Lucky Lillies

There were some exotic plants in pots on the walkway of the Powell Gardens Island Garden. This one looks like a cross between 4-leafed clovers and water lillies.

Powell's Muskrats

While visiting Powell Garden's Island Garden, we saw two muskrats just off the little bridge over to the island. We had seen them last year and the year before, swimming in the lake as we watched fireworks, proving that they are fearless.

There was a huge snapping turtle right next to them, and I wonder if they get together and sing Disney style songs about life in the pond at night when the humans aren't around.

Skate Park

After going to a gigantic skate park in St. Louis with my nephew Matt, I noticed that there was a skate park going in near my office in Lee's Summit. It replaced a basketball court, displacing one of "scary" misunderstood loitering youth with another. More power to them, I say. Anything that makes oldsters shake their heads in dismay is probably a lot of fun.

There are two other small skate parks in Lee's Summit parks, which aren't as extensive or cool as this one.

Bunny Park

We were out GeoCaching last month and I was following a group of sites put together by someone called the Lee's Summit Parks Tour. They wanted to show people all these little obscure parks that spread out through the city. As a lifelong resident of the city, I had no idea many of the parks existed. We went to Canterbury Park to try to find the cache hidden there (failing the first time), and discovered the rabbit serengeti of Lee's Summit. We didn't try to count the number of rabbits that we saw, but it was probably around 20. They were fairly tame, too. You could get about 10 or 15 feet away before they dashed off. They had little worn paths going back into the high grass, too. The fact that there were so many of them proves what they say. We saw no direct evidence of the old saying, though.



I love the "Native Habitat" sign. For Rabbits? Seriously? My garden is a native habitat for rabbits.

Cat Tails

Smudge likes to sit on the table and tempt Zach with his tail. He's really pretty good at it when you consider that he can't see what he's doing, he was continually brushing Zach, and he never got caught in the little vice-like grip of the baby claw.

Hidden Valley II

Here is the farm pond first featured in a post on 6/13/09.

As you can see, the lush wet summer has continued.

Electric Meditation Cat Hammock

I had the strangest night the other night. I was awoken by the music from our baby's mobile, which has a sound activation circuit. I slowly arose out of a deep sleep, gradually noticing that this simple baby music was really annoying me.

I staggered into the baby's room and shut the noise off, but instead of being relieved and going back to sleep, I noticed that I was feeling really queasy. This happens more and more as the years go by, usually as a result of eating something that doesn't agree with me, which gets to be a longer and longer list each year.

I made the mistake of opening the door. I thought I heard thunder out in the distance, and as soon as the door was open a crack, the cats ran outside. I was able to catch 2 of them, but Cuppy was still out there, and with the possibility of a storm coming in, I couldn't just leave her out there.

The problem was that I got much more tired by this time, and considered abandoning the cat until I heard a commotion outside.

I got a flashlight and then got distracted searching for my earphones and the little ear buds that always fall off of them. I plugged in my iPod and switched it on. I was getting really restless, as I couldn't locate the cat and I really wanted to go back to sleep. I started listening to a meditation routine that sometimes gets onto my iPod that I usually skip. I thought maybe this would be a good night for the meditation, I could relax and get ready to go back to sleep. While wandering around in the dark, I decided to lay down on hammock in the back yard (hoping the cat would come to me). The meditation routine was pretty nice. It was telling me to relax, and to put all concerns or worries away. There was a thunder storm approaching and the noise it was making was a peaceful rumbling that helped me relax. The meditation was saying to push all worrying thoughts out of my head.

For some reason, this made me think of the fact that big oak trees are like lightning rods. Even though on one hand the meditation was making me relax, on the other hand, I started to wonder if lying out in the open next to two enormous natural lightning rods was really such a good idea.

After listening to gentle rumblings off in the distance for a while, a lone big boom of thunder struck very close, almost throwing me from the hammock in shock.

Even though I had not found Cuppy yet, it was time to go inside. I think she got the same idea after the loud thunder, because I finally found Cuppy headed toward the door the same time as me.

For some reason, this weird chain of events allowed me to lay down and drop off to sleep immediately.

I'm surprised I didn't think it was a dream the next day. Maybe it was.

