5-time Wrestling State Champion

Well, Kristina's nephew, Rhett, did it again.  Over the weekend back in Kansas, he successfully defending his wrestling title.  That now makes FIVE Championships in a row -- for anyone who knows anything about wrestling, this is quite remarkable!  CONGRATS to Rhett!

Rhett is 11, so he wrestles the 12 and under category.  At State, he wrestling 68 lbs.  He didn't start the season at 68 lbs, but he gained some height and had to go up to 68 lbs to compensate.  Of course, let's all be clear that 68 lbs isn't really that much to weigh at a 11 year old -- but remember he comes from small-ish genetics (thanks to Grandpa Flipe).

Here he is on the podium.  As you can see, he is full of muscles -- look at that arm definition!  It must be all of those push-ups his Dad makes him do every day!

Of course Dad has to celebrate with him.  Da-Da and Rhett both put a lot of hard work into Rhett's success. Da-Da is lucky to have such a talented son, and Rhett is lucky to have a great coach and Dad wrapped into one!

And here is how it all started -- Grandpa Flipe!  You can tell he is really pondering in this photo.  I wonder what he is thinking!  Maisie looks really serious too!

Woohoo!  Way to go Rhett!

Happy 5th Birthday Indy!

Look who turned 5 years old today!  Jared and Kristina can hardly believe that Indy is already FIVE!  She still acts so much like a puppy -- tons of energy and always ready to go.  She is definitely a do-er.  She loves her treats, to tear up her toys, to run full out, and to swim after sticks in the river.  Little did we know when we picked her up (she was the last puppy left in the litter) that she would be such a good dog!  We are very lucky to have such a loving little girl!  There isn't a person or dog that she doesn't love...squirrels on the other hand are an entirely different matter!

Spring Yard Work

Friday turned out to be a great weather day (finally).  Jared took the day off and de-thatched the lawn (Kristina was supposed to take the day off, but that's another story).  Anyway, in addition to de-thatching the lawn, Jared also had a 1/2 of a dump truck of dirt deliverer and a 1/2 of a dump truck of bark delivered. All in preparation for after the lawn was de-thatched.

Even though de-thatching the yard rips it up a bit, come later this summer, it will have been well worth it.

Look at this furry dog...it is about time for her to get groomed.  She has weathered the winter well.  No wonder if it gets over 50 degrees F, she is hot.

We filled up both of our compost bins with moss, and here's our leftover pile.  We'll have to slowly refill the compost bins each week to get rid of it.  However, this gives you an idea of how much stuff comes off the yard when you de-thatch.  It is like the yard gets to breathe easier again.

On Saturday, we moved the bark pile.  Jared directed and he and Kristina moved it all around the perimeter of the yard.  Amazingly enough it took ALL DAY on Saturday to move that bark.  The bark takes more time because you care about where you put it and you just can't throw it all around like the dirt.

As you can see here, Jared has made a pretty good dent in the dirt pile -- he did this on Sunday.  Since Kristina spent all day outside on Saturday, she had to spend Sunday inside catching up with laundry, cleaning, grocery shopping, etc...  It turns out that this works real well because she is also able to cook lots of good food for Jared during the day and this makes Jared's job of moving dirt a lot easier.

Here are some shots of the bark, but before the dirt has been put down.  See the landscaped area between our yard and the neighbor's yard.

These pictures are after dirt was spread around and the grass seed was re-seeded.  There is also a photo in here of Jared using his lawn tractor as a poor man's sod roller.

That was a lot of work...hopefully we'll see the benefits this summer.  Grow grass grow!

The Hummer(s)

We are lucky enough to have Anna Hummingbirds year round.  We're pretty sure only one sticks around in the winter, but we keep feeding him/her all winter.  Now that spring has arrived we have seen several more and the hummingbird feeders are draining quickly (we have two).  That being said, Kristina was able to get a picture of one of them the other day.  Here he/she is in action...

Happy Slurping!

For "The Doug"

When we started our yard work on Saturday morning, prior to doing anything, we filled the the bird feeders, gave the squirrels a new corn cob, and filled up the peanut bin for the squirrels as well.  Typically the gray squirrels are our main customers but we have been pleasantly surprised that at least one Douglas Squirrel show up again -- we affectionately call them all "Doug".  These are our favorite squirrels; they are much smaller in size and a chocolate brown color.

As the day progressed, we could hear Doug chirping at us from up in the trees (he sounded very angry).  We had no idea what was going on when finally Kristina stopped and watched him for a moment.  Doug is so small that he couldn't get into the peanut bin, and he REALLY wanted a peanut.  He doesn't weigh enough to open the lid when standing on the level near the bin.  And he can't move farther out on the lever because then he can't reach the peanuts because he is so small.  To help Doug out and encourage him to stay around, Kristina put a stick in the pin to prop open the lid -- boy, did THAT make Doug happy!  So happy that Kristina had to refill the bin the on Sunday! 

Moss and the Yard

As we patiently wait for the weather to dry up a bit so we can get out into the yard and start our spring cleaning, here's what is looks like.  From a distance, it looks great -- only when you get a close can you tell that the moss has overtaken the yard a bit.  Each year it gets better, but we still have to put moss killer (iron), de-thatch the yard, and reseed the grass.  We don't dread it...we actually look forward to it because it is a sign of things to come (it means we survived another winter).

The irises are popping up...hopefully we'll have more than 1 flower this year.

The moss is much more visible in the front yard.  It is easier to tell where the water pools when it rains a lot.

February Rain

Just when we started to worry about moisture (rain in the lowland and snow in the mountains), it finally arrived in both places and is promptly made up for lost time.  We ended up with receiving 5.11" of rain for the month of February.  Our average for February is around 3.5" of rain, so as you can see we made up for being drier earlier in the season.  Steven's Pass received over 10 feet of snow in just one week.  All of the skiers and snowboarders were super excited, so much so that they caused parking problems up at the mountain by parking where they weren't supposed to be parking.  Such is life...  So looking at some of the data available online, we haven't quite made up for all of the drier weather yet.  But it is looking very likely!