Ed Soehnel

Mobile phone video of the two playing.  Berin marks and we can’t find our doggy diaper, so instead have a makeshift one using an old t-shirt.

Sue is out all day at meeting for her dog trainers network. I am home taking care of the rug rats.  We have an additional guest with us this week and next, Berin, an Entlenrucker, which is a shorter version of a Greater Swiss.  I’ll post an image later.

90+ for us this weekend…that is toasty when you live at 6200 feet elevation.  Its been an abnormally dry summer for us.  I have been watering the grass we planted in the spring quite a bit and dragging the hose around to all the trees we have.  Not much planned this weekend…hope its a lazy one.  Some work for Sue and the dog business, some chores and that is about all.

Lightening seems to find us at home more than we like. We were hit twice last year and so far, twice this year (that we know of…could be more, if we are not around when a storm rolls through). I think it is because we have a huge copper top on our chimney that is built all the way up with stone rocks (there is metal in rocks). It attracts lightening. In addition, we have a large number of very tall evergrees around us in a valley that is traditionally void of tall trees.

This last strike definitely hit our lightening rod on the house, but must have also split off (we think) and hit the big maple tree we have in front. Both Sue and I were home. The tree has a little split in the main trunk and bark was blown off. The lightening must have traveled in the ground from the tree to electrical conduit under the garage, went up and fried our garage door opener, but continued in the ground to somehow find the well pump electrical. It fried the well pump and the associated electrical box for it. We replaced the well pump and electrical (some video and pictures below), will replace the garage door opener and hopefully the tree was not too badly hit so we can leave it (assuming it lives…we have a tree expert coming next week).

From 2010_Misc

From 2010_Misc

From 2010_Misc

Sunday afternoon I was sitting on the back deck looking east and spotted a funnel cloud coming down from a storm that was gathering east to us. It was a ways off and a ways up. I snapped it with my cell phone, so image is not the best. We see funnel clouds about once a year and I was lucky to have grabbed a picture of it as this particular one fizzled after only a few minutes.

From 2010_Misc

GPS route, short description and some pictures included on everytrail.com. From our recent vacation in Kauai. Flash widget below.

Lithified Cliffs Hike

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Images in slideshow below, or click through to Picasa:

Great trip.  Back yesterday.  Will post pictures and other content soon.  Redeye flight back was predictably uncomfortable.  Slept, but not very well.  Still having hard time getting back into normal routine.  Cold rainy day here at home.  Glad to be back, but a  drag I have to get back on plane tomorrow morning early to Orlando for tradeshow. Hate leaving Colorado…its such a nice place to live.

We are taking care of 2 Corgi dogs, Kona and Nala, a puppy.  They are clients of Sue’s who are on vacation.  They stay with us through Monday next week.  Romeo and Nala are in heaven, playing constantly.

The wife carrying competition looks fun. http://ow.ly/1MbPv

First weekend with great weather, but very windy. We weed-whacked with a new 4-stroke machine that performed great (gift from my Dad…thanks, Dad) and mowed the south meadow. Here is some quick video of Sue doing the mowing.

We’ll finish the additional meadows around the house next weekend.

We also planted 10 Colorado Spruce Trees that we got in the mail earlier in the week…see photos. We will use the chicken coop as the nursery, since its a nice enclosure from the deer and other critters running around that can destroy plants. Unfortunately, we have not had time yet to fix the roof…see photos. We were planning on having contractors do that earlier this year when we did the guest room remodel, but since that went over-budget, we scrapped this activity. We plan to fix it later this year by putting in new 2 by 8’s (which I already have).

The dumpster is also full…finished loading it full of junk; see photos. That is dumpster number 12 since we moved in a year ago, and many more to go.

As you can see from one of the photos in the album, the grass we planted in the front is coming along nicely.

Also, a photo of the damage the wind has recently done to the upper barn room. I will work on that next weekend.

I like doses of Willie Nelson from time to time.  Listening now while I crunch through some spreadsheets in the office.  I stream it from Pandora through my phone into my bluetooth headset.

Only major activity planned for the weekend is weed-whacking and mowing.  I think I have about 6 acres to cover.

We finally found furniture for the back deck that was not too expensive (Big Lots).  Got a small fire pit from Home Depot on sale.  Now enjoying hanging out on the back deck in the evenings by the fire, with the coyotes howling off in the distance and the frogs croaking away from the pond.  Makes for a nice way to end the days.

We will be moving our dogs to a raw diet, which will be 70% raw meat, 10% organ meats and 20% fruits/vegetables.  We are researching chest freezers and local ranches where we can order large quantities of grass-fed organic meat.  Surprisingly, lots or ranches within reasonable driving distance where we can order.