Back yard feeder with Goldfinch

Ariel mowing the "back 40"

I haven't entered anything here in quite a while.

Kate has worked with Robert until last Tuesday when she left for Chicago with her estimated return was very vague.  While she was here Robert taught her how to wire-up the solar panels and she
wired the remaining panels.  Then, a ditch digger machine was rented and she dug a ditch from the panels across the back yard so that the wires could be buried.  After digging the ditch she
put the wires in the pipes they had obtained.  We are now using the full 3000 Watts from the solar panels.  It is great to have all that going again and also to have the wires protected, especially where Robert moves equipment from the front yard to the back.  I wish I had gotten some pictures of the ditch digging
process.  I was afraid that Kate would shake to pieces, but she managed to hold together and said she could feel the back muscles the next day.

We had the Lovette Tree company come and fertilizer our Ash trees as well as inoculate them against the green ash beetle.  We keep our fingers crossed that those beetles will stay away from our
beautiful ash trees.  Our house would not be nearly as comfortable in the hot summer weather as it is now, if we were to lose those trees.

Rebecca has been steadily working on our flower beds and weed patches around the house.  The yard is beginning to look quite well groomed.  There is still much work to be done to make the rose garden a happy place.  The former owners put down black plastic around the roses and covered that with inch-sized rocks.
I plan to have Rebecca remove the rocks and black plastic.  Then we may put down the weed-stop cloth under the mulch.  In the meantime I am on the look-out for lady bugs to get after the aphids that are happily destroying the rose buds.

I visited my cardiologist on Friday, May 28th and got a clean bill of health.  My pacemaker was checked and is doing its job. In fact my heart stopped twice in the short time that he was running the computer and checking the pacemaker.  The pacemaker did its job and I was unaware of any problem.

On June 2nd I picked up Ariel at her house after my work-out at Frasier Meadows.  She came to spend the night.  The first time since we moved in here two years ago.  It has not been a good two years, at least as to how my health has been.  Hopefully, things will continue to be Okay.

On Tuesday Robert, Ariel, Mira (friend of Ariel's and I went to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.  It was sort of a bust.  We should have just gone to I-Max and had lunch and come home.  Instead we "did" the Museum and had lunch and came home.  Unfortunately, I think the girls were pretty bored with the
museum.  Too many field trips to the museum so that it was no big deal.  My hip was such that I could do very little walking.  We sent the girls on their way to explore on their own while Robert
and I did a few of the dioramas.  Or, rather, Robert did them and I sat and watched the people go by.  It is a very busy museum.

Suzanne VanScotter came over on the 4th of June.  We were going out to have coffee, but Suzanne said she'd prefer to stay and sit in the yard.  The weather was perfect and under the shade of the Ash tree the temperature was perfect, too. We hadn't gotten together in a very long time.  It was great to have a chance to catch up with her life and that of her kids.

On Thursday the 5th we went to the Historical Preservation AB (HPAB) meeting.  Robert's Red Barn was under discussion as to whether to make it an Historical Landmark.  There was only a brief discussion.  They passed it with very little discussion.  All seemed delighted to have it Land marked.  We are delighted,
too, assuming the County Commissioners also give the final approval.  He can then apply for grant money to help pay to stabilize the barn.

Early Friday morning I had an appointment with my reumatologist, Stuart Weisman.  I had called earlier in the week to say the medication he had given me was not doing its job and that he had said that I should come back.  They had no opening until June 25th, but I was called on Thursday that if I could come in at 8
AM on Friday they had a cancellation I could fill.  So I did that.  He again said that he could continue to prescribed stronger and stronger opiates, but they all eventually wear off.  He would urge me to go talk with a few orthopedic surgeons and get a first-hand account of what a hip replacement entails and how long the recovery and what that entails.  He then said that since you've survived open-heart surgery, this is NOT like that.  Open heart surgery is about the worst it gets. We'll see.