My New Playground

These pictures never go in the order that I intend them to. This is the ice plant from Marjie, and I can't wait until it lines the streets.

I brought quite a few plants from Snohomish, but with this large of any area, I had to call in the troops. Actually, Marjie and Steve at Auburn Park, our sister park on the other side of Auburn, has THE most beautiful garden ever, and has offered me starts, and a lot of this is from her. She has all kinds of sedum! and lots of other fun stuff too.

There are 150 daffy's and tulips planted in the bricked area.

Yesterday I did the brick work. Part of it by the sign was there, except one row was buried. So I dug those out, moved the top layer to the other side and bought a few more bricks to add to it. I also trimmed back alot of the trees there.

The little spikey plants are Yucca plants from Marjie. I wanted to save the sedum for my yard, but I think they will look real pretty around the bricks.

Geology Lesson

Dave and Clyle have been digging out in the park trying to find the water lines and Clyle has found some really outstanding stuff.

Not long ago a friend of mine said that she was sure that rocks grow, because she can work in her flower bed and get rid of all the big rocks and then a while later she has big rocks in her garden again. It's just one of those crazy things that you think about and wonder..."hmm." I think this example disproves her theory. It is a rock in formation. You can tell that it is sandy dirt, but yet the center is hard as a rock. The outer area is still pretty flaky, but it's fascinating.
This was actually the first thing that he found while digging. It is a fossilized sea shell. It apparently filled with sand inside the shell, then the sand formed the rock but left pieces of the shell still attached.
This is the bottom side and you can see the shape of the shell where the white is.
This was today's find. It is petrified wood.
Oh yes, and this is the young geologist that made the discoveries. Can't wait to see what he finds tomorrow! Sorry the picture is blurry.

Time

No pictures this time, just some thoughts. There is a new manager at Plantation and I think I went twice last week for training and maybe I'll only go once this coming week which I know will make a huge difference here.

For the first time I was able to actually take a lunch break this week! It felt so good just to lock the door and put a sign up and kick back for a few minutes without feeling terribly guilty.

I am starting to get a few chores done that I've been asked to do. I got a huge project done Friday that actually took both Dave and I all day to do, but it is DONE! My next project is huge data base and I've been working on it tonight. I actually woke up at 5am and started thinking about it this morning, so I got up and worked on it for a couple hours and then went back to sleep and slept like a baby until 10am.

I called in a tow truck today (Saturday) for some problem parking problems and shook the residents up a bit. I think it will be a better week with parking problems next week.

So, there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel. I've also gotten a couple more boxes ng unloaded so there's a little more walking room in the living room.

I even had a little time to do some scrapping today!! My scrapspace is partially done, and enough to use it anyway. Clyle is sharing the room, but I have to say that his space is getting smaller all the time.

Northwest Trek

We finally got away this weekend and went to Northwest Trek. We've been wanting to go there for the last few years but it was too far away. Now we're less than an hour's drive away. We went there one time when Carla and Skip were little and I don't think that Christy was even born. Needless to say it has changed drastically since then.

The tram ride tour was good and there was only one animal that we did not see, and that was the moose. But we had a very close encounter once at the Olympic game farm, so wasn't too worried about not experiencing it again. Dave got what we thought were going to be some real good pictures of the mountain lion, but weren't as good when we saw them up close. This one was pretty good though.
The Bison were breathtaking as usual. I never realized that the layer of hair on the front of the male is for their protection as they fight other Bison.

This mountain goat was quite photogenic.

It was rutting season and this male was keeping his female from rejoining the heard. The males have the pointy horns for fighting and the females have curved one so that they can nudge their young along with hurting them.

Even though this guy was pretty sleepy, he is by far my all time favorite, the black bear.
Clyle also really enjoyed the day and we are enjoying having him around and going places with us.

One more time...

Just one of the sites that I think I've seen just one too many times, and I'm afraid it's not going to be just one more time, but a few yet. But actually, I never tire of seeing the mountain in the background. It makes me realize that there really are some perks to living down here, and that is getting to see this mountain every day. Well, okay, I can't see it from our house, but if I just go out to 15th street it jumps right out at me.

