Variation.

Remember last Saturday? You know, two days ago when starting at 12:31 PM it began raining like Utah had a monsoon season? So do we. It was wet. We know because we were out in it.

Saturday we borrowed a truck from our usual source (Thanks Spence; it's not like you wanted to be out and about in that rain anyway.) and headed down to the county green waste f0r some of their compost. Hey, I used the word green! Happy belated Earth Day everybody!

For those of you who do not live in Utah Valley, the county green waste dump sits next to the sewage treatment plant. They collect any organic waste, grass clippings to tree parts, and grind them up. Then they take all this stuff they got for free, add to it the leftovers from the sewage treatment which they make everybody pay for them to take from our homes, and they charge us to take it off their hands for our gardens.

Personally, I'm surprised the mob has not picked up on this sweet racket yet. It's like laundering grass clippings.

It was wet. It was raining, and this wonderful compost that still steams when you turn a shovel full over smells like...

Well, like what it is. Let your imaginations run wild.

We buy it to hide the fact that we, just like all our neighbors, have nothing but clay for soil. We did it last year on that annoying strip of dirt that runs between the sidewalk and the road. We didn't mix it in or anything, but the clay is actually starting to break up a bit for a couple inches down. It's smelly stuff, but it's good smelly stuff.

Here's a picture of one of the beds after being covered.


It will be brown for most the summer, then next year it will be gray. But I'm ok with that.

While Paige was making truck runs back and forth, I was trying to figure out what to do with the massive amount of sand left over from building the path. I decided to build another path, just out of sand, around the garden.


Forgive the grass clippings, I just mowed the lawn and have not swept yet.

Now unfortunately, even though this path is one to two inches thick, it still left a lot of sand for me to deal with. So what would do you do with a ton of sand lying in a pile?

Spread it around and make a dry river bed out of it.




Say what you will, but I like it. It adds variation, and contrasts wonderfully with the dark compost. Yeah, It's awesome.

This now means we have 4 different types of path around our home. We have pavers, cobble, crushed marble, and sand. We can't make up our minds.

Yeah for back breaking labor!

Well, It's Finally done! The last of the Brent's landscape plane is finally in and finished, and we present here to you now, Our path.

From the South Looking North

Here is a tentative and unfinished design for the steps coming out of the garage door that needs a severe repaint.

North looking south towards the garage door.

From the north looking south again.

The North East end next to the driveway.

That extension off the side there in the last photo is for our garbage can. It's great to have this finally done, but now that the trench-to-become-a-path is gone, it is slightly disconcerting to step off the driveway and NOT drop a foot before hitting not-so-solid mud. Somehow, I think we will survive.

Website Update

I meant to post this a couple of weeks ago. I have finally finished updating my temple photo gallery with pictures from the last year. I have added multiple images from multiple temples and I added the three new temples from the most recent trip; Spokane, Fresno and Sacramento. Click the image to check it out.

Is it not the loftiness of the vinyard?

Well, It's been shaping up to be a beautiful spring. Our lawn is green and thick, and as you can see, the flowers have been coming in rather nicely.

This is what everything looked like on Monday while Paige was making her dump truck runs.






If only it had stayed that way. It snowed all day yesterday. Then it snowed all day last night. We have had this much snow before, but...


In the middle of April? This is ever so slightly ridiculous. It ended up doing some damage to one of our only 2 mature trees. Our Asian Plum.


We went out to relieve the branches of their weight but the damage had already been done. We will have to cut it back to about 8 feet. This means calling my brother to see if we can borrow his chainsaw, my brother in law to find out if he wants some plum wood for his smoker grill, and my father to figure out how best to proceed. Life.


In a fit of ridiculous irony, our Mimosa tree, which I have been instructed is not suitable for this environment, was flexible enough to bend all the way to the ground without breaking, despite being the same size as the Plum.

Paige's Rental Car.

So not only is my wife totally ready to become an Airline Pilot, but it turns out she is ready for her CDL as well. I'm not embarrassed that my wife is so talented. It's all security and stability for the family should drastic measures need to be taken. It's also good to know that should we need a whole dumptruck full of sand, and the sand absolutely must come from a long distance away, say, the Sahara Desert, my wife is completely capable of handling the whole task on her own.

The pile of gray gravel is road base my wife obtained while I was being a good boy and doing my math homework. The second pile is sand. The meaning of all this carrying on and whatnot is that we are finally getting round to putting in our path-o-pavers. This is the last official landscape feature from the wonderful plans my Brother in Law Brent created for us, what, 2.5 years ago?

If it doesn't snow tomorrow, I will post some pictures of the actual path. Currently all the road base is in, and we are about 1/3 complete with the sand and pavers. My Wife is awesome.

Educating our Future

Today during class, I had two boys alleviate their boredom by throwing crayons across the room. (Yes, they had lots of things to occupy their time) They have both been in school for a while, so one would think that the normal school rules would be a no brainer. A few other students decided to join in. This was not an all out guerrilla war, but the goal was to hit someone without being caught.

To make matters worse, a few students decided to explore a new artistic medium by rubbing crayon into my tile floor.

So, everyone spent the last 15 minutes learning:

• custodial work is probably not their life goal
• life is not fair
• sometimes you have consequences for others mistakes
• Mrs. Olson likes to torture her students
  

Ah, the joys of teaching junior high. :)

Road construction: Spring in Utah.

So UDOT has begun construction on a desperately needed rebuild for one of the two off ramps in American Fork. My Personal opinion is that the other one needed it more, but all the big businesses are off this one. The design is one frequently used in Europe, but it will be the first of its kind in the United States. I thought I would share it with you mainly because when they redo I-15 in Utah County, many of the overpasses will become these. There is an article at KSL online about it, if your interested. You can click this image if you want to see it really big.The article is Here.

But, I AM a girl

Two days ago, in one of my classes, the substitute was playing a review geography game. Why geography you might ask, since I teach science? Who knows...at least he was a willing warm body.

The game was boys against girls. If you knew the answer and it was your gender's turn, you raised your hand to participate.

The fun happened when the sub exclaimed,"Put your hand down. You're not a girl!" to a student, who IS a girl. Thankfully, she decided to run with it. It made for a fun day in class today.

I always ask my students how it went. After all, the sub writes me a note; they should be able to tell their side. It was an A day, which is the day that is filled with all of my favorites. All in all, it went well. No one cried. No one died. Only 2 boys sent to ISS....a normal day.

Now, here is hoping that the 10th goes just fine.

Death of the Mac

Like the other 2/3 of the teachers in my school, my turn to have a hard drive crash came last night...RIP.
It could have been worse;I had most things backed-up. I just had to deal with the painful goodbye of an "old" friend.

Actually, he came back cleaned and with a new keyboard. So actually, it was a bonus. :)