I Might Be Back

It's been over a year and 3 months since my last post. In October 2008 my laptop computer (which I used for blogging) crashed. Then during 2009, we might say I was busy. It's interesting that my business income in 2009 was 1/3 what it was in 2008, but I seemed constantly busy. Blame it on a passion for gardening and canning with Nana during the first half of the year. Blame it on getting involved in church activities (preaching, teaching, newsletter, recruiting, etc. after the ministers left in June) during the second half of the year.

Anyway, I've wanted to get back to blogging because it documented incredible things that I had seen - snakes, coyotes, fish, etc. Only I wanted to make it more about what I've done than what I've experienced. Let's see if I can do that.

Currently, Nana and I are still trying to make the New Year's resolution to lose weight actually work. We're watching what we eat, doing yoga (thanks for the tape Jason), and lifting light weights every other night. I've dropped 4 pounds since the first week of January and want to continue losing 2 lbs. a month. Let's see what happens on that.

Strange But True

We've had coyotes in our yard since one got our white duck. I had a 22 rifle and shot 3 times at that one. On another night the dogs were barking at midnight. I took the rifle out and saw a huge coyote eating pears that had fallen from the pear tree. I took one shot and he ran so fast I could not even get another shot off.

One afternoon there was a huge wolf spider in the wellhouse. I took the handle of a shovel and smashed her. Hundreds of little spiders took off running in every direction. Amazing. We have a crop of wolf spiders for next year.

Nana and I went out into the field at about 8:00 pm to see the space shuttle fly over tonight. It was bright and fast. Makes you think about walking in space at hundreds of miles per hour.

Nana got a cheap weekend fare to go see Madison and Caleb last weekend. Boy howdy, did she have fun. Rumor is that they did too.

I finally finished with the tractor's rototiller and removed it. I had tilled up the orchard and put out 50 lbs. of oats seed and 50 lbs. of rye grass seed. Let's see if it'll rain, if the seed will sprout, and if the deer come to eat it.

I changed out my worm bins and put new paper and leaves in both. I put in a couple thousand starter worms in both piles. The last month I've harvested about 75 gallons of worm castings which have gone in the garden. I've also got three old "cooler" nurseries going to breed new worms for next spring.

Up the Poudre River

We had fun in August on our trip up the Poudre River valley in Colorado. I wanted to post a couple happy pictures with Donovan. As we were driving up he was saying, "I'm bored. I want to go home." Then we went to a fish hatchery and stopping at places as we came back down and he didn't want to go back home as he yelled, "I'm not going home. I'm staying here."

Visit from Hurricane Ike

We had an "Ike" visit today. The hurricane started here at about 5:00 am, the wind reached it's peak at about 9:00 to 11:00 am and the rain has been heavy from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm. Wind estimates in our area were about 55 mph (just Cat 1) and rain estimates about 8 inches. We're sad because a lady Nana worked with in Huntsville was killed by a falling tree in her bedroom this morning. Although our house is fine, see some of the trees that have blown over. Our lake which was 4 feet low is now overflowing. Many have had their homes destroyed including a neighbor who had a tree fall across his house. Although millions have lost electricity, we've been fortunate because our electricity never went out. We used the tractor to move the trees out of the driveway.

Coyotes

Well Nana and I saw 3 large coyotes with very long tails running in the field behind us last night and coming within 20 yards of our yard. I kept thinking they would run away so I went about watering and putting the ducks away. Later Nana yelled from the garden "GET THE GUN." By the time I got out there with it they finally disappeared. But we've been seeing them a lot lately, so I'm going to keep the gun handy.

A FISH Story

Well on Labor Day weekend this bass produced about 4 lbs. of meat & we estimate he must have weighted over 6 lbs. That's a 26 inch cutting board. He feed 5 hungry folks dinner with Nana's Special Fried Fish recipe. He was caught by Nana's aunt Linda's cousin Johnny shown here holding him. If this doesn't make you want to come fish, I don't know what will.

In Ft Collins Aug 9-19

Nana and I had a great time in Ft Collins in August with Alexa, Aaron, & Donovan. They are all special and we're glad things are going well for all of them. On "Faith Day" we went to a Rockies game with Nana's cousin's family. Speaker at Faith Day was former All-Star pitcher, Dave Dravecky and music was by five-time Grammy award winner Steven Curtis Chapman. We then went to Dave's BBQ after the game. Everything about the day put smiles on our faces. From left Sarah, Nick, & Lexy Stevens, Grandpa, Smokey with the sign, Alexa & Donovan, Nick Jr., Nana, & Aaron. Nana & I had a great time while there at Estes Park, Poudre River, the Fish Hatchery, Cheyenne, the Bud Brewery, on local trains, and even at the "Pouch Plunge" (dogs in the swimming pool at Ft. Collins).