It was a fine weekend indeed. It started out super leisurely, but tonight I returned home covered in dirt and on aching legs (hint: this was much of the reason). I’m too tired to write right now to give the narrative the justice it deserves, but when I get a chance either Monday or Wednesday this week I’ll give an grand account, full of far too many pictures, I’m sure. Sleep…

I gave a friend a ride to Priest Lake this weekend. In Idaho. Quite the trip, but it was fun to spend some time at his family’s 8-bedroom/5-bath lodge on the lake (see below). I spent much of yesterday in the water swimming and canoing, then today hiking in some Rockie-esque mountains (Chimney Rock in the bottom-right photo).

Some miscellanea from the day…

Firstly, I’ve discovered that the tree that in my initial hasty identification I labeled as a crab apple tree is actually a plum tree. I discovered this by finding plums laying on the ground underneath the tree.

Those college botany classes are really paying off.

And I suppose now that I think about it, it sure makes a heck of a lot more sense. I mean peach-plum-cherry, makes way more sense than peach-inediblecrabapple-cherry. Still one mystery tree to go. Watermelon tree? Here’s a shot of a tiny plum in our tree. Now I feel kind of badly for not watering this guy as much as I should’ve.

Secondly, we had thunder this morning accompanied by about five minutes of rain. I was hoping for more given the temperature assault on our lawn over the past week, but at least the air was cool for a couple of hours. Enough time to get a little more landscaping worked on in the backyard. Mary and I worked on digging out some root remnants from last weekend’s project and I continued moving loads of small rocks that previous residents had used as a border around the deck. I can’t believe how tedious this process is. Gotta be done though. Grass beats rocks.

But, the heat returned full bore by mid-afternoon, so (thirdly) we ended up running the dogs in the park sprinklers, resulting in one of my new all-time favorite shots of Taylor. See below. She’s never looked so glorious! All seventy-five pounds hurtling skyward, clutching that magical catch. Who knew the fatty had it in her? It’s worth a click for the full-sized image. And also a few more shots from the run.

Last night we grilled up about four pounds of chicken, so I’d have something decent to eat at work over the next couple of days. After cooking the chicken, I set it inside a covered container on the kitchen counter to cool a little before storing in the fridge. Then I walked away for about ten minutes and returned to find an empty container and one fat dog. Nora somehow freed the lid and licked out every last piece of chicken from the container without knocking it off of the counter. Then, a couple minutes later she pooped in the front entryway. It was a spectacular display of bad dogness. Today’s lunch was a box of Wheat Thins.

I feel an Anchorman quote is in order:

Ron Burgundy: What? You pooped in the refrigerator? And you ate the whole… wheel of cheese? How’d you do that? Heck, I’m not even mad; that’s amazing. How ’bout we get you in your p.j.’s and we hit the hay.

I woke up this morning with a sore back, stiff legs, and raw, bruised, and blistered hands after spending all day yesterday attacking a landscaping problem in our backyard. A while back I chopped down two medium-sized evergreen trees near our oak with the intention of eventually digging out enough of the root systems to be able to put a border around the oak and seed the remaining area. This process of extricating a tangled knot of mature roots and laying brick took the better part of ten hours (though things picked up considerably when we went out and bought an ax part way through the process – as opposed to using a handsaw and shovel).

This first picture is a look at the project part way through the process. It’s a little fuzzy, but you should be able to see the ridiculous number of roots I ended up fighting with. The next two pictures are me blasting away with an ax at the pine stump and at the partially buried roots. The dogs weren’t much help as they kept wandering over to plop down on the fresh dirt. A few more action shots on Flickr if you’re interested.

And finally, here’s a look at the nearly finished product (wood chips to be added) and a look at our cheery sky later in the evening. I have more digging and earth moving to do today, but I think I’m going to make it way less intense than yesterday (Frisbee break at 4 pm!)