Jesssica's First Day of School - Junior Year (where has the time gone???)

It is hard to believe that we will have only one more "first day of school" at the Bird household. It is a always a special day, isn't it? But Jess reminds me that it is all very exciting until the end of that first week when "you realize you have a full 9 months of this". But it is a fun time of year with new schedules, friends, football seasons, classes, dance routines......I just hope it doesn't go by too fast. Is there a slow-mo button I can push?

Laura graduated from BYU with a degree in Public Relations/Communications. Congratulations Laura!
She has a job in Salt Lake working for a company that does restoration for insurance companies. She only has to go in to the office a couple of times a week; the rest of the time she travels around the area visiting various insurance agents doing marketing/public relations work.

Laura Graduates from BYU!

Some Memories Never Die

Imagine our surprise to open the sports page and see James and Andrew from their Senior year (six years ago!). It makes you wonder what those statesman photographers do all day if they have to use six year old pictures for their current features. We're anxious to see if this picture apppears weekly with the "Varsity Extra". What a blast from the past!

Life After (or with?) Gophers!

In spite of the gopher-diggin' night life going on, this rose bush and many of my sunflowers are thriving. Every year I plant sunflowers and every year I am disappointed when they only bloom facing East. What is the deal with that? Every sunflower in my backyard faces away.
But they are still beautiful and cheerful:)

Life After Spider Mite!

I am happy to report that after clipping my pots down to almost nothing and treating the spider mite, there is life again! Although I am down about three pots, the ones I have left are giving one last bloom before fall.

Suzanne's birthday

Isn't she cute? We just love having her in our family and she is so perfect for James.

Suzanne turns 21 today! We had a steak dinner on Sunday to celebrate and Cam was right on hand to help her blow out the candles. Happy Birthday Suzanne!

Easy Rider

My brother Greg stopped over to stay on his road trip to see his daughter, Kristy in Vancouver, WA. He took me for a spin on his harley and I loved it! A part of me wanted to join him on his trip, it was so comfortable riding back there. We took a sunset tour of Eagle and West Boise; I had an unterior motive: to get him to fall in love with the area and move here when he retires! He would be right between both of his kids. I wish they made "mini-harleys", kind of like "mini-me's". If they did - I would have one!

Uninvited Guests

Can anyone guess what can wreck this kind of havoc in a flower bed? In May, this Phlox was about 2 feet wide by 1 foot long and was full of bright pink blossoms. Also, on either side of it were two rose bushes, both registered tea roses. One day I went back to check it out because the two rose bushes looked a little dry. When I grabbed each bush, they came right up in my hand with absolutely no root system. It had been chewed away by....you guessed it, rodents. Groundhogs, specifically and some Voles, they say. We have had this problem before, but Scott had always kept it under control with the skills he learned in Hunter's Ed. You can be safe in assuming that I am murderously furious at these little pests invading my yard. The film "Caddyshack" comes to mind, where Bill Murray filled the holes with gasoline and lit them on fire. In response, we called Gemtek (whom James sells for) and they came out and "set some bait". Next, we had a ten year old boy in our ward, Nick, come over and set some traps. We told him there was a bounty of $5.00 a head and there was a lot of money to earn. He caught a couple but, unfortunately, has been on vacation. I am thinking of investing in Night Vision goggles and camping out there with my pellet gun to take care of the situation.

The next thing that invaded my yard, specifically the flower pots, is a pesky little bug called a spider mite. The first thing to go (at the end of July) was the Lobelia. All of a sudden, it looked like it was drying up, but was getting plenty of water. Within a week to 10 days, it was all gone and so I pulled it out of the pots. The next thing to look sick were the two beautiful pots of marigolds. Finally, I had to pull them out too. Next came the Petunias. Then I was talking with someone who has their own greenhouse and grows a lot from seed and start and he told me it sounded like spider mites. He said to check the underside of the petunias and look for little black dots. As you can see in the picture, they had made a home with my petunias. So, I cut the petunia pots down and treated them with aphid spray (it's also good to pour it into the soil). I am hoping to salvage one more nice bloom out of the Petunias before the fall.

In going with the "green thing", an organic way to treat Aphids, mites, or any garden bugs is to pour dishsoap/water mixture (10 to one water to soap) into the soil.

To all the gardeners out there, here's to fighting the "unseen enemies" and coming out on top!
(My pellet gun is available and I have an arsenal of chemical treatments in the garage). I also have some sweet mouth/nose guards I got at the dollar store so you don't breathe all the fumes. Then again...the soap and water are a lot safer. It just depends on your level of craziness with your enemies. I am pretty far gone at this point, so I'm willing to try anything! I'd love any helpful hints, suggestions and stories. So I don't end on a negative note, below is the garden report of everything that has made it through the enemy attacks this summer.

The Garden Report

After much dead-heading and TLC, the front roses are on their third bloom of the summer, although nothing matches that first bloom in June. Morning is the best time to catch the fragrance of the roses; their oils are fresh from the night and it smells wonderful.

