Remind Me, Dear, Why Was It Again We Decided To Build A Pond In Our Yard? (With a Poll!)

Like many of you, I find that as we get older and more experienced in life, we learn many things. One of the things I have learned is that I was much dumber in the past than I am now. For example, when we were putting in our yard in about 2001, Lynette and I decided for some reason that it would be a good idea to have a "water feature" in the yard. I guess we wanted to be able to relax in lawn chairs on our deck on a summer evening and hear the peaceful sound of the bubbling waterfall, which would then make us have to go to the bathroom.

Allow me to summarize for you some things I have learned about having "water features" from my own experience:
1. They are always a mess.
2. They are really a lot of work to build.
3. They are even more work after you're done building them.
4. I will never build one again.
5. They are always a mess.

Gaining experience in life is wonderful. My 40 year old self would love to have been able to tell my 30 year old self what an idiot he was for deciding to build a pond.

This brings me to today's experience. The Bingham Pond has been getting a little out of control the past couple summers. The lily pad colonies had grown beyond the combined biomass of an acre of rainforest and this made it impossible to see through the water or keep the algae under control. Lynette told me that if I would remove the lily pad planters from the pond today, she would thin them and replant them.

Naturally, I decided that the easiest way to do this would be to just barefoot wade into the pond and start tossing stuff out. Big mistake.

I waded around in the black mucky water for about ten minutes and managed to toss out most of the excess plant material. Then upon exiting the pond I noticed this (you really need to click to zoom in for the full effect):




That's just one side of one foot, so if you count both feet I'm estimating that is 500+ leeches I picked up in a few minutes. And in case you were curious, no, they did not just rinse off. They were firmly attached with their little suckers or whatever and basically had to be scraped off individually. They did not leave big bloody sores like in the movies, but I think they were working on it. On the bright side, yesterday I was starting to think I was coming down with something, but now I think maybe all of my evil humours have been sucked out and I'm all better.

For some reason, the biggest thing that bothered me about this episode was, how did this thriving colony of thousands of leeches get started? Do leeches just magically appear in any icky, scummy pond? Our pond started out with clean water and we haven't put anything into it except lily pads and chemicals. The nearest standing body of water is Salem Pond, a mile away. Do baby leeches in Salem Pond climb up trees, spin little silken parachutes, and drift away on the wind like in Charlotte's Web? To me this seems like evidence for the theory of spontaneous generation, which I thought had been disproved. We're interested in commentary from our many readers who may be expert leech biologists.

With the new leech infestation, we're trying to decide if having a pond is worth it. Here's what the area looks like after I pumped out most of the water today:



As you can see, the area looks like it has potential, as long as you have a full time crew of Mexicans gardeners, or an extra thirty hours a week, to keep all the weeds down and everything pruned. As it is now, it looks pretty raggedy up close. We'd like your help deciding where we should go from here. Check the poll in the right hand column and cast your vote! We will wait a week until all 2 of our readers have responded, then throw away the information and choose whatever seems like the laziest option. After that, we will wait 10 years, then look back and make fun of how stupid we were when we were only 40.

Spring Break

For the first time in I don't know how long, we actually did something for spring break. Our nephew, Parker, was getting baptized on Saturday (in Grand Junction), so we decided to make a trip of it and go to Arches National Park on our way there. We spent 2 days hiking around the park and saw some incredible sites! It was BEAUTIFUL! The last time I had been there was when I was 8 and it was in the dead of summer... HOT! This was a much more enjoyable time to go. It was a first for Jared and the kids. Some of Jared's siblings joined us the second day. We had a great time and there was very little complaining.




The baptism was also very nice.  Parker looked handsome in his suit and his white jumpsuit.  Bryce and Amaya provided the prelude and post-lude as well as the opening and closing songs.  They did a very nice job.  Apparently, baptisms are very tiring.  This was the scene at Lori's house after the baptism.

You made my day!

