50º at noon in high summer! Normally, high 90s would not be unusual. This has been the coolest, wettest summer here in years.

After a month away in Hollywood, I'm back to summer in Colorado. This has been probably the wettest season in years and everything is lush! The grape vines have taken off and actually have a few little grapes (first time so far). The garden that I left behind was virtually untended so the first few days back, I spent sorting out the weeds from the plants. So far the onions & cherry tomatoes have been the most successful crops but I haven't given up on the cabbage and eggplants.

The bees seem have been quite busy. Funny what long shadows they cast. Nice to be home.

I started walking again, by myself and not for the dogs, around the lake nearby.  The space itself invigorates.

 This is one of the irrigation ditches that run into Boulder County from the mountains.  Pure snowmelt.   The next day after I took this picture, the ditch was dry and smelled like bogs that I've known in the deep South.

I'm so glad that Spring is in full bloom.  The last snow has come and gone and we are ahead of ourselves in average precipitation.

Getting ready for the dog park.

The Flatirons.

Now this is a dog park!  Acres for the big dogs, an acre for the little dogs and acres for the combined area.

I love riding on trains. Since I have the Amtrak credit card, I have a round trip Sleeper sized trip waiting for me to take it. The dilemma is that if I pay for a trip on May 9th, I'll get quadruple points which is Amtrak Point heaven for me.  I just noticed that Amtrak has partnered with 
Zipcar in the points program which is cool except that there isn't a program nearby.
I know the economy is bad but there really are some good deals now. We just found a little pickup truck for exactly the price we wanted and in better shape than we expected.   It doesn't hurt to have some savings on hand for times like this. 

You know, winter hasn't been so bad, but now that the birds are back in Boulder, I hear what I've been missing.
The last few months have been spent getting to know Sweetie's Sweetheart and their doggy; lots of volunteering; some work; reviewing all the old "Big Love" episodes and starting the new season.
I'm grateful for the family and home I have. I know some people are going through tough times and I feel singularly blessed.

January Thaw at the Dog Park.  What a gorgeous day!  Luckily there were some piles of snow to cool down in nearby.

I glanced outside while feeding the dogs the other day and saw a herd of deer in the yard.  Good thing the little Scottie girl dog didn't see them or she would have gone ballistic (she had to run a big buck out of the yard not long ago). The last count was 15, though I only caught a few in the photo.   I'm pretty sure the reason they dropped in was because there was a fire nearby the night before:

This was taken from my upstairs room, looking northwest.  The winds were 30-50mph by that time, down from 100mph gusts earlier.

It doesn't really convey, but the whole Front Range north of town for several miles was burned down. Luckily, it was mostly grasses with a few sparsely placed trees and homes. 

2009 ~ we've turned a corner.  The year in my mind goes left to right from January to May, then down to about October, then curves around to December - sort of a right angle but not really.  January is definitely up and and the front.    

We spent the afternoon putting up some lattice on the back yard fence to help us pretend that we're invisible on our highly visible corner lot. Hoppin' John, hoecakes and greens for lunch should ensure a properous year for us.  It was 50º today and will be warmer tomorrow.  Hope everybody remembers to hope and dream and make the dreams come true this year.

I was home today when the lady and man from from the zoning office came by. I just hate to see an unannounced car from the city parking outside my house. It's funny that they parked in order to come in our back door, as the rest of the world seems to do. Our front door is clearly a front door - we just don't use it since the back door is by the driveway. Given a choice between an un-gated nice concrete sidewalk with flower beds on either side and a gravel driveway with an old gate with 2 territorial Scotties making all sort of noise, which would you choose?

Long story short, we can't park our trucks here or have any employees come here ever again. The trucks are normally parked at another location but we are known to leave one here overnight from time to time. As they were speaking, my mind wandered to all the home businesses that we have around us with employees coming in all the time.

The notable point of this is that we've been doing this here for 15 years, and for a long time we parked our trucks here. It's only been since a neighbor moved in nearby that we've had any complaints about our lifestyle. Most of our neighbors love us as we do them. I guess now is the time to start loving the new guy, too, so he won't feel so lonely.

Yesterday I took part in a hospital emergency drill.

Nobody told me ahead of time that it would involve a 'vertical evacuation' meaning: they needed to test some equipment going down flights of steps. I got to try out (as a 'patient') a chair with some kind of slide mechanism on the back and something called a chute. The chair was not too bad but a little 'heads up!' about flipping me backward and bumping on the stairs would have been nice. The chute was corrugated plastic that I was strapped into and dragged down 2 flights of stairs in. It was really pretty funny - bumpity, bump, bump. Glad I bundled my coat under my head.

The two teams I worked with were interested in learning how to use this equipment but one team told their 'patient' volunteer that they didn't have time to do the drill.

The things I do to keep from getting bored...

Boulder is settling down and getting ready for winter.  Today was in the 50's, warm enough for some yard work but now the chill and clouds are rolling in.  Snow clouds have a particular look to them and these are a little too high to qualify.  

This year, I've taken control of my yard and I'm asking more out of it.  A second compost heap is next to the north fence and it's filled with leaves from all over town.  Sugar borrowed the rototiller that we gave to a friend and broke open an area to garden that's about 6'x24'.  When we fence it in against the deer,  the dogs will have a larger yard to sniff around and protect from evil joggers and strollers.

I'm going to be a mother-in-law!  I have 10 months to get used to the idea.  I'm lucky to have a lovely daughter-in-law-to-be.

Yesterday ended 2 weeks of early voting at CU and what a trip!   We thought we were hot at the end of the first week when we processed 500 voters with 3 election officials.  Yesterday, the count was 1500 and thankfully, we had a full staff.   It was an amazing experience, helping all those first time voters.  

