Life on the High Plains

I'm on my summer break from classes right now--a whole two weeks before the fall term starts.  Since I'm not one to sit around doing nothing, I took on a new project.  The cushions on Mary's outdoor furniture were in need of either being replaced or recovered.  Well, it was going to cost a small fortune to replace them so guess who volunteered to make new covers for them.  I've been working on it every night this week and I would have finished today, but I ran out of fabric.  If I had only bought another quarter yard of fabric I would be done.  Oh well, I'll stop by the fabric store tomorrow and pick up what I need to finish. Here's the before and after. It has been a fun project.  I wasn't quite sure how to make the corners so guess what I did...YouTube.  I looked up how to reupholster cushions and I learned everything I needed to know.  How did we ever get by without the Internet?

The garden is doing really good, at least for Colorado standards. The tomato plants are getting fairly big and they have quite a few blooms. The bell pepper and green beans are doing okay. The zucchinis are probably doing the best of any of the seeds we planted.  In this picture you can also see our cantaloupe and pumpkin plants plus Irv's corn.  This corn isn't going to be "knee high by the fourth of July" like they say in Wisconsin, it's just slightly more than ankle high. The radishes are getting pretty big; however, the carrots have hardly sprouted.  I must have gotten some bad carrot seeds.  How do you know when to pick the radishes anyway? The lettuce is kind of punky.  I'm told lettuce prefers cooler weather and we sure haven't been having cool weather.  It was in the upper 90s today--that's crazy for June in Colorado. The veggie patch has been a lot of fun, I can't wait to pick my first veggie from it....

Do my eyes deceive me.... Is it really raining? Woohoo !  I'm dancing for joy! I wonder what happened to our mailbox while I was at work today??? Could it be just a coincidence that our road is freshly graded?

After we came back from Hawaii last year I bought this orchid at Lowes.  (I bought it to replace the orchid I tried to bring back from Hawaii--unfortunately, it didn't survive)  I'm really happy that I've kept it alive for over a year, even though it hasn't  bloomed again.  It has grown a few new leaves and seems to be happy.  In the last couple weeks it has started growing these little shoots out the sides.  I wonder if this means it's getting ready to bloom.  Does anyone know what these shoots might be and if they're a good thing, or a bad thing?

Jillian asked me to join her and Diesel at this dog park this afternoon.  It was a beautiful day so we were glad to get out of the house and enjoy it.  There was this unusual cloud hanging over Pikes Peak when I left to go to the park.   It kind of looked like a mushroom cloud.  It's very interesting living in the shadow of Pikes Peak.  When we first moved here I stopped to marvel at it almost every day.  Thirteen years later, not much has changed.  It's different every day. We discovered that our dogs aren't very sociable or playful.  They prefer to hang out with their humans rather than other dogs.  Keira is especially friendly and made a point of meeting every human in the park.  She also attracted a few boys, Harry was very fond of her and cried when we left him. Diesel and Cody kind of liked Harry too. Diesel was the only dog who would climb on the logs... or even attempt to chase a tenni...

1. It is green and beautiful! 2. It has nice roads (although the traffic is very congested) . 3. The city maintains the parks, has nice walking trails, and all kinds of outdoor activities. 4. It has lots of great places to eat. Like CB & Potts and Green chili soup! The Rio (my favorite) 5. It has lots of frozen yogurts shops. (We walked two miles to get this yogurt.  Don't you think that makes the calories = zero?) 6. People ride their bikes everywhere. This was a type of bike I've never seen before....looks fun! 7. Its home to the New Belgium Brewing Company, although I haven't been there yet. 8.  It's a great place to spend time with your honey.    9.  It has magnificent sunsets (this picture doesn't do it justice.) 10.  It's home to CSU--my soon to be alma mater! But most of all, I love it because it is so beautiful a...

