Hello, world!

Just a quick post to let you know I'm still alive and doing well. The past few months have been crazy busy and I'm sorry for having let my website/journal/email lapse so badly. There has been a lot going on. In addition to all of the normal work and usual life things, we recently took a trip to California for a wedding and visited Lassen National Park. Also, in approximately five hours, I will be heading to the hospital for shoulder surgery. The calcium deposit in my rotator cuff never resolved (in fact, it's gotten larger) and I have no choice except to have it surgically removed. It's going to be a very long and painful recovery, which could take upwards of 18 months to restore full use of my arm. It won't be fun, but I am looking forward to the day when I have full range of movement without pain again. Since I won't be able to do much of anything for the next several weeks, I'm hoping to have a chance to get caught up with a bunch of backdated posts while I'm recuperating. I've been taking lots of notes and photos so there's lots to post. I'll be on heavy pain medication and doing nothing but resting for the next week, but I should be able to use the computer after that. Check back for updates then. Again, sorry for disappearing for so long and thank you to everyone who sent messages to check on me.

Our new goldfish are doing well.

They've responded well to the medication and all of their ick spots are gone. They're still a bit weirded out being in such a small tank, but it won't be for much longer. I'll probably start moving them into Santino's tank after another week or so of quarantine. I've been trying to get a photo of all four of them together for a while now, but have been unsuccessful. They either won't hold still for more than a second or they turn away from the camera or both.

I've got lots of photos of blurry fish butts.

A few weeks ago, Mr and Mrs Ducky paid us a visit.

Skittles saw them, but wasn't overly concerned.

"Hey! Look! Ducks! Whatever." If she ever even had one, the prey drive in that dog is long gone.

The pump/filter for our patio pond arrived today.

It has a couple different fountain heads for the output pipe. We tried them both and decided it was just too much for our little pond. Instead, we're capping off the vertical fountain pipe and just letting the water from the pump exit through the auxiliary outlet on the side. If we had a great big pond in the ground, the fountain options would be very cool. However, in our tiny little barrel, it was just too comical and dangerous for the fishies.

June 7 was the fourth and final day of the woodwork/fence build. L and V got right to work on the fence section at the back of the house. First, they hung the double gates.

Then they worked on the actual fence and put the arch piece over the gates in, when it arrived.

Once that was complete, the dog run was fenced in and finished. All that was left to do was the pergola out front.



As you may have noticed, the bottom portions of the posts are not finished. We will be having the guy, who built our wall and back step, come back one more time to wrap those with stone to match the wall.

I understand that kids are going to make noise while they are outside playing. Run around, hoot and holler. I'm fine with that. However, what is with the bloodcurdling screaming? Unless someone is out there hacking off your limbs with a dull and rusty ax, shut the #$!%& up already! </old lady rant>

Mr Santino is all moved into his new digs.

He seems to be enjoying himself. We also bought four new roommates for him.

They are in quarantine in Santino's old tank for at least a week. Yes, they are crazy crowded in there, but it's temporary. We've already seen a few spots on a couple of them so I will be running them through at least a course of medicine for ick. We have to make sure they are completely disease free before letting them join Santino.

Do you live somewhere that is desperate for rain? Seriously, invite me over to do yard work or anything else which involves being outdoors, and I guarantee it will be pouring within minutes.

On Day 3 of woodwork for the Great Landscaping Project back in June, L finally had a work partner, V. The two of them made lots of progress. They started out by pouring concrete to set the posts for the pergola.

They then moved on to the privacy screen.

In the above photo, they are placing the first of two acrylic Shoji "paper" panels. There is a second one on the adjoining side. After they finished work on the screen, they moved onto the front gate and fence.



We are fencing off just that one side of the house in the front and back to make a dog run. Since we don't have any other fencing in the yard, we needed a space where we can safely put the dogs outside. It will also serve as a place where we can keep the recycling bins and other big yard things we don't want to look at. L and V headed home for the day after that. It was a long day for them, but they got a lot done.

Our forecasted high temp for today: 65F/18C. Any of you cooking east coast peeps want to come for a visit?

Several years ago, we bought a half whiskey barrel to use as a planter. It served us well for a long time. However, now that the landscaping is complete, we don't really have a use for it as a planter any longer. Not wanting to put it in a landfill, we came up with an idea to re-purpose it: a patio pond! We bought a piece of pond liner on Saturday and started putting it together yesterday.

We hope to have a fountain, plants and some goldfish in it soon. For right now, I've hooked up and tossed in a small air stone from one of the indoor fish tanks to keep the water moving a little to prevent mosquitoes from laying eggs in it.

Listening to the announcers of the Home Run Derby and all I can think of is:

"Las Vegas. A city built of hot sand, broken dreams and $5 lobster. A city where you can get a happy ending, if you pay a little extra. A city home to a sporting event greater than the World Cup, World Series and World War II combined."
-- Cotton McKnight, Dodgeball

Watching the dogs at daycare via the webcam is a hoot. "Someone just did a poop!" "Quick! Let's have a town hall meeting!"

Day 2 of the fence build back in June involved setting the posts in the brackets and starting work on the privacy screen next to the patio.



L got a lot done considering he was working by himself and given how hot it was.

You know it's been a good day of working outdoors when, upon stepping into the shower, most of your "tan" washes off and goes down the drain.

Santino the goldfish has finally outgrown his tiny two gallon tank, which I've been keeping here on my desk. The "rules" of fish keeping say we should move him up to something only slightly larger, like a five gallon tank. However, since we didn't feel like spending any more money and already have two fish tanks doing nothing but collecting dust in the garage, we decided to move him out of his two gallon flat into a 15 gallon mansion. I got the tank out of the garage and cleaned today.

The bags on the bottom of the stand contain the gravel. In order to keep him from growing out of control and getting as big as a whale, we'll have to buy some new fish to join him in his new digs once we have everything set up and running. I'm excited to have a big fish tank going again. It's been a while.

Every time we post something on Craigslist, I am amazed at how quickly people respond.

Large lot of used flower pots. Posted in the afternoon. Gone by supper.

Back in early June, we finally got the woodwork for the Great Landscaping Project of 2010 underway. We had hoped to have everything finished by the end of year last year, but budget, scheduling and weather reasons made it impossible. The woodwork is the final major project to be completed. L spent Day 1 digging holes, mixing concrete and setting brackets.



The cedar lumber arrived and smelled so good.

As did our custom gates.

There was a not-so-small problem with the double gates for the back. See the brackets?

They're six feet apart. The two gates they delivered were four feet wide each. ACK! After several minutes of sheer panic and trying to not have a heart attack, Mr Moo and I decided, rather than making them make us new gates, which would set the schedule back by a month or more, we would move the left bracket further out (see the stake) to accommodate the new gates. Not exactly how we had planned for this whole thing to work, but, in the end, it all turned out okay.

This spring, our house appeared to be the place for baby spider hatching. We found dozens of these clusters all over the siding.

If you blew gently on them, the babies would scatter (and I would run away screaming like a little girl), but they always managed to find each other and gather into clusters again. So glad they've all grown up and moved on now.

On Sunday, we had my in-laws and a neighbor over for a small get together.

It's so nice to have a patio large enough to accommodate everyone and then some finally. If we had all sat out like this on our old patio, it would have been completely full and the legs of my chair probably would have been in the grass.