Interesting Weather

I wish now that I had listened more closely when Jeff Renner, our King 5 weatherman, was explaining what was happening with the weather. Below are 2 pictures. The one on the left was taken on January 18 during "The Big Snow". Everything is covered with snow. Now look at the picture on the right which was taken 2 days later when it was starting to warm up just a little. Notice the hill in the background has lost most of it's snow. Typically we see that hill covered with snow and no snow down at lake level. Jeff Renner was talking about the air above being warmer than the air at ground level and I think this is what caused the freezing rain  in some areas. This is where I should have been paying better attention, but how was I to know that the next day I would have such a good example of what he was talking about. Interesting weather for sure.

January Snow

Snow, Snow, Snow, what a great way to start the New Year!

It started with just a few flurries.

 The girls had planned on walking the trail at the end of the road. They decided a little snow would just add to the fun. So, off they went.
Jennifer, Nicole, Jodie, Amber with her baby bump, and Amanda

 They figured it would be cold, so they planned a stop at our house for hot chocolate on their way home. Was it cold? Oh yes, very much so. Not only were they cold, but wet, wet, wet. I had just taken a coffee cake out of the oven so Jennie literally sat on the oven door to try and warm up. Jodie is making a hot cocoa to take with her as she heads to the fireplace to get some heat.

 As the hours go by the snow just keeps piling up.

Here's a before and after picture.

 This is Ron's rebar tree. He thought it looked pretty nice with it's coat of white.

 Looking out our living room windows.

 Yup, 10 inches and still snowing, though they are saying it is going to stop by tomorrow.

 Looking out the back of our house.

Christmas Cactus

My Christmas Cactus always likes to bloom around Thanksgiving. This year it was loaded with blooms. There are still lots of buds in the picture below. An odd thing is happening this year. Once all the flowers were done blooming and fell off the plant is starting to get more buds! It must be sooooo happy, or just very confused.

Refinishing

I found this cradle at the Goodwill for $7.99. It was in good structural shape, but the finish was pretty dried out. Unfortunately the before picture would not open once I got it on the computer. So, you'll just have to take my word for it. I used an amazing product called Howard's Restore a Finish. This is the same product we used on the cabinets in Amber and Jerad's house before they moved in. It has made "Old" look like "New" on everything I have tried.

 Sooooo, as long as I had it out I decided to try a little on the chairs in our dining room. This is the set my mom and dad had when I was growing up. Most of the finish is in good shape, but the back of the chairs where getting kind of gummy and the legs were pretty beat up just from day to day wear. Here's a before chair leg...

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and here is the after! Ta Da - it looks like new doesn't it?

 Here's another photo so you can see that I just didn't luck out with one try.
                   Before...                                                                       After                 

Clam Shells

Ron has been having trouble with a fungus growing in our driveway. He has tried many things to try and kill it including bleach and several weed killers. Nothing has worked. He has also been told that the roots go down in the gravel and that he needs to rake it up and get to them. Nope, didn't work either. When the sun shines it dries up, but when it rains our upper driveway has this brown slimy stuff growing in it that looks very much like kelp. One day Ron came home and found clams and fish all over. They fit right in with the kelp. Hmmm, wonder who was behind this crazy trick?. Ron had two guesses, my sister Julie and our friend Bruce. I wonder why he picked those two out so quickly? He guessed right, it was silly, funny, Bruce!

Deer

I may complain about these guys eating everything in my yard, but they really are beautiful. As soon as I see them I grab my camera, when I really should be chasing them away. For you hunters out there - No shooting my deer!

Violets

My violets love this time of the year. They need 14 hours of daylight to bloom and they finally have it. They are certainly looking healthy and beautiful!

Lemon Tree

This is a rather long story, so sit back, relax and laugh. Several years ago Jennie and Will got a Meyer's Lemon Tree. It did very well and they always seemed to have lemons on it. Either in a blossom stage, growing, or ready to pick. Ron thought it was quite fun and the lemons are amazingly good. Sweet and not so sour. So, for Father's Day last year, that would be 2010, they gave Ron his very own lemon tree. It was a beautiful healthy tree just loaded with blossoms. Mmmm, it smelled so good. Keep in mind that these are NOT big trees, but about 2 feet tall. Jennie and Will put theirs outside for the summer so the bees could pollinate the blossoms. So, we did the same. All was well and good until... Remember the story about the deer we have at our place? One day we looked at the tree and all the  blossoms and many of the leaves had been eaten off. The tree was pruned back to almost nothing! We were so sad and mad all at the same time. We should have known better as we know what the deer can do to our yard. Ron immediately put a fence around the tree, but the damage was done. There were no lemons in 2010!