I'm exhausted.  Try saying  "What's your last name?  Ballot goes in the box face up, arrows in first, green stripes sticking out the top.   No, other way.  Yes, now the back page, too.  No, almost, yep you got it, now spin it around, arrows go in first.    Great!  Here's your sticker."  several thousand times with a smile on your face  and you'll know what I mean.  

I think half of Boulder has already voted.

picture came up on 'exhausted puppy google search'

I'm working the early vote and have found out that a lot of people don't realize that mail in ballots are real live ballots.

People, you only get to cast one vote. If you receive a mail in ballot, that is a ballot and that is yours. You can mail it in or drop it off at an early polling place (or where ever the instructions tell you to).

If you change your mind about voting by mail and want the thrill and excitement of voting at a polling place, you will be given a provisional ballot. That ballot has to be hand checked to ensure that you didn't cast the mail in ballot you requested. So don't be mad or disappointed - your vote will still be counted.

I'm curious to see how all the provisional ballots will affect the timing of the election results in this remarkable election year.

I stayed up into the middle of the night reading an old friend's book,Family Bible. I'm amazed at times to be reminded of the fact that there were interesting people in my home town. If I had stayed, I would have been one of the local eccentrics, probably, but I had to leave in search of something that I've actually been finding along my way. It was quite a trip to read about places where I grew up and find out what my friend's life was actually like.

We had our first frost last night and it may freeze tonight so I pulled in some flowers to enjoy.






Those zinnias are so brash and bold but the roses were delicate enough that I didn't know if they would last.

We had a bumper crop of apples in Boulder this year.  These are the few that the squirrels didn't sample.

Working with groups is really an adventure in itself. Since we have our own business and homeschooled, our groups have pretty much been hand-picked and really enjoyable.

I've been volunteering with new groups this year and have found lots of variation.
One pretty much conveyed that my help wasn't worth keeping after I offended one member while following one of the group rules.
Another group ran its course when the people we were supposed to help conveyed that they didn't want the help because of liability issues.
Another group has some funky communication established with a whole political hierarchy even among the volunteers. My mentor went so far as to tell me not to speak to others when I had questions.

Help is a funny thing.

Someone just sent notice of a article that says Mental Health Parity is being snuck through with the bailout.
It's just one line:
"The revised bailout bill also includes a "Mental Health Parity" provision, which would require health insurance companies to cover mental illness at parity with physical illness."
This is an enormous issue that needs to be debate out in the open on its own! If this is passed, all our insurance rates will go up and mental health screening is certain to increase.
NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is BART, the Big Animal Rescue Truck that Code 3 Associates uses as a base of operations on disaster assistance calls.  

They're down in Houston now, helping the animals affected by the wild weather.  All the help is free and funded by donations and grants.  

Give a little if you can, ok?

I went on my first DAT (disaster action team) call this week, a pre-dawn house fire in the county. Wow.

Now's a good time to send some money to relief agencies.  I don't know how the others are doing, but the American Red Cross is having to borrow millions to feed and shelter the people affected by all the recent hurricanes. I spoke with a local RC fundraiser who told me he had gotten only one call after Gustav!   Try to send some money, even if just a little.  If you don't designate where the money should go, they are able to put it where it goes the farthest.                           

(image from wikipedia.org)

Victims Needed!

If you like to be painted in scars, burns and other injuries then this is
the position for you. If you find that Holly Wood is not beating down
your door but you’re a great victim with a horrific voice, we want you!
Your participation supports a regional Community Emergency
Response Team Disaster Exercise. For more information about CERT
go to http://www.citizencorps.gov/cert/.

To Volunteer Contact:
North Central Region c/o
2008 CERT Summer Games
certsummergames@gmail.com
303.768.8734
Sunday, September 14th, 2008
7:30a-1:00p
Denver Police Academy
2155 N. Akron Way, Denver, CO
~Lunch Provided~

I went by Indochine on Valtec and was surprised by these great buddhas. I don't know what that little white monster-animal is but I want one.

View Larger Map
Google's Map's Street View has come to New Orleans. A lot of the area looks like normal Deep South to me but if you browse around the lower 9th Ward, some of the houses still look like Katrina just went through. I have to wonder if this is a FEMA trailer in this driveway.
Time for another reminder to gather your preparedness kit for emergencies.

 I went down to the Denver for a Red Cross briefing about the DNC.  Wow.  What a set up.    We'll be on call 24/7 for the week of the convention, ready in case we're needed.  This is an amazing group of people!  I'm really looking forward to working with them.

I was in downtown Denver the other day and during the lunch break I walked past this thing. It caught my attention as a novel idea for car travel. The inside looked a little uncomfortable, but functional.

That night on the news and during the next few days I saw all sorts of stories about this Solar Taxi. Makes sense - the car was parked behind the Fox station which is near KUSA and KMGH. This kind of ingenuity makes me happy.

I was an election judge for the first time yesterday. I knew it was going to be slow but it was a good dry run for the general election coming up. Luckily I got my own precinct and got to be the Sign In judge so I could see this view all day long. The mountains were pink at 6:30 am.


There were a LOT of mail in ballots this election! Plus a good number of people got the mail-in ballots but wanted to come in to vote anyway. I had a great group of judges to work with. What a long day - but a good time.

I've been getting involved with the Red Cross lately, hoping that this will be an organization I can settle into for years to come. Sometime before or after Katrina, I did some RC training at the now defunct local office but was never called to volunteer. That particular training didn't win me over but the organization seems to have gone through some changes and I'm finding it a better fit.

I've signed up with the Disaster Action Team and that means being on call for periods at time in case something happens (probably house fires, which are the most common disaster). And I'm taking a class on Sheltering to prepare for the DNC, in case there is a need.

Funny, I'm not looking for disasters but at the same time, I hope this training will be put to good use sometime.