banzel

I always thought the tornado shelters we see locally were a little over top, yeah we see some wild weather but not that wild. The nasty stuff is out on the flat Eastern plains right? Wrong!
This fabulous looking thing was less than 15 miles from us yesterday, just NE of Castle Rock, our local town.

Looks fierce but it was just that fierce looking, lots of dust and a great funnel cloud but thankfully no damage. I guess I dont need to take the boys on a tornado chasing holiday next year after all - they are coming to us

Duncan’s recent football camp earned him a new haircut. Suffice to say we are now having to buy more hairspray than I ever thought imaginable.
This year he’s playing for the Varsity and Junior varsity teams as a full back. Thats the guy who gets given the ball and attempts to get through the wall of bodies in the defense - usually ending up at the bottom of a pile of footballers.

Happened a few weeks back but the service I use to update the blog has not been working. Spent the day stripping the deck back and the re-staining with a decent oily stain. Looks much better and will get through another winter.

We have Dylan with us this week visiting from California. Today he risked life and life allowing Tara to drive him up Pikes Peak.
He’s been camping in the yard, off to Garden of the Gods, to the Renaissance Festival, swimming and to the movies and just chillin’ with his pal.

Finally caught on camera … this is Digby. We have had him since late last year but the danged dog will not sit still long enough to catch him on ‘film’!
I spent 10 minutes trying to get a dog family photo with him, Hazel and Bandit. It was like hearding cats, one would sit, the the other get up and walk off. After too much imploring and shouting Hazel would look so upset it was just not worth it … thank heavens for digital cameras!

Took longer than I thought it would but we now have partially green back yard. Put down enough topsoil that it should not dry out too quickly and its a ’sandy’ grass so that should help.
The brown bit in the far back corner is going to a be covered with a deck but first I’m back to building a retaining wall to stop the grass slipping down the hill. Its deja vu, my life is filled once again with 300 lb logs and 12” nails … Its not going to be too big. Once that’s in its on to the hexagonal raised beds and finally the hexagonal seat around the big pine. Should look nice and be a good place to sit of an afternoon or for breakfast with the deer.

Its a holiday weekend here, yesterday 700 sq ft of turf arrived and Tara picked up 5 yds of topsoil. This is America remember, no square metres here mate!
So we have our 3 day weekend mapped out, we’re grassing the area left after the dog run was built. Just hope it survives, top soil should help, that’s pretty sandy too thou. Looks like pretty tough grass so hopefully it will still be here by the end of the summer!

Finally finished the dogs new run, they got about a third of the fenced area out back. They seem a little perplexed as to why they cannot get out anymore

Now we can start on Tara’s garden without fear of it turning into a doggy dust bowl. More big landscaping projects coming soon.

I thought I posted this last week … Obviously not. Duncan went in for some surgery to remove some pins from his elbow. All went well if a little time consuming. I caught him in this delightful hat and gown that he’ll be wearing to Ascot this season. Notice the ‘No’ on his arm - this was a reminder for the surgeon to open the correct elbow … oh dear!

But he does just looks super dahlings!

No it hasn’t … Just when we had a week of warming temperature, we even turned the pond back on. We have been cast back a month or three to a winter wonder land. We’re expecting about a foot of heavy wet snow, hopefully we’ll not loose and branches or trees this time. We’ll get throughthis and straight into storm season. I love the weather here!