Calling all Gardeners!

Just want to give a shout out to our residents out there who are Gardeners.  Some might wonder if we are crazy trying to garden in this climate, with this wind. That is not the case at all.  Typically we garden for the sheer love of it.  Watching something you plant grow successfully, whether it be eaten at your table or providing nectar for the bees, it is a beautiful thing.  I have met a few in our community that have the same passion for gardening as I do.  We must deal with the same challenges such as wind, pocket gophers, deer, rabbits and to me the most challenging of all, Grasshoppers. 

If you could share some tips for successful gardening that would be greatly appreciated!   Our local http://elbert.colostate.edu/ office is a wonderful resource, but usually I find the best tips from the gardeners themselves. 

In our garden we only use drip watering due to the high winds here.  In the past I have used "soaker" hoses however this year I will be going with emitter hoses.  They are smaller, easier to get directly to the plants.  

My favorite thing to grow every year is pumpkins for my grown daughters living in the city.  They enjoy picking their pumpkins to take home and carve with their children.

How about you?  What are your gardening tips?  Favorite things to grow?  How you keep the pests out of the garden?  

Board of Director's Meeting tonight, April 11, 2013 6:00 pm.

The HOA board of directors meeting is tonight.  Homeowners are welcome to attend.  One of our homeowners told us a story of their experience with an HOA they were a part of where homeowners looked forward to the meetings!  They gathered in neighborly friendship at each meeting and these meeting were highly attended.  As in the MAJORITY of all the homeowners came to every meeting.  That is a wonderful story.

How can we get there from here?  Well, may be it starts with just a few people.

Board Meeting 3-14-2013

I attended the Board Meeting last night in order to propose a locked bulletin board for Community notices.  I had hoped the Community would have the same advantage as the board by having a protected environment for our notices.  The board voted unanimously against it due to costs, not wanting control of it, fear of vandalism.  It was mentioned that if homeowners want their notices seen they will have to be diligent an keep putting up new notices if someone rips theirs down.  And so it goes....

What about the conduct at the HOA meetings?  Anyone else ever gone to a meeting and felt a bit beat up?  This was discussed last night for just a few minutes at the end of the meeting.  What bothers me is the statement that was said by more than two of the board members is "You can't control how people act".  Excuse me? Let's all take a minute to meet this here document. I would assume the board is familiar with it, but maybe it needs to be dusted off and read again.


http://www.pawneehillshoa.org/media/PHCA_ConductOfMeetings.pdf

There are absolutely rules for meetings.  Now the argument that it was not a meeting deserves a bit of discussion as well.  Due to the fact that our community rarely meets a quorum, the official meetings are often adjourned, then the option of discussion is offered. That is great!  We need to be able to discuss issues, but not without the same rules as a meeting.  It is ridiculous to accept that it is OK for Homeowner's to get attacked at meetings because of their views.  This is why the community doesn't want to get involved.  The board may enjoy conflict, but the majority folks don't.

HOA Meeting

The HOA board meeting is coming up next week on Thursday, March 14th, at 6pm.  Anyone planning to attend?

Community Meeting Tuesday, March 19th 6:30 pm

From discussions on this blog a meeting has been set to meet together for a casual potluck and begin to discuss community issues at our Clubhouse.   This is not an HOA meeting it is meant for residents to get together to discuss any issues we have with the intention of finding solutions.  Please come with ideas that can be explored.  We welcome you, please tell your neighbor about our meeting and that your heard about it here on our blog. The one for our community!

Solutions and Forward Thinking

On one of our tabs, "Facilities" it has been mentioned that our sign has been recently re-stained and while it looks nice there is a bit of dribble into the white lettering.  When I look at the sign I don't see the dribbling, I see a community that is struggling with moving forward. I am tempted to suggest we call the subdivision "Pawnee Hills 112" because that comes up over and over and over again. I believe everyone is very much aware that it takes the 112 yes votes to change the covenants. That message has been sent and received.  Now let's talk about solutions and start thinking outside the box a bit.  Let's do the math again and question it.  Let's talk about changes we'd like to see and get started on writing the language.  There are things we need to change inside the community like how we treat each other as well as how the outside community perceive us and our community.

112 is based on 167 homes in the community and needing 2/3 of those homes to provide a yes vote for the proposed change.  How about some discussion on out of those 167 homes are they all occupied by owners or bank owned - shall we change the language to be fair so that the banks are expected to vote?  Or is that beside the point. We need to get to a reasonable calculation amount while still protecting our community. We also need to understand that some changes won't affect all of us.  Let's break through the need to control others and let each of us have the right to express our interests.  We own our land, the HOA does not.  A new homeowner belongs here just as much as someone who has been here for 30 years.  We are all one in the same, residents of Pawnee Hills so please let's work together and make Pawnee Hills an amazing and friendly community where our children and grandchildren can learn about living in the country.

Take a look at the Community Issues page, one of our residents is voicing concerns about the Grasshoppers.  We fight them too every year.  I can't want to hear your solutions too.  I haven't tried the NoLo but that is what I was leaning towards this year.  Today as the snow is blowing around I have a terrible case of Spring Fever!

We Welcome Your Comments

Please feel free to comment on proposed changes no matter what your position is.  We want to hear from everyone.  You can place your comments here anonymously if you prefer.  And if you are a resident here that does not participate in the voting process, please tell us why and what we can do to make it better so you will vote.