Saturday, July 25, 2015

Heights? Who's Afraid of Heights?

The day before I left for a brief 4th of July escape from work, a friend and I met at 0600 for a hike. Little did we know a beat-the-dawn start time would not beat the bugs. Boy, are they out in force this summer! We were overcome with an urgency, not only to beat the heat, but to keep moving to keep the bugs off.
 
 
Jack and his friend Nim had a great time and it was really nice to get out start the day with a long walk. Great to catch up with my friend too.
 
 
Jack is a special boy. It was a long way down to the water.
 
Later that day, Jess and I went up to the family cabin for a day and a night. It was so hot - holy moly. We actually went swimming in the Puget Sound, which... no. It has to be burning-rays-of-a-thousand-suns hot to be able to go into the Sound higher than your knees. Did that stop Jack from wanting to play? But of course not.
 
 
 
His eyes are shut. Although he may just be blinking, I choose to believe he is basking in the glory that is his most favorite place in the entire world.
 
 
Daisy has the right idea.
 
 
 The cats were displeased upon our return. The new little one is officially "Gemma," by the way. Name tag makes it official.
 
 
And then everyone reunited for the night. Happy (except Gemma with the cone of shame. Darn cut behind her ear won't heal) campers.
 


Friday, July 24, 2015

Jess's Perspective

Jess took some beautiful pictures of the garden today and I thought I'd post them. Sometimes another person's perspective seem better for photos. Just don't say so if you agree ;)
 
 
I must say, as I sat in the courtroom listening to the rain on the roof, I imagined Jess out in the garden huddled over a flower of some sort. Turns out I was right.

 
Dragonfly in the sun.
 




 
Tomato Row in the background. The Quilting Doberman should send her elk babies over to eat the apples off these trees! You can see the cucumber, beans, and squash vines growing up the greenhouse frame. Yay. Orange nasturtiums in the bottom right-hand corner.


 
Dahlias, dahlias, and more dahlias. This one is strange because the first bloom was a blend - almost like two bulbs had fused together. One large chunk was a solid red, the rest this confetti color. Very interesting.



Tuesday, July 21, 2015

It's Hot.

It's hot. The plants are crispy. The grass is slippery and yellow. We fear our water bill.
 
That said, due to Jess's five a.m. watering, things are miraculously still alive. Remember the sweet pea post? Here they are! Still alive and smelling sweet by the garden gate (and the garbage bins.)
 

 
The begonias are thriving in the shade (shade?!) of the porch. Jack knocked a pot over the other day, but I smooshed the roots back into the pot and everything seems to still be kicking right along. Sigh.
 

You can barely see the bird on top of the plant stakes - I bought this at a garden show several years ago and it's my favorite thing in the yard. That and the tea cup and saucer vine growing on it.
 

 
Okay, some things are still green - hence the fear of the water bill. Eeep. On the left are two bean towers, on the right are the dahlias so far, and behind them is a glimpse of tomato row which is finally taller than the two of us.
 
 
Hello, giant onion blossom! We have harvested jalapenos, onions, and radishes so far from this bed. That's it. No tomatoes yet, but I have a feeling we are soon going to be up to our eyeballs in them.

 
We cut the green plastic out of an old green house and are growing beans, cucumbers, and gourds along a twine grid along the frame. Looking pretty good so far.
 
We harvested our first few beans from this line tonight. For a quick treat, steam until tender, toss with a few dashes of walnut oil and toasted walnuts. Yum! 

 
Gourds! And fossilized grass. :(

 
There's corn in our yard. Corn. And it seems to love the heat because... it's growing like never before.

 
I caught Jack snacking on the corn leaves.

 
Tomato row with the an apple tree in the background.

 
And Jess with a confused Jack looking on.
 
Look at that grass. Yikes.

 
 


Sunday, July 12, 2015

The House That Built Me

I walked around our family home yesterday while everyone else was gone and said my good-byes. It'll go on the market next week, I think.
 
The front door with Mom's favorite flower.
 
 
Hi Jack. When we turn onto the street the house is on, Jack starts to bark. He knows. He is always so sad when he realizes there is no one inside. This photo is after he did a sweep of the house. He did find a tennis ball though, so it wasn't all for not.
 
