Here's Jackson being a good boy

Jackson is being a much deprived, unexercised, turd of a dog this evening. He got into the bathroom trash, and I caught him and yelled at him. Now he is outside likely digging holes in the yard and getting dirty. I decided to let him get it out of his system without getting trash all over the floor and post some pictures of him being a good dog instead.












here he has torn up a string ball. that is ok because it is his toy and not trash. he got the toy for Christmas and i am surprised it lasted until august.














Here Jackson is being quiet and laying down with me. it was after opening presents and he must have had a good time.













here he is sleeping on the way back from little rock or something. obviously he was worn out then too. see a trend? the dog needs to be exercised. i shouldn't be so lazy in the morning.














this is me holding him so he doesn't get up and wonder around while the power was out and we were all sleeping on the hide-a-bed by the gas logs. he is being good and not licking my face or squirming to get up.













Jackson was a good boy by helping us with our "new" tv and "new" tv table. too bad he couldn't do something about that wall paper - YUCK!!!













and here we went to Beaver, Arkansas where this one lane bridge is. i have video of driving over it too. Jackson was not impressed, but his engineering owners marveled at it.

Happy Birthday Jackson!!

Jackson turned 3 years old today. What a good boy! We are skipping the Barkday Pawty like we had last year because it was unlucky for some of our friends. But, know that he was not denied a soup bone this year. He also got some chicken in his food this morning. Yummy!!

After the Storm

I didn't think to take similar pictures "after" like the "before" or "during" pictures. So maybe, if you are not familiar to our home you would not be able to follow any of this. My apologies for that.









These two pictures show the view out of our back door now, the pole and tiki torch are the same. I didn't trust the guys that showed up at our door saying they would chop down trees with the ones near our house. I figured I could get other trees out of the way and then hire someone reputable or help chop the others down myself. they did a decent job at these two and the one by the shed so I had them do the leaning tree, too. It cost a lot of money, but I had already saved to get the trees down because I could tell they would need it. God decided to give me just the push I needed to let go of the money. We are definitely keeping what I think is a willow oak to the right and eventually will have to get rid of the pear on the left. I just want to see more green this year and it is not unstable so i will leave it for a while. and i forgot that the one tree on the far right was holding up one end of my hammock, so I will have to figure out how to get it back up in the spring.









When we picked a spot for our shed, we thought it was tucked away in the back corner of the yard. you can see for yourself in the before picture. this is after the leaning tree was cut and the broken branches cleared out. What has happened with this poor row of pine trees is that they were planted too close and lost/didn't grow limbs between themselves. Now that the big lower limbs growing out in the yard are gone there is not much left until you get 20' up the tree. Two of them are split and i wonder how they made it through the ice. i think we are going to keep one of them until we get another tree established in that area.









The three stumps represent the two left trees that ended up leaning towards my neighbor's house and the one on the left that started leaning towards our house. We went ahead and had those taken down because at least one of them would have gone over in the thaw or another wet time. The other picture is my dogwood. the poor thing lost two big branches to leave a gap in the shape, but I was so glad to see it stand back up when the ice was gone. if the buds are ok, it will make a magnificent show in the spring.









These are our renegade limb piles. They are more than 4' high and not cut into 4' lengths. the one on the left covers bushes and a sewer manhole and is very close to our mailbox. the one right is out in the street and on top of a water meter. But where are we supposed to put them? in our driveway? we don't have any other yard for crying out loud!! some people in rentals down the street put their limbs in the circle thing in the middle of the cul-de-sac where the light pole is. surely the paper will announce that is bad form, too. so this weekend we will try to clear out the manhole and meter by taking limbs to the drop-off.
This is what things look like now. The big tree in the neighbor's front yard is gone, and so are a lot of the pines between our houses. you can see how the one pile dwarfs our full sized truck in the driveway. Again, I am so thankful trees were all we lost. I think everyday of the people without a roof, running water, electricity, or vehicles because of the trees. I am also thankful for the neighbors we have who shared in our worry and our clean-up efforts.

During the Storm

The neighbor's tree leaned over to rest on our roof, this is about mid way through the rain. The pine tree in the background is leaning at our bedroom. The trunk of the tree is on one side of our shed and the top was leaning over the shed.

the forked tree in the middle of the picture is the one that rested on our roof to the right. amazingly the tree didn't break (much) and stood upright when the ice melted.

it stinks that this picture is blurry, but it was still raining at the time. Our shed is under several big limbs at this point and you can see that the tree is one of the taller ones in the row and it is leaning towards our house. a lot of the sagging branches (compare to before pictures) snapped off by Wednesday and were either hanging broken or lying on the ground.

