This month's calendar Archives
July 1, 2011
IT'S FRIDAY, MY FAVORITE DAY!!
We had a great weekend to start this week.
I helped with the Master Gardener's booth at the Manzanita Farmer's Market on Friday evening by answering questions about plants for people. There were a lot of people at the market who I knew and it was a lot of fun visiting with them. The Master Gardeners have a booth at the market a couple of times a month so I will be helping out by giving back some of the hours I owe. I don't usually go to the Manzanita Farmer's Market because it is a little pricey for me. I refuse to pay $5 a dozen for "organic" eggs. There are a lot of food booths and I did manage to bring home a yummy Marionberry pie for dessert.
On Saturday, Des Kahrs came up with his stump grinder and ground down the two remaining stumps in my fountain project. There were originally four Alder trees in that grove. They were cut down to the stumps years ago, and it was time to do something with that area. As I said last week, we got two of them out with the tractor, but the other two proved to be more of a challenge. It's good to have friends with things like stump grinders!! We now have a nice sloping mound of dirt and chips! Next it will be time to dig the trench for the electrical line so we can install the fountain. It is slowly shaping up.
Saturday evening, my sister Jeanne from Arizona and her best friend, Barb drove over after their women's conference at the Flying M Ranch near McMinnville. We had a really nice visit and they spent the night. They left the following afternoon for Barb's home near Battleground, Washington where she and Bob met up. Bob had been in Gray's Harbor for the weekend and we never did see him. They flew back to Arizona on Tuesday. It was sure great to see them again. Jeanne and Bob will be leaving the middle of July for Inverness, Scotland for 6 weeks to fill in at a church while the pastor goes on sabbatical.
I started up with my water aerobics class after a two-week break. It feels good to be back at that again and it seems to help me "limber" up from all my aches and pains. The class was huge the first couple of days - it always at the beginning of the term - but by Thursday, we were back to our normal group. Our instructor is going to try something new for the month of July - twice a week we'll have a more intense class following our normal class. If I want to stick around, the instructor will put us through a more vigorous routine. I haven't decided whether I am going to do that or not. I usually get plenty of exercise during the summer months as it is. Anyway, while we were on our break, the sides of the pool were painted and it really looks nice.
I took advantage of some of the nice weather we had at the beginning of the week by getting the steamboat ready for the 4th of July parade. I brought the brass lanterns down from the attic where they had been stored all winter and gave them a light polishing. They weren't very tarnished as I had cleaned them pretty good before I stored them away. That always helps! I touched up the paint on the hull, cleaned the inside and the outside of the boat and polished the top of the canopy as the sun had oxidized it pretty badly. Dave and I managed to put the deck plates back in after I had cleaned them. That was a little puzzling as each piece of the deck plate has to go in the boat in order. Between Dave and me, we worked it out! Dave just needs to put all the stuff back in the boat and steam it up and hopefully she will run smoothly to blow the whistle during the parade.
The weather changed to drizzle by the first of the week so I couldn't work outside on some of the projects I wanted to complete. I still have to catch up on my weeding. The weeds seem to grow faster when it rains so it is a never-ending job. My garden is coming along nicely. We are eating lettuce, snow peas and kale and the green beans are beginning to climb their poles. My tomatoes are going crazy! They have a lot of blossoms but no fruit and the vines have reached the top of my greenhouse! I gave them a dose of phosphorus hoping they will start to bear some fruit.
We got a cute picture of Ashtin practicing with her pig that we wanted to share. After the 4th of July, she will be busy showing her pig at the Marion County Fair. She has to work the pig in the arena with the judge watching. We always go and watch her. It amazes me that this little skinny girl can handle this huge pig. This is Ashtin's third year for showing pigs at the fair.
We are expecting our families down for the 4th of July celebration. Lara and Greg will arrive tonight and Leslie and Jason will be here on the 4th. They have animals (dogs, cats, chickens as well as the pigs) and so it is harder for them to be away very long. We will all ride in the steamboat in the Manzanita parade and then come home for a BBQ and fireworks later on. The weatherman has promised sunny weather for the weekend and I hope he doesn't disappoint us.
Today marks an anniversary of sorts. This journal is now seven years old! When I started writing, I was in the transition between retiring from my job at Tektronix and moving to Wheeler full time. I wanted to be sure I could continue to share my life with my family and the friends I was leaving behind and so that's how the journal was born. Now of course, we have things like Facebook, and I do use that service a little. But I didn't have that then and besides, I feel more comfortable with the website. So I guess we'll just keep doing this into my eighth year and beyond.
