Keeping up with the Stauffers.....

I know, I know....after urging Candy to give us some more blog posts...I have failed to do so myself. She, however, has been giving us lots of updates! I always read her blogs during my half hour breaks between a couple of classes every week. I will be doing better when school is over in one-and-a-half weeks. I will thereafter be free for three whole months! I had planned to take a summer class, but have decided not to for multiple reasons (many of which are related to the fact that there are no high-school class to participate in during the summer which is a requirement for the class - that is offered during the summer!!!) The week after school is out I will be in Park City, Utah presenting my last summers research at the Regional American Chemical Society meeting. I will be going down with my professor, Karen. We are both looking forward to some different scenery after this school year!

After the ACS meeting trip, I plan to spend mornings prepping for the Praxis Test (tests in my subject(s) matter that I have to passed to be qualified for both student teaching and state certification), and the afternoons/evenings going through all of our binned "stuff" and consolidating, reducing, labeling and mapping it all! I will also spend a fair amount of time outdoors in the evenings getting the yard finished with Matt. We are excited about our two rows of berries that we just put in. It took nine hours to get the ground prepared (lots of pick and shovel work). We had to create a steeper hill, remove the rocks, and mix in peat to make plant rows. We planted 12 Canby raspberries (one crop spring variety), one gooseberry, one golden current, three marionberries, and five blackberries moved from grandma's side yard. All seem to be prospering fairly well.

Matt has also been busy getting rocks moved from surrounding fields that we will use for the very short retaining "wall" that will separate the aspen grove from the flagstone patio.

Almost all of our plants survived the very cold winter, and we are enjoying blooming azaleas, roses, and crabapple trees. Our big Japanese maple is in fine form and has the most gorgeous colored leaves when the sun shines through them. I also have one barrel of strawberries (and one strawberry pot), and two barrels of herbs planted. We are hoping for a big basil year! I also finished installing a rock garden in the front flower bed, and a row of Grosso lavender along the side of the house. We are planting the weeping cherry this week, along with the new coral bark Japanese maple, and then I think we are done with trees. So far we have 10 aspen, two Japanese maples, three atlas cedars, two maples (one with burgundy and one with fire orange fall foliage), a weeping cherry, a crabapple, and one pin-oak. The trees seem to have brought in some birds other than the usual quail and house sparrows. We now have a nesting pair of goldfinches, a family of hummingbirds, and some house finches. Beats last year! We still have ridiculous quantities of bees (the good kind), hornets and yellowjackets though! We have two yellowjacket traps up and in a weeks time have not caught a single one. We must be blessed with the smart variety. We also have an abominable amount of HUGE mosquitoes this year. We don't remember it being a problem last year. In fact, we thought all the bug populations might be a little on the small side due to the cold winter, but apparently not!

Tills, Linus, and Hobbes are all adjusting to the new kitty (Sabrina) in their own way. She has NO FEAR of the dog, in fact, she thinks Tillie's tail is the coolest cat toy ever. She also does not fear Hobbes. In fact, I think she has shifted the pecking order around here a little. Hobbes used to be on top but now appears to be bottom ranked. She does, however, show fear around Linus and constantly lowers herself into submissive poses - or runs into my lap - whenever he is around. Unfortunately, this behavior only fans the root of his whole problem - I am his people, and, apparently, I am only allowed to have one cat. We have tried all kinds of cat psychology tricks (yes, people write books about this stuff...) and some have helped, but none have resolved the problem. We find that he is much less tolerant of her when he thinks I am not around, so she lives in the master bathroom until we are home.

Aside from the cat drama, the only big event has been the break-down of the 4-runner. We are hoping to get it fixed and that it doesn't need a new engine. However, we will not know for a while. With the new(er) car, we don't plan to have a newer SUV for a year or two. The only bright side there is that we aren't spending a fortune on gas to drive it!

I am planning to send out reunion invites this weekend. I know, I am a little behind. The web-site has been updated for a while, though. It will be interesting to see who is willing to travel with these gas prices!

Well, I must go practice our "class skit" about student-led conferences that we will be performing today - ughhh.....