September Birthday cluster - a good thing!

It's a birthday cluster.  Today we are celebrating my brother Roy's birthday and daughter-in-law, Julie's birthday!  Plus, yesterday was our dear friend Neil's birthday.   All good reasons for multiple celebrations. 

 

Neil and Ann - Middle Mountain and Trail 120.  Lots of bushwhacking to get there from our house.   We did it!

Julie, who is a very gifted artist and most talented and inventive woman.  Her artwork for many of the Hamilton Players performances was amazing.

Whenever there is something to celebrate or a good time to be had, Julie is the go-to person.

My brother, Roy.  A most passionate outdoorsman.  Fishing, hunting, camping, backpacking and hiking.  

On Seagull Charters - way back.

Did I mention he likes Nebraska and Griz football, plus grilling?

 Happy day to all!  

I will mention that we are socked in by the smoke from the wildfires today.  It's very bad here, but I imagine that it's much worse in western Washington, Oregon and California.   Ugh!  

We were lucky this year.  We had blue skies the entire summer until now.  It's time to appreciate those days.

Notes:

Retired Mountain Man had his shoulder surgery.  After some rough days, he is on the mend and has no pain.  Working on his PT.

The windstorm on Labor Day blew over 14 of our trees.  All really nice big trees.  It's very sad to see so many go down.  

It also destroyed the corn and the green beans.  The storm was followed by a light frost that zapped the cucumbers and some of the squash.  The good news is that some of the veggies are still okay. Some of RMM's dahlias blew over or broke off, but many survived.  Plus, no trees fell on the cars or the house or the barn.  Whew!  

Say hello to climate change.  As a gardener, I will report that in my 50 years of gardening here, the biggest change in the weather is the wind.  We never used to have the fierce winds.  You can count on it every summer and fall now.  Plus, it's not unusual for it to happen more than once.  The hot, dry summer temps now extend well into the fall and are here earlier in the spring.  

We were without power for 54 hours, but kept the generator going and saved the food in our freezers.

Today seems like a good day to bake mulitple loaves of zucchini bread and watch the Seahawks play football!  Yes!

The heroes in our family

My Grandpa Reineke and three of his sons.  From left to right: my father, Jay Reineke, Grandpa Reineke, Jerry Reineke and Dick Reineke.  My Grandpa served in WWI.  My dad and his brother his WWII.  My Uncle Jerry in Korea.  

 

My Grandpa Phillips and his brother - WWI.  I have dozens of cousins who also served in WWII.  Some of whom were in the invasion of Normandy.  My Uncle Terrell also served in Korea.

Jon's father, Jim, who served in WWII.  His tank was blown up in Italy and he had shrapnel in his leg.  He met his wife, Lois, while he was recovering back in the states.  This is their wedding photo taken in Butte, Montana.

He was awarded a Purple Heart.

Retired Mountain Man  - who served in Vietnam.  (No bone spurs in this family.)  He was in the 101st Airborne with Military Intelligence.  The army sent him to El Paso, Texas, to their Vietnamese Language School, to learn to speak Vietnamese.  When he was sent to Vietnam, he was an interrogator.  Jon was awarded the Bronze Star.  

All of these family members sacrificed and gave up some of their life and many other things to serve and protect their country.  I am so very proud of them and I believe that the rest of our family members are too.  

After watching all of the news about the losers and suckers who served in the Marines and the military, I had to speak up.  We currently have a nephew who is in the Marines.  If the president doesn't have his back, I'm sure hoping the military and the American people do. 

A Christmas postcard from my Grandpa Reineke in WWI.

 

Let me introduce you

Meet Calvin, my Kabocha Squash.  I sometimes call him the green monster. He has taken over part of our lawn and is moving in all directions towards the veggie garden.  He is invading the tomatoes and green beans. 

It is difficult to get a photo of Calvin because he's growing every direction.  I need a drone shot from above.   It will be interesting to see just how much more of my yard he will overtake before the first frost.

The garden is coming on strong now.  Lots of green beans, zucchini, peppers, beets and carrots.  Sweet Corn soon.

I have ambitious plans to make pepper jelly, salsa and pickled beets.  I started on the dill pickles with two quarts put up so far.   There are also 14 pints of green beans in the root cellar.   There's something very satisfying about stocking the cellar with fruit and veggies for the winter.

Retired Mountain Man's dahlias are in full bloom except for a couple of plants that were chewed on by pocket gophers early on.  It set them back a bit.

Retired Mountain Man finally made it on the surgery schedule to get his rotator cuff tear repaired.  The day before his surgery I unboxed a Polar Care Ice Machine that daughter-in-law Julie used when she had her shoulder surgery.  She said it had helped with her recovery a lot.

I  was watching a video to figure out how to use it when I realized that there was no AC adapter in the box.  That was the beginning of an intense search for adapters in both the Burkhart household in Missoula and ours.  We were looking for one that powered 6v. and 1 amp.  I had no idea just how many of these things I had in my house.  Multiple trips up and down the stairs ensued.  None of them had the right output.  The same was happening in Missoula.  

Due to the magic of cell phones and texting we finally figured out what we needed.  Julie found the adapter, packaged it up and rushed to Fed Ex to ship it overnight.  Thank you Julie!                                                         

We are using the ice machine and Retired Mountain Man is on the mend.  We have had a couple of mis-steps along the way, but everything is improving now.  Thanks to Dr. Cipriano and many nurses and staff at Bonner General.  Everything is twice as complicated as it used to be, including all the ins and outs of having surgery, but the care given to patients is exceptional.

In the meantime, the garden is growing and RMM's dahlias are absolutely gorgeous.   These last days of summer have been really beautiful.  

Bear on the mountain

 Today I'm sharing another video from Retired Mountain Man's game camera.  It's a nice one.

Lots of turkeys this year. 

It's a busy time in the garden now with green beans, zucchini and beets to harvest.  Add to that the blueberries are still going and the plums are ripe.   Our high temperature today is supposed to be 101.   I don't think we have ever recorded 100 degrees here, but this could be a first since the forecast is for 101 tomorrow and 99 the next day.  

We'll see.  

I stopped by at the Peach Man last Thursday and bought some peaches and sweet corn.  Our first corn of the summer since ours is not quite ready yet.   It was time for another peach pie, which I baked today.  

Pie and ice cream for dessert.  

Happy Sunday

The wildlife

Today I am posting some short videos from Retired Mountain Man's game camera.  He hasn't checked his cameras for several months so there are a lot of videos.  Elk with their calves, deer, lots of bears, coyotes, turkeys and a flying squirrel.  The two below are a couple of interesting ones.  The first one is a video of a bear deciding that he really didn't like the camera at all.   He takes a swipe at it and moves the camera.  You can hear him whack it as he moves by.

 

    The second one is of a mama who is very cautious and decides she doesn't want her fawn to walk by the camera.   Due to the fact that the bear altered the camera's position, the fawn only shows up a bit on the video, but it's still fun to watch.  Enjoy. (You can watch the video fullscreen by clicking on the button on the lower right)