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Monday, June 27, 2011

Working weekend

We have started on the living room, Tigger likes to supervise the work.
The other cats are not so sure about the changes.
We are almost ready to put down the flooring, may get started today.
Saturday evening we took a break and went and listened to the music at Waterfest downtown, we enjoyed the band that came on before this tribute band better as these guys were just too loud. We left before the fireworks, there was a big crowd waiting for it. We did get to see a Common Nighthawk downtown, in fact, I saw two or three Saturday one was flying over the parking lot of Home Depot.
We had some bad news, Ken's financial adviser and friend had a heart attack Friday, she is only 57. She is in the hospital but she hasn't woken up, it doesn't look good for her.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Our Progress

Did everyone have a nice Father's Day?
Ken put down the stick em down tile in the entry Father's Day and a couple of days later grouted it. It looks really nice!
Our weather has been really nice too, perfect high 70's or low 80's but that will change next week when summer returns. It's been nice to have the windows and door open for the fresh air when we clean up the floor with bleach and put down the Kilz.
Ken has started to put the flooring down in the hall. It has taken alot of prep work, planing down the floor seams to make them level and cutting the door trims so the floor panels will fit under.
We also painted with Kilz to eliminate the cat odor than put down the red under pad. I think Ken started with the hardest area in the house with all the doors and closets even though it is small. He should finish the hall today.

Ken got me some bigger memory for my laptop and now my computer works much faster and is more enjoyable to use.
The back neighbor forgot to let in one their dogs, it's an old poodle and isn't used to staying out so it has been crying since 6:30 this morning. I put some water over the fence for it the poor thing and gave it some cat food.
Til next post, have a good one.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

A Little Culture

Wednesday was a beautiful day to get out and enjoy some of the great sites of Kansas City. It's time for Shakespeare in the Park and we enjoy doing that especially when we have beautiful evening.
That is what so nice living in a small town but one close enough to enjoy the offerings of a big city. We packed up a couple of drinks, cheese, grapes and chocolates and our lawn chairs to enjoy Macbeth. It is fun to see what other people drag out to the park, not just lawn chairs but blanket to set them on, a small table and coolers of food and drink it is really a great big picnic.
Ken has started on the floor, taking up some carpet and treating the floor boards to get rid of the cat urine. He ran into another little snag so he is fixing that.
We've been enjoying our jelly feeder activity, we have a catbird, a pair of Baltimore Orioles, a Robin and occasionally a Red bellied Woodpecker coming to the feeder. The Robin was guarding it for a while but he seems to given up on it now.
That's about it for us.
Until my next post, enjoy your week.

Monday, June 6, 2011

Birds, Butterflies and Bugs

We had an interesting trip Sunday to Dunn Ranch Nature Preserve up by Eagleville, MO.
Mark and Ruth our leaders took our group around the area stopping at places they knew from their breeding counts where we may be able to spot birds. (They have been doing the count for 10 years and they were going to do another starting today, we were they're scouting trip.)
Mark is passionate about conserving the prairies of MO and the few Prairie chickens left.
We didn't see any Prairie Chickens as they are most probably on the nest or taking care of chicks (we hope). Mark told us that at last count there were only 11 males left in the area and the hard winter and wet spring were not good for the birds and their chicks.
The Nature Conservatory purchased the ranch as it is the last of the native prairie that had not been touched by a plow in MO, it had been overgrazed by cattle and some nonnative grasses such as fescew had invaded areas. The conservatory has worked the area back to a natural state and is getting help from area farmers as some are converting some of their pastures back to prairie by cutting down trees and burning to get the native plants back which in turn help the prairie chicken population and other prairie species such as the Upland Sandpiper and Bobolinks.
Saturday we went to get some zinnia plants at the local hardware store (Walmart here isn't carrying many plants this year). Ken was looking at the dill and fennel and found several containers had Black swallowtail caterpillars on the plants, the plants didn't look too healthy as they were getting root bound. We asked if they would give us the plants with the caterpillars since we were going to purchase several other plants and they did.
So we took them home put the plants and zinnias in the garden, we had 10 caterpillars, we hope they will become butterflies not food for our robins.
We found this Cicada at the Overland Park Arboretum, actually several but later on Saturday we stopped at a neighbors and they had a yard full of their larva shells. These are the 13 year cicadas, pretty little bugs but we will be having a noisey summer!
Just a few of the little things we like to take notice of.
Til next time, enjoy the little things!

Friday, June 3, 2011

Feels like summer

We have gone from chasing birds to chasing steam engines, Monday we caught up with the 844 as it was heading to Lexington. We may chase it again when it heads back this way next week.
It feels like summer with todays temperature around 91 and with high humidity. We got an early start today and visited Overland Park Arboretum.
It has planned gardens and wild woods to walk through, it is really a nice place.
The woods would be a great place to visit in the spring for the bird migration as the Wolf Creek flows through it.
The birds are hard to spot now so we have changed back to our original interest of butterflies and flowers.
We added damsel and dragonflies to our list too, they are so strikingly beautiful no wonder this one is called a jewelwing.
Here's a common silver spotted skipper enjoying what is left of this flower.
We haven't given up on birds, in fact we are going on a little road trip Sunday to see Prairie chickens, hopefully.
The walls are painted now we just need the trim around the door.
Til next time, enjoy the little things.