White Flower zone

There seems to be a spreading mutant white flower epidemic in my neighborhood. I wrote previously about some violets I have in my yard that are white, not violet. See:
http://wagginganimaltales.blogspot.com/2008_05_01_archive.html#4848770589524490255
and
http://wagginganimaltales.blogspot.com/2009_05_01_archive.html#4333680464676385666

One of my favorite flowers is the cornflower, which comes out in July and lasts for a long time. They are light blue, and I've noticed some white ones in the past.

Now I have seen for the first time a white clover. They are normally light purple, and they look awesome in white. They are right where the rabbit used to sit on the side of the road when I ran down the road:
http://wagginganimaltales.blogspot.com/2008_05_01_archive.html#2055746598818070231

I do wonder if there is some kind of toxic chemical knocking out the color producing genes. Paranoia!

My biology class podcast was just talking about how genes express colors, and white items are a lack of color. I want to know if flower color makes a difference in whether the bees will pollinate them or not. I wonder if the white flowers have a different scent?

Or maybe their just simple white flowers.

Gimpy

Where I live we have wild turkey and whitetailed deer. For the last 10 years or so, the populations have been exploding, due in part to the massive amounts of cracked corn that my neighbors are feeding them.

Most of the time, this is a pleasant gift of serene scenes and quiet beauty.

Many people know to be careful of hitting deer with their cars. During rut (deer mating season), your chances of hitting a deer around sunrise or sunset rises. Most people probably know someone that has hit a deer with their car. Surprisingly, the deer does not always die from being hit by a car. Sometimes they break a leg or fracture a hip, and then survive with a limp. I've seen the results of this many times. The deers that limp are usually tamer. It's a pathetic sight and you feel sorry for the deer, but they heal and they may not even be in pain as the go about their lives, eating and drinking and walking through our yards.

What I've never seen before now is a turkey with a limp. This is unique. We now have one, and she walks around through the front yard, usually trying to decide whether she needs to rush forward in the direction she was going or retreat in terror. I try not to make any fast moves.

I love that gimpy turkey.

Rougher Road less travelled

We had a nicely paved road up until recently. While fighting to get deannexed from Lake Lotawana, they tried to convince us to stay in the city because they knew that the road would have to be repaved and they said they would be able to do it and the county would not.

We were deannexed last fall.

This month, the road was "repaved". The only problem is that it was repaved into a gravel road. They sprayed down a layer of tar and spread a layer of fine pea gravel over it and ran over it with a roller.

There were no potholes in the road before. The wide shoulders were fine for jogging and biking. Now there are little gravel bars on the shoulders, great for tripping or skidding out on. When they repainted the lanes, they took away some of the width, so cars are now much closer to the pedestrians than before.

I'm not sure why government money was wasted making our road worse. I am not stimulated.

Indian Statue

Junction City got a face lift, and with it a very nice traffic circle right off the interstate. In the middle of the circle was this statue of an india holding up a buffalo skull.

Wheat Harvest

My guest from Chicago was surprised to see wheat being harvested in mid-June. I was, too. It was also interesting to see a wheatfield and rural looking scene on the other side of a treeline.

Smoky Hill Swallows

While at Junction City for some customer trials, I took a run from my hotel to a bridge that crossed the Smoky Hill River. There were hundreds of swallows that were perched on a power line next to the bridge, and must have had nests under the bridge. They started flying around me in a big swirling cloud.

Dusty Bookshelf Cat

The little bookstore in downtown Aggieville called the Dusty Bookshelf had a cat that looks just like Speedy and Cuppy. See if you agree.

Engineering Now and Then

At K-State, the new engineering building was Durland Hall, also known as "the flashcube". The old building, Seaton Hall, was the building my father took his engineering classes in. I had classes in Seaton when I was a Freshman, then moved to the new building when its second phase opened my sophomore year. They renamed the buildings when they added the third phase, so it's no longer Durland.

It's now called Durland, Rathbone, and Fiedler Halls. Durland was Dean (1949 to 1961) when my father was a student there and Rathbone (1973 to 1997) was Dean when I was there. Seaton was the Dean from 1920 up to Durland's reign as Dean.

