Memorial Day week

This week I found a very bold blue-and-white swallow in a nesting box near work.

Also another turtle.

Here is my boss Krishna with the (this time male Box) turtle.

I really am seeing turtles like never before theses days.

I told the kids that when the weather got hot and it was actually summer we would try to put up the pool that Nana got us. So Friday was pool day.

Megan was raring to go.

We opened it on the deck to see how much room we were going to need and discovered that it is of completely alien design to any we have tried before and also surprisingly deep.

She was very pleased.

I got to mowing.

My original plan for Friday had been a nice hike on Sugarloaf but as David is still feeling pretty ill and the kids were feeling pretty pool oriented I decided to be a goodie and work on that stuff instead.

First I mowed the back yard.

Due to the huge amount of rain in May this was the first mowing for the back yard for 2016. It was also the first since the trees went. There was a great deal of mowing to be done and a ton of hidden rocks and sticks.

It took me a loooonnnggg time to get the back mowed and de-sticked and de-rocked and de-dog-pooped

Finally I got everything cleared and picked a spot that was as close to level as I could find.

We have no actual level ground anywhere. The closest thing is in the front yard but this pool is deep enough that I wanted it in the back and inaccessible to small children of the neighborhood (due to the fence).

I dug and raked and got it much better just in time for Kiernan to be home from school.

So while Megs napped he helped me inflate the outer ring.

This was not obvious. We had to go in the house and watch an instructional DVD to even get to this point.

I laid a tarp under there to protect from our mega shale and Kiernan tried to cover the bottom with water to see how level the spot actually was.

As the only inflated part is the top ring the rest of the pools structure is just water pressure on the sides and according to the instructional DVD only perfectly flat spaces will work...

It was not flat.

We took a break from pool building to put together a new picnic table.

It is plastic faux-wood texture. I am not in love with that but given the unfortunate disintegration of our old real wood table it seemed like a smart decision.

Then I went to work.

The next day many neighborhood kids came over to jump on the trampoline and splash in what was basically a kiddie pool.

I loved having an appealing space. It made me feel like I was giving my kids a leg up in the world. David went and mowed the front yard while I continued some back yard de-rocking and general garden maintenance. 

I eventually took pity on the lack of swim-ability, the pool was listing dramatically and the soft soil on the lower side was giving way to the pressure of the water and the tendency of Megan and one of the girls to jump from that side was allowing mud to form underneath it as well.

I brought out the sprinkler.

Pax was very good with all the kids. She ran around trying to heard them for a minute or two but they ignored her and soon she was just trying to lick everyone...annoying or cute depending.

The only problem with her was when one of the parents/guardians would come to the fence she would turn protector and start barking her head off.

This was just annoying and we all spent a good deal of the weekend telling her to hush.

For lunch I made a great Greek salad and some lemon roasted Greek potatoes and brought out some hummus and pita. I was a little too pleased with myself and soon got knocked down a peg or two by the kids shocked revulsion to this horrible lunch offering (ha!). 

Poor David ate the whole meal slumped over in exhaustion from mowing the front yard and went directly up to bed thereafter.

I entertained the kids and the dog for a bit with videos and quiet reading and eventually succumbed to the heat and took us all out for frozen custard.

Yay Rita's!

When we got back David was up. We emptied the pool and started trying to fix the leveling problem.

I hacked and whacked with an mattock while he garden raked the resultant soil.

He was moving at a snails pace and I kept asking him to sit down and just keep me company. He insisted that he should be doing more and I worried.

His hands and feet were so swollen that I couldn't see his writs or ankle bones.

Anyone have any good ideas about what this might be?

The Lyme test came back negative. 

My sweet Aunt thinks it could be salmonella from the turtle.

Anyone?

We tried covering the bottom again.

It was better but as you can see here Megan is up to her ankles and Kiernan almost up to his knees.

We left it like that for them to play with and went inside to rest for the day.

The next morning I decided to take the kids over to Scearces to A) give David a rest and B) see how Scearces are doing (they had no phone or Internet due to some bozo cutting their line on a holiday weekend).

The kids brought their swimming suits and I brought the dog and a grand time was had by all.

We hung out and played around and I mowed their play set area and we even got a pizza.

They drank A& W and talked of root beer floats.

They played on the tractor and on Grandpa.

It was good and we didn't leave until it was time for Megan's nap.

Once home I went to inspect all the berries and even found a ripe strawberry for the kids to pick and eat. It wont be long now until we get quite a bit of healthy goodness to turn into unhealthy pies.

yum

On Monday we emptied the pool again. Then did more leveling. Megan doesn't seem to care that we are not getting this thing up. She has her mermaids and enough water to lay in.

Its driving me crazy though.

I am sorry to say that it is now empty and upside down again and that we have been digging at it every evening in hopes of eventual usability.

Wish us luck!

On Monday we all had the day off for Memorial Day.

It was fantastic to be able to be home (to dig some more) and hang out with the family.

We had a cookout and my friend from work Michelle (Michelle of the birds per last post) came over.

We went for a small hike and saved some tadpoles, in a rapidly evaporating tire track puddle.

We played in the shade and walked the dog.

We had a great firework display for our kids and the neighbors kids from some of our leftover South of the Boarder stash (thanks Florida trip!).

We talked throughout the day about military service. 

I am collecting pictures of family members (that the kids actually know) in uniform to give them some idea of how the holiday might impact them personally. 

That is a pretty fun project.

Earlier in the week Kiernan had the Cub Scout project of planting flags at a local church cemetery.

That is him on the end in his new Wolf Scout finery.

That is his best friend Alex being a goof ball next to him.

The boys all worked well together and were respectful at the grave sites and I feel like it was a good experience to have.

It was good for the scouts because this is a valuable community service. I know it means a lot to some of the families to see the kids out there and it means a lot to the church to get this stuff done so easily.

I think it was good for the boys individually too. Its not that I feel elementary school kids should be dwelling on death all the time but this is what Memorial Day is memorializing and it helps them  not to trivialize the holiday or the real potentialities of war.

Happy Memorial Day everybody.