Our First Razor Clamming Experience

2009 My Fall Garden

As you can see, fall color is in more places than the leaves on trees. Most of these photos were taken in late September. Today we have brilliant blue skies and a strong fall breeze; there are white caps on the Sound. I don't have my final results but I think I ran the Burien Brat Trot in under 24 minutes which is fast for me. I'm pretty tuckered out or I would be back in my yard today weeding and pruning (although the yard waste container is full to overflowing already) or maybe taking more pictures. Is it the lighting in the fall that makes everything look so crisp and brilliant against blue skies?

I Drew the Short Straw

September is full of unforeseen challenges for teachers. This year, for me, the challenges keep rolling into October. Everyday I am going to 'Work' with a capital W and I put in ten to eleven hour days. There have been other years similar to this but I guess I wasn't emotionally shored up enough to start another one. It has improved. Most importantly, my feelings of competence are back. I am losing less sleep and I do have the mettle to make it through the year. What are the challenges? ....children who have been abused or witnessed abuse, children who are sad because their daddy is dead or in jail, children with autism (diagnosed and undiagnosed), children who do not know how to hold a pencil and cannot write their name, children who are not toilet trained, children who have never been to preschool and don't know the first thing about group interactions, let alone any letter or number knowledge, and of course children with no English and children whose parents are out of work. I see behaviors that need a counselor's attention, but we don't have a counselor at our school. Behaviors like snapping all your new crayons in half and throwing them on the floor, throwing a chair because someone threw a raisin. I have had several meetings with the principal, the special ed. teacher, the family support worker, the speech and communications specialist, the OT/PT specialist and countless calls, e-mails, and after school conferences with parents. I have had one Student Intervention team meeting and another is scheduled for this week. Changes are happening but this is all an uphill battle and it is only day 18 of school. Meanwhile there are the alert, eager, bunch who are so ready to learn and make new friends. They are my bright spots and are deserving of my energy too. We are trying to start up our literacy groups but that has met with a few wrinkles too: we are short one assistant due to budget restraints and scheduling changes. But we (the other K teacher and myself) are more flexible than our age belies. We can and will make it work. To be honest it is really the academically low end kids that suffer when we have less help in the classroom. Enough of classroom talk. Let's move on to the garden...

A long lovely summer has moved into an equally outstanding fall. The first day of fall it actually got up to 90 degrees! It has gotten cooler since than and we began turning the on the heat Sept. 30th, but the weather for the coming week has temperatures in the 70s and not much rain. I have pulled out the sunflowers, tomato plants and beans in the back yard. So this:


Now looks like this:














We had plenty of tomatoes, the last of which are ripening in our garden window. We had more than enough beans too. I even froze a quart bag. There are some Asian pears still on the tree ripening but we have already taken a bucket of them to the food bank. I know of no good way to preserve them. A fall crop of lettuce has taken hold and I still have carrots in the ground but don't know if they are going to get much bigger before the bugs find them. I harvested 5 little sugar pumpkins which match the garden shed perfectly. The chickadees and bush tits found the hanging sunflowers in no time flat.



This Friday Bartlett Tree Service will come to prune the deodor cedar in the front yard and take down the two dead cherry trees in back. I am also sacrificing this old but graceful pink dogwood. It is just becoming too laborious and dangerous (ladders are no place for middle aged women) to keep trimmed. Once it is gone there will also be more sun to the lower east rockery and we will be able to view that sun garden easier from our deck.



And yes, I still run in the early hours of the morning before work. The smell of chlorinated pools is replaced with wood smoke coming from chimneys of quiet houses. My new lime green jacket with all it's reflective stripes is getting plenty of use. I carry my cell and I have an ID tag attached to my shoe laces. Advancing age does make one more cautious. I see dog walkers and some interesting wildlife; always a raccoon a week at least and an owl buzzed my head one dark moonless morning, on another day a plush white rabbit with little black spots (some body's pet?) stood still enough for me to get within 4 feet and then hopped away with a zig and zag.

