Signs of Fall

While doing my chores today, I felt an intense awareness that the season really had changed very quickly, from the warm sunny mornings of late summer to the crisp and foggy mornings of autumn.

Of course, I knew intellectually, almost in an absent-minded way, and had been adjusting to the fall schedule of outdoor activities, but this morning it just hit me at a different level of awareness.

 

I mean, I knew if was fall because school started for Daemyan. I wasn't mowing the yard as often. Weeding,... hadn't really given it much thought lately. Daylight getting shorter and shorter...... 

But on Sunday, after church, I passed the nursery and saw people picking out colorful mums and the urge to transition to fall on a more conscious level really hit me. I turned the truck around and went back to the nursery decided to stop in to buy mums for my back deck and ended up with not only mums, but a few "burning bush" plants that will turn a fiery red before the leaves fall off.

 

 

 I love fall colors and have typically loved the fall, but this year it seems as though I have been a little apprehensive about the changing season. The football season, Thanksgiving, Christmas, all without Whitey this year. He would have been excited about making a nice toasty fire and planning his Thanksgiving menu. I'd be recording games for him to watch in his "man cave" after work. Sometimes the silence is deafening. Without the summer's flurry of activities, the reality of the season is hard to ignore. So I try to do what he would have done, but with my own twist, of course!

I even bought a new birdhouse!

 

 

So, I will feel my grief and loss and try not to take any day for granted with all it's ups and downs, as we never know how many seasons that we and our loved ones have left.

 

 

Enjoy the beauty of the early fall! There are a lot of changes to come!

 

 

  

 

 

Just for grins...........

 

 

Summer goes so fast.....

Time once again, has gotten away from me.
Daemyan has started the 6th grade and once again, fall is here.

Although the summer was a pretty lazy, I managed to keep real busy. Yardwork was never ending, and taking care of the neighbor's horses kept me out of mischief. Well, kinda... ;)
Looking back at my calendar, there were A LOT of trips to Home Depot, picking out paint, hardware, light fixures, toilets, sinks, tiles, countertops, flooring, building a new front deck, 6 weeks of swimming lessons for Daemyan and Dayla, Ed and April's wedding, Allapalooza, sibling lunches, painting projects, Stanwood Fair, my mini vacation to Twisp/Winthrop, Evergreen Fair and a trip to Mike and Kim's in Leavenworth! Oh, and Daemyan's 12th birthday, Dayla's 8th birthday, a new paint job and roof on my barn and a brand new truck! Whew!

Here are some of my "summer in pictures!"

 

swimming lessons

 

 new front deck

 

 Miss Dayla's 8th birthday

tons of mowing and yardwork!

 Painting at mom and dad's

 

 Sibling get-to-gether

 

building the kennel

 

horse sitting

 

sibling get-to-gether

New bathroom in progress

 

Alapaloosa

 

new Toyota Tacoma

 

And.................

 

Trip to Winthrop/Twisp

A wonderful friend of ours has a really nice vacation home in Twisp and graciously offered to let us stay there. So, I took him up on it! Sylvia, Noelle, me and Daemyan packed up and headed east on August 7th and came back on the 10th. It was short, sweet and perfect! We fell in love with the Methow Valley !

As you can see, we were not exactly "roughing it", which by the way, is fine with us.

Next is our trip to mike and Kim's in Leavenworth!

More picures to come, they are on the other computer :/

Another Busy Day

What is boredom? Someone please explain!

Yesterday was another one of those days that was so packed with activities that I could barely get out of bed this morning!
My first project- Get the Onion Garden Weeded.
Onion garden, as opposed to vegetable garden, because onions are about as far as I got before my back/hips gave out on me :(
Actually, I did get some oregano in, but in my crazy business, it went to seed already. The slugs got my parsley and my cilantro (a gift from my hairdresser) is still sitting patiently in little pots waiting to go in the ground. My tomato plant looks pathetic. I tried to cheat and buy a big plant and grow it on the back porch which is an inferno in the summer, but apparently it was too hot even for the heat lovin' plant, so I put it in the big garden, and it is looking very sad indeed. Whitey always planted potatoes and I have volunteers, otherwise it's just onions. I got carried away. I planted shallots, Spanish red onions, yellow onions, Walla Walla Sweets, leeks, and a few others that I can't remember. I brought the tags in to research onion care on the Internet and got sidetracked, can't find the tags that I was going to promptly put back in the row so that I would not forget what was what, and guess what??? Nuff said.

Weeding has gotten to be my full time job even though it wreaks havok with my body, so I decided to try my hand at rototilling the weeds to make things "easier" for me. HA! I sit in my bed as I write this post! Anyway, this is as far as I got. Some of the onions are hard to see through the weeds :(  Yikes!
My poor pathetic tomatoe plant is the sad one on the right.

On to project #2- Finish painting at mom and dad's (while they are in Corsica, lucky dogs, they owe us BIG!!!)
They, (meaning Mom) wanted the family/TV room painted. Syl and I decided to get creative and do an "accent" wall where the TV sits. We picked out a beautiful blue/green color,

.......but Sylvia thought it looked too dark and opressive and cavelike. I didn't want to do it over so I thought it looked just fine. Well, she ended up buying a quart of white and mixing it in with the dark and that is what we did yesterday.

We covered up the dark with the lighter vesion and it really did look much better. We had to do two coats, so Syl mowed while I layed down :) Hey, I had already rototilled, OK?
Here is what we ended up with, not dry yet, so I got some glare going on.

Taken with the light on

 Taken with the light off, the glare is from the skylight

So after cleaning up, I drove the one hour drive home, stopped at the store because I decided I wanted a big salad for supper. Somewhere between getting the dogs out of the kennel and unpacking my car, I decided the field needed to be mowed. (???) I was getting delirious, I guess.

It wasn't really that bad, but I must have just needed to relax and just, well, sit!

The evening was warm and beautiful and the clouds had this beautiful pink tinge to them. Like I said, I think I was delirious. I took a picture, but the pink didn't quite show up :(

I love a nicely mowed field. Yes, I'm a geek!

While I was mowing, I noticed that the two weinies were not in sight and just as I was about to panic, I spotted them in the kennel, sitting in the doghouse, watching me! Apparently, they must think of the kennel as a safe place, so that made me feel good, since I still feel apprehensive when they have to be in there while I'm gone.

So there it is. One day of my "boring" life in a boring nutshell!

Tune in for more boring news tomorow! ;)

Front Porch Rebuild

Steve (my friend's carpenter hubby) showed up this morning to finish up the deck and as luck would have it, it started thundering, lightning and then a torrential downpour.

Sooooooooooo, he wen't back home.

Since the wood is not sealed yet, he didn't want to walk around on it with his wet, muddy feet. Oh well, I guess I won't have to water or do yardwork today!
Anyway, here are a few shots of "The Rebuild". I love this one of Daemyan!

Steve taught him the correct way to hammer in the nails. I din't realize there was a right or wrong way!

nosy doggies!

These were taken yesterday. Steps were framed and ready to be finished.

The begining of some railing

I have steps!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Woo hoo!!!!
.................................................................................................................

This work was done yesterday but I took the next three pictures today in-between sporatic downpours that have been going on all day.

From my front door

From the new front steps

Taken from the north side by the front door

That's all I have for today. No work was done today for above stated reasons. Hopefully, next time I post, we will see a completed deck!