Shutdown: Day 1

How ridiculous!

Ben was home today due to the shutdown.  Since this is not a political blog I will spare you my rant.  

It was one of my two "off days" for this week and we had a pleasant time together.  After a leisurely breakfast we took a brisk walk down the hiker-biker trail and later did some serious Internet research on Boulder real estate. 

But the big event was spending about two hours pruning out vines and junk trees that were blocking the view of our house from the drive.   Here's the "in process" photo: 

See all that red?  Turns out a dogwood tree was hiding in all the brush.

It was very satisfying to see the pretty dogwood emerge into its own as everything was cleared away around it.

Ben was especially pleased since "for a fellow who wasn't working" he had saved a lot of money by not hiring this work out to a landscape crew.   And as an added bonus we enjoyed doing it together.  

I hope that Ben (and the 800,000+ other people who are out of work due to Congress not doing its job) are back to work tomorrow but it's not looking likely.