It's a little too hot

for my liking. In the high 90s. Maybe it's even hit 100 today. We're blessed with air conditioning. A feature I sort of laughed about when we looked at the house, thinking this was the Seattle area for heaven's sake and when does it ever even get warm up here? What about all those gray skies and drizzle that everyone prophesied to me? It's an anomaly. And I will be glad to see it go. It has been warm when eating outside in the evening, so we have enjoyed that. A nice glass of wine (or is that a glass of nice wine?), something interesting on the BBQ, and just time. Maybe the upside of really warm weather is that it slows you down and you can't help but feel relaxed as you melt!

Inside the house, we make interesting cubbie-mates, both of us working from home, usually in the same room, neither of us speaking a word. We save the chit chat for non-work time or during the commute down the stairs ;-)

We went to the Kitsap Arts & Crafts Festival this weekend. It was fun to walk around and look at the interesting booths. And we got a little more familiar with the community of Kingston. I found a handy parking lot for going to the Farmers Market there and a couple restaurants that seem worth investigating in the future. Before it got too hot, I managed to get some of the deck stained and the front porch cleaned and prepped for staining. More will have to wait till the heat breaks. The good news for John is that with such heat, the grass is not growing much (it might be dead!) and he hasn't had to spend evenings mowing. Instead he's managing to collect a few berries which have been very nice indeed. That's about it for now. Take care...

The real Miller Bay

Here's the real Miller Bay with the Cascades in the background. There 's a lovely place to view the bay down the road about 2 miles in Suquamish. There's a long pier which you can walk out on and a long beach front for walking along the water. There's also a little cafe that serves up pizza and sandwiches that people say is quite good. You can sit on the deck outside and look over the bay. On our list of "things to discover". The location is named for the Suquamish tribe that is local to this area. They are hosting the tribal canoe festival this year and 100 or so canoes from various tribes in the Northwest are expected to arrive in early August for the weeklong event.

I smell a little smoke in the air this morning. There's a burn on the Olympic Penninsula to our west caused by a lightening strike.

I notice our "to do" list never seems to get shorter but the items on it are less urgent as we make progress toward becoming established residents here (we're local folk now). The immediate work of setting up basecamp is over and the view looks farther out now. That's a good thing...

Look at this...

Aha! I can upload photos. More will come. This is a view of the property. You can see the house in the clearing in the upper right corner of the bright green area. The rest is the woods and the stream.

I cleaned the deck today in preparation for staining and water protecting it in a couple days. Not a big deck, but it took me 2.5 hours! Silly me. I thought it would be a quick task. Still, it does look better.

John is away to the Bay Area taking care of business. I don't seem to lack for things to do when I'm on my own. I've discovered a yoga class and I went back to Jazzercise this week. Despite feeling somewhat sore, I'm enjoying the experiences.

There's a severe weather alert in place for our neck of the woods. It's based on predictions of 85-95 degree weather arriving this weekend and apparently staying around for the week after. Unusual for it to hang on. With the lack of rain, the fire danger is quite high for Western Washington.

This is Mt. Rainier and this is what it looks like from the parking lot of Home Depot. Pretty cool. Enjoy...

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Sights to see, stuff to do...

It's been a busy week. Kate was up and we had some "girl time". When someone visits, it is a forcing function for getting away from the house and finding new things to see and do in the area. Our list included visiting the local ceramics workshop and putting our creative talents to work. I have never painted ceramics before but I can see how it could become a regular activity. Like watercolor, it is quiet and meditative and creative. I liked it and will surely go back. We traveled to Port Townsend which is a Victorian seaport full of funky little shops and eateries as well as some nice views of the water. The drive is also quite pretty. On the way we drove through Port Gamble which is what is left of an old logging port. It is a lovely "village" with a few restored historical buildings and a very pretty water view. It's the site for various weekend festivals during the year and a popular wedding venue. We also hopped on the ferry to Seattle and explored the big city on foot. Very do-able. In between the sightseeing there were trips to the local Market (which is a must-see in its own right), meals on the deck, the Farmers Market, the chocolate store, and much more. Another friend from the UK arrived on Thursday for an overnight visit while on business in Portland. He arrived on a crutch recuperating from some surgery on an achilles tendon, so we spared him the walkabout tour of Poulsbo! We had a good visit though and we'll do more on the next visit.

Kate was charged with teaching me how to knit socks while she was here. I am a poor student. I find the instructions and the fingering for this absolutely foreign. Worse than that really. She is eternally optimistic and a good and patient teacher, but it is not an activity that I can seem to get my head around. I will look for a crochet pattern that uses that yarn instead. I have better luck with a single hook. You know...KISS (Keep it simple, stupid).

We put her on the local airport transporter van Saturday afternoon (saved us spending four hours driving to/from the airport and we were grateful for that since there were already 3 trips that week) and will enjoy planning another visit. It was a very good week. Remarkably, I don't think we visited a single Starbucks!

