Mulch Pile

A few weeks ago we had a couple more trees taken down. When we first moved into our house 15 years ago the trees were just saplings and it's hard to believe how big they've gotten. We used to have 4 Bradford Pear trees lining the front of our yard. It was kind of the signature of our house. People knew the house with all the trees lining the street. A couple years ago, we had 2 of the trees cut down because they were about to split and another cut down recently. There's still 1 left. It seems to be a slightly different variety - the canopy is much narrower and doesn't seem to be prone to splitting like the trees with the broader canopy. We also cut down a couple of pear trees in the back yard last year. This year, along with the pear tree we also cut down our River Birch. It's a nice looking tree, but it sheds so much debris. I told Helen that I was tired of picking up after the tree and, besides, it was in the way if we were going to do a new scalloped walkway. Now our yard looks pretty barren without all the trees, but things will look better when we get the new walkway and landscaping done.

One of the benefits of cutting down the trees is all the leftover mulch created. We had the tree company dump the mulch in our backyard near the tire swing. The mulch pile became a magnet for all the kids on the street. The kids would come over first thing after school to play on the pile. On the day that I finally got all the mulch spread out, the kids came running home from the bus with their friends only to be disappointed when they realized their beloved mulch pile was no more.

The Circus

Things are still very hectic around here. If we can get these home projects behind us I think I can get back to a more consistent blogging schedule.

Several weeks ago we went to the circus and took our niece, Lindsay. I had gotten an email about a last minute family package deal and decided to surprise the kids. We usually surprise the kids each year and take them to the county fair. We tell the kids that we're going out to dinner and when all the lights of the fair come into to view they go crazy with excitement. This year, Derek thought he had us and just knew we were headed to the fair.

This is the first time the kids have been to the circus. We've talked about going before, but just never got around to doing it. We thought the kids would really like it and were eager to see their faces when they recognized where they were going. Unfortunately, our enthusiasm was dampened as we came into view of the civic center because there were at least 50 protesters holding up signs condemning Ringling Brother's treatment of animals. It was kind of a buzz killer. The protesters were even setup on the sidewalk leading into the arena and handed out stickers to the kids. Of course, kids can't turn down stickers so there were all these kids heading into the arena with anti-circus stickers on.

I remember the circus being such a big deal. When I was a kid there were 3 rings and there were stars like the tiger taming, Gunther Gabel Williams. This circus only had 1 ring and it just didn't seem to be the big experience I remembered it to be - of course I'm not a kid anymore, either. Our kids seem to think it was a big deal. The show was actually very entertaining and well done. There were elephants, Siberian tigers, and lots of acrobats and clowns. We all loved the lady and the dachshund's since we have a dachshund, Lula. It was like a bunch of our Lula's running around. The MC was a French guy that kept us laughing with his jokes and antics. He did some incredible bike riding tricks and kept coming out on these small bikes. Each time he came out with a bike, the new bike was smaller than the one before. The last one looked like it was, maybe, a foot long and he rode it all around the ring.