With less blogging I read more. I just finished Velva Jean Learns to Drive (a 5* recommendation from me) and I am half way through Julia in France which is not as delightful as the movie Julie and Julia. In fact, I find Julia Child to be quite stuffy and full of herself in her auto biography.

This morning we ate at Youngs Restaurant in White Center. It may be Chinese run but the fare is certainly 'All American'. I hope my breakfast of pancakes and eggs is digested before the 1:00 Burien Brat Trot, the 5k which I will run. Chris is outside painting the pickets to the back stretch of fence which he has repaired. His new bus route is between Auburn and downtown Seattle and he likes it just fine. Driving I 5 is easier than driving city neighborhoods, he tells me. That of course could change if the big flooding occurs with seasonal rains.

So that's it for month #2. Next installment: November!

It Is Time

to set a goal to be kinder to myself. I began this blog 5 years ago and then it was fun, no pressure. Now I always feel it lingering on my shoulders, getting heavier and heavier as the time lapses between posts. It has become a chore. I do not need chores. I want to live life more and write about it less. As part of the letting go process I did not even take my camera with me when we went to Point Defiance Zoo in Tacoma today. I watched the enormous walruses (TRULY; thousands of pounds!) shoot like torpedoes in their tank and burst to the surface with an exhalation of air that sprinkled water on the window between us and glistened on their stiff whiskers. My grin stretched ear to ear as I watched the zoo keepers walk Milly the aardvark down the path on a leash. I asked questions of the naturalist with the Frog Mouthed Owl perched on her arm. Once home I was relieved to not have any photos for sorting and posting.

My goal for this year is one post a month, anything more is a bonus but I really want to stick to just one. I'm sure that September's will be all about school which is my major persona 10 1/2 months of the year. You can always check out my classroom blog for the 'fuzzy version' of teaching in a public school. I bought a public domain for the year so it will be an easy url for folks to remember: sanislokindergarten.com I have gone on 5 home visits and within those five there is evidence of huge variety; a single parent asking to be connected to the family support worker to get clothes and shoes for her child, a little girl who has a Dr. and a nurse for parents, a little boy who speaks Russian and English and his mom wanted to know if buying a desk as a 'special spot' for him to do homework was a good idea. And oh my, are they ever cute! One little girl put her fairy wings on for me and explained the technique for flying which involved lots of bouncing on your tippy toes. Do I love my job? You betcha! But I must say I was close to having a heart attach two weeks ago when our new principal called me at home and asked what I thought of possibly switching classrooms with first grades since they have an overload this year. I told him I would do it if everyone agreed it was for the common good but I think I would need a doctor's order to take time off afterward because I would be so totally spent and near collapse and believe me, Mr. New Principal, I have enough sick leave to do just that! I am willing to share my space but to actually physically trade spaces... 14 years in one spot is a LONG time and even though I am fairly organized it is not something I would do 3 weeks before the start of school especially since it would involve reciprocity of orderliness from the two first grade teachers. As to giving up my classroom bathrooms; never!

Wish me luck, it all starts tomorrow with an Everyday Math workshop followed with a general membership union meeting to vote on our contact ( I sure hope that the required 800 teachers show up to make a quorum for voting.)

Next post...late September, with tales of classroom woes and wows. On the garden front I will be harvesting Asian pears and picking the last of beans and tomatoes (I can hardly keep up with them this month).

When the Whole...

works better than the two halves, that is a good marriage. This being said, I found it amusing that my parents and our daughter sent us these very cute cards:



Inside: "Don't look so puzzled - you know who's who."



