Fort Pierre - Deadwood wagon train

stealing supper

most of the neighbors have been very good about putting in their lawn and trees, but the house kitty corner from our back deck is a rental. it is at least three years old and has not had grass put in. our block nazi had to get after the renters to mow the weed lawn. the renters moved out and the owners came back for a week and did some work.

part of the work was tilling under the weeds and had sewing lawn seed ontop of the new till. they watered it at least twice and then took off leaving the hose twirling around the lawn.

during the first part of the week we saw a "murder" of grackles gorging themselves on grass seed. do you suppose the owners thought the hose was going to water the grass by itself and keep the birds away. and what about all those weeds that were sort of plowed under.

porch update

first picture is last year--i like the flowers and chairs on the walk. the next is this year's pictures after the stain and putting in edging around the roses. like the color better. our flowers were better last year. not sure why.

besides mowing the grass this week, my sis and i have been working on staining our porch and deck. we finished the front porch with its new brown color. it was red before even though we meant it to be brown from the start. the first stain did not turn out quite the color we thought it would. this color is spanish moss. our roses which are old type roses are blooming intermittently, so we always have some color and fragrance by the porch. the back deck isn't finished. rain and lack of energy. guess i will have to try and finish by myself....the top at least; because cyn is going to back to school meetings.

i am NOT going to do any work on a ladder though. i have a slight problem with dizziness and do not want to fall. meniere's disease.

fair at nisland --butte and lawrence county

my sis and i went to the butte and lawrence county fair this morning. i was expecting lots of animals and exhibits because the boulder country fair was always stuffed with animals, people and machines. we were sadly disappointed. my sis says that when she lived here before there were tons of entries and people. it is not clear why a fair in the middle of cattle and sheep country has dwindled to almost nothing while the fair in the middle of suburbia has prospered.

we went today for the horse judging. one of our students at the after school program was showing a horse. it is the gray in the picture. the horse, jerry, used to be a roping horse, but the roper sold him because jerry was too lazy. but our student managed to get a purple ribbon anyway. it was the first time in the ring for jerry.

we also saw a tiny little girl with a curly coated pony. the pony was so calm and just followed her where ever she led it.

the fairgrounds are beautiful, too bad they are not being used except for the fair. they used to have horse races. the track is still there but overgrown with weeds. the grounds and buildings are set aside as a historical site. the octagonal building reminds me of the chautauqua building in boulder.

nisland post office

last friday was the hundreth year for the writing of the take me out to the baseball game song. for some reason the nisland post office decided to have a little celebration. they had special post cards with the song, water and cookies and an old fashioned baseball game in the afternoon. my sis and i plus two of her grandchildren were the first customers. while we were there a lady in the yard had two tiny miniture Chihuahua puppies.

any children who visited got a box of authentic cracker jacks. i loved those as a kid, especially the silly little toys inside. cheap thrills.

you can see that nisland is pretty much a dead town. there are no stores, but they do have an american legion building, a fire department, a nice church, and great fair grounds.

cats and water

cats claim they don't like water except to drink, but one day i found my sister's cat, cc, playing in my bathroom sink. sometimes she plays on the edge of the bathtub between the curtains during shower time. she is an elusive creature; sometimes i don't see her all day. my cat sam wakes me up at 5:30 or so for water, treats and to open the sliding door. cc and dennis also appear after i get up so they can go out and hunt. after a treat and a drink though, sam goes back to bed until noon when he pesters me for his noon treat.

rodeo

we had really good seats for the belle rodeo...second row center. right across from the chutes. i thought i took four times as many pictures than appeared on my camera. even so i did get some good ones, but not any of the bull riding. which i thought i had taken tons of. guess i need to do some experimenting with my camera.

the bay mare with the star is Miss Congeniality, bucking horse of the year. she is a really big horse, probably has some clydsdale blood.

there was only one rider of the saddle broncs that made the time and no one made time on the bulls.

