Roadeo

Saturday was the NYAPT Big Three Roadeo in Albany and I want to give a Big Thank You!! to all of the judges that came down to the conference early so that we could compete. I'm not certain but I think it takes almost as many judges as there are contestants to put on this event. Not only were there volunteers out on the course, the seven team leaders, there were the folks that administered the tests, others that played the part of student, several were runners, others were stuck in a little room all day tallying score sheets, and undoubtedly many more that I haven't mentioned. Everyone was pleasant and worked hard to make sure that the contestants had a great day.

I drove down on Friday afternoon and had dinner with some of the other people there from the CNYAPT chapter. After dinner I spent the evening battling the butterflies in my stomach by studying.

The Roadeo is an all day event with registration starting at 7:00 am. There we were given our t-shirts and contestant number. My registration had gone in late so I was expecting a very high number and was thrilled when they handed me #39! The first event of the day was a written, general knowledge exam and it was tough. I'm always worried that some of the questions are "trick" questions and I over think things. This cost me on at least a couple of questions :( There was also a written pre-trip test that we took later in the day.

We were then divided into "teams" and I was pleasantly surprised that there was someone I knew on my team and I quickly got to know others. Our team leader, Dave aka "Tangerine Man" was great!

Crowd near the announcer's table

I was quite worried about the surprise event, certain that I would have to do some type of backing skill so I was happy when it turned out to be a railroad question. We had to simply sit in the drivers seat and decide whether or not we had room to to cross the tracks and have a 15' cushion behind us before we got to the stop line represented by the cone. I decided that I wouldn't try it and I wish that they had told us what the correct answer was later in the day, when everyone was done.

Surprise Event

One of the activities between events was a smoke bus demonstration. Some of the pictures they used of a burning bus were ones I had taken at the Mass Casualty Incident Drill. How cool was that!

Smoke Bus

Straight Line

Serpentine

Offset Alley

Offset Alley

Parallel Parking

Traffic Jam

Diminishing Clearance

End of the road!

So how did I do? My #39 that I was so happy about turned out to be the 2nd to last number on the course because my class went last. I don't think that really affected me too much but let's just say that I have never had a worse trip around a roadeo course. I was waived off of both of the backing events and I struggled with the events that I normally sail through. Thank you Helen, for being friendly and helping me relax before I drove. I'm sorry your last ride of the day was such an awful one. Thank you to everyone from CNY that hung around to the end to give me moral support! If you guys hadn't been there for me I'm certain I would have dissolved into tears.

I didn't have a good score this year but it was the most fun I have ever had at a Roadeo!

State of the Garden

My sister has pointed out that I hadn't been posting much about my garden. There are areas that I am loving right now but there are more areas that I'm not!

I'm happy with butterfly hummingbird garden between the house and the garage. I initially envisioned masses of butterflies flitting through and instead I see an occasional one fly through. The hummingbirds are the real entertainment.

I'm very happy with the garage side except that it looks like there is an empty area in the center along the wall. I have cannas that are taking forever to get going. They took so long that I gave up on them and planted zinnias and now I have to move them - or just have an interesting mess. Hollyhocks do not get tall in this bed so I'm looking for a perennial that will get tall and not clash with the coneflowers and black-eyed susans that will be blooming shortly.

I'm not as happy with the house side. I planted the red lillies thinking they were the same as the ones on the other side. I love them! but they really need to be moved toward the back. I also love the combination of the red beebalm, gloriosa daisies and shata daisies but they need to be mixed up more because the daisies are all taller than the beebalm and are in the front. There are also a couple of big holes that I won't show you right now that I need a plan for.

The nightmare bed is once again looking scary but I'm still working on taming it. The milkweed smells wonderful so I don't mind working out there right now :-)


The front of the house has become overgrown and just blah. I have major plans for a makeover but will I get it done? Stay tuned.


The back and the other side of the house are so bad I won't even show them to you. They do contain some very pretty flowers however so here are just a couple.

Holiday Picnic

We spent the morning of the 4th with Mom and were just as surprised as she was when my niece called to say she was in town and coming to visit. We left before she arrived but I hear that she had a nice visit with her grandmother. I know that Mom enjoyed seeing her!

Our family picnic was on Sunday and my niece was able to join us. It was so nice to be able to catch up! Good food, great conversation and kickball - what more could we want?