Inside: (Even happy couples have SOME disagreements.) Happy Anniversary, You Two

We went on a mission to buy on microwave on Thursday. I'll bet you didn't know that the microwave is the required 27th Anniversary gift. Off we went to Sears to purchase the Sharp counter top microwave that was, after intensive reading of online reviews the answer to our need to replace the old one which starts up all of it's own accord with nothing inside of it, sometimes waking even ME out of a sound sleep. More recently it has started to rumble when we use it, sounding not unlike a wagon on a gravel road. I have visions of the microwave coming to life in the middle of the night and doing a rumba off the counter, similar to the kitchen characters in Disney's movie, Fantasia. To be on the safe side we unplug the unpredictable appliance whenever it is not in use. Dealing with Sears which is now Sears Holding is a nightmare unto itself. I like their online ordering site. Problem is; there is no follow through at the store level. The online confirmation said the store would have the microwave at pickup in 2 hours and they would call us at that time. It didn't happen. So two DAYS later we call and are told "Next week it will be in stock." So the 27th was the 'next week' and we went in and asked a clerk for directions to the microwaves. As we are heading to the aisle the DH hears one clerk ask another "Do you know anything about microwaves?" Then they both turned and busied their gazes on t.v.s and sound systems; items that were apparently more at their comfort level. The place was DEAD folks; I think that we were two of maybe a half dozen customers on the floor! We see the model we want on display and the DH hunts down one of the hapless clerks. He checks 'the back' for available stock and no luck. "Sorry, it is not in now. We will have it on the Sept. 11th." We probably should have considered the date a bad omen for a deal that is already a bit sour and headed for the escalator. But no, I paid, tucked the receipt in my wallet and that Sharp microwave better be at Sears on the eleventh.

On August 27th 1982...

we, after five years of living together, became Mr. and Mrs. in a Seattle courtroom. Only five friends were in attendance which makes it easy to remember everyone's name. The reception was at our friends' the Driggers' 4th Av. W., Queen Anne home. I just found out recently via Facebook that they are now living in sunny Sequim. The recepton was potluck style and a whole dozen friends joined us there. Sometimes I look back wistfully and wish I had gone back to Wisconsin and had a larger wedding but at the time this seemed right. Organizing and being part of big events make me hugely anxious. Also, it was not a church wedding (that came 4 years later) and I knew that a secular wedding was probably disappointing to my parents and that's SO like me too; never wanting to disappoint the people I love. Anyway there is certainly no disappointment today because here we are still together after 27 + years of wedded (not all bliss) reality.

The flowers in my bouquet are Stephanosis which I bought to match the border of the jacket to my dress. I bought them from a floral on University Ave.

Our friends Judy and Neil not only opened their home to host the reception, Judy also took the photographs.

The cake was white chocolate mousse from the Honey Bear Bakery in Wallingford. It was almost a disaster because it started to melt and slide down one side in transit from Wallingford to Queen Anne. The bakery had warned us that it was a delicate cake but it was the one I wanted. Fortunately, friends shored it up, refrigerated it, and absolutely refused to let me look at the back of the cake until after we had taken our 'first bite'. It was scrumptious!

Paint Pros

It was no small task. We prepped and painted our living room together. We were lucky that we did it last week when the weather was cooler and we even had a couple of rainy days. Chris is still doing touch ups. He's truly the Pro. Honey Girl and I stayed away from edging and trim painting. The color is called Tea Light (what in the heck kind of color is THAT?) The pictures do not do justice to our paint job but I think these are pretty great family portraits! The color is blue-green grayish. The sample looked a whole lot more gray than it does on the walls. It is certainly more subtle and calming than the bitter orange that we painted over. Chris painted the door frames and fireplace mantle black to match the baseboards and I think that gives the room a very sharp touch.




In this first shot we tried to have straight faces, kind of like Grant Wood's American Gothic. Apparently, daughter dearest didn't understand, she's just grinning away.




This is the silly shot and we like it best!

Great Sunflower Project

Great Sunflower Project
Originally uploaded by mtnester.

I am taking part in the Great Sunflower Project; counting bees that visit my Lemon Queen sunflowers. I observe for half an hour or 5 bee visits to a flower, whichever comes first. Go to www.greatsunflower.org for more info. They don't ask you to do a huge amount of observations. They are gathering bee observation data from all over the world. Did you know that bees are responsible for every third bite of food that you eat? They visit a lot more than sunflowers in my garden beds! Here is one on the Russian Sage that borders our driveway and always wants to flop. Someone, me, most likely, will probably get stung eventually because it is so easy to brush against the sage when getting in or out of the car.

