The Creek Revisited

Warren is in St. Louis with our son-in-law, Dan, in the process of getting rained out of the opening game of the Cardinals. I talked to him on his cell phone at the end of the 2nd inning. We were ahead 4-1. Their tickets led them to the top of the top tier. Great seats with a great view he said, and since Warren hates heights, I was impressed by his attitude.

He could see dark clouds in the west and a good wind was bringing them closer, but they were happy just to be there. By the time I got home the game was on hold and was eventually delayed till tomorrow night. I'm wondering if Warren will stay since his tickets will be honored tomorrow night. I'm doubting it since he spent the weekend in the car driving to St. Paul and back, delivering my Dad home.

The Creek in back of our house was calling me when I got home today.

I ran upstairs, quickly changed into jeans and sweatshirt, grabbed my boots out of the garage, and slogged down the hill. I just HAD to get some video of the "raging waters!" I was tempted the last time and this time I was going to get that video!

Here are three videos. The first is upstream at the culvert that brings the water from higher up the hill, under the road, and past our property. The next is right in front of our lower property, by the fence. The last is further downstream, on its way down to the mighty Missouri River.

Here's a great shot of the tree branches that Warren put along the inside edge of the stream. It really looks like they are doing their job of saving that bank!

Here are some more shots of the creek. My buddy, Linda, who is in my Easter dinner photo, came down the hill from her house and we had a good chat. Would have taken a "Sarah" photo of us both, but my camera's batteries died.

Can you see the GREEN leaves sprouting on the branches? Spring really is here! It's not a fluke! My jeans are muddy, my cat's on my lap, and even though Warren is wet and happy in St. Louis, I guess I have found a bit of happiness here in the Capital City. :)

Henbit

No, not hen bit, as in bit by a hen. But in a sense we ARE bit by Henbit. Darn it.

Henbit is a beautiful weed. Aww, you say, it's only a weed in your mind. Only if it's not wanted. Well, that's what it is! Not wanted!

Half our front lawn is covered by Henbit right now.

Most fields around our area are covered by Henbit. Farmers don't seem to bother with it. They just plow it under and kill it off with whatever they use against all the other weeds that threaten their crops.

In our case, Henbit's choking out any grass we might have growing in that half of our front lawn.

It's really pretty up close. From far away Henbit gives a field or lawn a beautiful purple hue. But since Henbit chokes out the nice green grass, I'd say it's a weed and let's fight it. And fight it we've been doing. But every time we spray it, the rains come and wash the weed killer away. So here we sit with another crop of Henbit coming up in defiance of us all.

The straw-covered half of our lawn that isn't smothered in Henbit is newly seeded lawn Warren worked hard on last fall. Even it's showing a bit of Henbit encroachment lately. I hesitate to even mention it to Warren.

Right now, we're resting and relaxing, building up our strength, waiting for the rains to move on. Then we will begin round three--or is it four--fighting the good fight against Henbit!! And I'll bet you got just a little irritated with all those purple Henbit words showing up in this post and are ready to join us!

Dutch Baby

Also known as a German Pancake. Part pancake, part soufflé-omelet. I served this over the holiday. Quite elegant for very simple ingredients and very little time. From Cooks.com.

DUTCH BABY

1/3 c. butter 3 eggs or egg substitute equivalent 2/3 c. milk 2/3 c. flour Pinch of salt Put the butter in 10-inch skillet. Put the skillet in a 425 degree oven to melt and get the skillet very hot. Put the eggs in a blender or food processor. Blend 1 minute or until they are very light and fluffy. Add milk and blend for 30 seconds. With the motor running, pour in the flour a little at a time, letting it blend until the batter is very smooth. Add the pinch of salt and stop the blender. When the pan and butter are very hot, remove from oven and pour in the batter. Immediately return the pan to the oven and bake 20 minutes. It should puff up, then collapse in the center while it browns appetizingly. Serve hot wit a sprinkling of powdered sugar and a squeeze of lemon juice or with strawberries or berries on top.

The Last 10 Days, Part Two

Another sign of spring. I just can't get enough of spring this year. Especially when you consider all the ice we had a few months ago.


But here's the sight to warm a daughter's heart. Here's my 91 year old father walking just three months after total right hip replacement. Way to go, Dad!


