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Welcome all, thank you so much for visiting our blog photo-Album. Recently we have been fortunate enough to receive comments from "Adventurers" all around the world. Occasionally, these comments arrive in a language other than English and are not posted because we do not know what is written. Thanks again for visiting and commenting.

Hey Uschi, I've got something to tell you.

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Don't Tread on Me

Hmmm, what do we have here?

Once the trenches were dug, the water pipes installed and pressure tested, it was time to backfill. The tractor left big tread marks that the boys enjoyed almost as much as the trenches...

Oh, boy, let's help Dad!

This section needs more dirt,...
right behind you Tanj.

Uschi pauses to fill a little
more dirt into the hole

The tractor "died" before all
of the trench was back-filled

Usch helps kick a little
dirt into the trench

Tanj offers his advice

A little more dirt over here, please

Uschi is getting fired up,
you can see it in his eyes

Fluff-tail Usch spots a stalking Tanj

Hey Tanj, don't tread on me!


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Trenched

Each summer we water hundreds of trees every week by pulling around long garden hoses. Last year the boys enjoyed the spraying water and snaky hoses. It takes a lot of effort to pull the hoses around and after 700' of garden hose, there is just a trickle of water. To make the watering job a little easier, I decided to run 1200' of 5/4" PVC pipe to route water out to new "frost free hydrants." The first step was to dig the trenches for the piping, and of course this created a kitty playground...

The weather was perfect for trenching,
the boys watched "patiently" from their kennel.

Happy as can be
playing with a big boy toy!

Once the trenching was done, the boys were able to
safely investigate what all the noise was about...

Uschi immediately found the main trench...

and ran the entire length.

Tanj inspected the perimeter...

and did a little trenching of his own.

"Boy Usch, this looks deep!"

Brave Uschi descended into a shallow spot and...

ran deep within the cool damp trench.
Meanwhile Tanj ran along the top meowing...

"Uschi, get back up here!"

Woooo Hoooo that was fun!!!

Wow, what is this ?

My turn to take this for a spin!

Vroom, vroom - make it go!

There was no ride for Uschi,

so he surveyed his new trenches.


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Food Delivery

I'm too skinny,
I need more Fancy Feast.

A wide variety of new foods arrive.

Woooo Hoooo,...
more food for us!!

We are soooo lucky,...

Happy brothers.

Hey !!!!,...
This doesn't look like Fancy Feast.


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Happy Arbor Day

Chickadees In A Cherry Tree

Julius Sterling Morton organized the first “Arbor Day” on April 10, 1872 in Nebraska. He developed interest in planting trees and the importance of trees, by popularizing the idea that planting trees would benefit Nebraska. He practiced what he preached, by planting and caring for orchards, wind breaks, and shade trees on his own farm. On the very first Arbor Day over one million trees were planted in Nebraska.

The idea spread to other states and in 1970, President Richard M. Nixon proclaimed the last Friday in April as National Arbor Day. The ideas behind Arbor Day have grown around the world, with many countries now celebrating their own versions of Arbor Day. The various bits of informations I found, all said that it is a good time to inspect your trees and shrubs, and to plant a tree.

The boys regularly inspect our trees,
and have been known to help plant trees.

For Arbor Day,

the family headed out,...

Come on Uschi, lets plant a couple
Italian Stone Pines (Pinus pinea).

That one looks good dad,...
lets put the other one over there,...

I've got the next one,...

Hey, where did it go ?

It's not in here,...

There it is,...

I'll help you back fill.

All done,...
I get to ride home in the wheel barrow.

Happy Arbor Day

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Fancy Feasters

The food search goes on. Three days ago we were out of wet food and purchased Fancy Feast from the grocery store, as an experiment. Lets just say the boys went NUTS !!! This is the FIRST wet food they have absolutely attacked and totally cleaned their plates as well as the surrounding area, leaving nothing behind. They have become total terrors over the past few days while eating F.F. They literally sit in the kitchen yelling for food! If we get up, they run at us and herd us to the kitchen. This is not behavior we have seen with any food. Both have been SUPER active, it is scary. I wish I had a generator (dynamo) on the cat wheel because Uschi would be powering some lights around here. Tanj is even more active, maybe F.F. isn't good just for this reason. At the moment Tanj is literally flying around the house yelling, Uschi is playing along also. At the same time they are off the scale affectionate.

I'm not sure if we have gotten caught up in marketing or our research or personal biases, but we don't feel good about feeding them the grocery store foods. "Meat By-Products" are in the first five on the ingredients list for all the flavors. The Beef is obviously cardiac muscle, etc. "By-Products" are typically; heart, liver, brain/spinal cord, connective tissues, etc. which are tissues made up of cells that are longest lived in an animal and tend to bio-accumulate toxins. In the wild these "by-products" might be just fine, but since the source of modern meats is high density farm raised animals, with known issues with infections, etc, it is a little unnerving, for us. Additionally, as we have all seen, pet foods are not regulated/monitored as closely as we might all hope.

Tanj and Uschi just flew by yelling and chirping. So much more Energy,... EEEEKKKK!

Any insights?

Come onnnn Mooooommmm,
more Fancy Feast!!!!

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Plovers

We have plovers in the yard.

Two Killdeer (Charadrius vociferus)

keep an eye on

the boys.

Tanji wants to stalk them but his

chattering and chirping, keeps them

well-informed of his location.

The plovers are in little danger because they are focused on
Tanji, and me waving my arms around while making
noise, being sure they are well alerted.

The pair does a good job of leading
Tanji away from the nest,

Oh, poor me, my wing is broken,...

Tanji falls for it,...

the plover launches

"chirping" and squawking,
keeping T's interest,

then lands a little ways away.

Tanj is still interested and runs again.

The plover easily avoids him and

flies further down the field

landing effortlessly.

Tanji comes back all tired out and crying.

All the while,

Uschi just sits at the edge of the tall grass watching,
which he would happily do for hour and hours.

The plover nest was undiscovered by the boys.
I marked it so we wouldn't step on the camouflaged eggs.

After a few plover stalkings, Tanji learned
that he wasn't going to catch them and
now just sits with Uschi watching.


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