Some Of This & Some Of That

You can probably tell by the headline that this blog will be a virtual potpourri of stimulating topics!

Just a few updates....We are very excited about the news that our youngest son Andy is coming home for a visit in mid June. He lives in Seattle,WA and we haven't seen him forever. It will be nice to see him again.

The Toss For The Red Cross beanbag competition will be held this Saturday at Jaycee Park in Mankato,MN. We are expecting up to 128 teams to compete. That should be a VERY fun day. Bag Toss Link

This past weekends rain really greened up the new sod Ben and I put down Friday. It is just beautiful. We rolled it Monday evening after fertilizing it on Sunday. Now we can watch it grow.

Sunday afternoon Sue worked her magic making homemade soup. This time it was wild rice soup...and it is delicious!


The weather appears to be warming up and my thoughts are turning to de-winterizing the camper. I do indeed like those prospects!

Tune in again real soon for another edition of "Now What Are They Doing?"

Safety Tip

You know me...Mr. Safety!

I received an email recently that I want to pass along to you. It is not one of the humerous ones...but it is one that could save your life.

PUT YOUR CAR

KEYS BESIDE YOUR BED AT

NIGHT



Tell

your spouse, your children, your neighbors, your

parents, your Dr's office, the

check -out

girl at the market, everyone you run

across.

Put your car keys beside your bed at

night. If you hear a noise outside your home, or

someone trying to get in your house, just press the

panic button for your car. The alarm will be set off,

and the horn will continue to sound until either you

turn it off, or the car battery dies.

This tip

came from a neighborhood watch coordinator. Next time

you come home for the night, and you start to put your

keys away, think of this:

It's a security alarm

system, that you probably already have and requires no

installation. Test it. It will go off from most

everywhere inside your house, and will keep honking

until your battery runs down, or until you reset it

with the button on the key fob chain. It works if you

park in your driveway, or garage. If your car alarm

goes off when someone is trying to break into your

house, odds are the burglar, rapist, won't stick

around... After a few seconds, all the neighbors will

be looking out their windows to see who is out there,

and sure enough the criminal won't want that. And

remember to carry your keys while walking to your car

in a parking lot. The alarm can work the same way

there ..... This is something that should really be

shared with everyone.

That is all for now.

Tune in again real soon for another edition of "Now What Are They Doing?"

Purses Everywhere!

I promised I would update you on the "Purse Party" that was held here at Coyote Ridge Saturday afternoon. I hate saying Coyote Ridge and purse party in the same sentence...but that is the story.

Hundreds of purses...in the living room, bedroom, kitchen and dining room. They were everywhere!

The lady folk really enjoyed themselves between the purses, food, champagne, wine and beer.

Pictures you ask?

A purse is a purse as far as I am concerned....but these are "special" I am told. They have designer labels with names I can't even pronounce.




And of course the hostesses hamming it up for the photographer....


I didn't care for the purse part of the party, but the food and booze part was very good!

Tune in again soon for another edition of "Now What Are They Doing?"

And the Answer is.....SOD

We are in the process of re-doing parts of the yard and after ripping out much of the landscaping we were faced with the decision....seed, hydro-seed or sod. Being fairly impatient when it comes to getting a job completed, I made the executive decision to go with sod.

After many hours of digging out the old landscaping and spreading 15 cubic yards of nice black dirt, it was time for the sod truck to arrive.




Dean Larson from Larson Sod Company delivered four pallets of beautiful sod and strategically placed them so we wouldn't have to lug the rolls too far.

Thank goodness our oldest son Ben was available to help Friday afternoon. He is really good about rolling up his sleeves and digging in.


In about four hours we did some more prep work and laid down 1900 square feet of sod. What an improvement!




There are still a few dirt piles scattered about. They will be smoothed out and we will seed those areas and the areas adjacent to the new sod.

Here is a short preview of my next blog entry. As I write this, there are hundreds of designer purses scattered around the house and many, many women drinking and lusting over these leather creations.

If I can sneak upstairs and shoot a few pictures for you, I will.

Tune in again real soon for another edition of "Now What Are They Doing?"

Unusual

Recently I did a story about our youngest son Andy and his recording career. I just found another picture on his gal-friend's Facebook page.
What a cute couple....Sarah and Andy.


I should explain the headline. Usually. like 99% of the time, a recording studio is a very intense place...lots of blood, sweat and mental anguish.

That is definitely not the case this time.

Tune in again real soon for another edition of "Now What Are They Doing?"

Painting

We are almost finished working with the dirt! About three more hours and it will be ready for seed, sod or hydro....Don't know which method yet.

In between throwing dirt, we have been working on repainting patio furniture for our screened porch.

After painting two end tables, two chairs, one love seat and four benches, all that remains is the picnic table. It will be nice to cross off that project on the famous "to do" list. I like seeing it go from "to-do" to "to-done".



Sue is holding a designer purse party Saturday afternoon at the house. I think that will be my cue to hide in the workshop for a few hours during the shopping frenzy!

Tune in again for another edition of "Now What Are They Doing?"

Can You Dig It?

Dig the dirt of course. As the saga continues, we continue to rearrange the dirt and rocks in the front yard. We tore out most of the landscaping timbers and rocks in the front yard so that we could plant grass. We can kill ourselves now by doing this work instead of killing ourselves later if we had left the arrangement as is. It is our hope that with the newly planted grass(next week) we can just mow and chop the leaves in the Fall instead of picking them out of the beds with a small rake or by hand.