Now it's a new year and we are smarter and wiser. When we put the tree outside this summer Ron put a bigger netting around all sides including the top. The tree was once again absolutely loaded with blossoms and the bees were having a great time buzzing from blossom to blossom. I am sure I took a picture of the tree in full bloom, but I don't seem to be able to find it. So, you can look at the blossom shots and use your imagination as to what a tree full of them looks like. Oh, and again it smells soooooo good! I'll keep you posted as to the growth of the lemons.

Driveway

Some days the events at our house are just more exciting than others. Then again it doesn't take much to entertain us. Today the excitement was getting new gravel  for the driveway. Ron had the lower driveway done last summer, I think, but he was never happy with the rock they brought. It didn't pack very well. So, on to the new upper driveway project. This is a before picture with the truck waiting to spread the gravel.

 The spread begins...

 and down the driveway he goes.

Here's the finished driveway. Ron is very happy with how it came out. He ordered crushed Lummi Island Black, which is what he wanted for the lower driveway, but that's not what he got. This looks like it will pack beautifully.

Summer Flowers

We don't have many flowers in our yard as the deer seem to love eating them. We go to the expense and time to plant and take care of them only to get up one morning and find them all gone. It's very disappointing, so we have learned to be selective and only plant a few. While I had a few blooming I took the opportunity to take a few pictures. Between the bad weather, the deer, us being gone, and the slugs, I consider myself lucky to have this many  flowers that are still blooming. Sometimes you just can't fight nature!

Butterfly

This is a Swallow Tail butterfly. It's actually a perfect one. Sometimes you see a tail or two missing. At first I was disappointed when I saw that until I did a little research on them. If you look carefully you will see some little blue dots by the tail. These are actually there to confuse the birds as they think they are the butterflies eyes. When they swoop down for a bite of butterfly they are actually attacking the tail and not the head. This does little harm to the butterfly. They really seem to like the Marigolds as I have seen them there several times. They are so beautiful I'd like to get more pictures, but they really don't like me and my camera hovering around them.

New TV

Why or why do they make TVs so difficult these days. Why can't we just take the old TV out and put the new one back in. Oh no, that would be way to easy.

STEP 1: Since son-in-law Jerad was here to help Ron remove the old, and very heavy TV, we had him help with the reconnect. Not so successful as we realized the connections did not match and we probably needed a new DVR box from Comcast. The new TV has High Def and the old box would not support that. So for the time being we bypassed the box and put the cable directly into the TV.

STEP 2: The next day I go and get the new box from Comcast. Now we'll just plug everything back in, right?. Well, no. The new plugs are different. After many tries and a few calls to Comcast, note the phone beside Ron, we still did not have the connections right. Of course the directions are not real helpful, We need to connect 4 devices together and the directions only show how to connect 3. Mind you, we have 3 sets of directions all of which are a little different from each other. Oh, my!

STEP 3: Call son-in-law Will who is off on Fridays and can answer our 911 call. He comes over and finds we basically have things connected correctly, but we still are not getting a picture. Lucky for us he has the same make TV and just happens to know that we needed to go to the menu then to input and then switch to component. How would he even know that? Surprise we now have a picture, but we still aren't finished. Turns out we are trying to mix old and new technology and that just doesn't work. Now we need to get a new DVD player so it will have the correct connections, HDMI I believe, on the back so we can connect it to the TV.

STEP 4: Will and Ron are putting everything back in place. Well, at least for now. We need to go shopping for a DVD player and then we'll start this whole process again.What has happened to the days of plugging the TV in the wall and WALKING up and turning it on. I must be getting old.

Mother's Day Rhody

A few years ago Lexi, a friend of Jennie's and mine, gave me this beautiful rhododendron for Mother's Day. It has continued to give us a great show every year.

I love to get up close and personal with some of my pictures. The bees were really working on the Rhodies today and didn't pay much attention to me.