fourth parade

the best part of a parade are the horses...for me. still, i like the belle parade because it has a little bit of everything---old and new cars, clowns, big trucks, tractors, horses, bands, kids, and fire trucks.

there were not so many big trucks this year, i suppose it was due to gas prices. also the cowboy band only went by twice instead of the usual three times...gas prices i guess. they march the first time, except for the old members who ride a flat truck tailor. they the whole band usually come by two more times on a flat bed. the band was also smaller. some members do not live in belle. my niece was talking to one from minnesota.

there were lots of teams of horse this year. they included Belgians, 3 teams of pintos, mules, and various small ponies. hopefully i will be able to drive one of the pinto teams in the near future. it is on my bucket list and my nephew has already arranged it with the owner. we just have to set a time.

several men were riding really big horses. one looked part Friesian, another one looked at least to be part Percheron.

deck steps finished

my daughter and son-in-law were up early and were so quiet that i was upstairs being quiet so as not to wake them. they were downstairs working on the steps and patio pavers.

my daughter worked inch by inch with a level, shovel, rake, and fingers to lay the pavers which we decided would look nice in a random pattern. my sis and i plan to plant ground cover between the pavers. we have cats and sand does not stay nice when you have cats. ground cover will make the pavers transistion between the yard and the cement patio.


my son-in-law worked on the paver steps to transition the end of the wood steps into the lawn. there was quite a steep pitch between the flatter part of the yard and the end of the steps. he did a great job making the pavers flow from the higher part of the yard and the steps into the lower part of the yard. they are nice and wide and sturdy --- especially good for older persons like my sis and myself.

we had a bbq that evening and everyone sat around in the back yard after getting their food from the bbq on the deck. we could not have had such a large group without the steps down. we do not have enough room inside to have large groups in the winter. there were about twenty people all loosely related.

we bought tiki torches to keep the insects away, but have decided they do not do a very good job. maybe they have to burn awhile before the party or maybe we have to place them closer togeather. or...maybe we just use them for looks!

steps and patio progress

the garden/back yard saga continues. my daughter and son-in-law arrived from california and my sis and i put them to work digging out a place to put patio pavers to extend the patio out to the pillars of the porch above.

fortunately because of all the rain, the soil was not too hard. hopefully the sand will serve as a collection point if necessary the next time we have a flood. hopefully there will not be next time for a flood while we are living here.

the hard part is figuring out how to put some steps at the bottom of the wood stairs from the deck. our yard does not have one level spot. through the use of wood and pavers, my son-in-law is putting in some nice wide gentle steps for us.

my daughter is working on the pvers which she is putting down in an artistic pattern. we will plant some small ground cover between the pavers. it will make that little strip of ground look like it belongs to both the patio and to the grass.

garden work inbetween the rain

at last....we have stairs down from our deck; not in quite the configuration we envisioned, but we are glad to have them. we also now have a shelf to put chairs and hoses. and a place under the shelf to store the lawn mower during the winter. we put blocks around the tree and made a rock wall by the side of the house to stop dirt from washing away.

we still need to get some dirt to fill in behind the wall. my two nephews, my sis and i bought a truck for 500. an oldy for garden use. my sis and i put in 150 total. so now we can drive up behind the house and get some dirt for fill. also we can get our wheelbarrow back so we can haul some more rock for under the steps. we are only responsible for putting in gas when we use it.

we stained all the old church fold up chairs; some are brown and some purple. we are working on fixing the Adirondack chairs. we sanded and stained the swing and the sprayed the wicker chair. so we are almost ready for our summer barbecue. it is supposed to be a midsummer party, but with all the rain we are a little behind schedule.

the truck bags on the lower patio are left over from our attempt to prevent flood waters from coming in the patio. we are going to use the contents to make a sand bed to lay pavers on to extend the patio out as far as the rose bush that is growing on the old iron gate.

we recycle!!!!!