To keep the project on task, we had another seven cubic yards of dirt delivered. Shovel by shovel we are getting it delivered to it's final resting place.


By switching from "beds" to grassy areas, we will save about 800 square feet of bed cleaning in the Fall and Spring.


One long day should finish the project.

Tune in again real soon for another edition of "Now What Are They Doing?"

Studio Engineer At Work

As many of you know, our youngest son Andy is a recording engineer in Seattle,WA.

He has had an interest in this for over ten years and has done a fine job developing his producing and engineering skills.

When he lived in Minnesota he had a recording studio, Seesaw Studios, and was pretty much booked solid with not only local bands, but also bands from a three state area. They knew a good studio and engineer and were always pleased with the process and the outcome.

Three years ago Andy moved to Seattle where the band scene is huge. I equate it to working the minor league here in Minnesota and now working the major league in Seattle.

Of late, he has been working on a project at a studio called London Bridge. They have recorded hundreds of bands including Pearl Jam, Blind Melon, Candlebox and 3 Doors Down. Here is a link

Because of confidentiality clauses in contracts I can't tell you who Andy's latest project is, but here are a couple of pictures from a session earlier this week.



Most of his clients are from the Seattle area, but he occasionally flies to other metro areas to work on special recording projects when requested.

If you need some work done or know of someone, feel free to email him..He has his own equipment that can be set up anywhere and has complete access to most any studio in the country. He can be reached at seesawstudios at hotmail.com.

Tune in again real soon for another edition of "Now What Are They Doing?"

Lots of Wires...But They Are Hidden

As most of you know, our oldest son Ben, is an agent with the Geek Squad from Best Buy. He can been seen racing around the countryside in his black and white VW Beetle.

After the remodeling project he volunteered to be in charge of "wire management" regarding the HD home theatre system.

He did a great job making sure the wires were hidden and the system operating perfectly.





The speakers are all mounted and wired in through the walls and ceiling.



Good job Ben....seven speakers and not one wire showing!

Tune in again soon for another edition of "Now What Are They Doing?"

Playing In The Dirt

We sure got a lot done outside Saturday. Sue finished painting the trim around the new window. It looks like it has always been there.

We also dug out all the rocks around the well head out front. It was lined with rocks and had plantings in it. Now the rocks are out back and form a nice border around the woodpile. We wanted to clear out the area out front because it did nothing but collect leaves. A little more leveling and it will be ready for sod or seed.


We also finished framing around the big trees in front of the front deck. We will fill that with rock.



We need another seven cubic yards of dirt delivered so we can bring up a few levels and do some lawn repair. I would like to sod, but I am sure that once I see the price of sod, we will seed instead.

Tune in again real soon for another edition of "Now What Are They Doing?"

Exciting Pictures Of Dirt

OK, I have reached a new low, I am posting pictures of dirt!

Bobcat operator Denny, did a great job ripping out the old landscaping.




Before long Denny trucked in two big loads of dirt and spread it around.




Our next move will be to put in some landscaping timbers and lay some sod. Looks like I had better make sure the fridge is full of beer. This could be fun!

Tune in again soon for another edition of "Now What Are They Doing?"

More Going On

Those that know us realize that most of the time we just can't leave it alone. By that I mean that we are always looking at something and trying to make it better.

In this case, we are re-doing some of the front landscaping so that we don't have such a mess to clean up every Fall and Spring.

We have so many trees that translates into mega leaf mess. The leaves get caught up in the plants in the beds and have to be hand raked out.

We are putting an end to some of that work by "de-bedding" some of the areas and putting them back into grass so I can zip over the area with the tractor and pulverize the leaves.

One evening this week we dug up the plants we want to keep (approx. 50) and are preparing the area for a front end loader to come in and remove bushes, rocks and bark and also lower the ground level so it is even with the rest of the yard.

Here are a few pictures after the first evening of work.






The front end loader will make easy work of the removal process. Then we will put in timbers around the trees and re-rock the much smaller area. Then we will seed or sod the remaining area. Sounds easy and straight forward, but I can already feel muscle soreness coming on.

Tune in again real soon for another edition of "Now What Are They Doing?"

A Few More Easter Pictures & Using a GPS for Hunting

As promised, I am getting caught up on posting a few words and pictures.
When you last checked in you found out we had 25 guests at Coyote Ridge for Easter.

Of course I have a few more pictures of the suspects.







I have been finding the "lost" Easter eggs that we hid. I must tell you the secret to hiding Easter eggs.

We used the plastic eggs that contained candy and cash. It was very easy to number each one.

When each egg was placed in it's hiding spot I took a GPS reading of the location and entered the number on the egg and it's coordinates into my laptop spreadsheet..

When the kids found the eggs, I crossed then numbers off the list as found and was then left with the remaining eggs and their exact locations.

Pretty smart huh? Pretty nerdy? Yup!

Tune in again real soon for another edition of "Now What Are They Doing?"

I Know...I Know

OK...Guilty as accused. Not many posts the last week or so. I have plenty of material, just a lack of time.

I will catch up over the next few days.

This past Easter Sunday was a great day with Sue's family. We had 25 people over and from the moods, I think they had a wonderful time.

To get things started off right we had an Easter egg hunt for the young ones.



I fired the starter pistol (.357 magnum) and they were off and running...For their lives!





The kids had a great time and found most of the eggs. We hid some knowing the kids would never find them and we could then enjoy the goodies later. Now if we could just remember where we hid them!

Tune in again real soon for another edition of "Now What Are They Doing?"