The Grandparents Visit Aftermath

The Grandparents journeyed out from downtown Cavalier, North Dakota to visit over the past week. We had an opportunity to catch up with them and explore the sights and restaurants here in Boise, Idaho. The dogs (minus Tito) were incredibly excited to have Grandma and Grandpa stay at the house and give them all the love and attention they've apparently been missing.

Constantly getting love from the Grandparents was an exhausting endeavor though, and the pups have spent much of the days since they left catching up on napping.

The Essence of Shaak Ti

Shaak Ti has graced our lives for more than a decade now. We've taken hundreds of pictures and videos of her over the years, as this blog will undoubtedly prove. In all that time though, I don't know if there is one single picture that can so perfectly capture her essence. Until now.

Shaak Ti in all her goofy, upside down glory. At least once a day (usually more) she flops down at your feet and demands tummy rubs. Declining to rub her tummy is not an option.

She often tries to turn tummy rubs into a game, pawing and wrestling with your hand. She's a hilarious and magical beast this one.

A Brief Hailstorm and Apple Trees

We've had some unsettled weather the past week, with moisture coming up from the south and interacting with the early summer afternoon heat. The result has been some showers and great thunderstorms. Not as vigorous as those in North Dakota, but also more fun since they won't involve hiding out in the basement when the tornado siren goes off.

We really only got three or four thunderstorms over the course of the week, with a moderate amount of rain. But a storm on Wednesday involved some close claps of thunder, numerous lightening flashes, and 3-4 minutes of hail bookended with torrential rain.

Less than 5 minutes of hail still managed to leave small piles of hail on the ground. This is the north side of the house. These are Honeycrisp and Gala apple trees that I planted as bareroot trees back in April. They're settling in quite nicely.

I'm going to train them to grow mostly horizontally along the fence, a method known as "espalier". They won't produce as many apples as if they were left to grow unrestrained, but they should still provide enough for eating apples for the homestead for a month or so each. Provided we can keep the squirrels away from them.