And my Zinnias are absolutely stunning this year and the bees are taking notice.

But the absolute favorite spot for the honey bees in our yard is the oregano. they have been working this huge mound in the rockery for a good two months or more. From dawn to dusk there are literally dozens of bees buzzing away on blossoms that look spent to us but certainly are appealing to bees.

Our Weekend in Walla Walla

2009 Walla Walla Wine Country

Last weekend our family of three, along with our friend Valerie, went to Walla Walla to visit wineries and just 'kick back'. I wrote captions under many of the photos. If you click on the slide show I think it will take you to Webshots and then you can read more about what is in the pictures. I love wine tasting and yes, I do spit but not all the time. If you visit 5 or 6 tasting rooms in a day you better spit. I taste, I talk with the pourers and confer with other tasters and yet I still am in the dark as to really being able to definitively know at that first sniff and sip if I am tasting a good wine or a great wine. I know I like reds more than whites but I did sincerely try to branch out and we came home with 4 whites; a Riesling, a Chardonnay/Semillion blend from The Foundry (my favorite), an Orange Muscat (too sweet for the man of the family, but us girls will enjoy it for a desert), and a Viogner. I lusted after but did not buy The Boy from K Vintners. The reds we DID buy: Sangiovese, Malbec and a 2006 Syrah from the vintner with the best story, Otis Kenyon. Wine alone does not fill a weekend. We went to Rook Park and chose to skate, run or walk. We also went BOWLING! Certainly it was not part of any plan but there was this alley only two blocks from the condo where we stayed and they were celebrating their 50th anniversary with 50 CENT games and there was disco music playing! Not that I like disco, but it was fun bowling music. I don't think I have bowled in a dozen years or more. I didn't do half bad.First game I scored 96 and second game 136! I think I made the hubs sweat a bit. He had to really 'work it' to get 158 and beat me. Even today he whined about sore gluts from "THAT GAME". We ate out but the food was not as noteworthy as two years ago, so I will leave it at that. We went to the Farmers Market and I bought the most delicious watermelon called Yellow Doll. It is small and has vivid, yellow meat and yes, there are seeds to contend with, but not many. Wow! It is SO juicy and sweet and only cost meet $2.00. Who cares if the other two family members don't like melons. That means more for me! We also stopped and bought a box of yummy nectarines and some big red tomatoes. The dehydrator is humming away, drying fruit as I type. Since returning to Seattle we have been blessed with rain. More of a blessing than usual for me because we have been painting our living room and I sure would hate to be cooped up in the house with paint fumes on a HOT day! My plants are really happy with the return of wet weather too. The tomatoes are ripening and I have plenty of beans and lemon cucumbers to share. The carrots are my treasured crop, they are growing just fine but not as fast as I like to eat them. Next posting will be garden pictures because I can feel it already; alas, the season is winding down.

Look Who's Home!

It is SO nice to have our girl home! She arrived on Tuesday. She had her teeth cleaned at our dentist's then we went down to the market for lunch at an Italian sandwich shop. When I took this picture she protested "It makes me look like a tourist!" In fact she has a protest of one sort or another every time I take my camera out. We also went shopping for athletic shoes (hers) and new glass frames (mine). I am still working on finding the perfect frames that will fit my every mood. We have been to yoga class together and this evening we are going to the Art Walk in Pioneer Square. She has visited with old friends. Gee, it is even good to see them around our house. We have plans, plans, plans: a weekend in the wine country and then wall painting in the living room next week. She can't call it child labor anymore, she's 21!

Away From It All

Sometimes I just need to get away. On the hottest day of summer I packed the car and headed over to Hood Canal. The ferry ride was refreshing and the air conditioned car was very calming but no, I did not beat the heat. Once I arrived at Seal's Rock Campground I realized I had not avoided the record breaking heat. The 103 temp made no difference; a change of pace, a change of scenery, and the solitude of the woods were all there waiting for me. I felt like a stick of melting butter but I was out of the city and on my own. No Chris, he had a sweltering bus drive to do. Sometimes it is good to know I can 'go it on my own'. The cell phone connection was still there, it's the 'comfort blanket' that makes it easier for me to be an independent adventurer.




