The Humming birds are back

The hummers are back so I have cleaned all the feeders and
as soon as the sugar-water is cool enough Ariel and I will
fill them and put them back out.

Bob Gray came up to spend some time with us on Sunday. He
brought his famous chocolate cake to top off our supper of
grilled salmon, asparagus and salad. His business, Boulder
Labs, is doing well. It is so good to hear that. He's
worked hard on many projects through the years. It's great
that his business is prospering.

I spent a couple of hours at Jared's headquarters on Monday
making phone calls inviting folks to a Town Meeting to be
held on Wednesday where Jared will describe his trip to
Iraq.

On Tuesday we went to the new Planned Parenthood building in
Boulder for a tour of the new facilities. Following the
tour we went to the Kitchen on Pearl Street for a luncheon
hosted by one of PPRM many donors. We had a lovely lunch
and good conversation.

I made more phone calls, from home this time.

Wednesday evening we went to campus to the Museum
Collections building for Jared's Town Meeting. He
spoke and had a Power Point presentation of his Iraq trip.
Also David Mann, a young CU student who had two tours of
duty in Iraq spoke. He is definitely opposed to the war.
Jared handed out his "Responsible Plan" for what needs
to be done by Congress to get us out of the war, restore
our constitution and more. It is an impressive document
and he is joined in his efforts by more than 30 others.
I wrote a letter to the editor describing the Town Hall
meeting and suggesting people look at

http://responsibleplan.com

on line.

After the town meeting we went to a book signing at the
Boulder Book Store. Jeffrey Bennet spoke about his book
"Beyond UFOs." He is a good speaker so it was entertaining,
but I have no desire to buy his book.

Thursday was a big day. Robert went to town with the pick
up truck having established through Craig's List that
someone would load his truck with fill dirt. He has been
working all week to diminish the wood/brush piles so that he
could move the RV and make room for the truck and the Saturn
to be parked next to it. The fill dirt he brought home and
unloaded about 1/3rd of it on to the "dump" where the
vehicles will be parked. All of this because our neighbors
objected to the truck being parked by the pool. Actually, I
objected to it being there indefinitely because I like the
fish pond area to look a little park-like and the truck
looked a little out of place. However, it was sad that it
turned into such a incident and made me feel very uncomfortable
for the first time since I moved up here. I have always felt
the mountain folks had the philosophy of live and let live.
Former Salina resident, Ms Sue Black being an outstanding
exception to that philosophy. Apparently we have a new
member of the community who lived here a few years and
then bought the house he was renting. Now he wants the
community to conform to his idea of a "pristine"
community. I guess the live and let live philosophy is history and I find that makes me feel bad.

While he was getting the dirt, I went to town for a hair
appointment, running errands, my usual time at the Carnegie
and finally an eye appointment late in the afternoon. I
don't have to go back for a year. The left eye cataract has
not gotten any worse so doesn't yet need to be removed.

Today, Robert and I picked up Ariel at Wendy's from Martha.
We then went to the new organic food store, Sunflower, to
look it over and take advantage of some of the advertised
loss leaders. In general the prices seemed pretty high and
since I get my organic produce delivered I probably won't be
a steady customer at Sunflower. But, it is kind of a fun
place to browse. They had some really wild things in the
vegetable department. Black radishes, various unfamiliar
roots and greens. They had dandelion greens, but they were
way too mature to be very good.

Keegan was going to come up here today to help Robert unload
the truck, but Viki called to say he was sick with a cold.
Robert is stuck with unloading the truck himself. I expect
he'll do a little each day until he gets it done.