In the News!

I wanted to share an article from my hometown newspaper about a health study that my mom is working on.  My mom, Ramona, is the School Resource Nurse for the Hermiston School District in Eastern Oregon.  This isn't the first time she's been featured in the paper for her hard work.  Pretty cool to know someone famous!

Earlier this year Jay and I visited my mom in Hermiston. It happened to have recently been School Nurse Day.  As we were driving to breakfast we happened upon a Thank You sign to my mom at my old grade school!

Make like a leaf..

..and fall all over our yard!  Our beautiful and full trees are in the process of shedding their leaves all over the yard.  While this has posed as a huge burden to us in the prior two years of homeownership, this year the leaves are quite welcome!  Since the yard project is on hold for the winter we are counting on the leaves to create a nice barrier between us and the mud pit that otherwise would be our yard. In an effort to help the leaves break down over time to provide more of a mulch, we picked up a lead shredder/blower/vacuum and Jay excitedly got to work.  Turns out the little machine can't really handle the massive amount of leaves we produce and wet leaves are a definite no go!  So back to the store went the little machine (minus the stylish canvas bag Jay is modeling...that didn't make it back in the box. Whoopsy!)

Thanks to Craigslist we picked up a gently used chopper that can macerate branches up to 2" in diameter.  We look forward to trying that bad boy out when the conditions are a little dryer in about, oh, 5 months or so.  

So now we have a few bare trees and those dang Sweet Gums that just won't stop torturing us - please drop your leaves!!  Enjoy the gallery below.