We made a trip today to do some of the jobs there that have to be done, do some packing and make a visit to my physical therapist. Actually I got a a lot of packing done. But there is still a lot more to do. I just hope I get it all done before the new manager is hired. We will go back Saturday for the annual Plantation Picnic, my last! Hopefully I'll get some time to do some more packing too and some cleaning. I'm sure that when that is all done I will enjoy the trips much more.

Two weeks in

Two weeks in to the management of the new park, oh my gosh. Didn't think I was going to make it til Dave got through working at the county. The drive home tonight seemed to go so quickly when I didn't have to be doing the driving. In the last two weeks I've driven 710 miles. I'm sure that's more than I've done in the last year! Let's see, how far could I get going east 710 miles?

I have made a few paper work errors but most people have forgiven me. Made at least one enemy and got a threat of severe physical harm. But he wasn't too smart and left it on my answering machine.... duh! So, it was eventful with visions of many more exciting times ahead! Cable and TV are hooked up, so there's noise in the house now, and I'm not in the dark technologically. Tomorrow (Saturday) will be spent mowing and sprucing up around Plantation, and Sunday we will get the moving truck. I don't think I'm ready, but hey, life's an adventure.... isn't it? It may take me all next week just to clean up the rubble. For tonight.... I'm just sitting here and enjoying a rare time of "nothingness" relaxing in my chair. As I say that I feel guilty about not being up packing. Clyle is out mowing the yard. Can't let him do any of the other mowing around the park with the new management company, but he would like to.

Dave found out today how horrible the new lawnmower is. I did some mowing yesterday and told him about it, and he was like... "yeah, right", until he got behind it! The bars are backwards from the John Deere (walk behind) at Plantation. The self propelled bar and the one you have to hold down to just keep it running are reversed, but that's not the worse part. You know the knob that has the turtle and the rabbit? Well, this rabbit is on steroids! You pull the switch up to the turtle and by the time you get down to the end of the row you're on a dead race with the Road Runner ! Just yesterday when I was mowing at Plantation I was grumbling to myself because I couldn't get the John Deere to go any faster so I could get done sooner. I won't complain again, but then again, I won't have much of a chance to complain when they get a new manager. I'm sure Dave is going to be tinkerin' around with it until he gets it running (or walking) right.

It's official!

We are now the managers of Auburn Hills! You remember the theme song from an old sitcom, I think it was the Jefferson's... maybe not, but it says "Movin on UP!" That's what we are doing! After 3+ years at Plantation with it's 44 sites we are moving to a larger park in Auburn with 99 sites (Here I've been telling everybody it had 100 sites, and I find out today it's 99). Just two days officially while we start wrapping things up at Plantation. It's another terrific learning and growing opportunity. Dave will also be full time, so it will be so great to have him by my side full time now sharing the responsibilities.
This is the front of our house/office. It's nice because the first thing they come to is the office door and not the residence door, so we won't get so many knocks on the door at odd hours. The house is VERY nice. Two BR with walk in closets (I've been so closet deprived with one closet being taken up with my scappin' stuff). When we moved to Plantation I had to give away a ton of clothes because there just was not enough room for them all. Dave's clothes actually took up tons more space than mine! The master bath has a walk in shower and a GARDEN TUB WITH JETS! Oh Yeah!! that's going to feel really good after being out pulling weeds all day.
So, I've started telling a few of the residents at Plantation that we are leaving. It will take some time before we are actually gone. I figure that it's going to be two weeks before we physically move. Then we will be coming at least two days a week between Dave and I to mow and clean the septic. When the new manager is hired I will come back and help to train them. Of course, Dave has to teach the male counterpart the septic system.... I don't do septics! It will be fun.

One of the residents I told this morning that we were leaving brought me these roses the evening when I got home. I thought that was very sweet, her roses are her pride and joy.