Flower Update

Here's an updated photo of our flower garden. The bean vines have climbed up ten feet to the top of my goofy wattle and the Borage plants have completely overwhelmed the Nasturtiums. The bees are loving the little blue Borage flowers. We have both the big black bumble bees and the little yellow honey bees.

Flowers

This is our hummingbird garden. There are beans climbing up the wattle, some medium sized plants that either didn't sprout or I thought they were weeds and covered them with wood chips. In front there are Nasturtiums but later I planted Borage seeds around those, so this flower garden is very crowded now. There is one Nasturtium flower and one bean flower showing here, but very hard to find.

This is a close-up of the Borage flowerbuds. They are covered with sharp thorns which appear all over the plant, like the stems and leaves. I could feel the thorns on the leaf bottoms while weeding amongst them. They're not as bad as roses or blackberries but they were pretty scratchy. That is likely the reason why the wild rabbits don't bother these plants. Another explanation is that these are not a Pacific Northwest native species so the rabbits don't know if they're good to eat.

Here's a close-up of the red and orange bean flower growing about halfway up the vine. I don't remember ever seeing a bean flower before, and if I did then it wasn't this color. This bean variety was probably selected for the red colored flowers, in order to attract hummingbirds.

Speaking of red flowers, here are our "Lucifer" flowers that really attract the hummingbirds. This is a terrible photo but I don't know how to get that brilliant red color to tone down enough to see the flowers properly. They are stunningly beautiful in person.

Here is an easier photography subject for me. It has lots of green along with the oranges and yellows in the Nasturtium flowers. This flowerbed is prolific enough that I can confidently harvest some Nasturtium leaves and flowers to spice up my lettuce and cauliflower salad. Nasturtiums have a mild peppery flavor, very much like radishes. And I think they look awesome.

Yard Work

Last March I planted these Nasturtium seeds, and I'm happy to see that they survived the late frosts in April. Their vines are beginning to encroach on the lawn. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about that. I'm thinking of digging up the lawn so the grass doesn't grow up between the Nasturtium vines.

Sometime last winter I threw an entire Pumpkin out here and let it decay. These Pumpkin plants came up from that rotting gourd. In the bottom right is a bunch of Borage plants from seeds I planted in early May. Borage is supposed to be edible, and the flowers attract honey bees.

This is the site of our "hummingbird" garden. There were three different types of seeds: peas (or beans) growing up the wattle near the wall, then some medium sized plants that I have forgotten what they were, with some low-lying Nasturtiums in the foreground. Afterwards I planted some Borage around the border. There are lots of weeds in here but I'm letting them grow a bit so I can positively identify them before plucking them out.

The metal mesh fence is there to slow down the marauding bunnies. They have already wreaked havoc by chewing up the peas/beans under the wattle. I chase a bunny out of our yard just about every day now.

Last Fall I cut the Thimbleberry bushes down below my knees and I cleared a pathway through the middle. I was counting on them growing back up but am surprised they are already as tall as me. They also filled in the gap in the pathway so I'll have to go thin that out a bit. This is where I have had most trouble with Bindweed vines. Thankfully they are only a minimal problem this year.

Yesterday, between rainstorms, I trimmed the hedges in front of the house using my new Stihl brand, gas powered trimmer. It makes cutting a straight line a lot easier than the old manual scissors trimmer.

I even had time to trim the knee high hedge along the sidewalk. The trees all have their leaves now. The maples and the oak have flowered and started growing seeds but the Linden is just now blooming. Can you see the flowers?

Here is a close-up of the Linden tree flowers. They're green so they're hard to see against the green of the leaves. In a week or so they will start to drip that sticky nectar and we'll have to do something to prevent it from being tracked into the house.

An Excellent Adventure

This Spring I decided to take a road trip to visit my aunt in Iowa, my brother in Virginia, and cousins in Kansas who I have rarely seen. Then as I was planning my route I realized there are more people I'd like to see and it didn't cause much of a detour to see them. I started out on April 2, a Monday, by shuttling my niece to college in Spokane, then drove on into the night through Montana. The temperature dropped from about 40 degrees in Washington to 15 degrees and snowfall in Deer Lodge, Montana -- I pulled off at a rest stop. In the morning the snow had stopped falling and the temperature was 5 degrees.

The entire landscape was covered in a thin layer of snow and more was in the forecast.

The Montana highway was coated with alternating patches of slush and powder snow. My fenders accumulated so much ice that when I hit a dip in the road my tires would rub against the ice. The ice was as solid as concrete, and just as heavy.

Arriving in Rapid City, I found myself in the middle of a dinosaur fight. I escaped! Whew! Then I was able to visit with my cousins and toured the Lost Cabin Beer Company. I can personally recommend the brew named "Father-in-Lager."

My next stop was in Omaha at the home of my sister-in-law, her husband, two teenage girls and two friendly little dogs. One of them found my knitting basket and ate part of the cord that holds the top closed. It was the kind of thing you might expect of a goat, and it so happened that my next stop in Iowa, at the home of my aunt and my cousin, was also the home of three newborn billy goats gruff. I helped feed the goats, horses, and chickens, and enjoyed playing my trumpet (doesn't everybody bring a trumpet on a road trip?) outside along with the howling of George the Golden Retriever, another very friendly dog.

After Iowa I went to Alabama, North Carolina, and western Virginia where I discovered some very friendly horses. This freckled beauty even posed for a selfie. My visit here was too short as I needed to continue to eastern Virginia and see my brother.

