Amanda said Maya was a bit nervous but the first day was great. She really likes her teacher, and Nova so excited about going back she was up and dressed at 6 am this morning.
I'll be off-line for a couple of days. The holiday weekend is a dicey time to fly with millions of other people, but there's a big birthday party in Las Vegas we can't miss. Wish us luck getting there and back!
More on that later...
August is wrapping up hot in Seattle-- almost 90 today and tomorrow. This jungle is an overgrown flower bed I'll have to clean out at some point.
I'm wary of ground-nesting hornets when things get this wild. Just one memorable encounter a few decades ago was all it took. But the good insects swarm the garden in the hot afternoon sun, a happy sight. Unless you do something really dumb, those busy bees don't waste their little lives stinging people.
They especially love Autumn Sedums, also know as Upright Stonecrop. I can't say enough good things about that plant, which has taken over huge swaths of the beds. Carefree and beautiful almost year round.
Another view from my chair under the tomato plants. So much vegetation! Exceptionally wet spring + hot weather = rampant growth. Today I get a bid from another arborist about the tree trimming. That should wrap up the major outdoor projects until next year. Other than yard clean up when all of this beauty becomes a soggy mess.
We had the family for dinner on Saturday, and in the morning, time to take "Scootie" out for a little spin before they left.
A big hit especially with fearless Maya, who rides it like a pro.
Have these girls ever grown. Nova catching up with her mom...
And already there with me. After a wonderful summer of vacations and camping, off to 8th and 4th grade soon.
Late summer garden scenes. Lovely carefree sedums starting to turn color. Plums and a jungle of green tomatoes. It rained overnight-- how nice.
Our next door neighbor, who watches everything, rushed over after Mr. Nguyen cut the hedge and said "he's getting better at it every year." One of those odd compliments, but it does look pretty good. Of course she wanted to know how much it cost and wants him to cut the top of their gigantic laurel, if the price is right. Her husband artistically trims the sides each fall, one noisy leaf at a time. It looks like perfection, for a little while. These days I'm into good enough.
It's noisy on both sides now. They're finishing the school addition across the street, and across the alley, the big ADU under construction since before the pandemic, putting in a parking area that requires lots of pounding. All construction seems to require lots of pounding. Or nail guns.
There was an article in the NYT recently about how "quiet" is an economic class issue and a luxury. Rich people expect it as a given in their homes and neighborhoods. Lower income areas are noisy and folks are uncomfortable with silence. Really? I don’t buy that. We're neither rich nor poor, but quiet is lovely. I read somewhere that in Bill Gate's big old Medina house, the bedroom was lined with lead for sound stage silence at night. Go figure.
That's about all the news. Amanda and Tom are here this weekend, having a good time in the big city. I'm making a chicken dinner for everyone Saturday night, and looking forward to that. John and I haven't seen the girls for a few weeks.
There are construction zones on every route across the state this month, so pick your poison. The good news is the highways are getting repaired, the bad news is summer driving is a pain. Come to think of it, winter driving is a pain! Well, goes with the territory when you have a house in a remote "paradise" ha ha.
I went over the North Cascades Highway yesterday, and lost count of the number of flagger stops. But the worst part was miles of gravel on top of the winding asphalt highway (did it fall off the trucks?) but fortunately everyone was going slow. Poor motorcycles. Anyway, I got John's new car home without a speck of damage. A miracle.
Amanda and Tom are coming tonight and staying here this weekend, but they'll be busy with city shopping and the girls spending time with their other grandparents and cousins.
Lots to do around the house before we go away Labor Day weekend. The paint touch-up is almost done (John doing a great job, of course) and Mr. Nguyen cuts the hedge this morning. The house is still dirty, but that can wait. Looks like a decent crop of plums on the tree, and hope we have to time get in some canning before they spoil.
My final complaint this morning is mosquitoes. They were never a problem in Seattle before the climate heated up. The buzzing (it just takes one) woke me up at 3:30 and now my arm has big itchy bites. They bite John too, but he just gets little red dots. Lucky.
The afternoons are still hot, but I needed a jacket this morning. There's that feeling in the air that summer has reached it's peak with the occasional yellow Cottonwood leaf drifting down. Soon it will be time to winterize the house again. Who wants to think about that now?
Beaver Creek Cemetery is about 2 miles south of Twisp. It's situated in a lovely spot over looking the Valley. Kudos to the local cemetery board for keeping it so well maintained. Looks like plenty of room at the inn, if you're interested ;-)
Humans have lived in the Methow Valley for about 10,000 years, but few regions of Washington are as isolated, and the area has its share of devastating fires, floods and freezes. Nevertheless, the first fur trappers and miners arrived in the late 1800's and a road up the Valley was built in 1904, later destroyed by the epic 1948 flood. The native population (not decimated by disease) was moved to reservations on worthless land to the east.
Anyway, to make a long story short, this area was never densely populated like some of the mining boom towns in the west that had railway service, etc. But in 1972, the North Cascades Highway opened and struggling Winthrop reinvented itself as a old western themed town. Vacation getaways and year-round homes began to spring up, leading to the vibrant community we have today.
