In keeping with the Seagull Charter's theme, Happy Birthday to my sis, Kathy who has the hold on the pole while my youngest sis, Mitzi, watches. Another Seagull Charter's adventure that was quite a few years ago. I hope she has a great day!
I was the lucky recipient of some plums from my friend Beth and decided to try making a plum torte with them. I've never made a torte, but it turns out it's pretty easy.
We used to have a good-sized Italian Plum tree, but every year this huge bear kept coming back to eat the plums. We would try to pick all of them, but we couldn't reach the few at the top. He would climb in the tree for a dozen plums and after several years, he finally broke all of the branches out of the tree. We had to cut it down.
At first he's just shaking the tree, but then he climbs in it and Really shakes the tree! It's better viewing if you enlarge the video.
A couple of years ago Jon and I did a major prune job on our grapes in the grape arbor. It was so drastic that we weren't sure we'd every have grapes again, but turns out it wasn't a problem. We have lots of grapes this year, both Concords and White and they're ready to pick. We picked three buckets of 2&1/2 gallons each. Jon brought up my steamer from the basement and we'll see how much juice I get. I'm thinking it's going to be more than enough for jelly and juice.
The temperature was chilly enough that a jacket was necessary, even during the afternoon. The forecast is for cooler temps and maybe some more rain. Fall might finally be here.
It does not seem that autumn is here when it's 80 degrees outside, but that is what will happen on Monday.
So, that means I need to catch up here. Stuff that's been happening since my last post. We celebrated several birthdays, my youngest brother Roy and DIL Julie, both on the same day, plus Neil Wimberley's. Happy Birthday to all of these wonderful people.
Julie and Ben on one of our hikes.
Neil, 4th of July parade.
Roy, with Jim McNeeley, on Seagull Charters.
We also celebrated our 53rd anniversary, although I will admit that we actually didn't do a lot of celebrating. After 53 years, we don't get too excited about another one. All those years we've done a lot of things, seen a lot of things, worked hard, played hard, celebrated with family and friends - as they say, "the good, the bad, and the ugly." Many things we never in our wildest dreams expected to see or live through. For the last ten years we have wondered if our country and the world will ever be right again. So now, after 53 years, we wake up each morning just happy to be together to celebrate and enjoy another day.
We lost Robert Redford, who was one of the good guys. I've been a fan since I saw the movie, "The Chase" and I don't remember the year, but the movie was in black and white. Marlon Brando was the star, along with Jane Fonda. He was a great actor and director and also one of those people who had the chance to really make a change with the Sundance Film Festival and his work on the environment. The world will miss him, but his work carries on.
Jon's dahlias are blooming like crazy and a new one pops out every now and then.
My pink petunia won't give up.
The pink is even reflecting in the sky above!
After our last rainfall, which was a wonderful two inches of rain, we had a heavy dew one morning. It totally weighed down my dill plants.
I harvested my Honeycrisp apples and they are huge! I have never grown apples this big and I won't complain. They will keep in my crispers in the basement fridge all winter. Some of them are going to be either an apple pie or apple crisp.
Our grapes are almost ripe. They're sweet, but should get a bit sweeter before I pick them for jelly and some juice.
This is a BIG apple.
A River Runs Through It, the final scene, with Robert Redford narrative.
"Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of those rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs". "I am haunted by waters": Norman Maclean
Autumnal equinox 2025 brings fall to the Northern Hemisphere on Sept. 22. Specifically, 2:19 p.m. pacific time.
This is the "stare down". A Border Collie stare down. She's waiting for one of us to pick up the ball/toy and throw it. She never takes her eyes off of us. It's the same stare I get when she wants her breakfast/dinner (she knows what time it is). She will patiently sit next to me and give me the stare until I get up and fix her food bowl. Sometimes the stare is simply because she wants to go outside. If I ask her if that is what she wants and I am correct, she will wag her tail in response. Yes, Border Collie's are smarter than their humans.
A few days ago, before the very hot temps and the smoke, we went on our walk. Now we are impatiently waiting for the smoke to finally be cleared out by some rain? Fingers crossed, since we do not go for walks in the smoke and we really don't like being stuck indoors.
The routine on these walks is to throw the ball for Lady. It works pretty well unless she drops the ball somewhere and then can't remember where she left it.
We've had some rain the day before our walk so the Lobster mushrooms had popped out of the ground.
Jon's Mullein plant looks like it needs a drink, but it's still hanging in there.
I thought I would introduce you to our new "grand kittens", London and Ernest. They are Norwegian Forest Cats. I admit to not knowing a thing about them. It turns out that they are one of the largest domestic cat breeds. They are very social and love to climb, as you will see from the photos. These two belong to the Missoula Burkhart's.
The Kalispell and Lolo Burkhart's also have cats. We do not, since Jon is allergic to cats. We have had cats in the past, but they were all outdoor pets, except for Jones, who learned to make himself at home every chance he got. He was a large yellow cat who figured out that he could open the screen door with his paw and get in the house. He then proceeded to Jon's chair, where he would take his nap. We would be outside working and come into the house to find Jones sleeping in Jon's chair.
Their full names are London Fog and Ernest Shackleton. (They also love the water as David found out when he was taking a bath. Ernest just jumped right in and joined him.)
I have to say that Ernest is already a very big "kitten". Since it takes them 5 years to mature, I think David and Julie should start saving their money for cat food.
Lady, London and Ernest will have a chance to meet in the near future. Oh boy!
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