Trip Down Memory Lane

While visiting Manhattan, I stopped by the graves of my parents, the fraternity I joined in college, the two apartments I lived in, and Aggieville.

Our College Heights apartment 4 was in the basement, we had a knee's eye veiw of the parking lot.

I learned Dynamics and Differential Equations on the balcony of the other apartment. I was 20 and my roommates were 21, so when they left to drink in the evenings, I would drag my drafting table onto the balcony and study until the sun went down. I got As in those courses that summer.

First Solid Food

Zach's reaction was not good to the new solid food.

I can't blame him. The reconstituted rice flakes did not look very tasty. Zach prefers his thumb.

How Amusing

Zachy gets a real kick out of his mommy's reaction to her birthday card.

Heartland Garden

They had just opened the Heartland Garden at Powell Gardens the week before our visit. The observation silo is not done yet, and the place still has the look and feel of a new house with fresh sod and little landscaping. It will take it a while to fill in and look good.

The friendly horses in the Fun Foods Farm liked to lick Zach's head.

Friends

I got a new membership as a Friend of Powell Garden for Father's Day.

We took Zach for his first visit and to see the new Heartland Garden.

Cookie Dough

There was a recall of Nestle Toll House cookie dough recently. The front page of the paper had pictures of the containers.

It was familiar to me, as I had just bought some a few days before, and just eaten a batch the day before.

I felt fine, and my rebellious streak caused me to immediately bake another batch and eat it, too.

The risk really wasn't much. The people that got sick had eaten the dough raw. No ill effects whatsoever.

Snuggling

Sometimes when Zach takes a nap, we let him crash right on the floor, where he fell asleep. The cats have mostly ignored Zach, but Eddy decided that a napping baby was something good to snuggle up to.

Little Lush

Anybody that has spent any time on a college campus or seen a college party has seen the amazing transformation of a reveler into Beer Man. If you take a 12 pack box, open and remove one end (usually after emptying the contents into your stomach), the cardboard container can transform into a wonderful hat. Sometimes the hat is worn high on the head, but I particularly enjoy the look of a medieval helmet when you pull it down and look out the hand handles.

We had this in mind when we dressed Zach up in an old Kleenex box. Instead of Beer Man, a better name for Zach's version would be Poopy Pants Man. Don't mess with him, he'll rub your nose in it.

Lush

It's been so wet this June that everything is green, even things that shouldn't be, like the fence around our dumpster.

But the Catalpa tree is particularly vibrant this year. Hard to believe that it was struck by lightning about 10 years ago, isn't it?

Harebells & Lame Turkeys

These flowers at the end of the driveway come up without any prompting. I think they are called Harebells, based on my latest research, but my mother always called them Dutchman's pants.

We have a turkey that limps. We see deer that limp every year, and you figure they got tagged by a car, but you don't expect to see a turkey that limps. She gets along just fine.

The Hazards of I-70

There was a bad accident on I-70 that had about 6 ambulances and two fire trucks as well as many police vehicles.

It took about 40 minutes for them to get the people out of the cars and get traffic going again. There were two SUVs or minivans upside down next to the road, up against a rock cut in the highway.

It got hot while we were waiting and Zach got fussy. We had to sneak him past the police at the accident scene under a blanket, because Matt had to hold him in the front seat to keep him from crying. We only rode like that when we were going less than 20 miles per hour. We didn't have much choice. There was nowhere to pull over and he was in meltdown mode.

Skate Park

After a serious rain delay, we were able to get some quality time in at the skate park.

Matt did not scrape or break anything, which was impressive. He normally doesn't skate with a helmut, so we had to go buy one before they would let us in. Unfortunately, they do not have a style that sports one of those Roman Helmet push broom plumes, which would have been cool.

Zach was really digging the action.

Chilling at 13 Saddleback

Zachy likes using Ray as a recliner while watching Uncle Steve kill electronic soldiers on the big screen. It doesn't get any better than this.

Spicy Formula Surprise!

I can't wait to see Zach's reaction when he wakes up and finds out that we've spiked his formula with Tobasco Sauce.

This was recommended by the staff at Chipolte, who said that this would make him start crawling immediately. Either that or the asked if we wanted guacamole with our burrito. I couldn't tell.