So, we're back to more routine activities. I'll pot some plants today and get some weeds trimmed back from the driveway. We don't have a yard so much as a "clearing" where the vegetation makes a continual effort to take back the space. John is once again mowing. He'll do the second stage today. And maybe the third tomorrow will complete it for this week. The dry weather means the grass has not grown quite so fast. And there's an electrical box along the drive that he needs to repair from being backed into by the movers. So, there's a trip to the hardware today I think. The shower door was installed this week and the shower is being used, but I think we will get a new shower head while we are at the hardware. This one is a little anemic. I don't mind "low flow" as long as what there is of it comes out with a little "oomph". I drink decaf coffee. The shower is my main means of waking up! Talk to ya later...

And another week begins...

We enjoyed a visit from friends in California this weekend. The weather was beautiful while they were here (80s and sunshine to spare). We enjoyed trading stories and just catching up. Saturday evening brought the first real rain we have experienced. Just a nice steady rain accompanied by thunder and lightening. That has continued off and on until today when it is predicted to give way to more sunny days and warmer temperatures. Just in time for another visitor! Daughter Kate will spend the week and we will enjoy some "girl time" poking around new places. We will have double the fun when a friend from the UK stops over on Thursday night before returning home on Friday. Having 2 guest rooms is great!

John gathered some wild blackberries and I put them in a blueberry pie (a black and blue berry pie!). Very yummy. Blueberry pie was the first pastry I ever made and I was 12. It has remained my favorite (followed closely by rhubarb or peach, cherry in a pinch, pumpkin in the fall...you get the picture). Anyway, the wild blackberries are nicely sweet. I don't think we will be doing anything with all those wee red elderberries. At least not this year.

We are becoming "scat detectives". For those of you who do not know what the word "scat" means, lets just say that only a nurse would talk about it in the same conversation that includes a discussion of delicious food. We're funny that way. Anyway, we know we have had a coyote in the yard recently and a raccoon last week. I also learned that black bears don't hibernate during the winter. Hmm. John saw a "garter snake" in the yard. It was 2 feet long! Apparently they only have one kind of poisonous snake up here. That may be, but the operative word here is "snake". Yuck! Personally, except for the rabbit, I don't really want to encounter the resident wildlife up close and personal.

On the life-change front, I am wading through the COBRA process to get us set up with health insurance (when will we fix this system??)and the business end of transferring other employer-paid benefits to individual ownership. Living in one state and working in another adds a layer to the process. So, that is my current task. On a more positive note, the shower enclosure will be installed in the master bath tomorrow. Having 2 guest rooms makes having more than one shower a real plus. Speaking of which, I need to jump in the one we have now and get on with the day...

Comin' Around Again...

That marker of "time" that accompanies the moment we begin life on this planet is here again. My birthday is today. I have completed 56 years and I celebrate it wholeheartedly. I have enjoyed each decade. They have been vastly different in many ways and the experiences have been priceless. This one is as rich as the others and any day I wake up is a good day, as a friend of mine would say. Yes, my physical body knows it has been around long enough to want more "consideration". But in other ways I seem to grow younger, dropping the weight of things which turn out not to matter so very much and enjoying the experience of moments, whether big or small. Savoring the relationships with people that enrich my life.

So, to each person who sent a card, an email, flowers, text message, or said simply "Happy birthday my dearest" (Thank you John), know that your thoughtfulness added happiness to my "day". I intend to spend it smiling and playing in watercolors. Thanks for indulging me for a few moments. We'll get back to our regularly scheduled program soon...

This and That....

I am having difficulty uploading photos to the blog but I'll keep trying. The weather is cooler today. A new front has arrived from the ocean side now. The high is predicted to be 64 degrees, considerably cooler than the 80s we had over the weekend. Actually, some rain would be nice. I've got some work to do and some projects to keep me busy today. Gareth was here during the weekend (our fist visitor!) and enjoyed the peaceful surroundings. He, John, and Zoe explored the woods from the other "entry" and didn't get very far. It's so thick with undergrowth that you just can't get through. Maybe when autumn arrives it will thin out some and we can see what's in there. They did hear water so the stream must be running. Then we went to the Farmers Market and introduced Gareth to the 'burg of Poulsbo. We had lunch at JJs Fish Place and for dinner we BBQ'd and ate outside and generally had a very nice 4th. We have more company coming over the next 2 weeks as well. I'm going into town today to do some errands. Gotta get fingerprinted to renew my nursing license so I'll visit the Police Station. Then on to City Hall for pet licensing, and then to check out the Recreation Center where there are some classes I might be interested in joining. John is due back from California tomorrow evening. Zoe encountered the rabbit this morning. When John is away, I typically keep her on a lead when we're outside (because she thinks "Zoe come" is more of a suggestion than a command) and it's a good thing because she would have been down to Miller Bay (there really is a Miller Bay) before she stopped chasing that rabbit. Oh, and that red berry I was wondering about is a red elderberry. Apparently they can be used to make jam or wine, but make you nauseated if eaten raw. So, not much to report today. Some days are like that...

