New Piano and Groundhogs Part Two

The big day has come! Our piano arrived safe and sound this morning; we have been playing it non-stop. It is beautiful and we are ecstatic that it's here! This evening for Family Home Evening, we just sang Primary songs and had a short lesson on 'prayer'. Claire was in an ornery mood so when Ryan asked her if she thinks Heavenly Father hears our prayers, she said "No, he doesn't hear them. He's never given me anything I've asked for." She wasn't bitter or anything, she just said it matter-of-factly. It was kind of funny, but of course we had to correct her and remind her of things that Heavenly Father has done for our family. Then we sang a lot of songs and Ryan and I played some piano/clarinet duets. It has been so wonderful to have a piano in my home for the first time since I left home almost 10 years ago. And it doesn't hurt that it is a fabulous piano with a beautiful touch and tone. We are very happy with our purchase.

They drove the truck right up to our front door through our yard - yes, we gave them permission to.

The ramp from the truck to our door.
Notice the hideous linoleum - it will be removed when we replace the carpet.

Man that thing looks heavy, I'm just glad I'm not moving it!

So happy! The first song on the new piano!

A little music to end the day by Ryan.

I did take a break this afternoon from playing while I went to Wal-Mart, The Home Depot and Old Time Pottery on an important mission. The name of the mission is "Operation: Jerry Groundhog". A groundhog has moved in under our deck and is reeking havoc on our garden. It has eaten every ripe tomato, eaten and destroyed our pumpkin vine roots so that the vines are dying, eaten all of our parsley and eaten all of the flowers off of our annuals in the front flower bed. Needless to say, we are not happy with our new neighbor. So Ryan has done a little research in how to get rid of a groundhog - legally. This morning we tried to drown it out by pumping it's burrow full of water, but I don't know if it was in there and nothing happened except that our garden got very muddy. So I was ready to pull out the big guns (metaphorically speaking of course, the real guns might come out later if this doesn't work though). My ammo included multiple rags doused in ammonia (I about knocked myself out doing this) thrown under the deck and around the garden, an ugly wind ornament that is supposed to scare them away (they don't like moving things), lots of Epsom salt dumped everywhere and then the real good stuff was a $15 bottle of Critter Ridder sprinkled everywhere. The Critter Ridder is heavy duty black pepper and pepper oil and all sort of nasty pepper stuff.

I had to go to three stores to find everything though. Seeing as how Christmas is almost here (are you kidding me?) all of the summer/garden stuff is gone and Halloween, Thanksgiving and yes, Christmas stuff is everywhere. Old Time Pottery is usually full of tacky lawn ornaments, but it has all been replaced with giant nutcrackers, tacky tree ornaments and badly painted nick knacks. So I had to settle for the only wind-blown lawn thing they had - an ugly tractor wind spinner. After I put it in the garden, Ryan ripped off the tractor and gave it to William. I wonder what Ryan would have done if I had bought that giant plastic frog? So we will see what becomes of Jerry the groundhog. Curse all of this wildlife!! Who knew it could be so annoying? Squirrels, groundhogs, raccoons, deer; what's next? We will keep you posted.

The lovely tractor wind-spinner (before Ryan dismantled it)