Dying days of summer!

Summer, once again, has seemed to fly by! With me working in Pincher Creek and commuting back and forth its slipped by even faster than it was supposed to!

Carolyn's been keeping up on the yard work while I've been gone; religiously cutting the grass once a week!

Erinn learned to play the guitar.

Thanks to her brother's guitar prowess!

Even Father John has taken up the gauntlet.

Mom & Dad came to visit me for my birthday.

Blair's been sleeping in his tent where ever we go, even in the basement.

When I'm not working on my "honey-do list" I've taken time to enjoy a Pil in the cool basement.

The kids took me bowling on my birthday.

The kids riding the wet banana with their cousins at the farm.

And yet another breath taking prairie sunset as seen from our back deck!

The Family Gathering

On the August long weekend we gathered with my family at Pike Lake Provincial Park just outside of Saskatoon.

These were the Astolos cousins, the second generation.

The third generation.

The first and orginal generation!

Carolyn & my cousin Lynn.

My cousin Cory introducing me to "the Penguin".

Joey & Cory; "Its not so bad!"

Another Milestone

Need I say more?

Little Biker

This summer, with the help of Papa & big brother Blair, Erinn finally shed the training wheels off her bike and is now riding a two-wheeler.

The next Marla Streb?

Next year a new bike will be in order; mountain or road or maybe cyclo-cross?

Endangered Species Rescue

Last month when I was home Carolyn asked me what was swimming in the puddle in our back ditch.

When I went to have a look this is what we found.

Tadpoles! Thousands of them!

Our ditch fills up with water whenever we get a good rain, this year its had water in it all summer almost!

I made a phone call to one of the Species at Risk Biologists in Medicine Hat and told him about our find, his thoughts were that they may be Prairie Spade-Foot Toads, he said the females burrow into the ground and only come out after a good thunderstorm to lay their eggs; this may only occur every 2-3 years!

Since we figured it would eventually dry up and the tadpoles would die we decided to relocate them to Bullshead Creek, which flows just below us in the valley. I hauled two and a half of these pails down there and dumped them in. We left a few in our ditch which Carolyn kept water in when it wasn't raining.

Last week when I was home we discovered a few of these guys jumping around, survivors that we left behind in the ditch. Its a Northern Leopard Frog, another endangered species! The weird thing is they normally lay their eggs in the spring.

The kids had a hoot trying to catch these fast little frogs, we only had 3 that stayed behind but when we went down to the creek there was hundreds of them hopping around. According to some literature I read only 10% survive from tadpoles to frogs, I think we upped that percentage considerably by moving them when we did!

I checked yesterday and it appears Bob, Tad and Tannis have since moved on!

Thanks to the rain!

Thanks to all the rain we've been getting the yard is looking nice and green.

And thanks to all of Carolyn's hard work watering, when it isn't raining and cutting the grass once a week, which takes 3-4 hours, its looking wonderful.

Hard to believe that all the green is 90% weeds!

Wined & Dined!

A few weekends ago Carolyn & I found ourselves without any kids and nothing to do (we got all our chores done) so we headed out to the Cypress Hills Vineyard & Winery.

It was a beautiful place and a wonderful day.

I was disappointed that the pond only had gold fish in it!

Mmmm, the wine & the company were excellent!

This is how we wish our backyard looked!

The meal was nothing special but it tasted good.