Back to Seattle tomorrow.
Actually, it's always quiet here, especially now that the summer low river is just a background murmur.
My favorite time of day is right when the golden sun comes up over the mountain to the east, but the sky looks murky this morning, perhaps smoke from far-away fires. And the sunrise is already shifting south, by mid-winter coming up smack between the gap in those trees. Just try to watch a morning football game with that glare through the big windows. And this far north, the sun doesn't rise much above the tree level.
About 15 deer wandered by already this morning, all does and bigger fawns. The young bucks must get cut loose early. Even though the sprinklers are set for daily watering, the grass is patchy brown.
On the bright side, most of the weeds in the gravel finally stopped growing and dried up. It's very hot late in the day, close to 100 degrees. The inside of the house was about 85 when I got here yesterday. I'm thankful for the window air-conditioner, but it's too noisy to run all night.
The former house owners, John and Melody, moved to Mesquite NV, but they're here now visiting family and actually staying next door in their camper. We didn't get to meet them last year when we bought the house, so had to rely on the real estate agent to try and answer all our questions.
Anyway, I went over to chat and invited them in. They seemed excited and pleased that their house looked so pretty and we were enjoying it, along with the furniture they sold us. He was happy to answer some questions that have been bugging us, like how to turn off the main water line outside without calling The City of Twisp.
Amanda is working today and the girls are out-of-town, so I have no particular plans. However, I've been wanting to take a walk at Beaver Creek Cemetery, where many Valley pioneers and notable citizens are buried. And on Mondays, I always go to the Senior Center and thrift store. The day will pass quickly as it usually does.
And the humans are eating pretty well also. It's been years, literally, since we had Dungeness crab. There was a long shortage, and it was ridiculously expensive, as in $30 a pound. Apparently the Alaska populations recovered recently, so here's been a bonanza of this type of crab. No one is quite sure why they bounced back, but hey don't look a gift horse in the mouth.
They were a good buy at about $7 a pound. Oh, darn, being Costco, I had to buy two! Enough for an all-you-can-eat crab dinner with melted butter and a cold snack lunch the next day. What a treat.
Once cleaned, they still made quite a pile even we couldn't hoover through in one sitting.
I'm headed to Twisp today for a short solo stay. It's hot, and the girls will be out-of-town visiting other grandparents, but John and I have plans the next two weekends so this is the only chance to go until mid-September. That's a gentler month than in the Valley when everyone finally relaxes...fire danger is still very high in August.
The wall repair yesterday was faster and much cleaner than I expected. Good to have a nice surprise for a change. None of that dreaded dry sanding and just a bit of white mess scattered on the floors and carpets, which we quickly cleaned up. It was all done is less than a day. The guys from "Wall Doctor" follow the destructive electricians around, so ho-hum stuff for them. Filling all those holes would have taken us weeks if we did it ourselves.
The repairs still need to be primed and paint somewhat matched, a new project we can do slowly. It's already nicer than an ugly hole over the bed. So, things are coming together again.
The city inspection of the electrical work was done "remotely" over Facetime, if you can imagine that. At any rate, the work got the rubber stamp approval and the city got their $800.
Onward to other late summer projects, like the yard pruning. I got an outrageously high bid from a Seattle arborist company to trim the palm tree, holly, cypress and an overgrown photinia. Yes, Seattle is expensive, but really? I'm shopping around on that one.
We had gloomy cloud-cover yesterday, making 90 degrees feel extra sultry. The house is so hot overnight I've had a hard time sleeping. What a blessing this morning, it's actually raining for a few minutes and all the doors and windows open at this early hour to finally air things out.
Have a good weekend.
Today is Bad Poetry Day. What is the worst poem ever? According to Google, "The Tay Bridge Disaster" is the winning loser, written in 1880 by William McGonagall. Read it here if so inclined.
Another 90 degree day on tap. That's 11 days so far this year, a new heat record for Seattle.
This one has a teriyaki marinade. Whole turkey breasts are also good on the grill when you don't want to heat up the kitchen. Maybe no one wants turkey in the summer, because I haven't seen those frozen breasts for a long time.
Anyway, that all the news. The Wall Doctor crew comes tomorrow. I have an early morning dentist appointment today and suspect I need a new crown. No big surprise, since all my dental works dates back to when Bill Clinton was president.
Compared to now. The Northwest had some of the most polluted air on earth last year. I remember checking "Purple Air" first thing in the morning to see just how bad the day was going to be.
Anyway, fire season isn't over yet, but this year has been relatively benign in Washington and Oregon. We can thank La Nina for our long, cool, wet spring.
Switching gears, here's a cute and slightly spooky picture of Maya with a birthday candle.
And Nova, tucking into something delicious while camping in Canada last week. Life is good. And along with good food and friends, some river crossing biking adventures in British Columbia.
We drove down to Federal Way on Saturday morning to visit Powellswood Garden. It's a peaceful, off-the beaten-path place few people in Seattle know about. We were there last in January, on a cold and soggy day. It was interesting seeing the bare bones of the garden, but you didn't want to linger. August is the peak of summer beauty. We always have the place to ourselves, or nearly.
