Round-About the Weekend

Below our house is Hoback Junction.  Highway 191 South and Highway 89 south meet at a circle, confounding those who have never driven through a round-about.  Sitting in the back yard at our place, it is not uncommon to hear long blaring horn shouts as road-raged travelers sound their impatience for round-about newbies. 

The middle of this circle is mounded with a mixture of mostly gravel and a bit of dirt.  The first year after its construction, locals had all kinds of ideas of how to make this mound of dirt turning to weeds look nice.  Bronze sculptures were the popular requests and were shut down by the Wyoming Department of Transportation.  People kept talking and speculating and I started doing.

Thanks to watching a prairie in Illinois turn from weed patch to splendor, I dug down and started weeding.  Each weed disturbance got a hand full of local flower seeds (bought with my own money).  It was not a one day project.  The round about is bigger than one person's effort.  It takes me days every spring, picking away at this beautification project.

I pulled weekend duty last weekend - the first nice weekend of the year.  Saturday morning was robust with calls, peaking with this high-peak pass call, a car fire on Teton Pass.  Check out the news article and picture at this BUCKRAIL ARTICLE .  (I really have not been promoted, incidentally!).  Things quieted down after that, allowing me some community service time, making full attack on goats beard and sweet clover plants. 

Want to see the round-about?  You can find it live at HOBACK ROUNDABOUT . 

As I wrestled with the stubborn sweet clover, I saw the giant bumblebees.  These bees are like C-130 bombers!  Sadly, I am not smart enough to take the live photo off my phone and show you this bumblebee's flight.  It is super-cool! That is a white penstemon and blue flax flowers, both I planted as seeds (proud gardener report). 

Mike spent Sunday on the Snake River getting his tri-annual re certification in Swiftwater Rescue.  He had a very good day, but a long one.  As the day ticked on, I tackled the lawn chores.  I've always wanted to cut the diagonal on the Becker yard steep-sloped lawn.  Anyway you cut this lawn, there will be a time when  you are putting all of your body weight on one side of the mower to keep it from tipping over.  Serious.  Thanks to my substantial body mass, I am pretty good at this technique!  I took a picture when I finished the diagonal cut. (Okay, I realize, this may not be a big deal for most of you, but if you are a grass-cutting connoisseur, you will appreciate this diagonal versus the traditional horizontal cut). 

Mike returned home from his big day, sunburned and weary.  We retired to the back yard, turned on the outside speakers and relaxed in our yard to a popping campfire.  The temperature was just right, the grass cut and all tidy-looking.  It was a good day, a very good day.