The Mystery Square Revealed

Millie was convinced that this was her "mini patio" ....



She was pretty unhappy when we put this on it ....



It's our "stars and moon" fire pit. Not shown is a grill for cooking, a big dome spark cover, and a rainy weather cover. Kinda looks like a cauldron huh? ... I love that!



So Lea's back into turning ....



And I'm creating a lot of resin dust making PEG'S in "The Cave"



I painted the door to the cave black and the brick around it green .... must be some sort of childhood memory thing when I loved exploring the caves near my house.

So I'll leave you with the latest video of Sydny that Lea shot yesterday during her feeding time .... don't worry no worms ..... :)

Yoga Laughter

I think someone should start this at SMR .....

The Mystery Square

There once was an area in our back yard that I call "The Batting Cage" .... it was a garden, fenced in to keep the deer and birds out. Lea and I had other plans for half of it so a while back we tore it down. Now it's a few months later and in less than 24 hours we transformed the weed patch into something else. Here's the photos .....







and the "Batting Cage" then and now .....




I'm calling it the "Mystery Square" because what we're putting on it is on it's way to us .... for now I'll let you guess but when it comes I'll show :)

When we were done we figured the dogs and us deserved a little drive out to our favorite area to hunt for stepping stones. The road is a little rough in spots but the van does just fine .....



There's even an occasional house ....



Kinda spooky in places but actually quite beautiful. And yes .... we found some great stones.

The River Trail, The Pink Bathroom & Sydny (of course)

I've had several people ask to post a video showing our path to the river. It's starting to get covered in leaves ... just that time of year I guess .... but here's a little iPhone video walking up the hill from the river on the trail that you can't really see :)



And then there's the Pink Bathroom that we had on hold for a while. We're back at it and tackling the floor before finishing the cabinets/countertop (but we did buy the sink). I guess someone thought it was a good idea to put cheap tan shag carpet in the bathroom to help it sell .... WRONG! There's this very retro tile under the carpet so it seemed like a good idea to pull the carpet out. I think a few gallons of carpet adhesive was used to stick the carpet to the tile because it's a nightmare trying to get the carpet off and then there's this thick layer of glue stuck to the tile. We bought some adhesive remover which turns the glue into the consistency of 3 day old bubble gum. You know how hard that is to get off your shoe when you step on it? It's just plain icky! So here's some photos of our first day (today) of carpet removal.






Anyway .... Sydny gained 1 gram! She was 10 grams and she's now 11. She is however on a diet ..... she eats too many worms and needs to eat more vegies. It seems that if she eats too much then her body will grow faster than her shell .... so there's this important ratio to maintain. Lea built a frame to hold a combination heat bulb and UVB bulb. She needs the UVB to build and maintain her shell. Lea belongs to a "Box Turtle" forum and between the forum threads and live chat rooms, she's learning a lot about box turtle hatchlings. So here's some photos of Sydny's new housing arrangements. I think it's looking pretty cool!




Did you notice Sydny in the first photo .... she's sooooooo cute!

Where The Dogs Play

In response to Bobbie's question as to whether Lea's WindChimes are tuned .... well .... no ..... they still need some work but they do sound nice .... have a listen ....

Windchimes01 by OzarkRains

Sydny is doing really good. We need to do a PetCo run (no Petsmarts around here) to pick her up a few things. Lea and I were going to go to Jonesboro today but it was such a nice day and tomorrow may rain so we postponed going until tomorrow. Here's the most recent photo ....



and the most recent video .....



I'm really starting to believe that Lea and that box turtle are communicating ..... Lea ....."eat your worm" Sydny .... "ok mom"

This morning we all went down to the river to play .... well ..... except Lea who brought her newest video camera along to shoot a little stock footage. I'm not sure what possesses someone to take a $3,000 camera into the dogs backyard water playground but it's what she did. I, however, only took what I could fit in my pockets. Here's a little video ....

Wind Chimes

First off .... here's Sydny's new wading pool ....



Here's Lea making us a big set of wind chimes for our upstairs deck ....



And here it is on our deck as viewed through the window from our "bar" .....



and a few short hours later ....



And this morning's sunrise .....



I love my iPad and one of the things I do with it is read Kindle books .... however .... if we ever get a pool (yeah right) or put lounge chairs down at the river .... then I might consider getting a Kindle for reading at the water's edge .... hmmmmm .... maybe not .... I'm just not a lounging kind a gal but you may be .....

I Said I Wouldn't But I Am Anyway

Posting this video of Sydny that Lea shot yesterday .... yes .... eating a worm .... I know what I said but I lied :)



She's sooooooo cute!

Stumped? Need a bigger clue?

From the emails I've gotten and Pat and Bobbie's comments here, nobody won the prize for finding the oddity in the photo. Now I'm not sure if the answers were intentionally incorrect or not but I do have a pretty nice consolation prize for the first correct answer from this blown up clue. Be sure to click the photo for the bigger size because it's much bigger than the last.

1 Year Anniversary

Yesterday was my 1 year anniversary of quitting smoking! Yeaaaaaaaa! It's really something that I never thought I could do but it goes to show that we CAN do things that we don't think we can do. So here's a beautiful Arkansas sunrise taken yesterday to celebrate fresh starts......