Do you realize how many times I set the camera's photo timer and then leaped into the hammock to get this picture. Really though I did relax a lot. I finished reading Exit Ghost by Phillip Roth and began Onions in the Stew by Betsy MacDonald (a book SO insightful to the character of the Seattle/Vashon area, plus, you will laugh a lot!).


I drove up to the viewpoint at Mt. Walker. No, I did not hike. I would've liked to, but common sense prevailed. Do NOT hike alone!


On Friday there was cool, misty fog in the morning. Oh joy! Such relief. I drove north and east to Port Townsend. This is the Hood Canal Bridge taken from Old Fort Townsend Park/Beach.



I drove on to Fort Worden. This is the old lighthouse at Wilson Point. There is nothing like a lighthouse in fog with the foghorns groaning and the mist kissing your face, to bring to mind romance novels, mystery and a bit of forlornness.


This tree is "How old?" I remember it from the first time I was a Fort Worden, oh, 25 years ago??
It looks the same. I did not wander into the old batteries. It always gives me a lonely, lost feeling to see these military buildings amongst the nature.


Then on to Port Townsend where I took lots of photos of the beautiful old Victorian homes. This just might be my favorite, overlooking the bay. I would be inspired to write novels if I lived in a house such as this.





Can you imagine living in a house with all this spread before you? Not to mention all the weather that would come blasting across the water. Port Townsend is a wonderful place but this weekend it will be too busy for me; they have a hugely popular Blues Festival happening.
To see more photos click here.

Granite Mt. Hike

Yesterday Valerie and Lindsey invited me to join them on an 8 mile round trip hike up Granite Mountain near North Bend, WA. I was excited to go on a hike with these two experienced hikers. Valerie is the most accomplished hiker/outdoors woman that I know. I told them I kind of felt like the character Mr. Sillypants from the children's series by MK Brown, ill prepared and certainly less competent at hiking than either of them.


Making the 3800 foot elevation gain was certainly easier going up than down. I was glad to have borrowed my husband's hiking poles. Valerie used one and I used one. Valerie and Lindsey patiently stopped every thirty yards or so to let me catch up. All in all, we did the entire hike in about five and a quarter hours and that includes eating lunch and taking photos at the top for about a half hour. During the hike what hurt most was the tips of my toes as they slammed into the toes of my athletic shoes. Granite Mt. and the other trailheads that are at this location are popular. The parking lot was filled to overflowing when we got down at about 1:30. We seriously doubted that anyone starting after noon would be making it to the lookout station at it was SO darn hot by then. We had a real chuckle at the young couple going up with the guy carrying all the gear and the perfumed girlfriend with her glossy long hair following behind. This morning I woke up with my thighs feeling very tired, so no, I did not run today besides it is even hotter than yesterday. Too hot to do anything more than stay downstairs on the computer or swing in the sky chair under the deck and read.




2009 Granite Mountain

In My Front Yard

...the blooming is abundant! We have excessive heat warnings in Seattle for the next four days. I wanted to capture a few blossom photos before everything wilted away. You are looking at an Orienpet lily with 7 blossoms/buds on one stem and 5 on the other. They smell so incredible, especially when getting an early morning spray of water. Also in the slide show are blooming Hen and Chicks, which love the heat of the rockery, Russian Sage which is a favorite with bees, and a Red Mullein (at least I think that is what it is) with blooms shaped a bit like exotic bird beaks.



2009 Garden

I have 4 different places where I put my photos: Kodakgallery, Photobucket, Flickr, and Webshots. Webshots is my absolute favorite if I ever want to get photos printed. 4x6 prints are only 15 cents each and I can either pick them up at a nearby drugstore or have them mailed to the door. The printing goes through Photoworks. Of course I also have my albums in iphoto on my Mac and about every three months I move them to my hard drive back up. Technology sure can create a lot of invisible clutter! If any of you have a better way to stay on top of managing photos, please share!

