Family Trip To North Dakota- Part I

The family came out out to visit from San Diego last month, Pops, sister and brother-in-law all came out for a rollicking good time.  It was my Dad's second visit, but the first time for my sister and brother-in-law, and they all seemed to have a good time.  Here are some photo highlights (Part I).

Dad was bad, Professor Cummings is mad.
He gets a talking to.  Behave, don't let this be you. 

One of our favorites from the University of North Dakota Museum of Modern Art.  OK, maybe not a favorite, but one of the few pieces that didn't cause us both to say "what the crap is THIS?"  It's just simply a seal drinking through a straw.  Riiiight.

The folks at the Museum of Modern Art were very, very nice and chatted with us for quite a while.  The thing is that I really don't "get" most modern art.  Oh well.  If you're thinking that we went to see a modern art museum because we're super smart, hoity toity types, you'd be way off.  We went because it was raining and we couldn't play golf that day.  

We took a hike through Turtle River State Park, just west of Grand Forks.  It was even lovelier than it looks in the picture, and there were tons of magnificent things for the pups to smell. 

Three generations of well dressed Chappell family members.  Their respective signature attire: floppy hat, plaid shorts, lots and lots of spots.  It's almost like an Abercrombie & Fitch ad....almost.

The Leaf Machine

It has been an absolutely beautiful fall here in North Dakota.  Warm pleasant days and cool nights have abounded and there hasn't even been much of a frost yet (I actually have to get out in the garden and harvest tomatoes today).  But even though it has been a warm fall, the trees have shed most of their leaves and littered the ground with their arboreal remnants.  Not to fear though, with a little raking from Alycia and I and the help of the leaf vacuum machine from the city, leaves disappear like soda through a straw. 

This is the leaf machine (in yellow) attached to a dump truck in front of our house.  There is a crew of four rakers/vacuumers who follow along and assist with the process. You're required to rake the leaves into piles on the front berm and then - Viola!!! they magically disappear.

 

The leaves get sucked up through the black tube on the left (and then I think they get shredded) before being propelled through the horizontal tube on top and into the dump truck.  It's an entertaining process to watch, though admittedly I had to shoot these pictures from the front porch rather surreptitiously so I wouldn't look like a weirdo taking pictures of the leaf vacuuming workers. 

What Is The Dog Doing?

What is Shaak Ti doing right this very minute?

If you guessed napping, you're the big winner.

Worldwide Readership???

One of the super cool tools of this blogging website is all the reports and metrics that you can produce to see the who/what/when/where/how of your readership.  Just the other day I looked at a report for the last month that listed the number of page views and which country they originated from.  The list looked like this:

United States - 131

Russia - 32

Brazil - 29

Canada - 22

South Korea - 19

Malaysia - 19

Nicaragua - 19

Lithuania - 18

Portugal - 18

Indonesia - 13 

Who are all the folks reading my blog from foreign lands?  Are you real people, or just super intelligent, and well read spam-bots trolling for spamming opportunities?  If you happen to be reading this, I'd love to hear from you, leave a comment or drop me an e-mail.

It Happens

Sometimes the most engaging and informative articles are also the ones that make you cringe just a little bit.  This is one of them.  And sometimes when the subject matter is taboo in society (and in sports) it makes it all the more fascinating, in a train wreck-can't avert my gaze kind of way.  Article is courtesy of ESPN.com

It Happens

I would not recommend reading this over your morning cup of coffee and breakfast bran muffin, though that would be oddly ironic.  

Gnew Gnome Home

After a long year or so hibernating in their moving boxes, the garden gnomes sent us a text message from their gnome phones to let us know they were fully acclimated to the new latitude (the defining factor for gnome living) of Grand Forks, North Dakota and ready to be unleashed unto the world.  So a few weeks ago we had a small, private afternoon ceremony and placed the gnomes in their new homes, among the blueberry and strawberry bushes in the backyard.

We've started getting the garden ready for winter by adding leaves and lawn clippings around many of the garden plantings.  The leaves insulate the delicate blueberries and strawberries, even though they're supposed to be able to to survive in our winter, we give them as much help as we can to get them through the winter. 

This is Fredrick the Garden Gnome in his new garden home, amongst the blueberry bushes and strawberry plants.  Notice his new, and super awesome, mushroom umbrella.

This is our new gnome addition, Alycia named him Furkel (the gnomes all have a name that starts with "F").  It's kind of hard to tell since his bottom is covered in leaves, but he's actually pooping.  Yes, that's right a pooping garden gnome.  It's a special kind of garden gnome called a Caganer and is a traditional Catalonia nativity decoration.  It is also rumored to be a good luck garden denizen - fertilizing the earth with his magical and mystical poopings.

Stop Injecting Your Kids With Junk

I came upon this minute-long public service announcement from some governmental authority down under.  It's a BIT over the top, but in a way enormously funny.  Just think of the heyday that the various industry groups, politicians, trade associations, and "concerned parents" would have if this ad were ever shown here in the US.  They would have a field day, and would all line up and compete to be the most offended party involved. 

Australian Public Service Announcement

I can just see Bill O'Reilly interviewing the chairwoman (it always seems to be a woman named Marcia) of the Americans For Fast Food Family Values or Moms Against Meal Manipulation (that would be a good acronym) who'd decry the ad as an attack by the hatemongering left-wing media against good family companies like McDonald's and Burger King. 

Leaves and Stuff

It's fall here in North Dakota and it's beautiful.  I take Shakk Ti on extra long walks every afternoon and just amble along the Greenway and watch the river (which is really high due to recent rains) and feel the cool wind pull the leaves from the trees.  There's nothing quite like leaves rustling as they tumble across the ground. 

Shaak Ti loves it as well since it's the height of squirrel activity, they're scurrying around making winter preparations.  She gets to run and bark and bark and run, pulling me along and chasing them back up their trees.  It's good fun, and good exercise for both dog and human. 

The park near our house.  Slowly cooling temperatures have allowed for the traditional leaf color changing, contrasted with last year where it got very cold very suddenly and many trees dropped their foliage quickly, without the requisite change to yellows and oranges and reds.  This year is very different.   

The back yard.  This wouldn't be much of an exceptional picture if not for the fact that I mowed this yesterday evening and it was fully leafless.  This is the leaf accumulation in less than 24 hours.  Impressive.  It goes without saying that we have more fall leaf raking chores on our dance card.  

The front yard, same story.  This was totally clear yesterday evening.  Notice how the Grandmamobile stands as a silent sentinel over the yard.  It makes me feel safe.