Catching up since June

I've been busy. But, at last here is a little catch-up bunch of pictures to say something about out recent activities.

Happenings around the yard

After returning from the "big road trip", I was greeted by an overgrown yard. Somewhat bigger than typical (maybe not that much) was this elderberry bush that was about three feet tall when we left. It's about 12 feet tall now. Then there is this flower that may have been planted, but may be a weed from the bird seed, and we don't really know what it is. Speaking of not knowing what it is, here's another one. It is apparently an unusual hibiscus - it has deeply variegated leaves with five lobes (not, it's not that!).

There is a variety of other life around the place, too. Here is a bat that took up residence in our deck umbrella. We have some large jack rabbits around (this is one in two different poses). We have a new squirrel-proof birdfeeder (really!), and this grosbeak hangs around it regularly. Then there was this red widow spider that I captured in the small shed. Amelia thinks it is fortunate that it was me instead of her that discovered this small snake in the kitchen downstairs. Finally, we have some regulars that come through the yard eating almost everything in sight, but fortunately they haven't figured out how to get over out eight foot fence around part of the yard.

Finally, I made a sign with our street number on it for the driveway. I expect this will head off most of the traffic on up the hill looking for us (but surely not all).

July Visitors

We had a number of visitors during July, mostly in connection with the Beardsley wedding. Evan, Laura, Ian, and Fiona were the first to arrive. Fiona is a big fan of swinging, so she enjoyed going high in the big swing (but with the "inside out tire seat" that is quite safe). Ian also took a turn in it, while Fiona did some smaller swings in the other bay. Here's a shot of a couple of swingers. Dennis and Rita came up a few days later. One day we went to Emigrant Lake and took our pleasures with the water slide. Here come Laura and Fiona. A bit later, Evan and Ian have come down and are getting out of the pool. One of many times down Fiona hits the water. I finally got into the act, too, and here are Fiona, Ian, and me in the pool after a slide. Back home, Fiona rode the all-terrain tricyle on some fairly forgiving terrain. That's Dennis in the background.

We all journeyed to Eugene for the wedding of Mark and Darla. After a successful conclusion, here they come down the aisle. The next morning some of the party met at a restaurant for brunch. So big a party we had two tables - here's table one, and table two, or maybe I got that reversed. The empty chair is mine - yes, I was there. The week after the wedding, Don and Becky came down for a few days, but I seem to have laid up my camera for that period.

Wildflowers!

After all the excitement, Amelia and I decided to take a wildflower drive up Mount Ashland and return on the backroads to Wagner Creek. On the way, we had this nice view of Mount Shasta. A little later on we looked south and saw this view of Pilot's Knob. I took a couple of interesting shots of dead trees, with flowers in the foreground. The real prize, though, was the amazing variety and beauty of the wild flowers that were growing in great profusion (if this comes out really small in your browser, you need to set it to not resize pictures to fit the screen, or I guess I'll take pity on you, and you can click these shots in turn: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten). Finally, as we were coming down into Wagner Creek, I shot this wonderful cloud picture.

Trips

Our friends, the Kings, returned home from their around-the-world trip (with six month stopover in New Zealand) and stayed with us a couple of days while they contemplated their final leg up the mountain and bought a new car. Ten days or so later we went up to check on them and help them celebrate their anniversary (45, they claim). If was a sad time for Amelia when the bottle went dry.

On the weekend of the 16th, we went down to Benicia to help Evan and Laura do a small amount of kitchen remodeling and cabinet painting. I worked (some) and Amelia helped out by keeping Ian and Fiona busy at a motel and thereabouts. Dennis and Rita also put in a lot of time. The kids had a great time doing cannon balls, (almost missed this one), underwater summersaults, horsing around with spaghetti, and generally having a good time. An in-progress shot at the house shows that the off-white cabinets really lighten things up compared to the old brown color. The kitchen formerly had cabinets and an exhaust fan above the range, center-right side of picture, and removing all that (with downdraft exhaust to come) greatly opens up the space between the kitchen and the rec room.

In and Around the Shop

I finally am getting to work on (and in) my woodshop-to-be. One of the first things I did was to (finally) make a sign with our street number for the driveway. Pretty good if I do say so myself. The next project was getting some railings beside the so-called steps down to the woodshop (over the big shed, where the swings are). These will keep most folks from inadvertantly falling hundreds of feet (OK, millimeters) to their instantaneous death. Finally, I am enclosing about 200 square feet (about 1/4) of it for a little hidey-hole for myself and things I like that aren't permitted in the house (and so on). I'm in the process and these aren't really good pictures, but here is in the "north end" with the boookcases and a few studs, and another from the other direction later on showing more studs and the door. In the end it is planned that another 1/4 will be storage (you can see storage items in both pictures), with the remainder being used as a wood shop.

Guess that's all for now. I have some pictures pre-May that I want to get up (just a few), so maybe I'll work on that next.