This Week's Giggle...

...was courtesy of the man at Disneyland stomping his way bombastically through the Park, being chased by a Park employee who was struggling to maintain a professional demeanor while obviously trying to figure out HOW she was going to tell this guy that he had a 10 inch ribbon of toilet paper trailing like a banner from his right heel.

*giggle, snort*

Sometimes life IS just like a sitcom!

An Easter Gift From Ma Nature!

Easter Sunday we were attending an Egg Hunt at a local park, which found N. acquitting herself quite well--she got in there and grabbed eggs with the best of them. The folks were smart and used plastic eggs filled with treats. Afterwards we were sitting around talking with the family, and as we walked to our cars we noticed something strange...

Butterflies!

Every few seconds, a group of 2-6 Painted Lady butterflies would slowly flutter past us, all moving in the same direction. It continued the whole time we were there. As we drove home, we noticed even MORE of them, the mass migration finally causing the 605 freeway to nearly come to a halt as cars slowed, windows rolled down and grinning adults stretched out their hands to the butterflies like little children. The butterflies weren't flying OVER the freeway, they were flying in a slow, stately manner ACROSS the freeway. Everyone was obviously charmed right out of their shoes and braking so flocks of butterflies could pass.

After we got home we went out back and sat for a bit, enjoying the clouds of color as they flew across our yard and over the house, continuing their trek to wherever they were going. I've never seen anything like that in my life. It even made the news that night.

A very cool Easter gift, thanks Mother Nature! :)

Unwilling Backyard Archeological Digs

Well...digging into the dirt in our back yard has proved...um..."interesting", to put it politely.

To put it another way, who in the HELL throws broken glass, metal pull tabs (NOT pop tops, mind you!), broken dishes, et all, into their OWN YARD?!

The recent howling rainstorms and resulting standing floods managed to absolutely kill every blade of grass in our back yard.

Last year:

 

After the flood! 5 inches of standing water, which stayed for 4 days:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After the drainage channels, which did NOTHING to improve the looks of the yard:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The bushes and trees are still alive thank Heavens, so there is still SOME greenery. During the floods we had to go out into the rain and dig ditches to channel the water away from the buildings and the chicken coop so the flock wouldn't drown. We came up with lots of weird stuff such as the broken glass and metal, but also some cool stuff--Cracker Jack prizes (intact!), 21 marbles (so far), plastic cars in neato swoopy '30's designs, and numerous small toys. I already have a Kist soda bottle (handpainted logo!) and a small glass Bayer aspirin bottle that my chickens dug up years ago sitting on my kitchen window shelf. We figure that either the people who lived here used the yard for a trash heap, there was an incinerator out there (we've found hunks of melted glass) or, we (ulp) live on an old landfill. We already know that the previous homeowners liked to butcher their own pigs--they buried the remains of 14 (that we've found to date) in shallow graves of 6 inches of earth, wrapped in black plastic trash bags (why???!!). So the 'previous homeowner as land befouling gross polluter' is the front running theory.

Anyway, since none of the grass grew back and the back yard looks like Mars, a session with a rototiller to prepare the way for new sod is in our near future. It promises to be a frightening/weird/cool/eye-opening/disgusting experience.

I can't wait to see what THAT produces...hmmm, come to think of it, didn't that guy's wife die while they lived here...?

*gulp*