These Are the Days

Just some shots from around the house and garden this week.  The weather cooled down to be just about perfect this weekend.  We spent the afternoon hiking at Phillip's Farm Park, followed by ice cream and a ride in a horse drawn carriage at the McConnell Mansion Ice Cream Social downtown.  An old-fashioned Moscow Sunday afternoon.  

I said a while back that May and June are the most beautiful months on the Palouse.  July isn't bad either! 

Hot Summer Nights

We are in the hot days of summer here.  After my stint in D.C. last week though, it doesn't seem too bad!  I forgot what 90/90 was really like (90 degree heat in 90% humidity).  Last summer was so jolly and lazy; this summer has been fun, hectic, and with an undercurrent of change.  Change can be a good thing, but it is also, well, a bit unsettling.  We're taking the time to count our blessings:  our family, our little house and gardens, our friends, our town.  Reaching for santosha--contentment.  Finding sharp points of decision making.  But still reaching.   

Happy and Tired

The irony of summer...we wait and wait for it to get here and we fill our days so full of fun and adventure and trips and busyness that we exhaust ourselves.  What a fun filled Independence Day weekend we had!  Parades and bike races and friends and fireworks!  I was so tired last night, and just wanted drift off to sleep and forget that today would be Monday.  Sadly, it was not to be.  The sound of thunder woke up the little one and we all had a sleepless night. 

Even still, I treasured this weekend.  It is so, so achingly lovely on the Palouse right now.  The spring wheat looks like velvet and the winter wheat is fading to pure sunlight.  Hay is being baled and put up for the long, cold winter ahead.  We were so stressed in June, though we tried to hide it with all our trips, as we waited to see if my husband would have a job in the coming months.  Thankfully, he does, and we shall stay here a bit longer, it seems.

Oh Palouse, when I think it is time to leave you, you find a way to keep me here a bit longer.  How is it that you do this to me, year after year?  Every passing year, I love you more.  You don't have the hardwoods and the wetness of my childhood home, but you have the sweet scent of pine and grass.  You are the place I am raising my baby, his happy home.  My happy home! 

May the Fourth Be with You

We made the traditional July 4th pilgrimage to the Johnson, WA parade.  You never know what you might come across...

Han Solo, giving new meaning to "this thing is a piece of junk!"  Ok, well maybe not actually, but it is made of a trash can!

Han Solo, frozen in carbonite, accompanied by the green skinned dance hall girl.

Whoever came up with this AT-AT idea deserves a medal!

Aren't you a little short for a stormtrooper?!?

Being a Jedi Master is hard work, and sometimes you need to take a little cat-nap when being toted around by Jedi's in training.

In addition to what I felt was the most creative group in the parade, there was the usual mix of classic cars and restored tractors.  Some were quite impressive!  Altogether, I felt it was one of the better Johnson parades I'd seen in a while!

 

Extreme Garden Makeover

The garden bed directly in front of the house on the east side was a disaster.  And I don't mean it in the epic, tragic, storybook version like the Titanic.  I mean in the mess and destruction, Hurricane Katrina since, minus death and injury.  We couldn't stand the site of it, and also kept thinking "it's going to take a ton of work to fix that sucker."

We were right.

Last weekend, we dug up (and not easily, I might add, since we'd had a very dry May up to that point) all the old stuff and hauled dirt and roots and plant bits to the dump.  This weekend, we had three tons (that right, tons) of topsoil delivered, which we moved into place with a walk-behind skid steer.  At $21 an hour, my husband reasoned it was cheaper than physical therapy.  We mixed in compost and raked and raked.  Then, we put in a border to prevent grass from growing back and laid a weed barrier.  We concluded the day at Fiddler's Ridge Garden and Nature Center (apparently they are old school and don't have website for me to link to).  My husband hates gardening and yard work, so the highlight of the day was watching him walk around and look at one plant after another, finally exclaiming, "I can't believe I'm saying this, but this is kind of fun!" 

I'm sorry but I don't have a good "before" picture.  I forgot to take one last week, and the garden has been so ugly that I hadn't taken a picture of it since 2008.  I looked.  

Sort of before, which is to say, after the really hard work was done.

After the new topsoil was in place.

Plants sitting out.

The stump still needs to be dug out.

On the way home from church today, we took the old Moscow-Pullman highway, which we love to do on fine mornings.  My son exclaimed "Mama it's so beautiful" when we stopped to take pictures.

My son too this picture of the sky!

And these of the wheat fields!

     

November Snow

We had another wonderful cyclocross weekend.  My husband raced in Spokane at what is definitely my favorite venue, Walter's Fruit Ranch.  So much fun!  I have to say cheering for a bike race in the snow and mud and 30 degree weather is much more fun when you've had hot spiced wine with your lunch!

But oh, winter, you are already making yourself known!
 

 

The Edge of the Season

We went to our last Farmer's Market of the 2012 season.  For me, the end of market truly marks the turning of the year from one into the next.  Each of the last seasons have been unique.  I read a blog post once (and if I could remember where, I would cite it!) that said having a child takes you out of the comfortable life you've created for yourself and moves you to new, uncharted, and much more turbulent, territory.  The emotional highs are higher, and the lows are far lower.  I would add that each year is also a new adventure.  You're getting to know a new person, and they're getting to know themselves.  They learn to do new things, and you adjust your roles and your relationship.  Your relationship with your partner, and your family as a unit, also evolves.  I've gone from wearing my baby, to pushing the stroller, to having him follow me as we go about our Saturday morning market routine.  This year, for all but about two Saturdays, we biked to the market and loaded up the trailer with our produce for the trip home.  Next year, will he be riding his bike alongside mine?

Our Indian Summer is over now, and we are really into fall.  We had our first fire in the wood stove this morning to take the chill off the night.  We are at the edge of the old season.  We are at the beginning of the new.  I'm a little sad, because this year has been so great.  So many fun adventures, so much laughing.  

So it helps to remember that the adventures are not over, and time is really more circular than linear.  We can't always see what's around the next corner, but we often circle back to places of familiarity, even amidst change. And if we're really lucky in life, we have a great circle of friends with whom we can share the adventure!

Finding our way out of the University of Idaho Corn Maze at dusk...lovely!

Goodbye, September

This post may be somewhat random.  So many thoughts going through my head.  I think the fall does that to me.  Even though I hate the end of summer, and dread the cold, dark period between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I do love fall.  I love the cool that comes in the evening, the breeze with a hint of change, and the leaves rustling on the ground.  Not that we have many of them out west (leaves, that is).  

I bogged down somewhat in the garden.  I think I am waiting for it to rain, and it doesn't, so I just forget about the garden.  Every year, it feels like one of three things happens to everything in the garden:  1) it completely underperforms--this would describe my onions to a T this year; 2) I get the impression that if I had only helped it a little bit more then I would have had an awesome crop--I feel my squash fits into this grouping; or 3) I am overpowered by the shear awesomeness of its production--my tomatoes and blackberries fit this category.  In the five years we've owned this house, my blackberry vines have never done as well.  I'm not sure if it was the cool, wet spring, or the fact that they received windfall water from watering the yard, or if they were just excited to be near the sandbox, but I have picked for weeks.  I wasn't even planning on making jam this year, but I am going to make some blackberry jam now!!  And don't get me started on the tomatoes.  I can't keep up with them--salsa and canning and fresh oh my!

But on the other hand, cyclocross is ramping up!  And we've been able to enjoy so many of those lovely fall evenings (despite the dust and smoke from want of rain)!  I took these pictures on Wednesday night...the last one is my favorite!