Wednesday morning the top had come out of our front tree and you can barely see it but the neighbors super bendy tree is lying on our roof and actually hanging down in front of our bedroom windows. some branches broken on our back yard oak and the top to the pine tree that was leaning to our bedroom is gone.

our neighbors big beautiful tree broke in half. it wasn't going to make it through that. you can also see their bendy tree half on their roof too.
our clothesline
dogwood
the top snapped off (not onto our house) and landed on the opposite side of the shed. wow. but then the next tree to the left was leaning. lots of limbs down and it got worse.
these three were on our walk from checking the locks at work walking back home. more limbs and trees came down that morning in the wind and later in the thaw.

Before the Storm

Our side of the cul-de-sac

coming into our backyard

around the corner to the hammock

The shed and pine trees at the back of the lot

Thoughts about the Ice

I decided to share our experience with the winter storm that came through NWA the last week in January 2009. We were only out of power for about 5 hours Tuesday night / Wednesday morning; about an hour Wednesday at noon; Thursday afternoon for about 5 hours. What we didn't realize when falling in love with our neighborhood was that we may be on the same electric grid as NWA Regional Hospital, the fire station, and another ambulance service. What we knew we liked about the house was the friendly neighbors, the ranch style, the gas log fireplace, the backyard, and the mature trees.

The biggest blessing we found last week was our neighbors. When one yard was cleaned up or had a crew working we all moved to another yard. Those who were able had saws going or carried limbs. Those who were not able brought out cupcakes and bottled water. At one point we laid out our picnic blanket for several of us to watch a large pine tree cut down. When a big chunk would fall the kids and the ladies would clap and the guy with the saw (who spoke no english) would smile really big and give a "thumbs up." On Sunday, the sermon at church was about how we have experienced community through the crisis and how we should strive to make every day that way. I almost cried because our little corner of the world in the little cul-de-sac is very much like that every day. I am very thankful for that.

The gas logs worked like a charm, at least while we slept in the living room on the hide-a-bed. Our living area never dropped below 55 degrees with the logs cranked up. I asked Nathan if we could sleep in the living room Tuesday (before the power was out) because the pine trees were leaning towards our bedroom and the outside wall our bed is on. I called it a "one-dog-night" because that is all we had so we would have to make due either way. We turned the logs on early in the morning because we woke up cold to realize the power was off. We turned them on again Thursday and lit a lot of candles after work until we were tired and the electricity came back on before we fell asleep.

I wish we could have done more for the less fortunate. We offered our house to people we knew could get out of their houses but didn't have electricity. I was definitely upset by the loss of the trees, not only in our neighborhood, but everywhere we went. It is a hard lesson in taking care of our property by trimming and thinning out where needed. I hope I never hear "it looks like a war zone" about something like this again. As we walked home from work with the limbs popping and falling near us; trees uprooted or broken in half laying across the road, and I knew that emergency vehicles couldn't reach us if something happened, I felt helpless and scared. That's when I thought of people who really live in war torn areas. When I looked around I didn't see the dying or hear screams or sobs like I remember in reports of war. I have a new appreciation for what I think of as hoplessness in a very secure life and what I can't imagine life is like where there is no security.

I haven't had a serious post like this in a while, but it feels good to get off my chest. I have lots of pictures to share because they can speak louder than words sometimes. Then I think I can move on to happier things like who is turning the big 0-3 next week?

The pot and the kettle walk into a bar

So I just did as close to a blogging cardinal sin as it comes. I suggested a good friend and good blogger that they had not updated their blog recently enough, when in fact I have not updated mine in a very long time. Well, it wasn't so much the timeframe as the content of the last blog. Atomic Annie had a blog about the "curse of the Black Knight" with an equally ominous picture to go with it. I was feeling a mite creeped out by checking the blog often and re-reading that entry. I would much rather the top entry be about her cute-as-a-button munchkin or getting ready for the next munchkin. But it is understandable that she is actually getting ready for the next arrival instead of blogging. I am so sorry for the undue pressure! As part of my pentance I am including a cute picture of my own: Jackson playing hide-and-seek in the backyard.