It looked like a storm coming in and it did ..... we have been getting rain and I love every minute of it. I also love driving in the rain so we went to Missouri for our monthly booze run. Thayer Missouri and Mammoth Springs Arkansas are right next to each other and I really enjoy both old towns .... there's a lot of very old abandoned buildings just decaying away and I find a lot of beauty in them, I'm looking forward to a spending a fall day walking around and taking lots of pictures. I had my Nikon DSLR in the car in case it stopped raining .... here's an interesting shot I was able to take in the pouring rain out of the rolled down window of the car (still got soaked). This is painted on the side of an abandoned junk store. If you look closely you may notice something that just doesn't seem to fit in the scene .... or does it? Hint: it's not part of the painting.



We stopped at an antique mall in Mammoth Springs, the place is huge with an unusual variety of stuff .... suits our eclectic nature. We already have a couch but in case anyone's interested here's one that's 10% off .... I could ship it to you :) Better yet .... first person to correctly answer the above "hidden in photo" contest will win the prize shown below (if it's still there).



Yesterday the Lathe arrived! We had to meet the freight truck in town and take apart the 500 + pounds of lathe and put it in our van ..... the driver helped us load it up but we had to unload it and get it in the basement .... it wasn't fun and it took brains to move the heavy pieces since we don't have the muscle but we did it and we're pretty much no worse for the wear .... except for one squished finger (mine of course). I wish I would have taken photos of it being unloaded and loaded into the van but it was raining and I was really caught in the moment .... but here it is all put together in it's new home ....



The whole process exhausted Andi so she laid down for a nap on her sleeping bag in the basement ....



Everyone keeps asking me how Ozzie's doing since his teeth pulling jamboree .... he's doing great ..... here he is with Andi the other day watching the sun go down .....



Sydny (that's the baby box turtle) is doing great .... it's a work in progress but Lea's making her a great home ... photos will come when it's done. For now I have some great footage of Sydny eating live worms but I thought I'd spare you all and not post them. But I will close today's blog with a photo of my latest Orgone Generator (PEG) pyramid .... this is my biggest ever .....

Wood, Ozzie, Birthday, "Junk 'N Jam" and Box Turtle

Don't you just love how I give away the whole blog of the day in the title .... sorry about that but I just can't help myself :)

Ok ... so I thought I'd show Lea's progress on getting all her wood unpacked ....



The new lathe is on it's way .... all 500 pounds + is being freighted and due to arrive on Wednesday .... that should be loads of fun since we'll have to meet the freight truck in town and then dismantle the lathe off the truck so we can handle it and put it in our van and then reassemble it in the shop .... I can hardly wait :)

So Ozzie, who's only 5 .... pictured here wearing 1 of my Kool-aid silk scarfs .....



has bad teeth and they needed to be pulled. Everyone's happy that 2 of the several teeth pulled were the fangs, now the dog's can rejoice. We love the vet here .... your classic small town vet that makes house calls and gives you his home phone number in case of an emergency. He's even up to par on Andi's "Valley Fever". Besides being incredibly caring and attentive .... he's doesn't charge the high, take out a loan, prices we're used to. Ozzie's bill (5 extractions and the rest cleaned) was only $225. plus he has a nice view from his lobby .....



Sept. 2nd was Lea's birthday ... an especially great one because we were here and not in Lake Tahoe packing up to go back to SMR. Here's Millie helping Lea open presents .....



So today was "Junk 'N Jam" at the park in Hardy. It's where anyone (who pays the $15 space fee) can set up a table and sell whatever they want to and the local bands set up on the stage and "Jam". It's held at the local park which is right next to the Spring River .... here's Lea taking in the river before treasure hunting at the tables ....



So we walk up to a little table where this very cool gal was selling crystals and other healing stones and at some point I pull my PEG out of my pocket to show her ..... she says .... "wow .... I just saw some of those that Mark is selling and they're awesome" .... I got to say .... "well those are mine". I had just taken them in yesterday so I'm happy that they are getting exposure ... now we'll just see how they sell. I just finished a mold for a super large pyramid. Anyway .... here's a shot at the "Junk 'N Jam" today ....



So when we got home it was such perfect weather ... like 75 degrees .... that I mowed the lawns. When I was done it I started thinking that those Box Turtles should have hatched by now. I got Lea and said ... "lets dig em up" .....



I wasn't expecting to find anything .... but I was wrong .....



This was the only survivor as far as we could find. We dug as deep and carefully as we could and there were 3 opened eggs and just this one little cutie who really needed a bath and some hydration ....



So I rushed off to Walmart to buy box turtle food .... yes they had it .... and we put together a temporary house for her (pretty sure she's a she). You can't see her ..... but she's in there ....



We'll keep you posted on her progress.

One last photo .... there's a hiking trail just 1/2 mile down the road from us that is sooooo beautiful to hike and as soon as the colors turn I'll post some great photos of the trail but for now I thought I'd throw in an owl carved into a broken tree on the trail .....



Can't hardly wait for Halloween!!!!!