Been awhile

Yes, it's been awhile since a post has appeared here. I've been caught up in trips over town (we've discovered a dentist), training, and grant writing.

So what's been going on, you ask? Well, spring is here in some sense because the flowers are all blooming. The Catalina Marathon was this weekend and we (as the LRSH PTA) worked aid stations, handing out water, etc to the runners and walkers as they passed. Our station was about here. After the last runner passed, we drove back up Big Springs Rd and over on Empire Landing Rd back to Two Harbors. The island is very green now, and we saw lots of flowers blooming (you didn't think I was going to get back to the flowers, did you?): Indian paintbrush, Shooting stars, other stuff Sweetie might be able to tell you what it is, etc. This is a good time of year to visit (hint, hint). On the downside, the weather has been overcast and cool. If it's going to be cool, it might as well rain, but it hasn't done too much of that. We're pretty dry for the year. I think we've had less than 10 inches since the 'rainy' season began.

We've been doing some work in the mudpit, I mean, backyard. The moisture softened up the ground enough that we could use shovels to dig it up, so we started terracing off part of the back slope to increase the amount of usable space. Now we need to get some retaining wall stone before the Things knock all the dirt back down. Sweetie has also been planting veggies and flowers in boxes. The lettuce is up and looks good. I'm not sure what else she has out there. We also finally got shelving for the shed. The space is much more organized now, and we even have room for MORE STUFF.

If you couldn't tell from the above, Sweetie is nearly completely recovered from surgery at this point. She's much more active than she's been able to be for quite some time, which is great. Although it was hard, we have no regrets about going through with it.

Midshipman is back. That's the boat that lost it's propeller on one of the trips over town. (Actually, looking back, I never put that story in the blog.) Well, anyway, it's back for our use. So we have been using it for my colleague and I to get over town (not in town or down town) to the graduate seminar he's teaching. This week was a great trip over. The water was calm and practically teeming with common dolphins. It wasn't one of the super-pods on the move, it was dispersed small groups over a very large area. For about the first half hour of the trip we would see them; occasionally one would jump; they would come zooming up to the boat and try to ride the wake (but it really wasn't big enough or fast enough for them). A very cool experience. We also saw what I think were some common murres, and some surf scoters. When we got into port, I'm not yet terribly skilled in driving the boat, and one of the waterfront workers had to yell at me before I finally (with his help) got the boat docked. The trip back was less fun. Choppy and without wildlife with the sun in my eyes. But I did do a great job mooring the boat. Yin and yang, I guess.

That's it for now. Happy submitted grants to us all!