Saturday Morning Sludge

I always like to take a picture of my fish while I can actuall see them. It's that time of year where I drain the water out, catch the fish, haul off the winter sludge, then put the fish back in a much cleaner home. It's not a job for the faint of heart. Sludge, slime, smell and usually something pops out that gives me that short adrenaline rush. It's usually a bullfrog and I don't mind them, they just startle me when I'm in there looking for fish and something jumps out at me.

This year we had no bullfrogs, and I actually missed them. What I did find was this neat lizard. He was living up in the waterfall area - where I found him as I was moving rocks and digging out more sludge.

The kids thought he was cool, so we kept him around in a bucket so they could watch him and so I wouldn't step on him during my cleaning.

The pond is now clean, fish are happy. We also went and got some more fish - from 13 last year to 6 or was it 7 this year. That Grey Heron depleted my pond big time. So, we went to the pet store and spurged. YUP, almost $2.00 on 6 feeder fish. Luckest fish around yesterday.

And hey, can anyone identify this thing?

Mom's Idea of Fun

Randy and I have been trying to do more things this year. Instead of just saying "we should do this, or we should do that" we are actually following through and doing it. We've talked about hiking - and used to do some BK (before kids) and now that Delaney is almost 5, we thought we'd give it a try. Of course, most would start small and work their way up, not us. We started with a 5 mile hike marked "strenous". It was going to be a beautiful day, and although my throat was bothering me, I took some tylenol and we set out. 1.4 miles to the summit, piece of cake I thought. And well, that part wasn't bad. We made it to the top and enjoyed a picnic and the view - as you can see from the picture of the kids - it was a gorgeous view.

Once we started our trip down, the fun and games were over. We started counting how many steps there were - to keep Gabriel occupied and because we were glad we were going DOWN and not up them. My sore throat was thinking of coming back - but thankfully I had packed more tylenol in my bag. Gabriel and Delaney found walking sticks to help them out along the way also.

Here's my girl, for 5 miles, 4 hours and 1,109 stairs (remember I said we counted them) she held up like a trooper, and in true Delaney fashon on the short, FLAT connector trail, within site of our car, she fell and cut up her poor leg. She makes it through all five miles on rough trail, and that's how she hurts herself. That's my girl.

Stone Mountain was an awesome place to hike and we had a great time. Now that we made it through this one, all those other trails will be a piece of cake. (And as a side note, this hike truly did me in - instead of listening to my body and the sore throat - I just loaded up on tylenol and kept going - on Monday with a temp of 102, I was literally down and out!)