So, yesterday I was doing a little blog surfing when I noticed that Designmom.com had a post about Easter eggs.  I always enjoy looking at creative ways to do eggs and she always has creative things on her blog, so I clicked on the link.  Imagine my surprise when up pops a picture of eggs done just the same way that I do eggs.  I thought, "How cool!  She does eggs just like we do!"  Then I looked at the picture again, a little closer this time, and thought, "Hey, those ARE my eggs!!!"  I then clicked on the link and up comes my little, hardly ever read blog.  Surprise!!  Thanks to design mom and all her readers who have visited and made comments!  You made my day!  

The other thing that made my day was the Scout/Young Woman fundraising auction that we had last night.  I donated 2 items.  Item #1 was sewing on scout patches for 1 year.  That item went for $70.  The second item I donated was this "flirty" apron that I made.

The apron went for $50.

It made me feel good that my items helped donate that much. Thanks!

The Egg

Easter eggs are a thing of beauty, especially when done the old Swiss way. My mom's side of the family is from Switzerland. Her grandfather came across the plains in a handcart. She grew up coloring her Easter eggs in this way, as have we. Pas is for wimps. This method takes great skill and artistic skills.

Step 1: Gather interesting shaped weeds, plants and flowers. You will want a wide variety. You never know what is going to work the best.  A couple of flowers that never fail are mums and daisies.

Step 2: Take a raw egg and tie your plants to the egg with thread. Make sure you secure the leaves well.

Step 3: Add as many leaves and flowers as desired, but leave some white parts showing and tie them securely (don't worry about using too much thread, the dye get under it).   Wrap all the eggs you want colored and set aside.

Step 4: (you have actually started this step ahead of time) Have a large pot of brown onion skins boiling on the stove until the water is a dark brown. Carefully place your wrapped eggs deep into the pot, covering them with water and skins.

Step 5: Put a lid on the pot and bring to a boil and then boil the eggs for 20 mins. Then carefully find your eggs and remove them from the pot and place them in a sink filled with cold water.


Step 6: Carefully unwrap the thread and remove the plants and flowers.

Step 7: If you want to shine them up a bit, put a little vegetable oil on a paper towel and rub your eggs with it.  Behold your eggs!

One year older

Happy Birthday Jayson! Eleven years old! It seems like it was just yesterday that I gave birth to that cute BIG baby (10 lbs 3 oz)! Jayson is so much fun to have around. His smile is contagious and he has a great personality. He is also sensitive and kind. We love you very much Jayson! Hope you have a great day!

Ospreys and a Bonfire

Our Varsity Scout team had a great activity yesterday working with the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources. I copied this post over from our Scout team blog in case anyone found it interesting, since I haven't posted anything else lately.

The DWR maintains a 50-acre preserve in the Lake Shore area near Lincoln Beach. Some towers have been put up there for nesting habitat for ospreys. The area used to be farmland, and some plowing work a few years ago inadvertently turned up a large amount of old baling twine. The problem with the twine is that ospreys tend to build it into their nests, and their chicks tend to get tangled in the twine strands which can lead to their death.

So we spent yesterday morning scouring the area and cleaning up all the baling twine. It was a cool morning but everyone worked hard and had a good time. We ended up collecting several giant garbage bags full of twine as well as some large bundles that were too big to bag.




(you can click images for a closer view).

Some of the bundles of twine were too big to haul off, so our wildlife officer gave permission to start the Biggest Scout Fire Ever.

This fire turned out to be too big to roast our hotdogs, but they tasted just as good cooked on the Bingham's grill back home. We had a good crew of workers and it was nice to have them out on a crisp spring morning to accomplish something useful.

The Eyes Have It

I love eyes, and these are the eyes I love most. Eyes tell you so much about how someone is feeling. Today we have a random sampling of eye-motions!
We have silly eyes:

We have angry/crazy eyes:
We have eyes that are being difficult, but look sleepy at the same time:
We have happy eyes:
We have the mother eye's that see all:
And finally, the loving father eyes:
Beware, we are all watching you!