Lights in the Sky

We went into town last evening to watch the fireworks. I love watching them. I have no idea how the people who make them get them to do the things they do: change colors, rotate and spin, make different shapes, twinkle, etc. And I don't need or want to know. I can just watch and be delighted by the display. It's all good. We waited until 8:30 to make our way there only to discover that nearly all the other 7000 residents apparently were planning to be there as well! It was a giant street party with downtown streets closed off and people everywhere. We found parking maybe a couple miles from the town center (right where the farmers market is held actually) and walked in from there. The waterfront was pretty crowded with folks who had obviously staked out their spot much earlier so we just wandered about and enjoyed the music and people-watched for a while. I knew there would be a Navy band playing and I expected a traditional band playing patriotic songs. That wasn't the case. Yes, they wore their Navy uniforms. But they played rock! And the lead singer was a young woman who had a kind of Janis Joplin voice goin' on. The fireworks started at 10:30 from the bay and they had music to accompany them. A little Ray Charles, Queen, Louis Armstrong, the requisite patriotic songs and more. It lasted about 20 minutes. Actually one of the best display I've seen (rivaling Disneyland, Great America, and more) Not bad for a little burg. A definite keeper. Enjoy the holiday...

Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On

Well, there have been 2 earthquakes here this week. Yesterday I was working at the computer when the monitor started shaking and my chair suddenly developed rubbery legs. Having lived in California for 30 years, it was immediately identifiable as an earthquake. Sure enough, it showed up 7 minutes later on the U.S. Geological Web site and was centered just 5 miles away. Not a big one but noticeable all the same. So, it's not a perfect world here after all. Guess I can live with that...

And the Beat Goes On...

I watch the weather across the country and feel slightly (but only slightly) guilty with my sweater on. We’re actually having a “warm wave” (I just can’t call it a heat wave yet) and the temperature is expected to reach 84 tomorrow. It gets very cool at night and with the windows open in the bedroom, the bedcovers feel good. The house gets down to 67. I baked bread this week. It just felt like the thing to do. It’s was a wonderful pane francesi loaf which requires a biga. That’s a somewhat gooey concoction of flour, water, and yeast which sits overnight and then ingredients get added the next day with lots of kneading and resting and rising until you have a very lovely crusty loaf with lots of holes inside. I made a roasted butternut squash, shallot, and ginger soup to go with. You’d think it was autumn here.

On the house front, we will put some trellis/screening material along the underside of the porch and the deck to keep critters out of there. Mostly our critters. The cats have discovered there is an outdoors that came with this house and, of course, they want to run right under that space once they escape. Mr. Purrkins was forcibly ejected from it when John grabbed his tail as it was disappearing with him into the dark, small space. What a loud bit of screaming that entailed (no pun intended…it just happened). And BTW, it was Mr. Purrkins doing the screaming, not John. Zoe also has a recent interest in trying to dig under there and she’s very hardheaded. She’ll do as she’s told (as in “stop that digging”, “stay out of there” or some variation on that theme), but when backs are turned, all promises are forgotten (purposefully or just because she’s daft…we can’t really say) and she’s back at it. We’re getting the trellis today. She also wants to venture further and further into the uncharted woods. She went in and John went in after her this week, discovering that the ground is very wet in there. He pronounced it “a bog” which translates for me to “a marsh”. Makes sense since it’s officially a “wetlands buffer area”. There is another way in that we want to try which is on higher ground and more “user friendly”. Still, I think I will have my wellies on for this walk. And the place where Zoe prefers to wander has a makeshift barrier of downed wood in front of it. Which keeps a hardheaded dog busy trying to figure out a way to beat it.

I put up more pictures yesterday as they start to figure out where they “fit”. All that’s left really is to manage the garage a bit. At this point there’s no hope of putting a car in there and maybe there will never be. Hopefully we get a shed up soon and can get things placed where we can reliably find them. It’s the finding things reliably that really drives this. That’s all I want. And this week I will get some herbs to plant at the Farmers Market and get that started. I am actually working some too, participating remotely with the team in Palo Alto. The position that I applied for at the local college closes applications mid-month so I don’t actually expect to hear anything from them until then. My days could gain a lot more structure if that turns out positively.

Poulsbo celebrates the Fourth on the Third! Always has. I appreciate unconventional behavior. So, there will be concession stands along the waterfront and a band will play in the evening. Then fireworks will start about 10:15 (once it’s actually really dark!).

We are going to try making a "guided tour" video of the house and who knows what else and post it here. Watch this space...