Happy 4th of July!

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Vanishing Apple

I can hardly believe that it's been nearly three weeks since I posted anything. June is such a busy month here yet certainly there has been time where I could have written something quickly. Quite simply, I needed a blogging break I guess. More than that I needed a break from the computer. All winter and most of the spring I spent 8-12 hours a day parked on the couch with my computer on my lap.

After we moved into the new garage I started having lots of aches and pains, was winded easily and just was not feeling well so I finally broke down and went to my Nurse Practitioner. She took blood to check my thyroid, ordered a pulmonary function test and bullied me into going for a very overdue mammogram. After all the test results were in it was learned that I have very high cholesterol. The only other thing wrong with me is that I am fat. While I was relieved that there is nothing wrong I found the news very depressing. I have always been heavy and I know the only way that I personally will loose weight is by lots and lots of exercise. I have 60 pounds to loose but I'd be very happy to loose 35. There have been three other times in my life where I lost a lot of weight. When I was a teenager I went to live with my father on a farm and chores did the work for me. Twelve years ago I spent several hours a week in front of the TV cursing Richard Simmons. Five years ago we bought this house and spent 12 hour days working to make it habitable.

I have elected to take the summer off. I hope to spend a lot of time working in the garden, moving plants around and expanding beds. While we've been here five years now there are still things that I haven't done yet and some of the rooms already need repainting. I will be moving things around so that I have room to do aerobics. I'm tired just thinking about it.

I do have some fun things planned for the summer. There will hopefully be several family picnics, I will be going to the Roadeo next week and the grandkids will keep me busy. John and I will be spending a week away too.

Hopefully I can get back in the habit of writing with a minimum of Apple whine.

Another week has flown by!

Work kept me very busy this week. We are starting now to work on our Safety Expo for next October. I'm hoping that by starting earlier we'll be able to really expand and that I'll be more organized in the fall! A couple of people volunteered to take charge of sub-committees but I still have to cajole at least a couple more.

We went to Mom's a couple of times and I had to go for another test. On my one free day during the week I had a very pleasant morning visiting the gardens of two friends and they came all the way out here to see mine.



Yesterday was the first Epilepsy Walk held in this area. Not really knowing what to expect I took just Mike and Nikki and we headed out to support a friend. For a first time event it went very well. Most of the kids there were younger than Nikki so next year we'll make it a family event. They had games and crafts for the kids, raffles, food and music. I was worried that I'd have a hard time making it all the way around the loop that we walked but I took it slow and wasn't too sore when I finished :-) The kids were way ahead of me but I could see them so I let them do their own thing. It was actually nice having just the two of them as they got along well and I didn't have to deal with the bickering that happens here at the house. After the walk we went to the dairy for ice cream cones and then went to see Jae's new apartment.


I have a couple of dozen chores that need doing but the dust isn't going anywhere so I think I'll just head out and play in the garden.

Garden Path

I won't go into details of the week past. Instead I'll just say that I was busy all week and felt like I got nothing done. There are three more weeks of school left but the kids and I are all ready for vacation to begin. Some of my older elementary kids that know they'll be on a different bus next year are really testing my patience.

John did manage to get the screen room put back together. The weather was just perfect yesterday and I could have spent the entire day there reading a good book.


We haven't had much nice weather when I've had free time lately so instead of relaxing with a book I decided to take on my "Nightmare Bed." It doesn't look very scary in this picture, does it? I love the mass of ox-eyed daisies and the lupines have really done well out here while the ones by the house are looking sad. The lemon lilies look happy but there's a ton of grass to be pulled in with them.


Here's a longer view from the far side. I had originally laid out a nice path that the weeds and some of the self-sown plants obliterated. Even in this picture you can see that I'm winning the latest battle but with the type of weeds out there I imagine the war will rage on for years.


I had chores in other parts of the garden but the majority of the day was spent digging weeds and putting in a new path on the left side and under the new arch. Maybe I can work on the path to the right during the week. Right now it's mostly grass but there area few plants that will need to be moved.


We decided to try a vegetable garden this year. We've planted tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, peppers and watermelon so far plus we have a row of strawberries. We're killing the grass on both ends to have more room next year. We covered the plants when there was frost expected but we must have had a bit of frost on other nights as there is some damage but the plants look like they'll recover.


Despite the frost it won't be long until we have our first berries!