Always remember, you're my Favorite Dad!


This one we do the "Sarah" way. Pretty fun, don't you think!

The Last 10 Days

Here's a recap of all the FUN I've had lately, while Mind Blogging.

(1) A couples days after the Creek is Flooding blog, a pile of bikes showed up in the road, as I swung the car around the curve, heading home from work.

A crowd of boys was having the time of their life slogging through the boggy creek bed, discovering treasures and muddying up every article of clothing they had on. I had fun watching them. Are they the ones who got that soccer ball?

I hope so. I'm just glad I'm not the mother of this pack of wild things.

(2) Spring is so definitely here, that I had to take a few shots of the evidence.



(3) It's easy to catch nice photos on quiet days, when just Warren and I and the cats are rattling around the house. It's when four more people come roaring in with suitcases and exciting lives and big plans and lots of stories, that I forget to get out the camera.

First my dear hubby drove up to St. Paul to pick up my father for an Easter visit. He hit snow on the Minnesota border, from 4 to 10 inches around the Twin Cities.


They got back the next day with little to show for it but the traces of salt that covered the car. (No photo of that. But I did THINK about taking that shot!)

(4) We had great times, sitting around the table with family and friends, chatting about so many things. I was lucky to get any photos during this time.


(5) Here's a shot of my three "kids." Dan--Sarah's dear hubby, Sarah, and Ben.


(6) During this time period we also noticed a bluebird pair scouting our bluebird houses. Maybe this year, we'll be blessed with bluebird eggs that hatch!

The male scouts out the box:


The female waits patiently in the redbud:


I'll be back. Things to do. More Mind Blogging to take care of....

Mind Blogging

I've been intensely blogging for the last 10 days. Really.

Well, at least in my mind, I have.

But the reality is much less.

I used to carry around a camera in high school at family events but I never took many pictures. I asked my Dad why I didn't seem to be able to snap more photos. He thought it was because I was more involved in living than in photographing. I think he was right.

Lately, I've been enjoying life and not taking many photos...again. Blogged very little, also.

Having too much fun, I guess.

So I've vowed to blog in reality today--not just in my mind. If I don't get it down today, I'll forget all the fun times we've had lately.

The Creek is Flooding

I missed it. I got home too late to see when the creek actually jumped the banks and flooded our lower property. Warren swears it happened and the puddles surrounding the fire pit are proof. But by the time I got home, the rained had slowed down for a couple hours and the water had already receded.

If you look really close at the first photo, you can see puddles of water on the ground this side of the fence. This is a rare event--has only happened a couple time in the 5 1/2 years we've lived here. I think our part of town had over 2 inches of rain in the last 24 hours.

I just shudder to think how much snow that could have been.

And wonder whose soccer ball that is trapped in the tree roots.


We're just happy we armored our stream banks with all the branches we cut down this winter after that horrible ice storm. Since I taught "The Armoring of Stream Banks" as a soil conservation technique in my high school Earth Science class, it seemed like the only thing to do with all those branches. Warren's peeks through the binoculars seems to show the bank on our side holding up rather well to the rushing water. When it dries out a bit, we'll go down there to check it out.

But right now, I'm trying to figure out where I'm going to put everyone this weekend, now that my daughter and her husband, my son, and my father have all decided to visit us for the weekend. What fun!

Oh, and my dear husband has volunteered to drive up to St. Paul to pick up my dad now that flying is no longer something he likes to do. How'd I ever get so lucky!

Bathroom Update - Week Nine

So have you ever heard the joke about the man who's just finished laying carpet and he calls out to his wife, "Honey, have you seen the canary?" And in the background, you see a small lump in the middle of the newly laid carpet?


That's the story of the story this week. You can clearly seen a big bow in the plywood here. It was worse in the middle and at one point, Warren took out three screws and we lifted it up just to be sure. I could have sworn there was something under there, it bowed so much. Silly me, nothing was hiding under there. We joked about the canary under the plywood all day. Warren had to put more screws in than was called for in the instructions, just to be sure the canary was gone. :)

But I'm ahead of myself. We started out in the bathroom by measuring the layout of the rest of the floor to be covered by plywood. We were hoping to get the largest area possible covered by one large sheet of 4 x 8 plywood. It would require cutting several notches and angles here and there to do it. But then there would be just a half dozen small pieces to fill in the leftover spaces. Then we'd be done with this stage and could start the concrete backer board next.

