took when we were in the Badlands in 2006. I can't tell you how happy they make me. K~

naturgal

I am really a naturegal stuck in a big city. I have always had the need to travel. I have always wanted a small farm. I have, for several years, been trying to get a small "farm" going on our 120' x 40' lot. I have looked into bees. I would love to have a bee hive. Not just for the honey, but to be able to watch the hive grow and come and go throughout my day. In doing research on this possible project, I have found that I would have to have the hive set up about 2 feet from my house. It would have to have a fence around it, so the bees could go straight up and out instead of going out horizontally through the yard and then to the neighborhood. I have still longed to order my queen bee and drones in a box and set up my little honey making dream.

Then there is the chicken dream. I don't think that is just a pipe dream. I have done more encouraging research on that. I have found out that I can get a one chicken with out a permit. I will have to restyle the playhouse into a chicken coop. I am going to go to a class on this in about a week.

I also would like a sheep to harvest my own wool. I know that this is not possible right now. I don't have the room, we have no grass, and wool on sheep gets brittle and not so good for looming when the sheep gets older.

Last but not least I would LOVE a buffalo. I think that they would be absolutely fantastic. I just love watching them. I love reading about them. I just love them.

K~