From this year's Chick-fil-A calendar, Great Works of Cow Literature:

Ali Babacue and the 40 Chefs
This ancient bovine epic tells the story of a poor nomadic cow named Ali Babacue. One day, while shepherding chickens, Ali stumbles across a cave holding a secret stockpile of golden cooking utensils. He then sets out to remove them after overhearing the chefs' magic password, "Open Sesame Seed!"

"NAME THAT MOVIE" CONTEST - 218

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There are several rounds of the movie contest still open. Have a look!

After 10 glorious weeks of being on sabbatical and off work, Mr Moo starts back at the salt mine tomorrow. To say he isn't looking forward to it would be a gross understatement. To "celebrate" his last day off, he and his dad rented a Ditch Witch and dug drainage trenches in the yard all day.





I'm not looking forward to him going back to work either. And it's not just because work on the landscaping project is going to come to a screeching halt. I'm just plain going to miss him.

Today is Mr Moo's first day back at work after having 10 weeks off for his sabbatical. We were worried the dog was going to be the most traumatized about the whole situation since he has been at Mr Moo's side 24/7 for the past 10 weeks. Surprisingly, Oscar is doing quite well. He wandered around looking lost for a little while this morning, but once he had breakfast and settled down for a nap, everything was right as rain. Hopefully, things will continue to go this well and we'll be back on our old routine in no time.

Oscar sure does love his daddy though. Here he is anxiously awaiting Mr Moo's return on a recent trip to Home Depot:



Spotted!

After being off for so long, it will take some time before Mr Moo is back into the swing of things at work. Since it's fairly quiet still, he came home early today and did a little work in the yard. He finished clearing out the trenches and got things ready to lay the drain pipes this coming weekend. Since I haven't been taking many photos lately, I grabbed my camera and took a few shots to show what a war zone the yard is right now.





I have to constantly remind myself of how nice it will all look in the end so I don't have a nervous breakdown about how awful it looks right now. We're shooting for a completion date sometime before the end of October. We're meeting with several contractors this week so we'll soon know if that's even reasonable.

This afternoon, we met with a woodworking contractor to get a bid on our fencing, gates, decorative screen and arbor. I then, promptly, had yet another in my series of heart attacks when I saw how much it's going to cost. Let's just say, we will probably be living without the decorative screen and/or the arbor for a while. We do need to get the fencing and gates done right away so we can use the dog run area for what it's intended. It won't be much of a secure place to put Oscar if there's no fence.

We don't have any final drawings from the landscape designer for the woodwork just yet, but I've been scouring the internet for things we like. For starters, we absolutely love this fence:

We also love this whole gate concept:

Based on those two photos, our designer had given us this sketch a while back:

It still needs a bit of tweaking, but it's heading in the right direction. She also drew up a few ideas for the decorative screen, which I scanned and modified a little using PhotoShop.

The screen will be an L-shape. The shorter side are the drawings on the left and the longer side on the right. Though it's not shown, the pieces will be connected in the middle at a right angle. We're leaning towards drawing #2 because we like how the spindle pieces along the top will tie in with the fence. The colored panels shown are to be made from waterproof shoji acrylic plate. It looks like the paper used in traditional Shoji screens, but it's made from acrylic so it can go outdoors. It will really help enhance the oriental flavor we're going for.

The final piece of this puzzle is the arbor, which will go in the front yard. We haven't a clue what that's going to look like yet. I'll be meeting with the designer on Saturday to make some final decisions so she can put a drawing together for us.

Another day and more meetings with contractors. This is one of the concrete dudes:

Today's meetings covered more woodworking, concrete work, some drainage consulting and general contracting. Things are really starting to get real now. It's one thing when you're digging up and doing stuff to your own yard. It's totally different when you're talking about crews of people coming in, large equipment rentals and materials weighed in tons. Lots of large dollar figures are being bandied about, which is scaring the life out of me, but we have to wait for all of the bids to come in before we can really assess how bad the damage will be and how far off the original budget we are. It might be time to start buying a few lottery tickets.

Mr Moo has officially survived his first week back to work. As I mentioned in a previous post, the first week back after sabbatical is always slow so he came home quite early today for a couple reasons. First, it's Friday. Woot! Second, our third drop box was delivered this morning.

With all of the trenching and patio digging we've been doing, there's lots of dirt to be hauled away.

He came home, had a quick bite to eat and got to work.



Not exactly my idea of a fun way to spend a Friday, but, as Mr Moo said, it totally beats being cooped up in a cubicle!

Today was a busy day at the Moo House with work continuing on the Great Landscaping Project of 2010. First thing this morning, a small mountain of pea gravel was delivered and dumped in the middle of our driveway.