So after we took all the measurements, and trouped upstairs and downstairs twice to make more measurement (Remember Vern the Carpenter of "Measure twice, Cut once" fame?) Eventually we got it drawn out and started cutting. No saw horse so we used old chairs from the basement and the older car.


We stopped to chat with our neighbor, Linda, when she stopped by.

Then we got back to work. Now, you do understand, don't you, that when I say, "We got back to work," I'm talking about Warren, right? Because about all I've been good for so far is holding the boards when Shop Guy saws with the dangerous circular saw. Well, I do do some vacuuming up of sawdust, which we all know is VERY important. But really, Warren's doing all the work, we all know that, right?

So after not very much more trimming, we got the big piece glued and started screwing it into the subfloor.

INSERT CANARY STORY HERE.
After that was done we, I mean Warren, got to the "easy" part of piecing the smaller spaces around the room.


And by 12:30 we were done. We had plans to go to a movie, but decided to take a leisurely lunch and do the movie tomorrow instead.

While I'm blogging about Week Nine, Warren is off the Lowe's AGAIN to see about the concrete backer board that is our next phase of the project, which won't take place till two weeks after Easter because we've got company coming for the holidays and would rather have fun with family, thank you very much!

So that's all for now, folks. Catch us in April for the next installment of the Bathroom Project!

Oh, for a parting shot, here's Miss Ellie, Princess of the House, looking slightly annoyed that her morning nap is being so rudely disturbed by all this noise and commotion.

Here's Hammy hiding in between the coffee table and the couch, waiting for innocent little Miss Ellie to walk by so he can POUNCE!

It was a Warm and Freaky Night...

I have to give you some background. I've been reading a scifi thriller called The Grays by Whitley Strieber. I love scifi. I never get spooked by scifi or any other type of book. Most gore and alien freaknoidness comes across to me as stage makeup and augmentation. (I have a theater background.) For example, the movie Aliens got to me as far as the startle reflex, but it didn't freak me out or carry over into my real life. It didn't bother me much. The Grays is different, I guess. It's got lots of aliens buzzing around people, there but not there. You never know who's human and who's not. What's gonna come at you in the dark. Another bit of background for you. I LIKE the dark. Did even as a little girl. I loved a dark room. Just ask my sister.

So last night, I grab my camera and go out on the dark front porch at about 9 pm. I'm planning to take a photo of the thermometer there that has a freaky temperature for nine o'clock at night in March, even in Missouri. Here, take a look at it:

Pretty neat, huh! I knew rain was coming for tomorrow and maybe even snow this weekend and I just wanted to take a photo of this Sign of Spring.

And here's where it gets freaky. A white pickup truck comes driving down the street, just about when I snap the photo. It slows down just as it passes my driveway, which is to the right and in front of where I am standing in the dark. The dark where this bright light just flashed.

The pickup truck slowed down. Came to a complete stop. I'm a tad uncomfortable at this point.

It sits there for a second or two. Then the driver's side of the truck opens and a man with a flashlight gets out. My comfort level is just about gone right now. I'm frozen. I'm trying to cover the glowing of my camera. I'm not "daring" to open my front door and quietly step back inside. I just stand there and get uncomfortable.

The man with the flashlight walks around the front of the truck and stands under the streetlight that sits right at the edge of our property. A little background here. This streetlight flickers all night long. Our neighbors have called the city to complain and nothing has happened. I don't remember this as I try to melt into the front porch wall. I just wonder if this man is sneaking toward me, blocked from my view by the garage, which juts out beyond the porch.

At this point, I step into the house. Not so quietly. Speed is the main thing on my mind. I lock the door and go to the front window that's the farthest from the door and sneak a peek between the curtains, carefully. The man is still there. There's another man in the passenger side of the truck. They're talking through his open window.

Flashlight Man gets back into the truck. It drives slowly down the street. I go back out onto the porch to take a couple more shots. I can see the truck's lights on the next street over. It comes back around. I don't know if it will turn onto my street again or drive off. It slows down as it gets to my street. Whoa. I get back inside the house and peek out the curtain again.

