Moscow Sunsets

Southeastern Summers

My parents' pond at sunset

Johnson Farm at the Peaks of Otter on the Blue Ridge Parkway

Otter River

I grew up in the Southeast.  As a teenager, I was involved in a summer tennis league.  Our practices were from nine to eleven in the morning.  I would bike home from practice and turn on the garden hose and soak myself in the freezing water to cool down prior to going in for a shower.  It was that hot and muggy.

When we traveled back east to visit family last week, the weather was unbelievably well-behaved.  It had rained all summer, so everything was verdant.  The temperatures barely reached into the 90s at their worst, and in the mountains, the temperature one morning never exceeded 70.  Perfect.  While I can't say I have any regrets about moving to the Northwest and having dry summers with cool evenings, I will say I do occasionally miss the lazy, warm summer evenings.  And it goes without saying I miss the trees and the flowers and the abundance of water.  I also had forgotten a lot of things about southeastern summers.  For instance, I had forgotten that if you take a hike in the morning, your sneakers will be soaked with the morning dew.  Your feet and ankles will be covered with fresh cut grass snips or leaf bits.  The same dew also makes the really outrageously ginormous spider webs visible.  Except when it doesn't, and you walk right into them and spend the next 30 minutes trying to pick off bits of sticky, hoping against hope that the spider wasn't home at the time you crashed into its domicile.  And gnats.  I had completely forgotten that gnats existed, until they made their presence known via kamikaze runs into my eyes.  But I loved the streams bubbling in late summer, and the squishy ground, and the moss covered trees.  I loved the butterflies and the hummingbirds, and the fact my mom's rosemary looked like a sequoia compared to mine.  Yes, the northwest is home now, but what a lovely southern visit!!  

Summer Rains...

...are weird if you live on the Palouse.  The first few days of August were unseasonably cool and RAINY!  I'm not sure what to make of it--volatile weather patterns to say the least!  But rain when it's been so dry is much appreciated, even as it disturbs you with its unpredictability.

Yesterday I did something that I hope will become a more regular habit--solo bike ride!  So lovely to ride to Troy and smell the ripening wheat and the pine trees!  Even the spring wheat is turning golden, so summer is truly winding down.

Things are still a little unsettled around here, much like the weather.  Hopefully we will have more certainty and "settledness" once I start to feel the chill of fall in the air.  The drama of the day was that our washing machine died--mid load, if you can believe it.  Lovely.  We made ourselves feel better by completely reorganizing our son's room, to much success.  I guess you win some, you lose some!

Garden Beauties

Relic of a railroad age on the Latah Trail

Made it to Troy!

Moscow Mountain

 

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! 

Rainy Day Exploring

 

We have been exploring on this rainy weekend.  My husband participated in a bike "ride" (it was not a race!) in Leavenworth, WA, so we joined in for one big family road and camping trip.  The rain mainly came overnight, so it didn't bother us in our nearly-new family camping tent.  My husband had a whopping six flat tires on the 85-mile ride, and his riding partner was besought with a gear shifter malfunction and chain issues.  So we were pretty amused when hubby won the grand prize in the raffle drawing:  a toilet paper roll dispenser made of bike parts (quick release changer, no less).  

While they were riding bikes, the rest of us were exploring Wenatchee State Park.  Four little boys, one very cold lake.  A long, flat beach perfect for swimming--if you could take the freezing temperatures.  The boys couldn't resist, even as their lips turned blue.  Luckily, when they got cold, there was lots of shoreline exploring and fort building to be done.

This is definitely a spot we will have to adventure back to!

Well, It's Good for the Estate...

Cool and rainy the last few days.  I love it.  As one of my friends says, "it's good for the estate."  She meant her garden, but she's a sociologist so I think it was also a commentary on American suburbia.  You never can tell with those sociologists.  

It is good for the estate, though.  My gardens are soaking it all in, and it postpones the dusty, dry season and prolongs the green, flowery season.  June rains.  We weeded the tiny flower bed around the choke-cherry tree in front, and the peonies rewarded us by blooming this year.  The rain popped them open.  

Last night I fell asleep listening to the rain through my open window.  If my husband would let me, I'd sleep with the windows wide open every night.  Sleeping with the windows open makes me feel closer to nature, just as I do when tent camping.  But then again, sun and birds at 4 am do not wake me up, even though I'm a very light sleeper.  Hubby is also a light sleeper, but sun and birds do wake him up (although, ironically & annoyingly, the sound of a baby crying does not always wake him up).

Window open or not, I'm glad for the rain.  I hope the rest of summer passes much slower than these first few sunny, fun-filled weeks!

Backroads Road Trip

We just returned from an epic road trip.  1,500 miles in five days through some really remote (and some not so remote) country.  Redfish Lake and the Sawtooth Recreation Area, where have you been my whole life?  The area made me fall in love with Idaho all over again, Idaho's other shortcomings notwithstanding.

The trip to Park City (via Stanley and Redfish Lake) was just my son and I, my little buddy, as my husband had a work-related meeting.  He was such a great road trip buddy, I can't even begin to describe it.  Never, well, hardly ever, complained and so helpful.  The kind of road trip buddy that will roll down his window so you can take a picture of the sandhill crane.   And on the way home, a complete family with hubby included, and this time I didn't have to do the driving!  I could finish my bike yarn bomb for Moscow's Artwalk and knit a saddle blanket for "Neigh Neigh."  

Park City was nice, but I loved Stanley, ID, population 63.  The winters are pretty rough though.  Luckily we caught it in a mellow June, and not a typical June with snow squalls.  I didn't love Sun Valley and Ketchum.  All those fancy stores, but the yarn shop is hard to find.  I'd take Whitefish, MT any day.     

Here are some of the trip highlights:

We were stopped when a bad accident occurred on HW 55.  For two hours.  The man cub tried to recruit other kids to play soccer with him to pass the time!

Oh, Sawtooth Mountains!

Redfish Lake!

A Sandhill Crane!

"Mom, are the antelope those bouncy things?"

Headwaters of the Salmon River

Rockin' bike trail in Park City, UT

Top of the Wasatch Range overlooking Park City, UT

Bike trail in Sun Valley, ID

Returns at the Sawtooth Hatchery

These Long Days of Spring

The longest days of the year are really in spring, you know.   By the time the first day of summer is over, the days are already getting shorter.  These are the busy days, the flower-filled days, the can't we stay up just a bit longer days. We had a thundershower today, so rare on the Palouse, and this one even came with hail.  After watching it for twenty minutes, my husband and I both looked at each other and said, "I hope the plants are OK!"  They were, although the lettuce is looking a little rough.  Fortunately, my hubby doesn't like big chunks of lettuce leaf in his salad, so now it comes pre-chopped!  But rain makes the garden wet and grow-y, and I love walking in the garden after a storm.

Putting my son to bed, it seemed like nothing could be a better finale to the weekend than watching the last, soft light of the day fall across his cheek.  Love.

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!

     

Australia pt I

Fig or Banyan tree, across from the Opera House

 Here are a few pictures from a land down under!

Our B&B in Sydney

Sydney Harbor at Sunset

A cormorant in Sydney Harbor

I Heart Art Museum Sandwiches!

Rainbow Lorakeets, not pets

The Nobbies on Phillips Island