The Date we never forget.

Mt. Saint Helen's - May 18th.   

We were in a pool for the date the volcano would blow.  Neither one of us won the pool.

We still have a couple of jars of the ash that fell in our yard that day.  We also have several pumice rocks that fell and floated down the Toutle River.  The rocks were light so they floated in the river.  They were given to us by our friend, Brian Applebury, who worked for the Army Corp of Engineers out of Seattle.  

At that time we were renting the Loman Cabin on the hill.  It was built of big logs with caulking in-between.  There was a lot of space between the logs and some areas where the caulking was non existent.  It turned out that ash could seep in through those cracks.  The place consisted of 160 acres, with two pastures and a barn and other out-buildings.  

Our friend Linda Finklenberg's horse was in a field a mile away from our house.  She walked her horse from there to our place so he could be sheltered in the barn with our cows.  We fed them hay for several days because we didn't want them eating the ash covered grass.  

We had an Irish Setter, Lady, who we inherited from my sister, Mitzi, who also came inside the house for a few days to be sure she was safe.  

Jon and the kids scientifically laid out square meter pieces of plastic and measured the ash fall and particulate size  every hour.  Jamie was 12 and David was 6 years old at the time.

The scariest part was we didn't know if the ash was high sulfur or was dangerous for us to breathe.  

The TV told us that the ash would go through the air filters of our cars and destroy the engines, so nobody drove for days. 

It was late afternoon when the dark cloud of ash slowly blew in.  There was a large flock of geese flying in front of the cloud of ash, honking away as if to warn us.  They circled and circled and went up over the mountains behind us. The ash was soon everywhere and even seeping into the house.

I had already planted my garden that year and many of my vegetables were doing well due to some warm temperatures that spring.  The ash covered everything in the garden and the forest around us.  The next day, we hosed off all of the vegetables, fruit trees, berries, grapes and currants.  The photo below was taken in the garden.

A couple of days after the eruption David came running into the house screaming that there were a million snakes in the garden.  He refused to walk back out there, so Jon hoisted him on his shoulders and walked into the garden thinking he would show him that there weren't really a million snakes.  He had walked only a few feet when all of sudden he realized that there were several snakes around his feet.   There may have been a million snakes in the garden.  The snakes had found a green zone, without ash, for refuge.  

To this day, David has never liked snakes. 

The good news was that the schools were closed and they eventually decided to end the school year early.  They were concerned that the engines on the school buses would be damaged by the ash. 

A trip to visit Mt. Saint Helen's has always been on my bucket list.  

A week of new -

This week has been one filled with new and exciting discoveries and events.  Beginning on Monday with a trip to the Spokane VA for Jon to get his new hearing aids.  They are replaced every four years and this time they have a lot of new technology.  His new ones work with an app on my cell phone which means it can use bluetooth technology.  The sound from a phone call streams directly from the phone to his hearing aids.  They also include a device that attaches to our TV and uses the same streaming feature for sound from the TV.  

This means that within the next week or so Retired Mountain Man will be catapulted into the cell phone world.   He needs a cell phone of his own so that he can control the volume and settings on his hearing aids.  I am in the process of researching which one to buy.

On the drive home via HWY 2 we decided to stop at the Newport Historical Museum.  Unfortunately, it doesn't open until the end of May, but we did get out of the car and walk around a bit.

We have put it on our list for a day trip sometime this summer or maybe in the fall.

The announcement from yesterday that we no longer need to wear masks made it an eventful day.  It's a day to remember, somewhere between Cinco de Mayo and Mt. Saint Helens.  

 It was a year ago that I was working with a group of people who were making masks for the hospital, nursing homes and medical clinics.  Masks were in short supply, along with PPE.   The future seemed very uncertain, but oh how things have changed.    We are back to shaking hands and hugs with family and friends.  

There was no better feeling yesterday other than the one I had when Jon and I received our first Covid-19 shot in January.   It was our ticket to return to a normal life and today, here we are!

Yesterday was the first mowing of the lawn for 2021.  I'm a little late with it because we have been waiting for a few parts for the mower.  Jon changed the oil which required a lot of unexpected tools and a bit of cursing before the job was done.  