The front pots are just happy to be there and have a little attention sometimes. Here it is August and they are still going strong. This is how our veggie garden looks today; it has survived the heat, bugs and a few uninvited friends to produce fantastically. As a matter of fact, if you find a cucumber magically appear in your car or on your doorstep, it was probably us trying to get rid of them. As you can see from these pictures, it was a very good year for the yard & garden. The grass, the flower beds, the flower pots....they all peaked at the same time and I felt pretty darn proud of all of our hard work. These pictures were taken around the end of June.

Haven't blogged for a while....

It's been a while since I posted; a lot has happened. My brother, Todd went in for triple by-pass heart surgery a week ago. He is recovering very slowly, due to some other issues he has and is still in ICU. If you are the praying kind, please remember him.

Since I last posted, Laura graduated from BYU with a degree in Communications/Public Relations. She received a job offer in Salt Lake and will most likely work there for the next year while Ben finishes and takes the CPA exam. Yeah Laura! Way to go.

Going Commando!

James and Suzanne have been "car challenged" all summer and were trying to come up with a quick fix that would get them through the next three weeks of their jobs. Long story short, they ended up buying this sweet 1984 Bronco II for the grand price of $5.00; that's five dollars. I guess it pays to have "connections".

It had been sitting in someone's field for a while, but has brand new tires, runs well and gets them where they want to be. Suzanne drove it to work the first day because James had to take the Honda out of town. To her surprise and shock, she found a hornet's nest in the back on the way to work. Once at work (Gemtek Pest Control), the technicians took a look at it for her and discovered 17 more hornets nests! Now they are in the process of going through it with a fine toothed comb and cleaning it up.

Isn't it true that something free (or close to it) becomes a cherished thing?

Are they the cutest or what?

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice!

The other night Jess and her friends, Aimee (blond, curly hair) and Brooke (dark hair, navy shirt) were having a "pow-wow" in the entryway. They were so cute I had to take a picture. Waiting all those years for a girl sure does have it's rewards.

Gasoline Scam

CNN had a story this morning about a petrolium company in Texas that has been scamming consumers. They had fixed the gallon measure amount to short customers by about 1/4 or so of a gallon for each "gallon" pumped. What finally got them was that customers started complaining that the amount pumped didn't match the size of their gas tanks.
So, they said the best thing we can do to avoid this is to know your gas tank size and pay attention to how much you are using (calculate the MPG's) and taking to fill it. If one company did this, others could be doing it too.
(One small consolation: the offending company will be bankrupted with fines:)

More Green...

Okay, I know that they have these little fabric bags (green, of course) at the store that you can buy for a nominal fee so you can re-use them. I think it is a great idea, with one exception: it would take 72 of them to get one average size load of groceries home! I mean, they are lunch sized!
So I have an idea; make bags large enough to hold a good amount of groceries and still be able to lift them (what a concept!); also make a collapsable, rollable cooler w/pockets on the sides. That way, the perishable stuff goes in the cooler and the rest goes in the pockets. It would collapse enough to permanently keep in the trunk of your car so you would always have it when you need it.
So there you have it - my new "green" business venture. Any backers? Hey, I think I could even get government assistance here because I'm "going green". Maybe I'll even give Al Gore a call.....

Rebuked by the Recycle Man!

My "going green" is making the recycle man "see red". Monday I found this note in the bin and here is what it said:

"Need to keep cans seperate from newspapers. I don't have time to throw them in one at a time! Next time I will tag and leave it!" I felt so bad when I found the note, especially since the nice guys gave me a free bin. I've been trying to think of something nice I could leave for them next time and decided what they would like the most is if I would just do as they ask.

I am trying now to keep everything separated out; I put the cans in a bag and roll the newspapers up and smash the milk jugs & take the lids off. They also want things rinsed out.

I've also learned:

No "contaminated" pizza boxes. In other words, if you have a clean pizza box that never had any pizza in it, then you can go ahead and recycle it.

No plastic bags. Can't we think of a way to recycle these pesky little things? The way the food falls through them on the way home had led me to believe they were already being recycled.

This "going green" thing is a lot harder than people say it is. But I will continue to do my part....or at least try to stay on the good side of the recycle man.

My favorite quote from "Twilight"

Page 460 "Twilight", lines 1-5:

"You have a broken leg, four broken ribs, some cracks in your skull, bruises covering every inch of your skin, and you've lost a lot of blood. They gave you a few transfusions. I didn't like it - it made you smell all wrong for a while." ~Edward~

I've discovered a great book!

I know that I am a little late getting on the "Twilight" series bandwagon (by Stephanie Meyer), but I have discovered the books and they are so good. Today at Costco, I picked up books two and three and book four comes out in August. In December, they are making the movie!

July 4th at the Cabin!

We had a great time at the cabin in Island Park together this year for the 4th of July. Of course, we missed Scott, but next year he will be there!This is my first time using the "timer" on my camera. I perched it on the deck of the cabin, hit the button and ran for the picture. It amazed me how well it turned out for the first time. We were wearing our "American Team" T-shirts. This goes way back to when the kids were young and we wore matching flag shirts to Yellowstsone Park. It was the year of the Olympics and a little boy exclaimed when he saw us, "Look Mom, its the American team!".