Diamond in the dump

 

Occasionally you'll find a gem buried in the Internet garbage heap.  

The Last Museum is a new online website that brings together 5.8 million art works on one free platform. Not a functioning museum in itself, the website pulls collection records and images from thousands of institutions around the world. Why travel?

The Last Museum is the kind of sophisticated reference tool we didn't even dream of when I was a working librarian. Users can search by themes, moods, colors, subjects, or descriptive phrases without knowing an artwork’s title or artist. In other words, searching through ideas instead of just keywords.

However, this massive BOT scraping of digital content is somewhat controversial in the museum world. Although many artworks have entered the public domain, some institutions still claim rights over their own photographs, scans, or digital reproductions of those works. The debate on that goes on. 

Also interesting-- the creators/developers of The Last Museum remain completely anonymous! 

As far as I'm concerned, a good use for brilliant tech minds that might otherwise cause mischief on the Internet.

Anyway, fun to play around with on a rainy day.  

Smoked out

 

 

The air was OK while in Twisp, but we hit heavy smoke for most of the drive yesterday. It was especially bad along the Columbia River and through the Wenatchee area (above.) Those poor people, living under that fug all summer. My nose is still tickling and sneezing this morning from the irritation. 

Rain relief is on the way, and it can't come soon enough across the state.

This is the first week of school in Seattle, and for the next 9 months, we time our comings and goings with the middle school drop off and pick up hours. That is, unless you want to walk a block in the rain with your groceries. Welcome home. No parking spaces were open in front of our house to unload yesterday. 

But with roads dry and traffic fairly light, it was an easy drive overall. I bought peaches, pears, squash and a bag of organic Honeycrisp apples ($1.29 a pound) at Lone Pine to make applesauce and wrap up the canning for the year. The pears are few and far between in the Carlton orchard, which was somewhat of a relief to Amanda and Tom. 

And the seasons, they go round and round:

"Be aware of the season you are in and give yourself the grace to be there."

Kristen Dalton 

 

 

Times are a-changin'

 

 

Downtown Twisp is still a major work in progress. There's also new commercial and housing construction everywhere you look. Suddenly, it seems everyone wants to live in Twisp. 

 

 

Wide sidewalks going in on Glover Street, near Amanda and Tom's old place. We are all so thankful the family moved out to the bucolic farm in Carlton.

Speaking of construction, even our little backwater river street is not immune. Someone just bought the small lot next to our driveway. Will they build a ugly Seattle style narrow box? They are following me...

Anyway, at this stage of the game, only so many things one person can worry about. Like beavers. My excellent property management company said they will wire wrap our close in trees this fall to try and save them. Not to mention, save our house from a giant crashing cottonwood tree. The beavers sure don't give a you-know-what. They were here first. 

 

 

But some things are still the same like the friendly little taco stand in town where we had lunch today.

We are heading back to Seattle tomorrow before heavy rain on Wednesday, which makes for miserable mountain driving. But I'll be back again in a couple of weeks to take advantage of lovely September. There is already a nip in the air and that slight feeling of fall urgency people get, especially in rural areas. 

The girls went back to school today. Maya in 8th grade, Nova is a senior! 

 

 

While the cats away

 

 

 

While we were gone, the beavers kept busy chewing down a large tree. Good job, guys. A perfect hit and it smashed one of my river chairs. And I thought they only "worked" in the winter. 

 

The trunk is so heavy it won't budge without a chainsaw. Maybe I can hack out the pieces. It does look pretty trashy. Oh well, I wanted new ones next spring anyway.

 

Other than that, everything is fine here-- the house just as clean and neat as when I left in June. The lawn was generously irrigated all summer which was wasteful but looks great. 

Best of all, we bought some rain along yesterday, always a rare gift here in parched central Washington. When we stopped at Lone Pine for lunch, the air smelled like someone had just just dumped water on a campfire. A good thing. 

More later... 

Plum tuckered out

 

Six jars of jam, seven pints of plum halves and I forget how many jars of chutney. 

Anyway, a nice stash. It is satisfying (in a trad wife sort of way) seeing those jars lined up. And still many plums left on the tree for family, friends, and scavenging neighbors. 

. 

Homemade jam is messy. I cleaned the counters, stovetop and put the canning paraphernalia back in the basement for now. Maybe I'll drag it all out again for applesauce in September, and if I scrounge a few pears from the Carlton orchardists, preserve something with those. It was not a good year for fruit over there. 

 

 

What a  pretty little "Peaches and Cream" cake John bought at Metropolitan Market. Best not to think about what they put in that "icing" to make it so good-- creamy dense and not overly sweet. Wonderful mouthfeel. Must be the fat. In the old days, bakers used Crisco and probably still do.

What was the occasion? Well, how about life returning to some semblance of normal. 

We have not been to our Twisp home since June, sad! But we're finally going back for a long weekend.  We haven't left Seattle for months, and smoky or not, a river change of scene sounds terrific. 

Late bloomers

 

The hydrangeas have been wonderful all summer, and now the subtle colors are even prettier in the slanting afternoon light. A fleeting moment, as they will soon turn brown in the the fall rain. We've probably seen the last of the 80 degree days in western Washington. 

But there are still nice days ahead, and I hope to make up for lost summer time and enjoy next month. We followed up this week with my new cardiologist (who didn't seem too worried about anything) also my personal doctor (ditto) and no new appointments scheduled until October. Yay. 

Who doesn't love September? No wonder so many poignant songs and poems have been written about September. 

When you’re young you prefer the vulgar months, the fullness of the seasons. As you grow older you learn to like the in-between times, the months that can’t make up their minds. Perhaps it’s a way of admitting that things can’t ever bear the same certainty again.

Julian Barnes
From "Flaubert's Parrot"