Say hello to my little friend

I thought that the bee on the flower was cool. Sam who had been right beside me while taking these flower pictures, was gone. After my Dad's experience this summer with the bees and Sam getting stung while raking hay, he's just a little uneasy around them. Can't say that I blame him, but this little guy was to busy to worry about us.

so what is this one?

I know what this flower is, but I have had two people who looked at the pictures ask if it was something else and the more I think about it I agree it looks like another flower other than what it really is. Any guessers?????????

the Flowerbeds at the Dam lookout platform

The other night while the rest were watching the water at the dam, I got distracted by the great flower beds at the look out platform. Since I didn't get ANY flowers planted this year, I was glad to get the opportunty to get up close and personal with these flowers. Isn't this one great? (its currently our desktop background)

Okay last Dam picture

Here's another shot, of the backside of the dam. The trees you see out in the water are normally on each side of the little stream that generally flows away from the dam. That's about it for my dam pictures. Sam was fascinated by it all and really likes to 'play' with our tech toys, took several pictures with our camera and a few with my cell phone. He took a little video clip as well, and if we had faster internet where I could get it to upload, I would share it with you all, but one of those 'perks' of country living and being too tight to pay for DSL is that we have slow dial-up internet.
I spent most of my time at the 'dam' taking pictures of flowers. They have some beautiful flower beds around the lookout area where we were. Hopefully I will get a chance to post some later. Today is a busy day. Headed to town for my one mommy indulgence, trip to the 'salon' and back to town later to pick up a couple of Sam's buddies for a sleepover. August starts our diary and our month as hosts at church, plus all the other madness that goes on here, so I better get to it. Have a great weekend and try to stay cool, (predicting 100 degree weather here!!)
From Tulip~
KH

More Dam Pictures

The back side of the dam was probably the most extreme thing that we looked at. There's normally this little 'stream' that flwoing away from the dam. Not the wild turbulent whirlpool that we saw last night. A still shot like this fails to show the churning of the water, but definitely gives you an idea of how wild it all was. The 'blue' U shaped thing on the far side of the water was a dike built up with stand to protect the electrical substation, we estimated that would possibly protect against another 35 feet of higher water, which David thought would only be necessary if the dam broke, which I suppose they were concerned about! YIKES! Can't see it in this picture, but along the road that goes down to the substation there was a ditch FULL of seep water, not a comforting feeling..........

Dam PIctures

Well nosiness got the best of us. After hearing about the water and watching the lake levels as recorded online, and just having to see it for ourselves. Last night we drove over to Clarence Canon Dam on Mark Twain Lake. I guess I didn't get the 'perfect shot' but it's not as if they wanted people getting any closer than we were, and with my less enthusiastic feelings about heights, that much water, bridges, etc......... well let's just say I was close enough.
Here's some info about what is going on there:
The lake is 30 feet above flood pool. This is because of all of the flooding along the Mississippi river and their efforts to hold back some of the water, well now we have a 'mess'
The 'normal' amount of water running through there is 12,000 cubic feet per second. (anyone interested 1 cubic foot equals 7.48 gallons, do the math!)
The current amount running through the dam is 58,000 cubic feet per second which we did the math and its over 433,000 GALLONS per second, OMG!
There are four flood gates, which last night they had open 7 feet high and each gate is 32 feet wide, so I guess it makes it easy for that much water to run through.... (433,000+ gallons!!!)
Pretty mind blowing. Those in our group braver than me, which would be all the rest (my husband, my kids, my in laws) walked along the pedestrian walkway over the dam. David was thrilled to tell me that it really shook alot when you were standing over the flood gates. Great, my head was spinning and I was feeling faint just walking maybe 40 out onto the bridge, no where near the 'vibration'
Anyway, it's something that hopefully we won't see every year (or ever again!), and looks like the lake workers have alot of things to contend with to get the lake back to normal. There was some sort of net catching the debris and keeping it from dam, which I am guessing will keep several people busy for quite some time getting rid of that mess.
There was water in places I have never seen water before over there. Truly a sight, any of you locals who are nosey like us, go check it out.
From Tulip~
KH

Farm and Ranch Living

Well it's a couple of days till our month of being diariasts begins. I have spoke with the photographer, James Fashing. James grew up in Sturgeon and is a 'farm kid' and now works for the MFA magazine, Today's Farmer. So who better to take pictures for our story. Someone we know and someone more than used to tromping around in the mud to get the 'picture'. We are really looking forward to doing this.
Reiman Publications is the parent company for several well known magazines, Country, Taste of Home, Country Woman, Birds and Blooms and many more. I love these magazines, they're full of wonderful articles and not full of ads. I feel like you get more magazine for your money. Here is their website:
http://www.reimanpub.com/Revise/Magazines.asp
Go and check out their magazines, I think that there is truly something for anyone to read about in one magazine or the other. I hope you all enjoy them as much as we do.
Make sure to go to our cousins' blog and read about the flood water of Mark Twain Lake. We really have an 'abundance of water' and they are really starting to run into some problems there. She has a great article linked in her blog about the lake and all the water problems. (it's Kim, Scott and Jay Hasekamp, her blog is on my blog list, FYI)
We are playing 'catch up' around here this week, trying to get the house back in order and do all the things that need to happen before school starts around here, which is less than three weeks away. Shopping, last minute sleepovers, organizing, etc etc etc...... end of the summer stuff, seems like I just blogged about beginning of summer stuff. Times flies, when you're up to your eyeballs.
From Tulip~
KH