Jillian, Jonathan, Tiffy, and Brian Recently, the AQHYA world champion horse judging team was reunited at Jillian's wedding, but who's missing? Miss Ashley (or should I say Mrs. Ashley) recently had a baby and couldn't come to the wedding. These are some good kids (and coach Jonathan).  Miss Tiffy is going to be one of my judges for the state horse bowl contest in Ft. Collins on Thursday.  Jillian coaches the county livestock bowl team so she'll be there on Thursday also.  Not only were the kids close knit, so were the parents.  They were all there to watch my baby get married.  So odd seeing them all grown up. I chaperoned a lot of trips with these kids...some of the best times ever--Scottsdale, Ft. Worth, Wichita, Columbus, Albuquerque--year after year.  One year Jillian, Tiffy, Ashley, and Rob (not pictured) went to Columbus, Ohio for the All American Quarter Horse Congress hippology contest.  We all shared a suite at the Residence Inn...

I am a proud aunt today!  My nephew, Super Pizza Boy, just won a world championship at the Paint Horse World Show in Tulsa.  Look what he won! (I'm a little jealous.)  This is just the beginning....I hope SPB's parents have years of traveling to all the stock horse world championship shows...Oklahoma City, Ft. Worth, Columbus.  Way to go SPB!  We're very proud of you! Visit my brother's blog for the complete story - http://www.crustygasguy.blogspot.com/

The Pictures are in! If you have any spare time you may want to check out the pictures from Jillian's and Brian's wedding. We've known the photographer, Caitlyn, and her parents for many years through 4-H.  Caitlyn is not only a beautiful woman and a talented photographer, she is incredibly smart--a chemical engineer during the week.  We flew her here from Oklahoma City to take pictures of Jillian's wedding, and she did a fantastic job!  We highly recommend her.  She's also a fellow blogger so visit her website to check out her blog. 1) Go to www. caitlynmariephotography.com 2) Click on the icon that is labeled "website" 3) Click on the "proofing" tab 4) You will be prompted for a password. Your password is: laruewedding There are about 577 pictures to view so have a good time!

The family went to the circus yesterday.  It was supposed to be "The Greatest Show on Earth", but we weren't all that impressed.  I give it 2 out of 4 stars.  I did however see something I've never seen at a circus before.  One of the performers fell about 30 feet while warming up and they had to call the paramedics and ambulance.  I heard on the news this morning that he suffered only a shoulder injury so it wasn't too serious. This circus did not even have a trapeze.  How can a circus not have a trapeze?  That's my favorite part. Mr. Beans had to have his $12 cotton candy (hat included) which makes a very fine goatee.  It was his lucky day though because I found a $20 bill on our way out and I gave it to him.  I thought he should take us out for frozen yogurt with it, but he didn't agree. An elephant brought in the American flag which was very cool! There were also some beautiful equines--a Fresian, some American Paint...

It was a beautiful day today.  When I got home from work Irv and I took the dogs for a little walk. We made some new friends along the way.  They were very curious about us. Before we knew it, they were following us down the road.  I'm pretty sure they were hoping we were going to feed them something.  There isn't anything green in the pastures around here. The skies looked like we might get a little rain.  The winds picked up, the skies got a little darker, and then.....it passed us by, again. We didn't see a single snake so it was a really good day!

Does anyone have a spare room?  I need to move back into the city.

We've had smoke in the air the last few days because of wildfires in Arizona.  This is the sun yesterday morning when I went out to feed the horses.  Beautiful! We did a lot of landscaping this weekend.  With help from our little buddy we added a couple new beds to the front of the house. This is before... And after!  (How long until all that mulch blows away in the wind?) Jillian isn't too happy because this is where she used to park. The dogs think it is their new play area. We planted a couple honey suckle vines in the backyard which will hopefully start climbing up my pergola. The lettuce and radishes in my veggie patch sprouted.  Now I'm on my way to becoming an agricultural producer! Only one bad thing about this weekend... And that's all I can say about that!