Life on the High Plains

The moon during an early evening visit to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo a couple weeks ago.  Pretty cool! The zoo has some of the best views of the city.  The Broadmoor Golf Course is in the foreground. Here's a shot of our downtown.  No skyscrapers here...we can't block the view of our beautiful Pikes Peak.   Of course, the best views at the zoo are the critters.  Here's a couple of my favorites.       Happy Skywatch Friday !

I felt like a farmer this morning. I got up at the crack of dawn, went out to feed my horses, and on the way back I stopped by my garden to pick some lettuce for my lunch. While I was in the garden I noticed the green beans were ready to be harvested. Wow!  This is my first year for green beans.  I'm quite impressed with my beans! I'm an actual agricultural producer!  (Well, sort of anyway.  I produced enough green beans for one meal.) Gardening is so much fun.  I need to move somewhere that has a longer growing season so I can enjoy my fresh veggies year round.

We celebrated Jillian's birthday on Saturday with a BYOB painting class. Amazing things happen when there are three bottles of wine, a blank canvas, an instructor, and four creative minds converge. Even Irv joined in on the fun (mainly because we needed a designated driver). Another of Irv's tasks was to open all the bottles of wine.  This was kind of difficult once he broke the studio's one and only cork screw...note to self--next time take our own cork screw. We started with two things... a palette with our chosen color theme, and a blank canvas. Step 1 was to paint the background black.  This is harder than you might think.  Getting the paint strokes just right with enough texture to show some detail is a fine art. Some of us had to use the hair dryer to get the background dry before Step 2 started. Step 2, 3, and 4 involved painting the vase, then adding stems with buds and leaves.  Being the competitive family that we are, I...

Yesterday was the day--Moving Day for Jillian and Brian! We spent Friday night moving the "little stuff", but thankfully, Jillian hired movers to move the furniture on Saturday morning. If anyone in Colorado Springs is looking for movers, these guys did a fantastic job at very reasonable rates! Brian will be glad to know the movers moved his new "lift".  It weighed a couple hundred pounds and we couldn't even budge it.   It took the guys 3.83 hours to move all of Jillian and Brian's stuff from their condo to the new house.   It took the rest of us about 47.35 hours to get the "stuff" moved.  My goodness they have a lot of stuff for a couple who has only been married two years.   Now for a brief tour of the new place.   Living Room...Brian is already telling Jillian she needs to go out and buy a bigger TV to fill that space.   Craft Room (I'm jealous!)   And Diesel's favorite new room....   ...

Mr. Beans had a major accomplishment last week.  You see, Mr. Bean inherited his Grammy's anti-thrill gene.  That means we don't seek out thrills.  We're perfectly happy with both feet on the ground.  People like us take a lot of ridiculing from the roller coaster riders in the world because we don't like roller coasters and we won't be coerced into riding a coaster just to make others happy.  (Well, actually a few years ago when Jillian's team won the judging contest at the World Show, I did let them talk me into riding that big wooden coaster at Six Flags in Arlington, Texas.  Yes, the same coaster that woman just fell off of.  I held on so tight during that ride that my hands swelled and I couldn't get my rings off for days.  Chicken...yes, that's what I am and I'm not ashamed to say so.) Anyway, back to the story about Mr. Beans.  Mr. Beans has been challenged by climbing walls for years and he never quite makes it to the top....

Today is this man's birthday.  The big double-5's.  Eligible for the senior discount at some restaurants.  Woohoo!   This guy has been the love of my life for 36+ years.  He's the best man I know--he has made all my dreams come true and never wants anything for himself.  He's going to have a kind of disappointing birthday this year because he's working nights this week.  We won't be able to take him out to dinner for a few days, in fact I'll probably see him for about 15 minutes all day--he gets home from work right as I'm leaving for work. I know the way to this man's heart is through his stomach.  He lovingly eats anything I cook for him, he makes me feel like I'm the best chef in the world.  For his birthday this year I made him a pan of lasagna.  I think this is going to make him super happy and I'm not even going to make any comments about the number of calories he's consuming if he decides to eat the whole thing by ...

Irv and I had a special mid-week "date night" on Wednesday.  It was the last member's night at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo for the summer.  We got to hang out with some of my favorite animal friends.  This guy was especially beautiful up in this pine tree with the sky peeking through. Happy Friday Skywatching !