Debating

David does these online surveys and trails and such. This week a big bag of dog food came in the mail for him to get Miner to try. Neither of us are very much interested in switching his food, so we decided to donate it to the Scott County Humane Society (where we got Miner a year and a half ago).

While we were dropping the food off, we went and checked out the adoptable dogs. We've been debating for a while if we should get a buddy for Miner. We think he'd be fine, but aren't sure we have enough room and realize we would have to do the same work if not more than what we did when we got Miner. But we did see a wonderful little female black lab called Abby. She was so sweet and quiet.

The only bad thing is that David is busy with work now, so he doesn't have a lot of down time and that is keeping us from adopting. We don't want to if we can't spend lots of time with both dogs.

High and Dry

So, Davenport has a little flooding in downtown, but nothing more than what we had a couple of months ago. We live well up from the river, and not close enough to any of the creeks to have any real water problems. I can't go my normal way to work because of the flooding downtown, but that's no big deal.

I went to a conference in Sioux Center (northwest Iowa) this weekend. I-80 was closed between Walcott and Iowa City because of the Cedar River flooding. So, we had to re-route and take US-61 to US-20 to get to the west side of the state.

The Cedar River, Des Moines River, Iowa River and Raccoon River are all above 1993 levels. The Iowa DOT website has some pretty amazing pictures. 83 of Iowa's 99 counties have been declared disaster areas.

We're OK. David's brother in Cedar Rapids is OK. There sure are a lot of Iowans who aren't.

Throw Money at the Problem

The back yard is a disaster. The people that built the wall tore the grass up with their damn Bobcat. The wall is not level, it's leaning and they didn't backfill with rock. To top that all off, we've had like 10 feet of rain in since March. After spending 2 weekends thinking that we can fix it ourselves, we came to the realization that we have the money to pay someone to fix it. I think it will save David's back and joint (the blocks on the wall weigh 80 lbs.) and my sanity. So, in true Los Bike fashion, we are throwing money at the problem until it goes away.

Get This?!

Of the three Asiatic Lilies I planted Memorial Day weekend, I thought two were orange and one was white. But they all started blooming this weekend and they are ALL white. Maybe they start white and change? I wanted at least the one white to balance out with the white bleeding hearts on the other side of the front door. Oh well, we'll just have to plant some more lilies. :)

Sunday Crossword

I've been trying to work the Washington Post crossword puzzles online every day. I am typically really good at the beginning of the week. The first couple of weeks, I wasn't so good on the weekends. Today, I got almost done with the Sunday Challenge before giving up. Yay me!

Scavenger Hunt

This afternoon, my friend Shawna, her 5-year-old son Payton, and our friend Chad participated in a "Green" scavenger hunt. The intent was that you should complete the entire hunt on foot, bike or public transport. Of the three teams that competed, we were the only ones that went completely green. We had to find 16 individual items and get 22 different photos with at least 2 team members in them. Some of the best ones (or best stories to go with them) are below:

We were the only team to take a photo in a fountain that actually had water in it. Payton was standing watch to alert us if any cops came by.


We had to get a photo with a uniformed police officer or firefighter. The first cop we stopped was a young guy who told us "No, I can't do that. I don't want to wind up on some my space page." So, while walking to the bus, Chad notices a fire truck and ambulance at a furniture store. His master plan was to walk by "casual like" and he'd take our picture with the paramedics in the background.


We walked across the Centennial Bridge (a first for me) and hit a gold mine at the Davenport Farmer's market as it was closing up. A photo with a port-a-potty. This is Chad's "paparazzi face."

The playground equipment there is SO cool.

We had to get our photos in front of someone playing a musical instrument. Chad and Shawna noticed that a couple kids had viola and flute cases. They had been playing at the farmers market to raise money for earthquake relief in China. They played beautifully and Chad gave them $5 towards their fundraiser.


We also needed a photo with something Polish. We saw a hot dog vendor packing up, so I told him what we were doing and that we needed a photo with something Polish and asked if he had any Polish Sausages. He said no, and as we thanked him and started to walk off, he said, "Wait, do you just need a picture with something Polish? I'm Polish!" So Chad, Shawna and Payton took a picture with him. He tells us, "the name's Crackwheel." Not sure that's exactly how it's spelled, but that sure is what it sounded like to us.


We also needed a photo in front of the vats at a local brewery. We visited Front Street Brewery in Davenport. Their vats are down in the basement. Chad talked the bar tender into taking us down there. It's down 2 flights of stairs, through the banquet room, through a storage area and way in the back.

This final photo is all the items we had to collect. The hardest to find was a non-expired pizza coupon. 4 papers and a phone book later, Shawna was able to get one from the Radisson in Moline.


It was a great time. Even though we were the last team to finish, we got a bonus prize for actually going green. We each got John Deere water bottles and a $10 gift card to Best Buy!

Memorial Day Weekend Projects

Here's what we did for the long weekend. In 3 stages, I removed this pile of rock from the front and side flowerbeds. In my estimation, it was about 30 wheelbarrow trips from the front yard to the back, half of which David did for me.

Getting rid of that stuff let me put in 3 Asiatic Lilies and one more purple Coral Bells, 4 bags of top soil plus most of the dirt pile left over from widening the parking pad and 8 bags of cypress mulch. The end result is quite nice if I do say so myself.

David hung the ledger boards for the deck in the back yard. Hopefully the weather will hold this week and the retaining wall guy will be able to start tomorrow.

I also picked up this cute bug made out of a glass insulator (like from old power lines) at the farmer's market.