 
I have memories of picking the tiny daffodils that grow in this rockery in the spring, inevitably putting my face and hand through spider webs as I reached through the bars to turn the water hose on, and lighting the railing up like a candy cane during Christmas time.


This is the clock that hung on the wall by the hallway forever. In the days before cell phones made us crazy to-the-minute timekeepers, our house never operated on a by the minute schedule. This clock never quite told the right time. Dad's alarm clock never did either. I also couldn't read the time on this until I was about 13. (I think it fell off the wall during the move, which accounts for the misshape.)

 
Every day my dad would leave for the bus stop before we left for school. As a kid, I would almost always watch him walk away through my bedroom window. I'd peer through the curtains, see him walking, and bang on the glass until he turned around. He would turn, wave, and keep walking. He repeated that exactly three times before disappearing beyond the mailboxes (across from that blue house.)
 

This is the rec room downstairs and it certainly didn't always look this nice. I fondly remember wood paneling and tan and black bricks on the wall. My mom had a giant yellow velvet rocking chair (talk about 70's!) that I would sit in most nights before dinner and watch Looney Tunes on a gigantic old fashioned television. It was partially the size and comfort of the chair that would invite me to curl up in the tiniest ball possible, and also the fact that the basement was SO creepy as a child. Especially alone.
 


The worst thing was if you had to use the restroom while playing downstairs. Heaven forbid you walk all the way up the stairs to use the regular bathroom up there. No, you ventured through the utility room and into Dad's bathroom/dungeon. This is the utility room and the monster furnace. Growing up, there was always, ALWAYS, a bucket of this special concoction that bleached my brother's baseball pants sitting in the corner here. The other moms at baseball were always so jealous of my brother's spotless pants. :)
 

 
My dad sat on the bench in the corner when my brother and I were outside. If I couldn't find Dad, he was sitting in that corner on the deck. When we were little, we rode our plastic tricycles in viciously fast circles on the lower portion. Mom and Dad put a gate on the deck when my brother took a sudden detour and rode his tricycle down the steps. :)
 
 
What are these things called? Arbors? Whatever it is, my cat got stuck on it all the time. I would laugh and laugh as Dad climbed up to fetch her. The Japanese Maple in the photo grew as much as we did. It was probably three feet tall when we moved in. Now it's about 11 or so.

 
Basketball sucks. I think I was destined to hate it because, as a tall kid you get the, "DO YOU PLAY BASKETBALL?" question. A lot. You get it a lot. That said, it was fun to play H.O.R.S.E. with my brother and dad down here. Our uncle put the hoop in as well as a big fort with a slide - the fort got torn down ages ago but hopefully the next family gets to enjoy the basketball hoop. We played a lot of other ball games but there was a real risk of losing the ball over the fence and into a sea of blackberry bushes. Ball recoveries were fun and treacherous expeditions.
 
 
Yes, I pushed my brother into a dog igloo and down these stairs. He responded years later by pushing me out of the cherry tree on the right. I bounced all the way down the stairs. Fond memories.

 
Speaking of the cherry tree. Before some contractor did a hack job on my poor tree, she was a thing of beauty. Big, feathery cherry blossoms looked like pale pink clouds in the spring, and man, I climbed that thing to the tip tops and would sit up there and feel totally invisible. I constantly had that orange bark on my clothes.
 
 
Spring and summer evenings, my brother and I would play outside until dark. I'm sure Mom was always watching out of some window because the second one of us got too loud, or started to argue or cry, she was out on the deck like a flash. When Dad got home, the glow of the lights inside would cast across the deck and onto the lawn, letting us know it was almost dinner time. Often times, the sound of a vacuum or the Mariner's baseball game would drift out of the back door.
 
 
I never thought my parents would sell this house, and it's hard. One of the hardest parts, which only animal people truly understand, is the fact that my cat is buried in the back yard. I am so conflicted - I feel like I should have her exhumed and cremated but I also want her left at peace. It's hard to realize she will be all alone there, in a stranger's backyard. I did scoop some of the dirt up after I put the flowers there. I'll put that in an urn, I think.
 
 
So there it is. Kind of thrown together, but it feels good to have it written down.


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 



The House That