Paddleboard Season

During the time we were in IL, the lake completely thawed. JP is ready to paddleboard!!

 

Moving Prep Work

We spent a few days @ Nana's house helping her get ready for hew big move. The garage, basement, & house are getting cleaned out. It's hard to believe that I've been working in this garage for the past 34 years.

 

Clear Water

With liquid water quickly replacing solid water, the dog is more depressed than ever. 

The cold doesn't promote algae growth, so the water is crystal clear.

 

Turkeys in the Park

The turkeys are enjoying ruling the neighborhood. One morning they took over the park by the sledding hill. The dog doesn't quite know what to think of them.

 

Spring Wreath Making

JP attended a Spring wreath making class at the florist on the corner. She had a good time, and now we have a beautiful wreath up on the wall.

 

Planar

One of the requirements for the vinyl tile we are installing is that the floor needs to be flat. Not necessarily level, but flat. The pantry area above the basement stairs is centered on a foundation wall. After 102 years, there's a fairly decent hump in the middle. We bought a power planer from Harbor Freight to help, but it still needed some hand planing to finish it up.

We quickly learned that the key to working a hand plane is to have a very sharp blade.

 

Ice Moving Out

Every morning the edge of the ice moves another 50 feet away from shore. 

 

Reopening of 50th & Penn

The big news story this morning is that the intersection of 50th & Penn will be reopened. It has been closed for over a month due to the water main break and building foundation work.

 

Lurking Turkeys

The turkeys are still lurking around the neighborhood.

 

Spring Flowers

MN came up for a short visit. She & JP hit Bachman's and the Arboretum to check out all the spring preparations.

 

Rotten Ice

Our 18+ inches of ice quickly deteriorated. It's still thick, but it's becoming rotten and the margin is moving away from shore. S is absolutely depressed. He sees it and begs to go out on it,

There are still a few patches in the shade where he can cool his belly.

 

Morning Cat in the Sink

The cat's favorite place to greet you in the morning is the right bowl of the kitchen sink. She lets you run the water a bit to make coffee, then her expectation is that she will get a trickle to drink from.

 

Save the Sparrow

Our beloved coffee shop's building was taken out by a water main break the day before Valentine's Day. Since then, there has been a flurry of activity every day to salvage the building. One day all the noise stopped for an hour and then things really got crazy. As they were excavating the foundation, the post supporting the corner of the building broke its foundation, and the entire corner of the building started to collapse. A full-court press was kicked off and it was a race to save the building.

The weather was decent, and the patio @ Nico's Tacos had a nice view, so I watched in safety from there. Scott Seekins, a local artist, made an appearance. Check him out here.

The City of Minneapolis iron workers and bridge crew were brought in, along with three huge cranes to snake a 27-1/2" I-beam thru a 29" opening under the collapsing building corner. There was quite a crowd gathered and we all had a good time chatting and commenting on what we thought was happening and how we would do things differently. By 10 PM, the beam was in place and the building was saved.

 

The Lorax

One of our morning dog walks got us into a new neighborhood in Tangletown. We came across a stump carving of the Lorax standing on his stump. The stump is carved with the word "UNLESS". 

 

Cabinet Mockup

We are trying two different colors out on the remnants of the built-in desk. Beige on the left, and blue on the right. The desk is working well as a mockup of what the new cabinets & counter will be. The tiny TV will be replaced with a wall-mounted screen.

 

Morning Dog Walks

My favorite part of being unemployed is being able to walk the dog for an hour and catch the sunrise on the lake every morning. It's quiet, peaceful, and both of us enjoy it. We have two main routes, each is 1.8 miles.

The dog's favorite activity is running around on the ice. He lives for it.

He also likes sitting on a park bench and getting his neck scratched.

 

Kitchen Floor Process

Our kitchen floor is dying. The plan: replace it with nice easy vinyl tiles. Reality: there's more to it than that. If we're going to go thru the trouble, we might as well take out the built-in desk and move the kitchen table to the other side of the room. And put in some cabinets where the table was, which means taking out the built-in shelves and removing (and patching over) the outlet & switch. And then we need to remove the baseboard radiators where the new counter will go and install some new ones where the desk was. But the plumber told us before can do that, we need to insulate the floor. But to do that, we need to rip out the subfloor to access the small crawlspace in the corner. And so it goes...

JP is having fun cleaning and painting.

 

Wonderland

The snow coated everything and stuck to all the branches.

We dug out the firepit and celebrated the coming of spring.

 

Heart Attack Snow

We had an extra beautiful spring snowstorm that dropped 10" of heavy wet snow. Had it been colder, we would have had over two feet.

One of the benefits of not working is that I was able to spend all day digging us and the neighbors out. This was heart attack heavy snow, so the snowblower got a workout. Went through two tanks of gas!

 

Neighborhood Turkeys

Since we moved here, there has always been a presence of turkeys in Richfield and at Toro in Bloomington. There is a group on the other side of the lake by the rose garden, but never in our neighborhood. Until now.

We had a rafter of 11 turkeys come thru.

 

Falling Branches

We were walking along and admiring this monstrous 100-foot tall silver maple when we heard a cracking overhead. JP screamed, I ran right, and S at the other end of the leash ran left on the other side of a tree. Then a huge branch came crashing to the ground right in front of us. It was 8" in diameter and 12 feet long; it would have taken any of us out.

Last fall, our neighbor's car was totaled by a large branch falling on it. We always look up on breezy days now.

 

Mud Season

Mud Season is upon us. The key is taking advantage of the overnight freezes and getting out while it's still frozen.

S & I did a nice three-mile hike along the creek to some new places. 

 

Ice Crystals in Creek

Despite the warmth, it's still below freezing at night and there's a fresh layer of ice in the morning. In this spot, the ice was creating its own micro ice jam as it got hung up on some rocks.

I've never seen ice crystals like this.