Raccoon's In Our Backyard

On Tuesday, I got a call from one of my daughters, they said that they had just caught a raccoon in our back yard. Immediately I thought, I hope you didn't get bitten. The neighbor had been taking their irrigation turn and when the water went through our back yard it washed up two raccoon. Cassie had been finding signs of raccoon activity in our backyard. She found a print of a raccoon in our sandbox, a print on our trampoline and then a long raccoon hair on our trampoline as well. Cassie called the raccoon Bob Marley, I called him Rocky. Rocky's sibling didn't fair too well. We called animal control and they came and picked up the raccoons.

Here are two videos taken of Rocky.

Melancholy Sabbath Morning

I'm feeling a bit melancholy this morning. Yesterday, I lost one of my chickens. We are doing some major renovations in our back yard and as part of that renovation we moved our chickens. Also, the three chickens I've had for some time were integrated with the chicks I got this spring. Well one of the chicks I got this spring turned out to be a rooster. The rooster was really beautiful and he had learned to crow in the morning and evening. There was a problem though, the rooster was reeking havoc with three laying hens. The hens were not laying, eating and were trying to get out of the chicken run every time I fed the chickens. So I let the rooster out of the chicken run, after figuring out he couldn't get back into the chicken run, he went into our garden and started to eat our our vegetables, not the weeds. So I put him in a cage with feed and water. I thought he would be fine. At the time I caged the rooster he had shade, well....things didn't go well after that. Yesterday I had a date night with lovely and talented daughter Hannah. We searched high and low for Camp Rock poster. We could not find any poster sized Camp Rock posters. We eventually found some smaller Camp Rock posters at Wal-Mart. Well while we were on our date I received a frantic phone call from my daughter Cassie about the rooster. She wanted to know why the rooster was in a separate cage and why his legs were taped together. His legs were not taped, Julie went out to inspect and the rooster was on his last breath. He was now fully exposed to the sun and had spilled the ceramic water dish I had provided for him. The rooster passed away, this really upset Cassie and she wasn't pleased with what I did. Well that's part of our activities that we had yesterday.

With the renovations we are doing in the back yard we were having another circuit added to our sprinkler system for the new area of the yard that will need water. Well, with this addition work on our sprinkler system disabled part of our sprinkler system so our backyard needed to be watered since it has not been watered for three days. Lack of water doesn't go well when you have three one-hundred degree weather days in a row.

Yesterday and the night before I took McKay to a Fathers and Son's camp out up Diamond Fork canyon. McKay and I had a great time. Those in charge had some memorable activities that the boys will remember. McKay got to shoot paint ball guns at targets and search through a great big pile of sawdust for candy. There was devotional and as soon as the devotional got over McKay wanted to hang out in our tent. I got this handy two man tent for hiking and McKay and I fit well in this tent. McKay wanted to hear some of my stories so I told him the "Tommy" story and how he caught "Fruititus" (Fruit-I-tus). McKay didn't want to hear any of my scary stories like Stumpy. Then I told him the story of the goat that chased the log down the mine shaft hole. He liked that one as well. I didn't take my camera, I took two picture with my phone, I'll need to download them later and add them to this post.

Well hope everyone is doing well, I still have more posting to do for my Havasupai trip. Also, I'll need to take some pictures of our backyard.

Out Front

I enjoy our backyard. There are a lot of different flowers, shrubs and trees to enjoy. I feel at peace going out in the back yard. Its been fun watching the chicks grow older, which I have out back in the old dog kennel. We have been getting warmer weather, I think has been helping in their growth. We have been busy in the backyard fighting a losing battle with the weeds. Our garden is growing but not as fast as the weeds. After working out back I took these pictures of Ainsley and McKay playing out front.

Cassie was asking me to buy something for her here. She wasn't liking the answers she was getting, can you tell? She recently got this cute haircut. I think pink becomes her.

Yardwork, Roto-tilling, Ring of Fire...

Yesterday I got a bit of work done in the backyard. I roto-tilled the garden for the second time, this time it went much better than the first time that I tried it. It helped that the dirt was a bit more moist. Not too moist and not to dry. I was cutting up the fallen trees way out in the back of the yard and felt like it would take me many more days to finish so I started to burn the trees. I had a nice fire going but was reminded that we had a ward party to go to so I had to put it out. I'll start the fire again on Monday. Some of the wood is wet so the fire has to get really hot before it burns that wood. Also, I moved the chicks to our old dog kennel. The chicks started getting out of the box we had them in, in the garage. Also they started leaving their fertilizer everywhere. I had to clean up the garage after I moved the chicks. Yesterday turned out to be a beautiful day, today looks like it will be beautiful as well.

Backyard on a Saturday Evening

I'm still working on burning up the wood that fell into our yard from the last microburst. If we could have a fire every night this would make our three youngest children happy. McKay especially like the fire. Right near our firepit we have an arbour. In the arbour we found a robin's nest. I've held the kids of the neighborhood as well as my own children to see them. I had reports that there were one, maybe two robin chicks. Cassie had the brilliant idea of taking a picture. So we did take a picture and found out there are three. Robin's are great birds to have around. I love the song Raffi made about robins and I've included a link to that song below:

Robin In The Rain by Raffi


Here's a picture of Baileigh jumping on our trampoline on Saturday night. She's a good friend to Cassie and Hannah. Also, here's a picture of my friend's dog Steve, yes the dogs name is Steve. Whenever I want to get a good dog fix I go over and play with Steve.

Blossoms, Lilac's and the Backyard

Spring is the Period Analysis

Spring is the period
Express from God.
Among the other seasons
Himself abide, But during March and April
None stir abroad
Without cordial interview
with God.

- Emily Dickinson

Justine just got her senior pictures taken. She looks good in them. Sydney got hit in the eye with a softball last night. She had a game last night, she plays fast pitch softball in a city recreation league. I think she's going to have a good shiner. Cassie pushing to replenish our chicken population. Hannah started going back to school, she is finally starting to feel better. McKay was in heaven because we got some fuel for his tiki torch. He thought it was the coolest thing to have it lit up in our backyard last night.

Chillin' On Conference Week-end



After doing her 'cat'ersizes, to Olivia Newton John's, "Let's Get Physical", Darla takes a rest.

After the 2nd session of conference. McKay,Carter, Hannah and started a fire in the fire pit in the back yard. We had some branches to burn and McKay had some firecrackers to blow. So as the branches burned, we threw in firecrackers and said, "Fire in the Hole". Julie and the older girls went shopping while all this was going on. McKay and Carter thought this fire business was pretty, just like camping they said.