Kayak!

I got a kayak! I've kayaked sporadically for about 20 years, but never owned one. Now I do! They were on sale at Theisen's and had the exact kind I wanted. Later that day I took it out on the Cedar River just below the roller dam where the current sent me away from the dam, but it was still pretty strong fighting the current coming back. A solid workout! Now I want to go kayaking every day.

It's so relaxing to be out on the water, while at the same time it's a good workout. The weather was perfect my first time out:

I discovered an island that was covered in turtles. As soon as I approached they all began jumping into the water, but if you look closely you can see the last one just about to slide in on the right edge of the bank:

It's gonna be a fun summer.

It's 2023

Happy New Year! On New Year's Day we went on a group hike at Palisades. It wasn't even that cold and we were able to walk almost the entire length of the river trail, only turning back when the last stretch of it was too muddy. Apparently a lot of people go on this New Year's Day hike every year, so maybe we'll try it again next year, too.

And this... this is the most Iowa car we've ever seen. You can't get more Iowa than that, unless you find a PT Cruiser with cow spots.

On January 18th Rose turned 18! She's kind of a real person now and it's weird. And we almost had a crisis because we discovered at the last minute that we didn't have any birthday candles, but I found a bunch of sparklers instead:

Rose's birthday dinner at Chili's:

Then Rose, Fern, Emily, and Cora went to Super Skate:

Emily's cool, yo:

Meanwhile it kept snowing and snowing:

And Lily spends most of her life napping, yet doesn't believe in allowing others to nap:

Alice is such a weird cat:

Fix your ear!

If you see these people... just go through a different line:

My Dad wanted to remodel their bathroom, so I helped with the demo, removing the cabinets, countertop, and sink. Then we tore up the old floor and put down tiles. There's still a lot of work left to do, but it has to be done in stages since they only have one bathroom:

And lastly here's Rose scraping off the windshield in the bitter cold before school. Man, that sucks. Glad I don't have to drive to work anymore...

September 2021

 The summer went fast and our garden started producing kinda late. But once it caught up it did so with a vengeance. After this initial harvest of a pepper and tomatoes we had no idea the buckets of tomatoes that were coming along. We couldn't keep up. Next year... fewer tomato plants.

Emily's school picture:

Can you tell which one is Emily?

The view from the top of Mt Trashmore one Saturday morning. It was a beautiful day:

On one side of Mt Trashmore the composting plant could be seen where they were taking derecho tree debris and turning it into soil:

Every year during September I take off every Friday (and a couple other days as well) to go on bike rides while the weather is mild. The County Home Rd trailhead, newly paved:

January 2021

As cold and foreboding as January often is, there are still plenty of ways to make the most of it. Sledding, going for walks when it isn't too cold, watching movies, reading, and planning home improvement projects are all ways to make good use of time.

Lily chooses to burrow under blankets and sleep through it: 

Rose turned 16! She had all her friends over for her party and later that night they went on a scavenger hunt downtown. Dressed like that:

Cynthia made a fancy cake, cuz that's what she does:

Blowing out the candles!

And after the scavenger hunt Rose opened her presents while everybody thawed out. Some of her friends are wearing her clothes in an effort to warm up, ha:

Sledding! The steep hill behind Roosevelt is a great spot:

You can pick up some serious speed on that hill. The fast (and bumpy) ride down makes it worth the trek back up again each time:

See? January wasn't so bad.

After the Derecho

The cleanup after the derecho seemed like it would take years and the piles of tree debris kept growing by the day. Some streets had tree debris piles so large you could hardly see the houses. It also made intersections really dangerous.

Our neighborhood was lucky because we were among the first to have tree debris removed. I think that improved everyone's spirits to see the piles disappearing. All you heard all day every day was the chorus of chainsaws from one end of the street to the other and the rumble of tree debris trucks hauling the piles away.

I had some pictures of tree debris trucks, but I must've deleted them. Instead, here are pics of the growing debris piles along our street:

A completely different skyline stands in stark contrast to the once tree-lined street. We get a lot more sunshine these days:

Then there was the exciting day that Alliant finally removed the old broken utility poles so that Imon could come out and reconnect our internet. We lived off of a hotspot from my phone until then (which actually did a decent job, surprisingly). Aha! I knew I still had a picture somewhere of a tree debris truck:

The Imon guys came along a couple days later. They got out and looked at our dropped line, then started to drive away! I had to run out and yell at them to stop. They said they weren't sure if our line was for Imon or Mediacom. I guess making a phone call or knocking on a door were out of the question. But they got us hooked up again.

Another storm blowing through CR:

Then the tree guys showed up and took down the remaining stuff:

The neighbor's tree took out part of our fence, which worked out OK since it created an opening large enough for the tree guys to get their trucks and equipment into the backyard:

Lily does not care for all the racket outside:

They cut the trunks into 6-foot lengths to make sure the wood could be picked up. since The maximum length the tree debris trucks will pick up is 10 feet, but if the diameter of the wood is too great they can't pick it up. Better to err on the side of caution. 

Grinding out the stumps and the network of roots across the yard:

The only thing scarier than the derecho:

One night Emily and Rose decided to fix up our hair:

Pretty sure you're not supposed to flat iron a beard. Also, it doesn't feel great:

Cynthia and I went on the Tiki Tour through NewBo and Czech Village. That was pretty fun:

Back to school already! It came up fast even though school was delayed by a month due to the derecho. Since the pandemic is still going on they were distance learning, using their Chromebooks to take their classes online.