Not so puzzling

After our holiday encounter with the "Cate from Hell" mega puzzle, the girls decided to take it a little easier on their last trip to Wimberley. So they got out this 100 piece kids puzzle puzzle and spent an agonizing ten minutes or so completing it. I'm such a proud papa!

Basketball Star

Braden and Kara are visiting today (with their escort's Vanessa and Stacey). It's cold and wet this weekend, so they're finding some alternates to there usual ways of having fun here. Kara's latest- this deflated basket ball that Ann bought a few months ago. Or maybe I shouldn't say deflated since it's never actually been inflated. Some weird kinda inflating valve which doesn't seem to fit anything. But no problem for Kara; she's having a blast walking around as Little Ms. Mushroom Head.

The Wall

My helper Vicente's last project for me was this retaining wall near the bottom of the hill in the backyard. It's backfilled with topsoil over a geotextile fabric. That geotextile allows excess water to slowly pass through so that water pressure doesn't tump the wall over, since the wall is just rocks stacked with no mortar.

So why all this bother and expense so far down the backyard? Glad you asked:

1- We've been having some erosion further down the hill from big rains, and this wall is designed remedy that by absorbing some of the runoff and thereby reducing to speed and volume of it downhill. We put a whole dirt truck load (10 tons) of dirt behind the wall to do the absorbing.

2- It makes a great place to plant plant wildflowers since it is about the only place on our property free of boulders sticking up all over the place. Ann is also thinking about planting some fruit trees once we are there often enough to keep them watered.

3- Makes a great way to get across our property, again since the area behind it is boulder-free and flat for easy walking.

4- It got rid of tons (literally) of rocks elsewhere in the yard. No rocks were trucked in for this project.

5- And of course, it helped support Vicente and his family!