Mr Moo and his dad continued working on filling the drop box sitting in front of our house.

And work started in earnest on the drainage pipes.



While I'm not able to haul around huge loads of dirt, I did help a little today with the pipe and some of the surveying and measuring.



My primary job most days, however, is to keep Oscar out of the way, fetch lunch and keep the water cooler full.

"NAME THAT MOVIE" CONTEST - 219

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Several rounds of the contest were finally solved last week. Yay! There are a few rounds of the movie contest still open though. Have a look!

Oscar may not be very much help when it comes to working in the yard, but he is getting very good at doing yoga.

What do dogs call that pose? Downward facing myself?

It's been so crazy busy around here lately I can hardly see straight. Not only have we been consumed with the Great Landscaping Project of 2010, I have lots of other work going on, too. I had a new student start weekly sewing classes this afternoon. She's 14 years old and just shy of six feet tall. Because of her height, she really struggles to find clothing in stores that fit her. Learning how to sew and make her own clothes will be a great benefit to her. I've also got a small mountain of alterations to do for my neighbor's daughter's wedding in a few weeks. Busy! Busy!

This is for Mr Moo, who, following a brief bout of insanity, scheduled a meeting with one of the general contractors for 0800 this morning.

Maybe he's deliberately trying to make me kill him. Hmmm...

Does anyone else see it?

I can't be the only one.

Photos from a hiking/geocaching outing last month:

Mr Moo and his dad got started early and continued working on the drainage pipes for our yard this morning.





They got the second of the two main pipes in today. They had to quit relatively early because of the heat. The high temperature was almost 100F/38C. I believe it was officially declared the hottest day of our summer so far.

"NAME THAT MOVIE" CONTEST - 220

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This is Mister Brutus.

He is a temporary patient in our house at the moment. He belongs to two co-workers of my MIL. She has been caring for him while they were both on vacation. She called me last week because she was concerned Brutus was getting ill. I gave her what advice I could and she went off to buy medicine. Caring for and treating a sick fish is a lot of work and there are never any guarantees any of the medication will be successful. By the time I spoke with her on Thursday evening, I could tell she was getting very concerned about his condition and wasn't entirely comfortable with the whole treatment process so I offered to set up our hospital tank and treat him for her. Even though it was late, she went to work to get him and brought him right over. She had warned me about the bowl in which he was living, but I was still a bit shocked when I finally saw it. It's one of those tiny tanks "bowls" sold for bettas. I don't think it holds even a half gallon of water (bettas need a minimum of 2 gallons) and there isn't enough room for a heater or an air stone. She works in a heavily air conditioned office so, for a betta, the water was freezing cold. With a container so small, he would need almost daily water changes and she didn't think that was happening. It also had a small plastic palm tree with jagged branches, which was doing a number on his fins and tail. Needless to say, it wasn't too much of a surprise to find he wasn't feeling very well. After a couple hours of acclimating, I finally got him into our hospital tank with the first dose of medicine. I think the temperature change alone did wonders for him. He's been swimming around, playing with the bubbles from the air stone and doing lots of perfectly normal fish things. My biggest concern at this point is his complete lack of appetite. I've been offering him pellets twice each day and he has yet to eat one. Bettas can go a long time without eating so I'm not overly concerned just yet. He does need to keep his strength up to fight his infection though so I may resort to giving him a dried bloodworm (aka betta junk food) tomorrow morning if he still hasn't eaten anything.

Our landscape designer stopped by this afternoon for our final sit-down meeting. She brought us several final plan drawings as well as a notebook full of phasing, construction and maintenance information. While she is finished with all of her design/drawing work, this isn't the last time we'll see her. Her fee includes coming on site during the installation to make sure the contractors are holding true to the design plan. Not that we won't be watching them like hawks, but it's always nice to have another pair of eyes monitoring things. Because she lives fairly close by, she said she will also probably stop by a few times long after installation is complete just to see how things are coming along. My favorite thing she dropped off today was this final overall plan drawing:

I cannot wait for all of this to be finished! She did an amazing job with the plans. She really listened to what we had to say, put up with me when I changed my mind a thousand times, and really "got" our whole concept and what we were going for.

As of right now, we're waiting on a bid from one of the general contractors we met with this past week. We really like him and he comes highly recommended. Assuming his prices aren't crazy expensive, we will probably hire him. The designer will be sending him copies of the final plans tomorrow and, hopefully, we'll hear from him by the end of the week.

It's much too hot to do much of anything besides nap today. The kids have it all figured out.

Since Josie keeps sleeping in his bed and he hates sleeping in hers, I brought Oscar's new pillow bed up from downstairs. He seems pretty pleased with the new set up.

One of the few plants in my yard this year that I've somehow managed to not kill. Yet.

