Chew Blue Lou

 The celebration of Chinese New Year's is represented by the color red. Beginning a new tradition of wearing red pants or red tights. The boys seem thrilled by this enhancement as Dexter responded with "are you trying to tell me something!?" and Oliver proudly showed me his interest in track as he runs away as soon as I drop him off at school.  It's the year of the monkey (Oliver's year) and if the monkey=scoundrel, well that would be appropriate.

Today I finally was able to blast a soft tension ball from our back porch over our fence and over the Emergency Response Building Construction, the next yard and across the street behind it. I'm kind of happy about it.  It was a rising line drive that went over the center of the building (I usually pull these Dexter spheres- I didn't want to write Dexter balls to the right of the building).  On rainy days the moist thick air slows down the momentum but it's been sunny and warm, and the spheres carry.  A distance of about 220 feet I'd guess and 40 feet high.

launch view, ball landed in front of the house as seen through the construction building in progress.

view #2

reverse view of Emergency Response building facing our backyard

landing point

  Raccoons  have finally discovered our pond.  A morning after I had cleaned out the filter I noticed the area in disarray. The long sunning sticks were toppled, one out of the pond, one submerged. The filter was even out of sight.  Climbing in and reaching into the very cold waters I found parts of the filter. Crawling and cleaning, my moments turned into a scene from a horror movie as after I spotted a a fish tail on the rock, I discovered one headless fish, then another, and more.  Fresh kills, or preserved in the cold morning air.  I knew I had until night time to determine what I could do at this point so I left my clean up until later. I spent the day researching, seeking advice at the plant nursery and getting materials at the hardware store. It took a few hours but laying out some thick chicken wire and applying 100 ties to prevent any space that animals can slip into or use as leverage to pull apart. I know that it's possible that if they are determined, the raccoons might pull up the fence but this is what we can do, short of electrifying the fence or some sensor lights.  Some of the smaller fish are still alive, and while I didn't do a detailed sweep of the murky water, I did find one turtle and suspect, hope that the other small one is still present. Hibernating they wouldn't have darted around as the fish did, likely believing they were going to be fed.  I don't blame the raccoons for doing what's natural but hey, just eating the heads is kind of wasteful.

Improvements nearly complete. Finally completed by the first hour of evening's darkness

I am sorry your end was likely grim Lou.  Posing for family photos in August.  25-28 years was not a bad run. Thanks for being my friend.  Can't say we had many cuddly moments but you were unique and special to us.

                    PS: Happy Birthday Perry and Happy Anniversary Kathy and Bob!