19 years and counting — in Winthrop

by lara on July 22, 2010

Last week­end J and I spend a few days “away” in Winthrop WA. It was a nice chance to relax and spend some down time with each other.

Fri­day after­noon was hot and dry when we left Seat­tle. The long route through the moun­tains (up to Hwy 20.)

The canyon below Dia­blo dam was com­pletely dry.

diablo dam and diablo lake behind it.

look­ing back up the river to the dam

Sign van­dal­ism is a pop­u­lar pas­time. This one is a bit more clever than many.

modified sign

dude, that’s gonna hurt

We stayed at the Rio Vista Hotel right in the mid­dle of the kitsch­i­est part of town ;-) It was great.

rio vista hotel in winthrop wa

lots of bikes in town — you can barely see my car :-)

Sat­ur­day was Hot. We walked around some in the morn­ing tak­ing pic­ture and peep­ing at the lit­tle town.

If you get out early enough in the day you can see the deer mov­ing around.

deer checking out the shrubbery

early in the morn­ing the deer make their rounds

We also saw this early Sat­ur­day morn­ing. It did not fol­low us home. I’m not sure if I’m grate­ful or sad about that.

72 norton commando

yes it’s real ’72

Yes, it’s also kick-start only, and yes it was priced real­is­ti­cally at $6k. (I can read the phone num­ber in the orig­i­nal photo is you really need to know.)

This is just one of the Old West style build­ing on the tourist route.

nothing to see behind the sign

one of many false front build­ings in town

It was a great week­end and now we’re start­ing on year 20.

The art pho­tos of Dia­blo Dam.

More pics from around town.

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Still Raining (damn it)

by lara on May 31, 2010

Yup, it’s still rain­ing. Three bloody weeks of the driz­zle falling down my neck.

I took advan­tage of a half hour break last week­end and went for a lit­tle ram­ble about the place. Here are some pics.

The red­bud is finally bloom­ing and has a few ten­der look­ing leaves. (And some of these shots are silly and arty.)

arty shot of the redbud blooming

red­bud blooms

another redbud shot

look­ing over the pasture

There are a cou­ple of new things in the gar­den beds but this rainy cool weather isn’t doing most of the plants any favors.

The lit­tle lilac has bloomed. I’m not sure if the mot­tling on the leaves is sup­posed to be there. Hmm.

everblooming lilac

the odd lit­tle lilac that I put in last fall

And a bonus in the herb gar­den, or rather mixed in with the lilies next to the herb gar­den. Self-seeded cilantro.

self seeded cilantro

won’t need to buy any cilantro

I’ve spent some time in the woods recently check­ing on coy­ote activ­ity. Last week­end I took my cam­era with me and got these four shots of spring.

vine maple blooming on the edge of the forest.

vine maple blooming

douglas fir branches tipped with new growth

the for­est is chartreuse!

wild honey suckle blossoms

honey suckle is a weed but it’s so pretty

deer trail leading onto the forest

one of the deer trails

Our next project is to fin­ish installing our new hot tub. Right now it’s just sit­ting on the con­crete pad in the mid­dle of the dirt and gravel.  It’ll be nicer when there’s a door where the win­dows are now and there’s a nice deck sur­round­ing it. Doesn’t mat­ter really we use it a lot already.

hot tub on a pad but no deck

wait­ing for improvements

Pray for sun, we’re los­ing our minds out here.

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Another nice Saturday in May

15 May 2010
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The optimism of a nice weekend in May.

8 May 2010

It is the first nice wek­end in May and like all Seat­tlites I am doing all sorts of get­ting ready for sum­mer things out­side.
We have an entire week of Sunny days for­cast so it’s time to start hav­ing tea on the porch in the morn­ing. I’m still pleased with the new cush­ions I made last […]

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Gardening Report — March 14

16 March 2010

Last week­end the front bed with the cedars in it got new shrubs.
Con­tin­u­ing the theme of happy flow­er­ing shrubs and brood­ing conifers that we started with the cedars and the (now gone) bud­dleias we’ve added more happy and more brooding.

the weep­ing cedar bed got shrubs

Start­ing with the happy, a flow­er­ing cur­rant. I’ve seen this […]

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Gardening at the End of February

1 March 2010

It was a busy gar­den week­end here at Black Dog Farm. We started with a trip to Mol­baks to take advan­tage of their 30% off bare-root and b&b trees and shrubs.
We started with some­thing to go in front of the three cedars. The early white blooms of this mag­no­lia shrub will lighten up the dark […]

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First Garden Report

25 February 2010

Last fall we dug up and divided a lot of over­grown plants. Among them a patch of iris so thick that it took a tree saw to hack it apart.
All eight sec­tions have begun to grown nicely. I’m not sure how much bloom we’ll get this year. They’re going to look great at the back of […]

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Meanwhile… …Back at the Ranch

16 November 2009

I’ve been work­ing on updates and upgrades and all around tidy­ing to the web sties.
It is unset­tling to know that of all the infor­ma­tion pro­vided on all my sites and blogs. The thing peo­ple most want to know about and to look at are:
the chicken pic­tures…
sigh.

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Day 10 — in which there are pots and metal creatures

2 November 2009

Most of the day was spent in San Bar­tolo Coy­ote­pec.
Our first stop was at the work­shop of the fam­ily of pot­ter Dona Rosa. The Dona Rosa invented the bur­nish­ing tech­nique that pro­duces the glossy black pot­tery that the vil­lage has become known for. Her son don Valente con­tin­ues the tra­di­tion.
Here are three pots that sit […]

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Day 9, in which there is a lot of thread(s)

31 October 2009

Today is the Hal­loween for most of you all. Here in Mex­ico it is the day before Muer­tos. There’s lots of get­ting ready and clean­ing and arrang­ing going on.
We were out and about doing tourista things this morn­ing. Our des­ti­na­tion was Teoti­t­lan de Valle, home to the most famous of the Zapotec weavers.
We started in the […]

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