Honey and Hazel

Here is a short movie of Honey and Hazel.

The first time they met.

I'm not sure just how I got this to work - it involved reducing the size of the video and renaming it. And it took two days of trying and rethinking!

Does this picture upload?

My video didn’t upload. Will my picture?

Ok. Picture works so I guess it’s not me.

Raining today and Honey has been busy supervising me fix supper. Now it’s nap time.

May brings flowers and green grass

After a long winter that lasted forever, spring has arrived! This week has been rainy but hey, who could complain as it was NOT snow!

Right now the windows are open and the sound of lawn mowers fills the air. 

We had winds and rain this week but missed any damage. The sky certainly looked ominous as dark clouds moved in. Honey does not like thunder storms and she was shaking before we heard any thunder. Windows were shut and lawn chairs stacked against the house. We were lucky that we missed the worse winds.

The sky looked menacing 

On a more cheerful note, I purchased a robot vacuum cleaner at Sam's Saturday during their super sale. It was $100 off their normal price and with the amount of dog hair and dirt we have, it was worth a try. After reading the directions and charging the machine, we gave it a trial run today. We also named it Hazel - remember the TV series back in the 60's staring Shirley Booth as a maid? Well, it seemed like an appropriate name! Today we gave Hazel her first run. I was concerned Honey would bark or chase it but she was very laid back.   I had a video of the first few minutes but for some reason it won't play here. For those of you who know me, I did post the video on my FB page.

Honey was curious but didn't bark or step on it. She checked Hazel out as she went around cleaning but never touched it. Finally Honey went to sleep. Hazel continued to clean. Really cool! When it bumps into an obstacle - the wall, furniture and such, it backs up a bit and continues. It did a great job on the rugs and cleaning the tile but missed a few areas. That could have been because the breakfast room chairs were in the way. Hazel got hung up a few times - I was constantly checking on her and most of the time she was busy in another room  I just picked her up and plopped her down and on she went. I'd say she was a success as the floors look good. Dog hair and dirt is gone.  I'm so glad Hazel came to work for us!

Can you believe....we have SNOW again!

After several posts about the continuing snow and cold temperatures, I was anticipating posting about spring. However, that hasn't happened as we are still having SNOW!!  Right now, as I sit in my office and look out the window, big fat flakes are falling. We got snow overnight but it was barely visible on the grass. This morning's news showed school delays for districts north of us including Wallenpaupack. I believe it was more icy than snowy.

We are ready for spring! Last year we found a mulch for the front gardens that not only was reasonably priced but didn't blow away. This year it was again on sale from Home Depot so B really loaded the SUV up several times. Worked out well as we would go to breakfast (yea!) and then stop off at the store and load up. All told we brought 75 bags home. And last weekend, when we had that short warm spell, we cleaned out the bed next to the porch and put down several bags. It's a two step process as there are leaves and such that need to be cleaned out before fresh mulch goes down. And that's not something we intend to do in the snow! So we are looking forward to working on this project soon.

This is the pile of mulch at HD.  We weren't the only ones loading up!

A short trip to the Lake

Yesterday, Tuesday March 6th, we took a ride over to the Lake house. We generally try to get over once a week. As we drove up the driveway we were dismayed at the damage to our shrubs. The snow was so heavy that it had bent many of the bushes down. So the first thing we did was hop out of the car and shook trees, evergreens and bushes to release the branches from being held down by the snow.  That work removed the snow and we then turned our attention to the decks. Unfortunately several limbs had come down onto the front deck. The good news is that the deck itself was fine.  

We also found out that the electricity to our little group of houses had been off for two days! Fortunately we have a generator - unfortunately it ran for two days! 

 I took some pictures of the storm's "work" before we went into the house. After checking out the house carefully and seeing no problems there, we went home. 

The front deck got several branches - from both the tree to the right and a tree in the back left. Both trees appear to be OK and the deck is not damaged

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In the front by the driveway this bush that has stickers was bent over. While I'd really not care if the darn thing died, I did kick it to remove some snow. 

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Not sure if it was the wind or the weight of the snow that caused this branch to rip off

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And B went around the upper deck removing the snow from the railings

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Again, the back of the front deck 

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And the front of the front deck

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And a bush by the upper deck that was weighted down by the snow. It should bounce back!