It was also the day for my first vegetable planting in the garden.  My raised beds are planted with some lettuce starts from the Flower Farm and my carrot seeds are in.  Then it was time to roto-till some rows in the garden for my onion sets and the broccoli and cauliflower.  

Today is rehearsal day with Drew Browne and friends. We will be recording his album next week.  Drew has written a great collection of blues songs and it's been a lot of fun to play them.  

Tomorrow, if my back holds out, I will plant those vegetables.  Happy Friday!

Celebrate - the good and the bad

It's been a busy week around here, but we're slowly getting some things done outside in the yard and garden.  Our problem has been that the schedule keeps getting thrown out of whack by miscellaneous breakdowns.  The nice thing about the breakdowns is that they are all solvable.  Eventually.  

Our first was the discovery that the kitchen faucet was leaking underneath the sink.  Luckily for us we have a Moen faucet with a lifetime warranty.  All I had to do was take a photo of my faucet and email it Moen.  They are mailing a replacement cartridge and O-rings with instructions about how to fix it.

The second breakdown was one of the sockets in our chandelier over the dining room table shorted out.  We've had the chandelier since 1978.  Jon's Aunt Naomi gave it to us as a gift for whenever we managed to build our new home, which turned out to be two years later.  Again, luckily for me, I am married to one of those "guy-guys", who can repair just about anything.  One advantage for Retired Mountain Man is that his dad was an electrician and Jon spent quite a bit of time working with his dad when he was growing up. 

In a short amount of time Jon had diagnosed the situation and removed the burnt out socket.  We have ordered the replacement online.  

The third problem is a bit more serious.  We have a Clayton wood furnace and something called the High Limit Control for the blower, quit working correctly.  It no longer shuts the blower off when the temperature in the firebox cools down.  The blower runs constantly and does not shut off until the fire is out.  

This one has been the most difficult because the wood furnace was installed in 1994 and so far I have not been able to find a replacement part.  I do have a company in Columbia Falls, MT searching for the part.  A real plus was that a repairman, Jacob, from Highmark Heating and Cooling in Sandpoint did stop by to help us out.  If we can find the part, he is willing to replace it for us even though they do not service wood furnaces.  Thank you Jacob!

Moving on to our daily morning entertainment the past few days.  We have had a creature eating all of the sunflower seeds out of our feeder all last week.  Jon decided to put a camera on the feeder to figure out who the thief was.  Every morning we checked the videos. 

We now have a new birder feeder and it looks like it may be raccoon proof and possibly squirrel proof, but that remains to be seen.

 

The plum tree is in full bloom and the cherry and apple trees aren't far behind.  We did manage to get the deer fencing up so they don't eat all of our blueberries which are also getting ready to bloom.

I am growing a few plants from seeds and have moved them from the basement where they are underneath my grow lights, to the front porch.  They are in the process of getting hardened off and adjusting to bright sunlight and cooler temperatures at night.

My squash plants include some from seeds mailed to me from my sister Kathy in Montana.  Her daughter, Haley, is an avid gardener, along with son Derek and his wife Lisa.  Thanks to them I now have seeds for Dixon cantaloupe and several other varieties of squash.  

I have my usual assortment of tomatoes and peppers and they should all be ready to plant in the ground by June 1.  I've learned over the years not to get too excited by warm May temperatures.  There's always the dreaded "cold freeze" nights that pop up.

I have three dahlias that I have planted in pots because I discovered several tubers that we missed planting last year.  They were still in the perlite in their styrofoam container.  The poor things had sprouted and had been trying to grow for about 8 months.  I just had to plant a few of them to give them a chance.

Our family news is that son David had the honor of taking part in the Hooding Ceremony for his first doctoral student, who is Kris Short.  Kris is from Wisconsin.  His parents are dairy farmers there on the same farm that his great-grandparents staked when they immigrated from Germany.  

During the ceremony David places the doctoral hood over the head of the graduate, Kris, signifying his success in completing the program.  It's a lot of study and hard work.  Congratulations to Kris!

David's doctorate is from the University of Idaho and I think it was 2003?  Not sure I remember the year, but Jon and I both remember the events that day.  Graduations are days for celebration.  He's now at the University of Montana, which is a special place for us, since Jon is a graduate from there.  