After several days of relaxing with my brother, we were ready to head for Florida. Our goal was to drive all the way to the end of the road at Key West. This photo was taken along the intercoastal highway.

Here's the photo I took at the southernmost point of land in the contiguous United States. That sign says "90 miles to Cuba."

My next goal was to see the star Alpha Centauri, or as some call it "Rigel Kent" as the closest star to our Sun. It is only visible in the southern hemisphere, or from the southern tip of Florida. We headed back north until we found a place without street lights and a view to the southern Atlantic Ocean. The sky was partly cloudy and there was mist on the horizon but at 1:00 AM the sky cleared and both Alpha and Beta Centauri appeared, along with the topmost three stars of the Southern Cross.

After viewing the stars we returned northward and into the Everglades National Park where we saw lots of exotic birds and animals, like this peacefully sleeping alligator.

My next stop was to be Kansas City but along the way I found the town of Metropolis, Illinois. With that name they have declared themselves to be the home of Superman. And they built a gigantic statue of Superman in the town square.

My cousin and her family in Kansas City treated me to dinner and live jazz entertainment. I wasn't aware that Kansas City had a jazz night life.

The next day I went to Topeka where I met as many cousins (and their families) as I had seen along my entire trip up to that point. In this photo I was playing trumpet duets with a talented musician.

Kansas cousins. One of these cousins I had not seen for more than fifty years prior to the day of this photo .

After sitting in the car for many days and long hours, I welcomed the opportunity to help on this deck building project. It was also delightful to work with four brothers and their father, with all the teasing and helpful suggestions each person provided.

One more stop followed: Colorado Springs, for my first time in that city. Then I sprinted homeward through Breckenridge, Vail, Salt Lake City, and down the Columbia River. Elapsed days: 32, Total Mileage: 8058, Relatives and friends visited: 75

Howell Mountain 2017

Last year there were no animals, no birds, very few bugs, and one footprint of a Grizzly bear. This year there was lush green vegetation, lots of bugs, birds, chipmunks and squirrels, but no bear tracks. We happened upon these four moose nearly on our trail. We stepped back off the trail, behind some trees while the moose decided what to do with us. They walked calmly away and we breathed a sigh of relief.

On the left is a photo from last year and on the right is a nearly identical photo from this year. Our path up and down from the meadow was along the cliffs between the two snowbanks but this year we had to go the long way around. I traced our previous year's path in red across the snow in this current year's photo. Obviously there was a lot more snow this year.

These two photos taken from down in the meadow show what the path up the cliff looked like both last year (on the left) and this year (on the right). Our path from last year, over the bare rock, was completely covered in about 10-20 feet of snow.

When we arrived at the crash scene the fuselage was exactly the way I remember leaving it last year, with the orange baling twine holding the last remaining pieces together.

We unbolted or cut off all of the steel control rods and shafts, wires, hoses, cables and fuel/hydraulic lines, then cut the fuselage in half so the multiple pieces could be carried by no more than two persons each.

When we were finished the only thing left was the engine. All of the big pieces have been carried away and the last of the small pieces were bagged and ready to be carried away as well.

I learned a lesson the hard way: Don't try to find your way up the cliff before Louis is there to show the way. I ended up going up a very steep route, between a snowbank and a cliff. In the left photo above you can see the snowbank above me. Then I was gripping the cliff with fingertips, toes, knees, and elbows. There was no time for taking pictures. At one point I was wedging myself between the cliff and the snowbank, like climbing up a chimney. The middle and right photos above show what it looked like after I reached the top.

With one more angle on that route, you can see both above and below the snowbank. I kept the camera as level as possible so you can see how steep the slope is, and note that it was covered with loose sand and gravel.

Here is a photo of the correct route, taken from above. James is in the center of the photo, wearing his red and black plaid shirt. Obviously he didn't need to crawl on his hands and knees to get up that slope, but it still wasn't easy.

The two left photos show that we both made it safely to the top and the right one shows the cliff we climbed as we walked away from it.

At the top, in the location we call "stage 4" James and I loaded up some scrap to carry out. He took one of those two landing gear wheels that Lief carried up the cliff last year. Louis carried the third landing gear wheel all the way from the meadow, and I just grabbed a bag of misc small parts from the stage 4 location.

On the way out we didn't encounter any more moose or other large animals. We had started from the meadow at about 8:20 AM and we arrived at the car at about 5:00 PM, having taken several long breaks along the way. The distance from the creek crossing to the car was approximately five miles by trail, but three miles in a straight line.

It rained every night, once with thunder and lightning, then it got very cold, but it was clear and hot again each morning. The giant chipmunks in the meadow are extremely shy and they don't attack our food supplies at night. The marmots were seen only at a great distance but we could hear them calling to each other from time to time.

Eclipse August 21, 2017

Here are my two "little boys" looking through pinhole viewers at the eclipsing sun near Beech Creek, Oregon on August 21, 2017. Somewhere I have printed photos of them doing this same thing during the February 1979 eclipse in Yakima, Washington.

This time we have two new, young, first time, total eclipse viewers for the 2017 eclipse. What a delight to share this event with another generation!

This is not my photo but it is the best image I've seen that looks like what we actually saw. Notice the star in the lower left of the photo. I saw that through my binoculars, and there were sparkling orange flashes at the rim of the Moon.