April 6, 2001

Hi Dear Friends,

Hope you are all enjoying this wonderful change of seasons. Many of my perennials are stretching their limbs and enjoying the sunshine. Ken has rototilled my vegetable garden and it is ready for the first planting of lettuces sometime mid April. So far I have spread almost 300 lbs of fertilizer and this does not include the vegetable garden. I gave up my Friday art classes for the time being since there is a great deal of work to be done outside. However, I’m inside this afternoon. It is raining with a bit of thunder and lightening. The dogs are quite nervous.

We have ordered about 9 ton of rock to give a finished look to a portion of front yard near the driveway. The weed mat has been put into place and is just waiting for all this rock. In addition, we have ordered turkey top soil for new grass, which Ken will plant and some fiberous redwood mulch. This should make the appearance of the front yard complete as far we want to go with it.

We received a letter from Boulder County on noxious weeds and their eradication. The letter was almost threatening to the point that if you did not attend the meeting to learn about this, they could come onto your property and take it over. So yesterday I went to the Altona Grange Hall. We were lined up waiting to get in to learn about Mediterranean Sage and Diffuse Knapweed. Instead of using a lot of sprays, I will dig up the Mediterranean Sage (which is located in Longmont/Boulder). Isn’t it amazing that it is not found in any other part of Colorado?

We have a muskrat in our pond. This creature is bigger than a cat with a long rat tail and eats the grasses and weeds in the pond. It’s a good mower. When ducks swim too close to its territory, it nibbles at their feet. You can tell this because they kind of jump out of the water and quickly move away.

As long as we are on the subject of creatures, two nights ago with Ken traveling all week I was watching television at night and strange scratching thumping sounds came from a close wall. I checked to see where the dogs were and if they were creating the sound. They were sound asleep and their paws no where near a wall. I listened further and determined the creature was between the hallway/living room wall and the wall going down into the basement. At times the basement door was jiggling. It had to be bigger than a mouse, but I’ll be darned if I know what it was. When Ken called me I told him about it, he asked did you open the basement door to see if it were there and not in the wall. I told him of course not! I did not want the creature in the main portion of the house. How could I ever go to sleep with a wandering creature bigger than a mouse. Dogs are great to live with, but not a wild creature bigger than a mouse.

The geese and ducks are back at our pond and are mating. Whether or not their eggs hatch depends on the coyotes and raccoons.

Samson officially had his Jock Sock removed. (This is the bandage he had on his leg from the coyote bite. The veterinarian would wrap white with gold, blue or green that resembled an atheletic sock, so told Samson he had a jock sock.)

Ken just got a Swift Cycling Club bicycle outfit. It is bright yellow, orange and white, close fitting and sexy. People will really notice these club members on the road. He does 60 to 70 mile bike rides on the weekend and when the head winds are really strong it really zaps his energy, but he loves it.

We had our biggest snow storm of the season March 25^th. Ken was traveling and due home Sunday night and I went to the Boulder Dinner Theatre with the Newcomers Club. I drove there myself and the drive home was very difficult. The snow was extremely wet and slushy, the drive demanded all my attention. Many roads were not plowed. We both had a serious ride home.

Speaking of Newcomers. I am now officially president and as such just do not attend an event, but make a special effort to try to talk to everyone. Sometime this is not possible, but I sure am trying my best.

Thursday we had a meeting at our water attorney’s office. I called Ken to advise that we were meeting ½ hour earlier than the opposition attorney and Sara together with engineers were to arrive. Ken was able to call in and attend the meeting on a conference call. Our attorney, myself, Kate and her dad were very happy Ken was with us by phone, as he was our expert and knew all the correct questions and comments to make. During this 1 ½ hour meeting Sara turned to me and with an attitude asked me when we moved here to which I answered June 1, 1999. She then lit into me trying to pick a fight, probably trying to show that I didn’t know much about Colorado, etc. – but how much does she know, she is from Saudi Arabia. Well without going into the trivial dialogue I had to keep repeating one phrase which had not been said out loud. I said you started digging and broke our drain. You see, the opposition has never admitted to the drain being broken, even though Ken just recently has photographs of the broken drain sticking up in the air. Quite evident don’t you think. You don’t need a rocket scientist to determine what happened.

Well between, this meeting and the noxious weed meeting, it was quite a draining day. I was talking to a friend that evening telling her about the events of the day and she said well, how are you dealing with this, how are you going to relax? I said, I just poured myself a scotch and will deal with it!

Hope I haven’t bored you too much again.

Take care,

Love, Diane and Ken