Project day

 We're continuing on with our carport project.  We contracted with Andy McChesnie, McChesnie and Sons, to haul in the gravel to create a pad for the carport.  We also needed to add some new gravel to parts of our driveway.  

Andy is a neighbor who we have known for years.  His dad, Clifford, did a lot of "cat" work way back in 1978 when we first logged and cleared some of our property so we could build our house.  Clifford's "cat" was called Alice, (Allis Chalmers).  Andy was helping his dad back then and might have been twelve years old at the time?  He told us yesterday that he was five when he first started working with his dad.

Clifford operated machinery with great skill and finesse and so does Andy.  During past few days both Jon and I were reminiscing about those days long ago.  Every Sunday morning Clifford would stop by to visit and drink coffee around our kitchen table.  Good times.

The photo below is from 1978.  Andy is unhooking/hooking a log as Clifford looks on.  The machine is Alice. 

This is the pile of gravel for the carport.

Andy did a great job smoothing out the gravel.

Yes, we needed more gravel for the driveway.

Once the gravel project was done we moved on to working in the garden.

Jon helped me out by weeding my onion rows.  After he finished we added some more mulch.

My peonies are almost finished blooming and now it's time for the lilies to put on their show.

 

The hummingbird babies are everywhere!  We have three feeders out now to keep them all happy and fed.

Happy Thursday and enjoy another beautiful day.  

Sweet the rain's new fall, sunlit from heaven...

 ...like the first dew fall, on the first grass, praise for the sweetness, of the wet garden...

After a day of wind, rain and a bit of a chill, this morning the sky was beautiful.  DIL Julie would love these clouds.  Later today JP and family will be here to visit for a couple of days followed by David and family on Saturday.   That means Jon and I will be celebrating our "weekend"  and Father's Day early.

Yesterday I baked a ham and scalloped potatoes in preparation for our family get-together and this morning there's a bit more baking to do.  

Miss Lady will be so happy to have more people here to spoil her.  

Happy Father's day to all the dads out there!  

Find a shady spot

 This might be "the year of the garden".  It's June 13th and almost everything in my garden already looks as it would on July 13th.  Amazing!

The planting box is looking great and soon the wave petunias will be waving over the edge along with the trailing nasturtiums.    

My lettuce in a pot is doing well.

This tomato is awesome and also a mystery since it was one without a label.  I don't know what I'm going to get, but it's setting tomatoes.  There's some lettuce and a couple of sunflowers also growing in the pot. 

The patio cherry tomatoes look great.

The begonias love the heat and the humidity.

I prefer a shady spot.

These will be ready to pick soon.

Early Girl tomatoes in a pot.

This year I am growing potatoes in two huge pots and adding more soil as they grow.  

The peonies are putting on a show and look like bright pink beacons in my yard.  The rain last week kind of knocked them down but they're still blooming.

We have appointments in Sandpoint today so I was out in the garden early and now it's way too hot to be out there.  They say we have some cooler temps ahead and I'm looking forward to that.

Yesterday Jon assembled and installed a portable air conditioner for our bedroom.  He did a great job and we used it for the first time last night.  It's necessary when we have smokey skies since we can't open the windows.  Our air quality the last few days has been "fair".  We like "excellent".

Also yesterday, Miss Lady went to the groomers and had "the works".  The groomer at Petco, Alyssia, did a beautiful job and Lady will at least be clean for 8 hours.   She's an "outside dog" so it's only a matter of time before she gets dirty again.   She is slowly learning about trips in the car, to the groomer, etc.  and is figuring out what we want her to do.   Smart dog.

Stay in the shade today and enjoy the beautiful weather.

A little thunder and lightning cloud

 So.  You want some rain?   The evening sky just before the downpour.

I would call these "angry clouds". 

In-between the downpours and whenever it was dry enough to be outside, we worked on clearing a space for a carport.  We've talked about getting one for many years and have finally made the big decision.  

There were three very tall birch trees that had to be removed, plus some white fir.  

Jon is skidding them to separate piles, one for firewood and one that's just brush to burn in the fall.  Lady is in charge and stays away from the truck and she's figuring out that when Jon is running his chainsaw, she should be on the porch.

The last one decided to get hung up in the tree tops and he finally had to put the chain on it to rotate it just enough to get it to fall.   The carport will be nestled between the three cedar trees since we really don't want to have to cut any of those down. 

My garden is growing like crazy.  I plan to get out there today to take some pics.  Meanwhile, I am working on spring cleaning that still needs to be done.  Yesterday I washed windows and there's still a lot of other "to-do's" on my list today.  

The weather has been beautiful, even with all the rain.  Enjoy!

Ten years ago

 These are photos from June 2013.  

I was helping Ann Wimberley set up tables etc. for the NAMI Far North fundraiser, Take A Seat At The Table.  

It looks like I had already harvested cherry tomatoes from my Red Robin plants, plus Jon had found a bolete mushroom.

We had also gone fishing.

I still have this planter, but a birch tree blew over in a wind storm, landed right on top of it, and broke the pedestal off. 

Spring flowers were blooming.

 Smoked Kokanee.  Speaking of which, we just enjoyed some from friend Bob Lizotte.  They were excellent!  

We had some stormy skies in 2013, but today looks like another "blue sky" day.   

Enjoy!

I gotta keep rollin'!

 Yesterday included another trip to Sandpoint for a doctor appointment that went as expected and then a few more errands.  The afternoon was nicer than expected with a bit of cloud cover and a breeze, which made it cool enough to do some more garden chores late in the day.  

The is the first time I've grown bok choy and it appears to be doing well so I decided to harvest some to add to a stir fry for dinner.  There's also plenty of fresh lettuce for salads.  

This afternoon we're going to our first potluck for the summer season.  It looks like a lovely day for it. 

Last weekend I went to the Old Ice Pizza with Kristine and Ellie to listen to guitarist, Ian Newbill.   This was one of the songs he sang and it brought back memories of the summer we built our house.  

Our builder, Kenny Walrath, loved this song(Driving my life away) and it had the perfect beat to pound nails to.   Son David was only six years old that summer, and he doesn't remember a lot about building the house, but he told us later that every time he hears this song, he thinks of Kenny.   Every morning on the job Kenny would plug in his boombox (remember those?) and listen to country music as he and Jon worked.  I believe it was a #1 hit on the music charts in 1980.

"But I gotta keep rollin'!"

Ian is a very talented musician and is very entertaining.   I'm not sure where he is playing this weekend, but if you get a chance to hear him this summer, go for it.

Another warm weekend coming up!

The flowers in my planting table are beginning to grow and some of the cucumber and nasturtium seeds have sprouted. 

This is my hummingbird planter.  It's an attraction just beneath our hummingbird feeders. The birds love it. 

Yesterday we drove to Sandpoint to run errands and go to the Safeway Pharmacy for some vaccinations.   We decided to get our covid boosters plus I needed my second shingles shot and Jon needed the latest pneumonia vaccine.   We're glad it's done and so far this morning other than a sore arm, everything is okay. 

Our yard and garden projects continue, but we're getting closer to done.   I only need to plant my carrot and beet seeds in the raised bed and that's it unless I can find some cabbage plants at the nursery today.  

June in Hope is "putting on the green".  What a show.

 Happy Friday!  Another beautiful day in the neighborhood.