Monday, July 09, 2012

Fawn Poop

Two mystery’s photos.  The first can happen when you leave your house for 3 months:

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The second took the skills of both Bruce and Helen to create:

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We have been baking along with most of the rest of the country.   Highs in the upper 90’s for the last 8 weeks, 102 degrees today. So hot that Smokey the Bear has switched to wearing a bikini bottom:

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This is NOT a welcome moisture laden afternoon mountain cloud:  

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It comes from a fire on the other side of the mountain.  It got a little darker later in the day:

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From our house we have seen 4 fires come and go in the last few weeks.   Not as bad as Colorado, but some houses were lost in a couple of them.   

We completed our parkway/tree-strip/boulevard/parking-strip/grass-next-to-sidewalk (that thing has lots of names) replacement project.  I wimped out and hired some guys to do most of it.  Here is the grass excavation:

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We planted about 6 types of 90 low water plants, along with 8 big rocks, which have even lower water requirements:

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The trick to saving water here is to setup a system that drips water only to the roots of the plants along with a water permeable weed resistant fabric:

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And then cover everything with a bark mulch to help keep the water in:

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I’m feeling slightly water virtuous now, but am still using plenty to keep the rest of our grass green.    The deer are also helping keeping it green:  

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The little guys fit through a couple of places between our fence rails:

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But when a guy with a camera shows up, they freak out and loose track where the exits are, so they fly back and forth in a panic, sometimes stumbling across the pool cover, which fortunately seems strong enough for small deer:

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We have had a number of summer guest visits.  Here swimming with ‘Kissa’ (aka Lenna, Helen, or physics professor from Temple U. in Philadelphia);

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Noah also visited for a few days.  He helped me play my yearly game of Tennis:

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I forgot what Helen and Noah were talking about at this pool dinner.   Kind of looks like Helen is saying he can climb a tree if he wants a coconut and Noah is saying he doesn’t care for coconut:

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And everyone else is pondering the fact that we don’t have a coconut tree.

Abbey and Colin got back from the trip to Europe just in time to come over and watch fireworks with us.   Mom, your telescope works great for fireworks!

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Nick and Chloe just finished a long weekend with us.   We did several hikes:

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Per usual hiking protocol, Nick catches an animal, here a scary black gue spewing grasshopper:

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And then he eats it:

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And then wonders if the scary black gue will eat away his finger:

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We swam (duh).  This is a one person pool toy, but can work with 2 if you don’t need to breath much:

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Played games:

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Went to a movie (I wore Nick out on a long hike, so Chloe game him a ride to the theater):

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And relaxed:

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That first mystery photo was from a bag of potatoes that Boris and Irena found in their pantry when they got back from a 3 month trip:

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The second photos is what you get if you let Bruce over-water a golden barrel cactus, then you let Helen dissect it into a smelly and deadly work of art:

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Looking forward to see folk at the Hyalite retreat!

Bruce