Time Flies When You're Having Fun...

Boy, as a Blogger, I suck. It's been a whole month already since I last posted. Where should I start?

The girls have been out of school since Wednesday, June 4th. We've been hanging around the house for the most part. We've done a little driving around checking out the sights. Nothing too far, with the price of gas and all... One day, our cousins, Keith, Cheryl, Heather, Michael and us went to check out some chicks. Dunlap Hatchery was a pretty cool place. There were LOTS of chicks, ducklings, baby turkeys and all. They were too cute! It took all of our will power not to walk out of there with baby chickies in our hands. It didn't help that they were only $2 each. (some day soon I'm sure we'll end up with chickens in the yard)

We've been doing a lot of yard work. This has been a rental house for quite a few years and it shows. Minor upkeep isn't easy when you're on an acre, imagine the major work we've been trying to do. We had lots of overgrowth in grass to bushes and trees. We gave our poor little lawn mower such a workout that it's given up the ghost. That was devastating for Carl. He's really working on this place not looking like a rental anymore. So, to CraigsList it was. Carl found a ride on mower for cheap at a yard sale. I'm glad it's a ride on. With his one arm, I mowed the yard a few times and had to recover a couple days from pushing the mower around on the bumpy terrain causing my hands to go numb. And I didn't even mow the back 1/2 acre!
Here's Carl testing out his new toy in uncharted territory. (the back 1/2 as we call it) Where those trees are behind him, there is a little creek. It's probably about 8-10ft from bank to bank. It's not all that deep though, maybe about 3-4ft in the center. It runs year round and there are a lot of ducks that live/swim in there and some Canada Geese too. The frogs aren't croaking as much though, I guess mating season is over... The pipe sticking out of the ground in foreground of the picture is part of our irrigation ditch. In our neighborhood we flood irrigate. On Sunday-Tuesday the ditch is full of water to the top of the pipe. We have these little gates that we open and pretty much flood the yard. Well, that's how it's supposed to work. Our yard isn't graded as it should be (rental property...) so the water doesn't get to all of the yard as it should. But we're getting it there by clearing out the overgrowth and such. It's pretty cool, the girls and the dogs love playing in it.

Carl and his arm... It's been almost 2 months since his surgery. It's healing up pretty good. He has daily exercises he has to do. Mostly to stretch out the stiff muscle. He wears a brace most of the time, but takes it off when he's just hanging around not doing much. He had a scare this last week. While outside in the evening, a mosquito landed on his left hand and not thinking about it, whacked it off with his right hand. He felt a snap in his elbow just like before. What wasn't good, is that he has not been able to fully straighten his arm, it's been at about a 100 degree angle. After smacking the mosquito, he could straighten his arm. I wanted to beat him for hitting the bug. He was in a good amount of pain for the night and went to the Dr's the next day. The Dr. said he might have actually done some good. Scar tissue builds up around the tendon and reattachment site and prevents the arm from fully extending. Carl must have tore it. (whatever) You know, I'm making him wear that brace almost all of the time now. He should be back to work in a couple of weeks. :)

We're trying to get used to the long days. It gets dark here at the same time as back in California, except that we're an hour ahead. So dark is 10 o'clock at night. There have been nights that we were out working in the yard way past 9pm and realized that we didn't even think of dinner yet. Well, the sun is barely going down... We're told that come July/August the sun doesn't set until after 10:30pm. Can you believe that!? What about 4th of July? We can't do fireworks until after 10pm? Then dinner doesn't start until 7pm... :)

We absolutely love it here. It's a different culture for sure. The weather has been beautiful so far. Sunny, upper 70's low 80's. What helps with the heat is that we seem to more often that not, have a breeze and there is very low humidity. It helps with the heat, but not so much for our hair. STATIC...

Hope all is well in your neighborhood...