We came home a day early from camping this weekend due to heavy wind blowing dust everywhere, but it was still a good time. I stayed at camp most of the time because it was just me and the kids, and I couldn’t go off hiking with the rest of the group because the kids couldn’t have handled that much hiking. Traci came down Saturday evening, and Sunday the whole family went on a drive with several other people to see the Upper Black Box. By Sunday afternoon the wind had been blowing hard for two straight days, so we decided to just pack up and head home.
I was off work yesterday, so I leisurely spent the day hosing all the dust off our camping gear. Bradley learned to ride his bike without training wheels while we were camping, so yesterday evening Traci and I walked while the boys rode their bikes up to the park so they could ride on the old tennis courts for a while. Bradley is fearless while riding his bike, which is just the opposite of how Michael was. Bradley will ride his bike down steep hills and off curbs, and he’s only been riding for a few days! When he crashes, he just picks the bike up and keeps going. Michael was pretty cautious when he first learned to ride, and the slightest crash usually caused him to cry a little.
Over the past two years, I’d wanted to either lay culvert or pour concrete in the irrigation ditch that runs through my back yard. I actually bought some culvert last year, but it was too big to fit inside the existing concrete ditch where it enters and leaves my property, so I returned it. I also once dug the ditch out in preparation for pouring concrete, but they started running irrigation water before I had a chance to pour it. Last night, I had the idea of lining the ditch with large, flat rocks and filling the gaps with mortar. Today after I got off work, Traci and I drove up onto Wood Hill and found enough rocks to cover the bottom of the truck bed with a layer and a half of sandstone. After dinner, we started digging out the dirt and laying down flat rocks along the bottom of the ditch, then piled up some elongated rocks to form the sides of the ditch. It turned out looking really nice so far, but we’ve got a few more days’ worth of work to do to get it finished. When we’re done, it’ll eliminate the mud that’s caused me so many headaches since we got a dog last year.