The truck drives off down the road. I try a giggle to see if I can. It's pretty weak. I'm still uncomfortable.

I gotta stop reading scifi for a while. I'm spooking myself out for no good reason. For heaven's sake. There's gotta be a rational reason for this man to be doing this. Probably a city worker. You can't check out a flickering streetlight in the middle of the day, right? You gotta drive by at night. Gotcha. I know this to be true. Still, I'm freaked out and slightly ashamed of myself. I'm supposed to be this big brave sister. Ha!

Here's a picture I took tonight. You can see the rain has come. Warren's station Jeep is sitting in front of the garage. The streetlight is visible above the St. Patty's Day flag.


I guess inside of each of us is this freakometer, ready to respond to a threat, however real or imagined, however inspired by pulp science fiction. I hope that book from Laurie gets here soon. I'm ready to read about lions and elephants and Africa in the 1930s!

Bathroom Update - Week Eight

A couple minutes after we started talking with Sid, the Floor Expert at Lowe's, we about had a heart attack. We thought we might not have had to take up the pressboard subfloor and all that horrid glue. But then we realized that pressboard is what you put under carpet and plywood is what you put under tile. Thank goodness.

So after that blood-pressure-raising moment, we settled back down and had a great chat with Sid, our hero, and knew what the next step is. We don't have to put down a moisture barrier, like we thought. We have to put a new layer of 3/8 inch plywood down.


So after going home to measure and going back to Lowe's to buy the plywood and going home to start putting the plywood down and running out of Liquid Nails and running back to Lowe's again...

We got exactly one 4 x 8 sheet of plywood down, which took at least four dozen screws, on an 8inch grid. And that was the easy part. Only one small cut.


Covering the rest of the floor is going to be a real challenge. There will be lots of cuts because the bathroom has an odd shape. If we can get all those cuts made and the plywood down, we'll be in good shape. Warren bought a bunch of Liquid Nails and I only foresee one trip to Lowe's next weekend. Hopefully we can get the rest down next weekend and then we will be faced with laying down the CONCRETE BOARD.

I figure that's a two weekend stint, because after we get the floor done, we have to cut out the sheet rock around the tub, which should have been done in the first place and wasn't, and replace with concrete board...and...oh...well...maybe three weekends to do all that...

I see another two months (and a half??!) to finish the project. Which wouldn't be such a problem, but this weekend we almost went outside to do some pre-Spring yardwork. Mighty tempting, I gotta say. But we persevered and got one 4 x 8 plywood down and quit at noon, because the rule book says so, and had a nice lunch and headed to the movies for the afternoon.

It's "Officially" Spring!

I abhor winter. I search for signs of Spring as early as January. Yup, as soon as the calendar swings around into the new year, I'm ready for Spring. This year, as with last year, we've had lots more winter than Missouri usually sees. So it's been grim around here in my search for the first sign of Spring.

But I now declare, IT'S OFFICIAL, SPRING IS HERE!

I don't care if they had 10 inches of SNOW in St. Louis this Tuesday or 4 inches over on the east side of my town on Wednesday. The blizzards raging through Ohio this weekend don't bother me a bit.


because I've found SPRING!


This little plot is located outside of where I work. It's a 3 x 9 foot patch of raw earth. For a gardener like me, I see a blank canvas waiting to be painted. Just last week, I was telling Warren how we were going to come over here soon on a weekend and level the dirt out and start PLANTING!

I've walked past this garden plot every day, dreaming and planning, looking at the dirt, wondering if it was old construction fill or if it has any topsoil with nutrients in it or if we'd have to haul some good earth over here along with the bulbs and seeds and mulch. I'm thinking we can split out some of my most prolific perennials and bring them here.

Then a couple of days ago, a faint shimmer of GREEN caught my eye as I walked up the ramp. I stopped in my tracks. What is that? Oh, wow! It's green! Some thing's growing in Missouri! Even though the green is weeds, I don't care. My long quest for a sign of Spring is over. I don't have to look anymore.

SPRING IS HERE!

Never mind the blizzards, people. The snow has already melted in St. Louis. It will melt in Ohio, too. Spring has definitely grabbed hold of the calendar and even though winter is not giving up without a fight, I know now that Spring will prevail.

Let's hear it for SPRING!