It feels like an early Fall is here.

I admit that I've had a reluctance to post on my blog.  You can tell that by looking at my blog post dates.   It not as if nothing has been happening here because it's been action packed.   

Our normal summer routines are happening as usual.  The garden bounty is hard to keep up with.  So many blueberries and plums.   My Friday night gigs are still happening with our last one coming up this Friday night.  

After months of heat we welcomed the rain whenever it came.  We had our concerns about the Trestle Creek fire and just how far it would spread.   

We hosted our first out-of-town guests since January 2020, when Jon's sister, Linda, and her husband, Malcom, arrived from Oklahoma.   We celebrated both of their birthdays with this volcanic birthday cake.  I took a photo of the inner workings.  It spewed smoke and there were sparklers in place of candles.  Yes, the lava was chocolate rice crispies.  

During their visit their grandson, Tanner, who is a Marine, was deployed to Kabul.  We all spent the entire time from Aug. 14th to Aug. 31st worrying about his safety, but also proud of what he was doing.  I can report that he left Kabul around 5:00 p.m. on Aug. 30th.  We will be happy when he returns to the U.S.

The little fellow in the photo above scared the heck out of me since the plant he was in was at the top of my steps on the porch.  I came walking up the steps and there he was.  We were kind of face-to-face, which was too much for me.

I'm working on my harvest and the carrots were ready to pull way before I was ready to do it.   Yesterday I pulled my onions and they are drying on the porch.  Next week it will be the beets and time to get out the canner.  The harvest dates seem to be at least a couple of weeks early, but that makes sense considering how many hot days we had this year.

The grape arbor is very lush this year and my pear tree actually had pears on it this year.  The first time.  There are two varieties and I have now picked both of them.

I will admit to being a plum pusher.  

Our tree was overloaded this year and I had to pull plums off before they ripened so that the branches of the tree didn't break.  Unfortunately, one of them did even though I had them propped up with boards for support. 

  People started running away from me whenever I approached them with a bag of plums in hand.

There were so many that I was forced into making plum jelly.  Twenty-one jars.  

Our hummingbird feeders (3) were busy all summer long. There were dozens of hummingbirds here.   In fact we have one straggler left.  I hope he decides to leave soon.  It's time.  

We had an issue with bald faced hornets attacking the birds at the feeders.  Jon's eagle eye happened to spot the nest.  It was hanging in a tree near where we park our car.   Extermination time.

We were happy to see the days when the smoke and haze left us, but the haze did make for some nice color on my photos.

Our youngest grandson, Ben, just turned 12 and today he got his first Covid-19 shot.  He was a happy and brave kid as he's been waiting to be old enough to get his shot.  He wants Covid-19 gone.  

His grandparents are happy too.  Everyone in the family has now been vaccinated except for our 4 year-old great-grandson.   We are back to wearing masks again to protect those kids who can't be vaccinated.  

It's looking like we will have nice weather for our upcoming Labor Day weekend.  I love the cool fall days and the time of the year to finish the harvest and put the garden to bed.   I hope you do too.  Enjoy.

The Zucchini Fairy has returned

 We survived the first heat dome and are headed for the second one this weekend.  My garden loves it, especially the warmer than usual night-time temperatures. 

And so it begins:   The Zucchini Fairy will be flying soon.

The lilies are popping with color.

Retired Mountain Man's pumpkin patch.  It doesn't look very big in the photo, but the plants are impressive.

My Candy Corn is way past "knee high by the 4th of July".

One of my favorite things is to wake up in the morning to the sound of the hummingbirds flying into the feeders.  Usually we have two feeders and it's enough, but not this year.  We have three going full bore every day.  There are dozens of babies.  

  

Happy Friday!

Iced Tea, Ice Cold Watermelon, Ice Cream...

Ah, summer.   Picnics, potlucks and as much time spent with family and friends as possible.  Also, add to that anything with ice.  The high temperature yesterday was 99 degrees.  

Sweet Woodruff - one of my favorites

I'm a bit behind on my blog posting so some of these photos were taken way back in May.    My USB cord for my phone/computer disappeared - to the basement - and I have just now recovered it.  How can something that simple derail uploading photos?  All I can say is that I am old and trying to remember everything to move from upstairs to downstairs and vice-versa, is a challenge.  

Yes, spring happened here.  It was a very nice spring and now we have immediately moved from May to August with our temperatures soaring into the 100 degree range, for a week.  Where's the ice?

  

The cherries are ripening and the blueberry bushes are loaded with fruit.  It's a wonderful time in the garden.  We humans may not like the heat all that much, but my garden sure does.  It is exploding with growth and all I have to do is keep it watered. It has become a fulltime job this week.  

There are other things on my schedule though.  Every Wednesday I walk over to my neighbor Ann's house so that we can have lunch together on her deck.  Some weeks friends Ellie, Linda and Kristine, join us.   She has a lovely garden surrounding the deck and a beautiful view of the lake.  Ann's white peonies were spectacular.    

On Wednesday, I also play some music with friends, Tim, Larry, Mark and Bruce all members of Bruce's Running With Scissors band.  We will be playing some gigs at Trinity at City Beach beginning sometime in the middle of July. 

On Thursdays, friends Ellie and Kristine join me to play more music.  This time, it's acoustic guitar and mandolins.  Lots of conversation and music.  

Last Saturday I went to the community center for Kathy and Denny Gorup's artist reception.  What a great show and so many people there!  Kathy's beautiful paintings and Denny's hand turned bowls. 

Speaking of turned bowls...

Retired Mountain Man wanted photos of this maple that we cut down in March.  There are sprouts growing out of the blocks even though it's been 3 months.  Resilience.  

We worked on our home repair projects that I mentioned in an earlier post.  I finally found a part for our Clayton wood furnace.  It wasn't the exact part - since they no longer make them, but I took a chance that it was similar, and yes, it worked.  

Rhubarb anyone?

The leaking kitchen faucet was a two month saga.  Moen kept sending us the wrong parts.  Four trips to Home Depot, one to Consolidated Supply, and finally a trip to North40.  All we needed to replace was the O-rings, but who knew how difficult it was going to be to find the correct ones.   

The final weekend of the repair we had to turn off our water because the faucet was leaking so much.  It was ugly, but Retired Mountain Man finally fixed it.  

On Tuesdays and Fridays I have been going to the exercise class at the Hope Community Center.  It's a great class and a perfect way to stay at least a little bit in shape.  Unfortunately, I've been sidelined by a pinched nerve for the last week.  I do miss the class, plus we always stop at the Davis Cafe in Hope, for a beverage and lunch afterwards.   Exercise and lunch go together, do they not?

My pink peonies in all of their glory!

This photo is from one of those rainy days.  Don't we wish we had one of those right now?

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!