3 AM Alarm

So on Saturday night/Sunday morning at approximately 3 am OC (one of our dogs just in case you didn't know) barks. He has a loud bark anyway, but at 3 am when you are trying to sleep, it seems even louder. James yells at him to "Shut UP!!!" possibly other words were also in that mix :) I am pretty sure I yelled too, but probably without any added expletives.

Usually OC will settle down pretty quickly, but he was going nuts! Then we listen and you could hear a screaming animal sound. James jumps up and runs into the living room to look out the window, he leans on the chair which starts to recline and slams himself into the window. So I am not only hearing this crazy animal scream but also a yell from my husband trying to injure himself.

So I get out of bed and we look out the living room window and see out neighbor out there with a flashlight looking for something, and then he heads back inside. We opened the window and this animal scream is pretty loud and slightly terrifying. It eventually stops and James starts looking something up on his computer.

He plays something like this:






Oh My Gosh!!!!

Do we seriously have a mountain lion in our neighborhood?!?!?!?! I thought the sound seemed bad, but had not even considered that it might be a mountain lion! Of course our crazy dog decides that since he is up and we are up and he heard something outside that he should also be outside. Not gonna happen tonight!! Thankfully since the sound stopped, he wasn't quite so insistent on being let out.

We went back to bed and eventually fell asleep. OC passed out long before either James or I and I am not sure Baxter even woke up throughout the whole ordeal!

In the morning I looked out the windows just to make sure there were not any large cats lurking in our yard or trees before I let the dogs out.

We we fed the animals and headed out for church. On the way, James called his dad; both to wish him a Happy Father's Day and to tell him of our EARLY morning adventure. He left a message.

Just as we got to our pastor's home, Clyde calls James back so we wait outside while they talked.

James went through the crazy story.

Clyde (my wonderful Father-in-law) informs him that it probably was a fox, as they sound very similar but louder.

So we are feeling quite a bit better by this time. I know there are foxes around, but never would have thought they would sound like a mountain lion.

When we got home, our neighbor was just pulling up as well, so we head over to their house to see what they know.

She states a similar story of their dogs going crazy and her and her husband went outside with the flashlight. Sure enough, he found a fox in the middle of our cul-de-sac screaming its head off!

Apparently he chased the fox off and it went down the road and then came back, so he chased it off again and it stayed away.

Here's a clip of a fox screaming for your enjoyment. :) Not pleasant anyway, but even worse in the middle of the night:

Busy, Busy, Busy

I have pictures this time!!

Well a few at least...

We've been busy with yard work lately! We also made a trip down to my in-laws for Clyde's annual surprise birthday party to himself :) it was a great chance to visit with family and see our wonderful nieces and nephews!!!

So since we have mostly spent time on our yard, here's the update:

We shoveled out the old bright orange mulch from the front, cut down and dug out the roots of two aspen trees then planted some boxwood bushes, a contorted filbert tree and surrounded it with nice rubber mulch.

After several years of trying to get the grass to grow (or at least survive) in the front yard, we have decided to give up on it. We dug over about 5 feet from the driveway and reconfigured the retaining wall blocks to create a wall and a mostly level space in front. We are in the process of digging up the dead grass and some dirt from this mostly flat area so we can bring in sand and flagstone. Then we will have a nice little patio to enjoy in our front yard!!! Our goal is to have it finished by the 4th of July!

In the midst of redoing our front yard, we are also building a raised garden in the back. The plan is to build it three cinder blocks high and we are just about done with the first level! It's taking awhile to level the individual blocks. However, once the first level is done then it will just be a matter of getting more blocks and stacking them. Ultimately we plan to pound re bar in a few spots for stability and then put a wood topper around the whole thing. My wonderful in-laws are going to bring a load of horse manure/compost for us to add to the dirt so we should be all set for next year. We have started a few plants in pots that we would like to transplant into the garden this year if possible, but next year we want to go all out!

A few weeks ago we put up lattice on the side of our garage and planted grapes. The grapes are not looking so good, but I still have hope. If they don't work out, we'll try again next year.

We also planted hops rhizomes between the grapes. We have eventual plans to try home-brewing, so the hops will come in handy. The most exciting thing is that they are actually growing!!!!

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These are three separate plants, but they didn't have any real growth when we put them in. We are very excited for our hops!

We planted strawberry plants near our front door and they are taking off, we are looking forward to some fresh strawberries this summer! I will probably need to cover them soon since I think one (or several) of the local bunnies have been nibbling on some of the leaves. Also I would like to eat some of the strawberries that we grow and I know the birds like them too as would the bunnies.

Anyway, there's a recap of what we've been doing. I will try to update more often!