 In June we will be celebrating grand-daughter Rylee's graduation from high school in Kalispell.  We are looking forward to that.  

Happy Sunday.  

We have two, I say two, daffodils blooming.

Is it spring yet?

During the past few weeks we have all been enduring our usual north Idaho weather.   We move from sunshine to cloudy, cold and windy every other hour.  Toss in a little bit of graupel, snow, rain and hail and you have the complete picture.

Retired Mountain Man decided a couple of days ago that it was time to put out the hummingbird feeder.  That day it was really cold and windy and if there is a hummingbird out there somewhere, he was feeling very chilly and wondering where to find his next meal.

As of today there is no sign of one, but I'm willing to bet that by the end of the week we will have one at our feeder.

Everything is moving along here at a pretty slow pace.  We're both fully vaccinated against the virus, but still not venturing out much.  There's lots of work to do here and one of the jobs has finally been completed in that our fruit trees are pruned for the coming season.

Maggie has been to the groomers again as it's the time of the year for a little bit of extra bathing and brushing.  She is staying fairly clean while doing a pretty good job of keeping the deer out of our yard and garden, especially since she gets a treat if she chases them out of the yard.  

She is not your typical border collie though.  I would say that she is probably the laziest border collie in the U.S.  She would prefer to spend her time just basking in the sun on the porch.  The ONLY reason she will chase the deer is that she knows she will get a treat.  That also means that she is not going to chase them very far away, but just enough to get them out of sight.  There is no high energy in this dog. 

That said, we do love and spoil her.  She runs our life and she has no qualms about letting us know if we have messed up.  It's a dog's life here and it's pretty good.  We will be out and about even more now, with Maggie in the lead, looking for some of these.

It's so nice to have the promise of spring with flowers and veggies to look forward to. and things are beginning to look better on the virus front.  Over 100 million people have been vaccinated and it looks like we are slowly getting out of this mess.    

I am hoping that those who are on the fence about getting a vaccination will choose to get one, if for no other reason than to think of our healthcare workers.  They are getting burned out from taking care of all of us during this pandemic.  

If we continue to allow the variants to spread and cause a fourth wave, it may be true that it won't affect those of us that are vaccinated, but we should think about what it does to our local doctors, nurses, EMT's, and anyone connected to the profession.  They are our friends and neighbors and some are family members. 

It's time for us to have some care - for them. 

It's also about time for a road trip to this place.  Anyone up for a short drive on a sunny day? 

Happy Monday!  

North Idaho spring

The first day of spring is here.  We welcomed it with gigantic snowflakes falling on the ground.  Just enough to cover everything with a white blanket.  That's how spring comes in around here.  

It's the time of the year that I really want to see flowers blooming which always makes me buy a primrose or two, or three.  This year I just want to have some fresh, bright flowers around and right now that means a bouquet of painted daisies.  They are so delightful to look at.  

It makes me happy.

We had visitors stop by!  Cousin Ruthann Nordgaarden and daughter, Kiersten Ogbeide were out for a ride on their four-wheeler and decided to take make a stop at our place.  Yay!  We have all been vaccinated so it was our first visit with anyone inside our house.  It was so great to see them.  

I didn't get a photo of them so I stole one off of Kiersten's FB page.  I have no shame.

The last few days of warm sunshine were wonderful.  I have made a walk around the yard and garden to survey what needs to be done.  Boots are still necessary since part of the ground is still covered with a layer of crusty snow.  

It's time to prune the fruit trees and will be time to clean up a couple of flower beds soon, but not yet.  

In the meantime, we are watching the first round of March Madness and of course, we have our usual pool.  All I can say about that is my bracket has a lot of red x's on it.  I have more losses than wins from the first day.  I'm good with it though.  

The excitement of watching the games and seeing the underdog pull out a win, or watching a player toss 3-pointers over and over again, is just so much fun.  I don't care who wins.  Except, of course, the Zags.  I do hope they win.  It's been a long time coming. 

(It's still snowing)

Our weekend plans.  Watching the games, doing a lot of reading and I will probably play some music. I have fallen in love with playing my electric guitar which is keeping me away from working on my songs on the keyboards. 

Retired Mountain Man says I am throwing my life away playing the guitar.