Hot August Days

Our hot August days are back, at least for three or four more days.   It's a productive time around here as my green beans are finally producing and there are still a few blueberries to pick.  We had two-tenths of an inch of rain a few days ago which resulted in a few Red Lobster Mushrooms to pop out of the ground. 

We also have a forest fire just over the top of these mountains in the Lightning Creek drainage.  It turns out that the fire is burning in the old burn from the Cougar Fire in 2018.  We had several mornings of smoke, but most days the wind cleared out the smoke by mid-afternoon.  The bit of rain did help with the fire fighting efforts as well as several days of cool temperatures.  I don't think any of it is contained yet but it is tamped down, which is a good thing.

I can't take any credit for this photo as it came from Mary Franzel's FB page the first day the fire blew up.  She took an incredible photo of the fire from her place.  It has to be a bit scary to be so close it, but I am hoping it is moving away from her place.  

These beets became beet pickles and I forgot to take a photo of the jars before I stored them away in my root cellar.  I ended up with 10 pints, which is a nice amount for next winter.  Making beet pickles is a long process and also kind of messy, but worth it.  I still use my cousin Jan Bicha's recipe and think of her every time I make them, even though she is no longer with us.  I love having her hand-written recipe card.  

First green beans, 2025

There is always a bit of trimming with Lobster mushrooms, but they're so big that there's always plenty of the mushroom left to eat or dry.  There were too many for us to eat so I dried some of them yesterday.

Last night while I was looking for something to watch on TV I ran across our local PBS station and they were running Simon and Garfunkel's concert in Central Park, 1981.  I love all of their music and their songs always bring back a lot of good memories.  

The Boxer

Does time fly?

 My grass on the lawn is getting really high but I don't mow it when it gets this hot.  There's no reason to since we have no events planned or house guests arriving.  There's less stress on the grass and it stays green without so much watering.  That said, today and for most of this week, it looks like the temperatures will be slightly cooler and that means tomorrow I will start mowing.  It will probably take me two days of mowing to finish, but that's okay.  

We have been lucky to have clear blue skies for the past several weeks, but now we have a fire in the lightning creek drainage, which is just on the other side of these mountains.   We have had smoke the last couple of mornings, although it did clear out yesterday, it remains to be seen if it will clear out today.  

The fire was small, but apparently exploded on Saturday and now covers at least 1600 acres.  Bummer.  Nothing is going to put it out now except some really good rain. 

Today is Julie and David's anniversary.  Eighteen years!  I have hundreds of photos of the wedding.  Some from the official photographer and a few from our friend, Glen Rolofson.  I'm posting some today and most of them are the ones that Glen took.  I thoroughly enjoyed looking through the photos, especially of the friends and family who were there and what our placed looked like that day.  A very happy time. 

August 4th, 2007.

Almost all of these photos are the ones that Glen took.  

Kermit and Susan.

I remember this moment very well.  As we were walking towards our seats, I said to David and Jon that I thought I was going to cry.  David looked at me and kind of chuckled and said, "Oh yeah?"  I was okay after that.  

What a beautiful gathering of family members although I will say that the ring bearer and the flower girls were very tired of the photo taking.

We bought a greenhouse the spring before the wedding so that I could start all of the flowers for the wedding.  The flower bed behind the arch was created just for the wedding.  It did last for several years, but now it has been turned back to grass. 

 

Many of these are from the official photographer.

The happy couple last summer at City Beach in Sandpoint.

Along with the happy news we did receive some sad news yesterday.  Another of our dear friends and colleagues, Kent Schultz, has passed away.  We have many years of memories with both Kent and his wife, Julie as we worked together at the middle school and also were involved with a lot of the politics that went with supporting education in Idaho.  

Julie and I worked in the same office and we both retired the same year.  Shortly after that they sold their house and moved back to Grand Junction, CO, where they were from.  Two years later, Julie passed away.  It just doesn't seem possible, but it is.   We are sending our condolences to his family.  

As they say, "time marches on".  Yes, indeed.  The ringbearer, Collin, is now engaged and soon we will have his wedding to look forward to.

Our place did look pretty green for August 4th, 2007.  Here's to hoping for some rain in the upcoming week!

Hot Summer Days

 Our last day of July is here and it's going to be a hot one!  Our temperatures have been in the 90's so our mini-split is keeping us cool.  The flowers and vegetables are all doing well.  My bush beans are blooming and soon we'll have some green beans for dinner.  

My clematis has lots of blossoms thanks to Jon's work adding some Miracle Gro to them.

Our Early Girl tomatoes are doing great in spite of the fact that we planted them so late.  

I love growing dill in a pot on my deck.  It's one of my favorite herbs.  I also have some cilantro and basil in a pot.  With the addition of some lettuce, cucumbers and my patio tomatoes I have a fresh salad that I can pick by just walking out on my deck.    

My monster cucumber plants.  There are 3 of them in the pot. 

Stay cool and enjoy the last day of July 2025!

Rainy Day surprises.

 We had a really nice rainstorm here last night with our rain gauge showing 1.4 inches as of 4 p.m. today.  We might even get a little bit more before it's over.  

Today, Jon was really surprised to find one of these popping out of the ground near the driveway, a Lobster mushroom.  They usually do not show up until mid August or September, depending on the rain.  This one is a month early.  It will make a nice breakfast tomorrow.   

I managed to get several hours of working in my garden before the rain started and then we had a visit from our friends, Bob and Ellie Lizotte.  Bob had been out fishing on the lake and brought Jon some Kokanee to smoke along with some that Bob had already smoked.  Let me just say that Smoked Kokanee are a real treat. 

We haven't smoked any fish for several years so we had to hunt for the recipe that Jon has used for many years.   There was quite a bit of discussion about where the recipe was.  We found it written on the back of the manual for our Cajun Injector Smoker.  (Jon's handwriting)  

He mixed up his brine and today he started up the smoker.

There aren't many recipes hand-written by Jon so I decided to include it on this post for that reason and also so that we can find it again.  There's a good chance neither one of us will remember where the recipe is the next time we need it. 

P.S.  It's in the drawer with the mushroom knife.

Hummingbird Frenzy

The birds are crazy now.

I saw something similar to this on Facebook.  Decided to customize it.  

There was a little girl

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

There was a little girl,

Who had a little curl,

Right in the middle of her forehead.

When she was good,

She was very good indeed,

But when she was bad she was horrid (or maybe a brat?) 

I think my mom used to recite this poem...