our fence is a recycled fence and the posts holding up the landing on the stairs are recycled fence posts! my sis's porch swing was bought for twenty dollars by her at yard sale. new ones cost 100. :) the church chairs were free and the wicker chair was bought used. sis made the Adirondacks, but they probably cost more than new because she and her husband bought a log saw and made the chairs from scratch. you do have to count the cost of the log cutter!!! the porch table made from cedar was a gift.

a little fun in the sun

it was shiny sunday morning and my sis and i had to go to rapid city to buy more wall stones; so we decided to go early to the the local dressage show. there were about a dozen horses, but more riders. i am sure that when students learn dressage they share school horses.

we saw two beginner classes and one more advanced class. some classes only had one entry, but it is a good way for the rider to see where they are as they are given points.

the little buckskin to the left is half connemara pony and half thoroughbred. the rider had a very nice ride.

the black in the practice ring is a Hanoverian stallion. for the class the rider put on a top hat and tails for riders. very classy. the horse looked like he floated across the ring. i almost cried watching him move. the horse....not the rider. the rider moved very little.

the grey is an eighteen year old arabian and still frisky. in the practice ring he bucked a couple of times in protest to the rider's commands. he did okay in the ring except for pretending to be afraid of the judges stand right at the beginning of the ride.

more rain

usually when the weather stations forcast rain...it doesn't. we have had rain for the last forever. the poor plants aren't getting enough sun to spurt into summer growth.

but the rain didn't stop the grackles from stealing all the food from our bird feeder. we have seen other birds intermittently; a blue jay, a pair of asian collared doves, a downy woodpecker and some finches. can't decide if they are rosy or house finches.

today we bought some nesting material (straw), floor covering (w00d chips), and some osyter shell for the chickens and ducks. they are quite tame because my youngest niece and nephew handle them. the ducks are a little wild.

they were all inside but one duck which the kids had to chase down and put inside so the coop could be closed for the night. the white chicken my sister is holding is thought to be a rooster. we will find out. he gets picked up quite often. you will notice that he has green legs. he or she is an aracauna (they are the easter egg chickens).

more water

june rains

it has been raining forever...well, almost. i just finished reading a trilogy about Noah's flood. we have a backyard flood because the builder didn't quite get the plan right. we are just at the edge of a flood plain, but the houses in the flood plane seem to be okay. the slope of the ground causes the water to puddle between four houses. the builder did put in a drain from the middle of the low ground ( it goes along the little cedar trees ) but the drain tube was obviously not big enough.

the fire ring in our yard in now a pool inside a pool. the last picture shows the view outside our basement door with the water creeping up towards our basement. we went to the plumbing supply and bought the last sump pump and some caulking. we thought we could caulk the doors closed. by the time we got back it had gone down some as the water dug a trench between the two houses so it had someplace to go.

i had been up since around 3 in the morning trying to train sam not to meow to get out. it was a water method....squirting water at him whenever he meowed. while i was up a looked out and notice that there was a pond out back with little waves. but the water was not yet visible in our back yard. by the time sis was up it was starting to show through our tall grass that we haven't been able to mow because it is always wet. she was on the phone right away talking about lawyers etc., if something didn't happen.

someone who turned out to be the owner of the building company showed up shortly and ordered a trencher to come in and dig a trench from the puddle pond to the street to let the water out. he left and it hasn't shown up as yet but a second man has appeared and has at least shoveled a little trench to let some more water out. he is standing in the rain in his poncho talking on the phone. the rivers and streams are up to the top of the banks and in some places over the banks. i hope the trencher makes it because we are scheduled for four more days of rain. we will have to hire sheep to mow the lawn if it doesn't all wash away.

the threat of water in the basement reminds me of the time there was water in the basement of the house of at cheyenne court in boulder. our house was lower than the one next door and during a down pour the water was high enough on the patio to run over the rims of the guards around the basement windows. i was left to deal with the problem myself (and was pregnant at the time). there wasn't much i could do but pick up what i could off the floor. fortunately there was not too much down there and the floor was tile. we finally had to get a sump pump to clear the 2 to 3 inches of water on the floor.

ps. from somewhere the builder's man found some sandbags to put up against our basement door! :)