It's a calibrachoa. If you want to attract hummingbirds and butterflies to your yard, plant a few of these in some hanging baskets. You'll have guests in no time.

Added a new puzzle to the collection.

I love these "One Hundred and One" puzzles. Now I just need to find some time to put it together.

We've been approved. Woot!

That's one more thing off the Great Landscaping Project of 2010 to do list.

Earlier this week, my MIL called to let me know her co-workers have agreed to give up custody of Brutus the Betta Fish to me. Given the conditions in their office, the cost of getting him into a properly sized and equipped tank, and the work involved with keeping it clean, they decided it was all a bit more than they were ready to handle. Since we own everything necessary and he was here already, they decided he would be better off staying with us permanently. Mister Brutus is now officially the latest member of the Moo Zoo.

Yesterday was his last day of medication in the hospital tank. As far as I can tell, he's 100% recovered from whatever was ailing him. He's acting normal, eating well and looking much better. Today, I transitioned him into his new home. I started by floating him in his cup for a long while to reduce any chance of temperature shock.

I then poured a little water from the tank into his cup several times to reduce chemical shock before setting him free in the tank.

Almost immediately, he started zooming around like a crazy fish so much I couldn't get a single non-blurry photo of him.



Overall, he seems pretty happy with his new digs. I'm hoping he'll settle down so I can get some better pics of him soon.

This weekend, Mr Moo and his dad are working hard to finish up the last of the drainage pipe installation in the yard.



Once this is done, the only thing left for us to do is adjust the sprinklers. After that, everything else will be done by contractors.

"NAME THAT MOVIE" CONTEST - 221

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From our trip to the beach last month. A boy and his dog at sunset.

From our trip to the coast last month. Mt St Helens as seen from Fort Stevens State Park.

From our trip to the coast last month. I think Oscar had more fun than anyone.

L for love!

Happy Anniversary, Mr Moo. I love you!

We received a card from one of my aunts for our anniversary today. Does anyone on it look familiar?

The inside reads: In life, it's not where you go, it's who you travel with.

I finally got a decent photo of Brutus. He is settling nicely into his new home.

He's eating well and his fin tips are all starting to grow back.

My sister is on a flight home today after week long business trip in Italy. Poor baby, I know. I found a neat website which allows you to track flights in/out of the US in real time.

Looks like it won't be long before my sister's flight is on the ground.

A few highlights from the wedding of our neighbor's youngest daughter earlier today.





The last one is a photo from the reception showing six dishes of the nine course meal which was served. Oy! I didn't eat much because I'm still getting over the horrible case of food poisoning which kept me up all night last night. I made a salad yesterday from a head of lettuce that had been in the fridge just wee bit too long. Note to self: When in doubt, throw it out. On a happier note, the bride was beautiful, the wedding was lovely and everyone had a great time.

"NAME THAT MOVIE" CONTEST - 222

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The Moo Zoo got a little bit bigger yet again this weekend. The centerpieces at the wedding reception we attended on Saturday were bowls of water with floating candles and rose petals. I was admiring how lovely they were when I noticed there was something moving inside. Much to my dismay, I discovered there were two goldfish in every bowl. Ugh. When I asked the bride what she was planning to do with them all afterward, she said, "I knew you would be the one asking about that!" Unfortunately, she didn't have a plan and I think most of them ended up being flushed. :-( If I could have, I would have taken all of them, but Mr Moo put his foot down and only let me bring one bowl home. Sadly, one of the two fish died sometime last night. He hadn't been looking very good since we got him home so it wasn't a big shock. They're the cheap, mass-bred feeder fish and they're often very sickly. The other little guy is hanging in there.

I'm doing daily water changes and feeding him as much as he'll eat to get his strength up. If he survives the next few days, we'll sort a tank and get him into a more permanent home. We also need a name for him. Any suggestions?

Just took the neighbor's dog for her first training session. At 12 years old, she's never learned to walk on a leash because he's never taken her for a walk. Ever. I've offered to work with and walk her, not only for her sake, but for Oscar's, too. It will do him a load of good to learn to walk with another dog. It's going to be interesting.

A couple months ago, we heard a very loud bang from here in the bonus room. We came in and looked around for a while, but couldn't figure out what it was. Once we noticed it was a little darker than normal, we realized it was the halogen lamp on Mr Moo's desk. This is what the bulb is supposed to look like:

This is what we saw:

It had gone major splodey.

Thank goodness the lamp came with that protective glass cover. Otherwise, there would have been tiny shards of glass all over the office.

Just talked to my dad at the hospital. He had his hip replaced today and everything went very well. He's still pretty doped up on the morphine so he was a little giggly, which was very amusing to hear. I'm so relieved the surgery went so well.