Whew!

What's that in my driveway you say? One ton of Colorado flat cobble 4"-12" delivered in the morning. I have been dreading this, but decided the weather would be a little milder this Tuesday. I started moving rock at 8:30am and had moved all of them to the back and placed most of them by noon. By 1:30pm I had placed all of the rocks and had a beer. Mission accomplished. The pond is now cloudy with dust and dirt from the rocks and it looks like it will take a few days to clear, but the project looks good and I think I am done. I placed the rocks without anything to "glue" them together so I have to be careful until the settle in a bit. I did try some foam designed for use in waterfalls thinking it would allow me to set rock on the edge of the pond. No such luck that stuff may work for directing the flow of water in waterfalls but it is not adhesive (except on fingers). All of the pots and plants around the pond now have irrigation in place and hooked to the rest of the back yard irrigation. The plants get about 40 minutes of water every other day and everything looks to be thriving. Sharon planted lettuce and beets. The lettuce is sprouting and looking good. No beets sighted yet. (A complaint here. I have recently noted online that more and more people are using "site" in place of "sight". They are different words with different meanings.)

Pond fish update. Once the waterfall was rearranged, the Shubunkins were unable to jump out. Did I write about that earlier? We now have four Shubunkins and all seem happy. I've got a couple of water lettuce which are growing and multiplying and once the water clears I should have a lovely pond. 

Last Thursday, August 11, I visited my new oncologist at the University of Colorado Hospital Anshutz Cancer Pavilion Bone Marrow Transplant Clinic. Wow that is a mouthful! The drive took about an hour and I avoided the worst of Denver traffic by taking the tollway north of Denver and then coming back to Aurora on The road to the airport and then I70. Quite an adventure. The University of Colorado Hospital Campus is HUGE! But, following instructions they sent me, I went to valet parking, was asked if I could walk or not and was directed to the proper area to turn in my car and keys. Then it was a short walk to the hospital entrance, a stop at the information desk, a walk to an elevator, another stop for directions, then down a long hallway to the clinic door. After lots of paperwork I headed back for labs. I knew I was in trouble when the technician did not like my suggestion of using my hand for the blood draw. She attempted my left hand over my right and had failure #1. She could not hit the vein. Then she got a device that allows you to view veins. With that she finally went to my suggested vein but had issues getting into it, finally blood flowed but eventually stopped resulting in her trying another vein and failure #2. So we are up to three attempts, she has not bandaged any of them, and she calls in help. This technician looks at my arms, picks a spot, inserts a needle, gets a good blood flow, and finishes. Four holes, one capable technician, one who needs more experience and should not be in the Bone Marrow Transplant Clinic. I finally got to see the oncologist. She was up on my diagnosis, knew my history, explained lymphomas from top to bottom, described my options, poked around my lymph nodes, determined a course of action, and told me to come back in four months. I liked her,. She is a straight shooter. I've since made an appointment with an internal medicine doctor who will hopefully become my general doctor here. Dr. Kamdar, the oncologist, is going to make me finally have a colonoscopy.

Now more fun stuff! After my workout on Tuesday moving and placing 21 wheelbarrow loads of rock (207 rocks) I took the day off on Wednesday. I ran a couple of errands then wen t to our local fly shop to get a fishing license. I was excited to be getting a resident fishing license for $1. Foiled. It seems I have to be a resident for six months to get a resident fishing license. Damn. With that news I headed for the mountains. I went west on 66 to Lyons and then onto 7 toward Estes Park. It was a very nice drive along the St. Vrain River - the north fork I think - and I ended up in the Wild Basin area of Rocky Mountain National Park. I had to put my top up because of dust rising from traffic on the road and headed to the parking area. It was full. I went back about 1/2 mile of so and found a parking spot. It was right along the river and I walked downstream along the river for about 1/2 mile. Very relaxing. Sharon and Peg hiked here two years ago, and I suspect Sharon would like to come back.

 

Landscaping!

Our landscapers are finished. All that remains is pond construction (they did the hard work, the hole) and large pots/planters which we have to purchase and fill with soil. I like the look. Mostly 1 1/2" river rock with on clump of river birch and a half a dozen mugo pines and a few boxwoods. Everything else I want in planters. We have drip irrigation to the plants and I can hook into the irrigation lines to water the planters as we add them.

While the hole for pond is there, much work remains. I am working first on the whole for the skimmer, then I will figure the shape and place e t of the stream. The filter and falls will go at the beginning of that. Then, underlayment, rubber lining, and then rock and planters for the edges. A couple of weeks I think.

This past week I was in Redmond with the family. Not much excitement there but it was good to see John, Kristie, Avery, and Anika.

A couple of weeks ago we traded in our 11 year old, 183,000 mile trusty Volvo on a Cherokee. We call this our Colorado car. Brady named it Snow.

 

Winter Storm

Longmont had a winter storm running Sunday evening through Tuesday. It looks like an official 10.8" of snow. Just what we need to convince us to move here! I suppose the good news is that in the past 25 years in Longmont there have only been 15 total snows of 10+", and it will be sunny and in the 40s in a couple of days. Sharon and I shoveled yesterday and today, only a couple of inches yesterday but at least 8" today! We are happy it is light weight snow. One issue here with a big snow is that residential streets do not get plowed. The main arterials are plowed and what they determine to be residential feeder streets but not the rest. I believe I can get around in the Volvo but if I were driving the Miata in this I wouldn't get anywhere - snow tires or no. I would simply plow snow in front of me until I stopped.

I've been using the down time the past two days to research landscape companies in Longmont. We will need to hire someone to take care of our back yard. My requirements as I have been sending to landscape companies:

We are buying a new home at 1527 Otis Dr. in Longmont. It is in Shadow Grass Park and sits on a small lot backing to a greenway. We are looking for a low/no maintenance landscaping plan. We know that we want to extend the patio area with flagstones or somethingsimilar.

We want low height evergreens at the back of the yard - mugo pine or similar. We would like medium height evergreens on the south side of the house to provide a visual break between our dining room and patio and the house to the south. And, perhaps a medium evergreen on the north west corner of the lot. We are thinking pines rather than deciduous trees for maintenance reasons but would be open to medium height trees at the back and north if they will stay below the second floor views. 

We envision lots of stone, perhaps with walkways on the sides of the house. There will be no grass on the rear and sides – we don’t want to deal with grass. There is sod in the front and partially down the sides and this is maintained by the HOA.

We do want some small raised planters on the rear for small garden. Perhaps a total of 8 to 12 feet in total length. Drip irrigation is required for all plantings and in the raised beds.

We are coming from the Chicago area and do not know what does well here. But I would want any plantings to require minimal water and care. Xeriscape with natives. We call our desires Zeroscaping. We want to enjoy our patio and back yard but not have to be concerned with routine maintenance.

I just had a new experience. I said goodbye to Sharon, put on my coat, hat, and gloves and got in the Volvo to drive to the store. I backed out of the driveway and into the portion of the street where we shoveled, put the car in Winter mode and started out only to soon bog down. I tried several times and couldn't make it more than twenty feet or so, The snow was too deep for the Volvo and so soft I couldn't get on top of it. I pulled back into the garage and took a look at where I attempted to drive. There was a flat area in the snow where I had flattened the snow with the bottom of the car. We are stuck here until enough vehicles drive over the snow to pack it down.