Anyway, we were admiring the prehistoric looking gunnera plants, when John's sister Janice called from Ohio with the happy news that our nephew and his wife just welcomed their second set of twin girls into the world. The older twins turned three in July. Four little girls. How wonderful is that? Congratulations to all. Our family is truly blessed.
We never eat out in restaurants anymore. I mean, really--never. So it was a treat having lunch at the Olive Garden and the first time I've been there, if you can believe that sad fact. Anyway, the soup and salad all-you-can-eat special was good and popular with the senior set. The regular portions of everything else were too gigantic for lunch. But we both had seconds of chicken gnocchi and minestrone soup. And made a dent in those soft, salty, empty calorie bread sticks.
That's about all the weekend news. The perfect summer weather continues. It's a busy week coming up, not fun stuff, but nice to have it behind us as we head into September.
It sounded worse than it was. When all was said and done, the only new damage was a slightly buggered up kitchen switch. The crew actually went above and beyond on some things, like removing the old wires in the attic. For the first time, it doesn't look like a Rube Goldberg nightmare up there.
We are knob and tube free. Yea. Probably one of the few old houses in Seattle that is. John gets all the credit for managing the project to the finish line and insisting (in a nice way) that it was done completely. It helped that he and the journeyman electrician seemed to speak the same language. Very "literal" and engineering-wired minds, shall we say? He probably encountered many such personalities during his long career at Boeing.
Anyway, on to other projects. The house is filthy, by the way. You can hardly see out of the windows, but I'm not getting excited about it until September. The wall repairs are scheduled for next Thursday, hopefully in one day.
Mr. Nguyen also cuts the hedge next week, and an arborist comes to give an estimate on the holly and palm tree trimming. Sometime I need to call the "Deck Guru" and "Sir Grout" companies. What a money pit! You have to be crazy to retire in a "charming old house."
Those grapes are pretty growing through the old fence by the backdoor. They don't taste as good as they look. White Concord? I can't remember the variety, it was one of the first things I planted here in the 1980's.
The vine has been whacked to the ground many times and eventually comes back to fruit, so it must be an original root stock, not a graft. I probably paid a dollar for a little stick in a bag.
Anyway, not much new except the electricians return today to finish the job. John said most of the work should be up in the attic, hopefully with minimum damage. I hate hearing them bang around up there, and keep expecting to hear a chunk of the old plaster ceiling fall down. It's probably stronger than it looks, despite the cracks, having survived over 100 years and several earthquakes. Anyway, it's a beautiful summer day and I have plenty to do outside.
I charred and peeled these nice peppers yesterday. They are just begging to be made into chili rellenos (a once-a-year project) but I can't do it today with men underfoot in the kitchen. A big treat for tomorrow.
Happy birthday, Amanda, if you read the blog this morning in Canada. I know Nova's birthday is a pretty hard act to follow. But she was (and is) the perfect gift that keeps on giving. Love you!
And up-and-coming Maya turns 10 in October. We just blinked...
Almost 5:30 and still dark. The clouds rolled in overnight and the days are getting shorter. But it still hit 90 degrees yesterday and 2022 is officially the hottest year on record in Seattle.
The calendar for the next two weeks is dotted with various appointments that I'll be happy to have in the rear view window. The electricians finish up (hopefully) on Thursday, then the Wall Doctor Company comes the following week. We'll do the paint matching and touch-up ourselves, but at least things will be back together. Although I hardly notice the holes anymore-- it's amazing what you can get used to.
The yard is looking pretty shabby-shaggy and already time for cleaning out the beds. Some things were amazing this year, like the lilies and roses, but when they're done, it's over for another year. The roses usually get a decent second bloom but not this time. I think they bloomed too late and too hard to recover before fall.
Last week when I was in Twisp, the volunteer coordinator offered a referral for a new hospice patient. The poor man is in the same nursing home as my previous patient, frankly, a difficult place to visit on many different levels. When we're in relatively good health we take so many things for granted, like the ability to go places and do whatever we want. As the end of life approaches, the world can shrink down to the size of a room. A sad but true fact.
Anyway, time to get cracking. I feel better and just need to get my stamina back after laying around for weeks with a ice pack. And yes, feeling sorry for myself. It was a painful period but time to move on. Just a short break from exercise at my age, and it's absolutely pitiful how fast the conditioning disappears. Another sad but true fact!
Plenty of float action going by the house, with every craft from high tech kayak to inner tube. Sure looks like fun on a hot afternoon. One of these days...even August low, I have a healthy respect for cold running water.
The girls (Nova, Maya and friend Ada) came down and hung around on the beach for a while Saturday. Rather listlessly, since the river is old stuff to them, and frankly if they had their choice they would rather be inside watching a Spider Man movie. Amanda kicked them out so she could deep clean the house and get ready for their camping trip to Canada next week.
I haven't had much energy this trip so maybe I needed a rest. Besides, the house is so peaceful and pretty it's hard to leave, especially when it's hot. The mornings and evenings here are the best.
Back to Seattle tomorrow, just in time for a mini heat wave.
