Cardi Claus is on the way!

Cardi Claus picked up a package today - traveling from Iowa to somewhere in the Southeast US.

Travel quickly, Cardi Claus!

And for those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, you can blame it on my friend Janet, and find out more on her blog.

Wagmore Farm Step 3: Timber!

In previous blog posts, I talked about the first steps The Husband and I have taken to clean up the grass and brush on our new property.  Moving up the "woodiness" scale - next we had to tackle the trees.

Both Pete and I love forests and trees, but as soon as we viewed the property, we knew there were some trees that had to go.  It turns out that the insurance company agreed with us, so the trees had to come out sooner rather than later.

Here are the problem trees:

Giant pine trees RIGHT next to the house.

I'm guessing they started out as cute little decorative trees?

Note the hardwood trees on the right.

Planted next to the septic tank.

And when I say next to - I mean w/in 6' - yikes!

Can you say roots in the drain field?  Not good.

Six lovely poplars.  They were tall,

 and the wind rustling through the trees was great.

Having "unstable" trees w/in 30' of the house - not so great.

Pretty maple tree in the front yard.

Branches touching the house is no good.  Goodbye, maple tree.

We had a couple more trees come out - another maple that was planted right next to a prettier maple.  One of them had to go - sorry not-as-pretty tree.  And a large locust tree.  Locust are not nice trees.  They're big, thorny, and send up little baby locust trees everywhere (I mentioned these baby locust in another post).  Good riddance, locust.

So what became of all these trees?

The poplars

The evergreens

All the wood piled together.

Anyone want to help us split wood?

Along with the firewood, let's have some of the trees chipped....

2 piles of wood chips that are approx 4 'x 5' x 40'

Good thing we have a lot of land...?

The horsey among you will appreciate that I asked the tree guys to save me a couple 10' logs to use as jumps.  With so much land, I feel compelled to have a some cross country jumps scattered about - and how cool to have my own logs!  The funny part:  they saved me 4 logs - each about 10' long and 8" (yes, that's inches) thick.  Sigh.  I'll still be using them for jumps - just not on the same scale...  Of course, it will be a long while before I have a horse, so not so bad, really.

Here are some pictures of the "naked" property.  The house doesn't look so charming without all the trees.  

The front

The side.  No trees around the septic now.

The back.  So bare.

Our current conundrum with the property is what to do about the house.  I think we're almost there on the decision - hopefully I'll have something to post soon!

PS - I want to say thanks to my Dad for meeting with the tree removal contractors, collecting the bids, and supervising our small-scale logging operation.  We'd like to offer you some firewood and wood chips  for all of your help ;)

My pages are done!

A few weeks back, I figured out how to add pages for the blog, so I thought I'd post some more info about the "characters" who appear in my blog:  Maggie, Ziggy, Rip, Denzil, and Wagmore.

Tab around to find out more, and let me know what you think!

Cardi fun in the Autumn leaves

This weekend was leaf clean-up for us.  I love the colors of the leaves with the colors of The Trio, so I took my camera outside to get some pics before all the leaves were gone.


To give you and idea of what a nice day it was, here are the portraits/still shots:

Rip taking a break from frapping

Maggie surveying the yard

I love how her brindle color matches the leaves

Ziggy looks cute in the leaves, too

Here he's trying to decide if he wants to pay attention to me,

or his brother causing trouble in the background

But a crisp autumn day isn't about standing still, so here are the action shots

Let's all frap!

Maggie likes to be the chaser not the chased

Here she's reprimanding Rip for biting her sides

I love Ziggy's "I'm staying out of this one" expression

Rip didn't get Maggie's point the first time

(nor the second, nor the third...)

When there's conflict, Ziggy hangs back, but still runs along

It allowed me to get some good pics of just him...

Where is this speed in agility?!?

When the other 2 got too tired to play, 

Rip grabbed a stick and got me to play with him

More Singapore Pictures

Now that I'm back home I found a few more pictures to share...

Marina Sands
In the marina there is an impressive hotel, casino, and shopping complex called the Marina Sands.  Sitting atop the hotel towers is "ship."  Very cool.

The ship has a restaurant, pool, bar, and observation deck

The shell-like structure on the left is a museum

For some perspective, look for the ship in the distance...

(It's HUGE)

We went up on the observation deck

Wow what a view!

It was a gorgeous night, with perfect breeze

 Some other interesting things:

Loved the fan-like palm trees

Good to know that Singapore isn't immune to the plague that is

"early Christmas fever"

The view from my hotel room - not too bad!

I enjoyed watching the world go by

The coolest pool ever

I don't like to swim and it made me want to dive in

Unforunately, it wasn't at my hotel

No matter where you go...  there can be no escape

An entire store dedicated to Hello Kitty!

In the same shopping complex was an entire store of espadrilles

And since this is a dog blog:

I came across an impromptu dog park 

in one of the few vacant lots around

Oh, and I found out that one of my colleagues is a member of the Corgi Club of Singapore!  I saw a lovely picture of a Cardi at her desk, and just had to ask.  Unfortunately he passed away 2 weeks ago. Hugs to her from me and The Trio.

Singapore pictures

For the past week I've been on business travel in Singapore.  I've never been here before, and didn't quite know what to expect.  I leave tonight, but thought I'd share a bit before I leave.

Some things that stood out for me:

• This city is CLEAN!  No trash, no smog.  Very unusual for a big city.
• The restaurants are good and plentiful.  Since I've been here I've had microbrews, pub food, tapas, Australian food, Chinese food, Japanese food, and Italian.  Yum.
• The cabs are relatively inexpensive, clean, and the cab drivers aren't scary in any way.
• Though I like Singapore, my hair does not.  Note to self:  don't move to the tropics if you want your hair to look good.

Here are some pictures of the city:

I took a boat cruise along the river and into the marina.

It was a good way to see some parts of the city, and get a

little history lesson along the way.

Old houses along the river with modern skyscrapers looming over

An old hotel and bridge

Thanks to the Brits for both of these

The famous Merlion (mermaid-lion) statue

The "double helix" bridge in the marina

A good perspective on the river

Love the rainbow colors on this building's shutters

Here's another view of the same building -

showing the rainbow color pattern