Blue as a Blueberry

This post is probably best read from the bottom up if sequence matters to you.
Here is the fruit of my morning labors. Most of them I freeze but they are always best fresh with my breakfast yogurt or in a cobbler with ice cream for dessert.

See the bench at the end of this path? That is where I ate my lunch of a bagel and a plum; after nibbling on berries all morning I was amazed that I wanted any fruit at all! I saw an eagle flying high above the river. He was probably scoping out lunch for himself.

This morning I joined throngs of other avid blueberry pickers for opening day of picking at Bybee Nims Farm in North Bend. What a location! I marvel at the beauty of this farm every year I go picking. Yes there were LOTS of pickers but the berries were thicker and fatter than I have ever seen so there was no need to feel there was competition to fill your bucket. I picked a bit over 16 pounds in two and a half hours. My friend Valerie and her teenaged daughter picked twice that and then some. The sun didn't start to break the clouds till about noon which was perfect since we were leaving.

I took the back way home from the Thursday night concert in the Admiral District and went past the Dragonfly Pavilion which is looking so much more established now that the landscaping has grown.


It was incredible how many little kids under the age of 5 were at the concert in the park. Honestly, it was like a preschool convention. Even more than the music I enjoyed watching all the antics of the kids and the comfort of knowing no one and having no responsibility to discipline any of them. They were awfully darn cute, especially the ones dancing in front of the stage.
Last night I went to Hiawatha Park to hear a free concert. The venue was the Alma Villegas Quintet . I like Latin music plenty well enough but I was not overly impressed. I did like a Cuban piece that they did but most of the songs were just too over the top 'romantico' for me. It was a beautiful evening though and most families had picnic fare and they were spread out on their blankets having a great time letting the kids run more or less free and that's how summer should be; full of freedom.

My 'Pretties'

I have been a watering fool to keep all my 'pretties' happy in the heat wave we have been having. OK, if you live in Arizona or Hawaii, 85 does not qualify as a heat wave, but in Seattle it does! Today I did not garden but I did accomplish a whole lot! I ran in Lincoln Park and lifted weights at the Y. Then I went downtown to get the final crown on my tooth. I can't believe how great it feels now. I hope I NEVER need another root canal and getting the mold made for the crown is no picnic either. But now that is all behind me and the tooth feels great and even better...insurance covered every last cent! How rare is that? I made a Costco run on my way home. I had 4 items on my list and somehow I ended up with about 15 and I spent $148. Needless to say I was not following the 'Nakata Rule': never take a cart into Costco if you want to stick to your list! Then I dashed in the house, tossed food in the freezer and went to get my hair cut. Really just an inch and a half trim. But leave it to the DH to say, "Nice cut, but too short!" which is what he says practically every time I get a cut. Then I read a little in my current 'read': Before You Know Kindness and ate a late lunch. Then at 3:00 off I went to Westwood for my annual visit to the eye Dr. The result is not much different than any other middle aged person on the planet, my reading vision is going 'kaput' albeit slowly. The good news is that this year insurance covers new frames. I'm ready for a switch back to plastic instead of wire. Once at home all bleary and goopy eyed, I made Marinated Chinese Noodles for dinner, tossing in leftover chicken from last night's roasted bird along with multicolored peppers and grilled onions and garlic, cilantro from the garden, sliced water chestnuts, and ground peanuts. Yum!

Hydrangea

Queen of the Prairie

Native Spirea

Disporum ('Fairy Lanterns')

July In the Garden

Everything is growing SO fast! We are having a extra hot summer in Seattle (like above 75). So you see lots of dry grass and TALL tomatoe and bean plants. Yes, your eyes are seeing right, my beans and tomatoe plants are only inches below my garden deck.



There are carrots to thin and and unusual Chinese Radishes to eat in salads.
They don't taste much like radishes; they are much more mild and they sure are colorful in a salad.

And yummy ripe raspberries to eat with our morning yogurt or to go in the afternoon Sangria!