Thursday, June 30, 2016

Wildflower Identification: Fleabane

I recently noted these small white and yellow flowers growing alongside the lilies, and abundant along the ditch. They had the appearance of a daisy with the white petals and the yellow interior; but...

Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Geology Beneath Our Home

I'm a scientist... I love knowing what is going on around me, and why things are the way they are. While I studied Atmospheric Science in college I also ended up with a Geology minor. I'll use a bit...

Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Growing Up Country

No big adventures today... Had another round of thunderstorms this morning which provided 0.22" of rain. I took this quick panorama of the storm as it moved into east Topeka. An evening at home brought...

Monday, June 27, 2016

Sunday, June 26, 2016

Catching Up

A busy week has kept the updates away as I had a work trip to St. Louis, Missouri and Alyssa and the boys headed up to Iowa. The boys took swimming lessons while they were in Iowa like last year, and...

Sunday, June 19, 2016

Weekend Fun - Zoo & More...

We started the weekend off with made from scratch cinnamon rolls that no one could get enough of! There were just a few leftover for Sunday morning, but the boys and I cannot wait to have them again,...

Friday, June 17, 2016

Staying Cool...

Summer has arrived with temperatures in the 90s and heat indices in the 100s during the afternoon for much of this week, and today was no different. Today's high temperatures was 96°F and the heat index...

Thursday, June 16, 2016

Interacting with Wildlife

Today the boys got to interact with a friendly butterfly and a bird as it took its first flight. The oldest with the butterfly definitely appears hesitant as it crawled around. They all enjoyed watching...

Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Sounds from The Porch

Yesterday evening and early overnight I captured two ~30 second video clips as thunderstorms rumbled nearby. Alongside the thunder you could hear the rain falling, birds or frogs, and pretty much nothing else. Makes for quite the peaceful feeling, doesn't it? ...

Monday, June 13, 2016

One of the Daily Visitors

One of the great benefits of our new country home is the exponential increase in birds from our prior city living. We put all of our bird feeders in the front yard so the boys can see them from their...

Severe Weather Risk - 14 June 2016

Ample moisture and instability will combine with at least a couple surface boundaries and small disturbances in the upper atmosphere to bring the risk for severe weather to the Central Plains. Very large...

Sunday, June 12, 2016

Saturday, June 11, 2016

Gotta Have a Little Fun!

Plenty of household work has been done, from cleaning to painting, to repairs and replacing. With all of that going on you need to take a break and have a little fun, after you assemble the fun of course... Last...

Thursday, June 9, 2016

Next Big Project: New Roof!

Today's big home improvement project was a new roof (shingles, underlayment, flashing, etc.). Thankfully this project didn't involve any manual labor on my part! The prior roof had numerous impact marks...

Wednesday, June 8, 2016

New Carpet!

New carpet was (finally*) installed today, from near 9am to 2pm with the boys onlooking every step of the way. My wife said our oldest was perfectly happy with the blue padding, and informed one of the...

Tuesday, June 7, 2016

Carpet Removal

This evenings task was carpet and pad removal, alongside hammering back in the staples all over the floor as a result of the previous pad installation. I did manage a bit of help in carrying out piec...