BUCKTHORN!!!

Most of the people we know who live in the twin cities area don't have many trees in their yard, heck most people we know in the cities can COUNT how many trees they have in their yard. Granted, we could probably count ours too - it would just take some time and some creativity around the property line.

So having trees is GREAT - love it, would not want to live some where without a lot of trees. However it became apparent to us that we had many buckthorn trees - a very invasive tree (read about buckthorn here). So we decided it was finally time to remove many of these invasive trees from our yard. Turns out that was around 70 trees. So in less than 24 hours we removed 70 trees, rented a wood chipper for 2 hours, wood chippered all 70 trees (in less than two hours!), and then put stump remove on the trees we were unable to pull out. Needless to say we are beat.

...But now we have little to no buckthorn, which really opens up the woods around our place and a huge pile of wood chips. I'm sad about the woods not having as much coverage - but the trees that were getting choked by the buckthorn should start to grown better and it also leaves room for us to plant trees we want!

TC's new sleeping spot

I came in from outside today to search for something on the internet - I'm sitting at the kitchen table and I begin to hear something coming from the kitchen -- I look around the kitchen and I see nothing. As I'm turning back to look at my computer out of the corner of my eye I see TC (The Count) rolling around - ON TOP OF THE PANTRY! We have been able to train Pixel to not go on the counter but I'm beginning to believe there is no hope in TC's future.


Then after I took a picture of TC I decided I needed to capture the other animals too...

Trip North

We had a nice relaxing weekend last week up north. We went to gooseberry falls, split rock light house, great lakes aquarium and canal park. James, Jeanne and Natalie came along which made it a great time. Our weekend was made memorable by all the 1 - 2 - 3 swings, searching for cool rocks, and playing in the hotel pool.

Xavier Rudd at First Ave

Last night was an amazing night of music. Xavier Rudd played at first avenue and it was a by far one of the best shows I've seen him perform. This show competes with the first show when Brian and I saw him perform at the Cabooze. If that show hadn't been the best combination of music and environment I think this show would, without a doubt, be the best show ever.

Following the post concert happiness I ventured online and discovered that Xavier is going to be releasing a new album with his new friends from Johannessburg, South Africa - the album is expected to be called Fresh Green Freedom - I can't wait. Read about it here.

Can anyone really have too many beanies?

So growing up my mom had her own business making and selling dolls. Along with this business she also sold Ty bears, beanies and what not. So basically at the height of the Ty beanie baby craze my mom was receiving beanies by the dozens (literally). Her being such the great mom always allowed me to keep one of each....so here is the result - my husband wondering what the heck he got himself into and my pile of beanies:
Things like a mound of beanies really remind me of just how crazy awesome my mom really was. Honestly, I kind of forgot how much time we spent looking at beanies, collecting them or trying to sell them.. I think the best/worst was probably when McDonalds had the teanie beanies....ugh, I'm surprised that I don't weigh 200+ lbs after how many happy meals we ate. Image going through the drive through and ordering 10 happy meals for 2 people. ...it happened.

A Day with Natalie

Yesterday Natalie and Jeanne came over for a play date. We went to Lake Elmo Park Reserve to play on their massive playground and also took some time to skip rocks into the Lake. What a great day!

Today we had a fairly lazy day. I started the day off by weeding for a couple hours and Brian mowed the lawn. Once that was done we reward our hard work by finally getting a table for our deck. Then our quiet day began...

Brush your pet's teeth!

Brian and I learned a hard lesson...and sadly for Sassy she felt the pain. Today Sassy had her teeth cleaned. I dropped her off at 9:30 am this morning and we picked her up at 4 pm this afternoon. The pictures are kind of gross, but it proves the point of how important it is to brush your pet's teeth either daily or every other day.

...poor Sassy

Before:

After: