Spring Blooms

Oh goodness! We're 2/3rds of the way through June already. The spring just zipped by! My yard was extra pretty this year. Everything bloomed spectacularly. I took a few pictures, and that's what's being posted today.

First of all, my baby flowering Crabapple out did herself. She likes being in a fenced yard where the moose can't chew her to bits. She was thick with flowers.

It's been awhile since she's bloomed, and the last time she did I could swear the flowers were white. So it was a surprise to find pale pink with dark edges on the petals.

When I bought the tree, it was mislabeled so I thought I was buying a regular dark pink Crabapple, making the color a surprise regardless. I didn't know Crabapples came in any other colors. Suddenly, I'm noticing all the white and pale pink Crabapple trees all over the place. The county is littered with them. They smelled wonderful.

My Honeycrisp Apple tree bloomed too, but it was only about 20 or so flowers toward the center of the tree. They were fairly large and pure white. I didn't take pics. Some of those flowers are now tiny little apples. We are actually going to have apples on that tree! I am SO EXCITED!

The flowering Cherry had a few blooms too. It hasn't recovered completely from the moose abuse, even though it's been 3 years. Poor thing. It's loaded with leaves though, and growing like crazy.

My French Lilac was gorgeous! Loaded with blooms this year. It's growing like crazy too.

There's a young Ponderosa Pine behind it that is sort of crowding it above so I'm going to be pruning some branches to give it more room to grow upward.

If you've never seen these in real life, the flowers are much larger than the standard lilacs, and it smells heavenly. We had a whole week of lilac perfume in the house while it bloomed.

My regular lilac bloomed as well. Last year we got a frost at the wrong time that killed its buds, so it was nice so see them this year. The bush itself needs some work. The snow sliding off the roof has done some damage. (Please ignore the weeds)

It's the more traditional lilac color.

Smells wonderful too.

I have future flowers coming. All my Peonies have big fat buds on them.

We have had wonderful weather since I last wrote. Many perfect sunshine days for sitting out on my deck and knitting. Some rain too, keeping things nice and fire resistant. Temps have ranged mostly in the upper 60's, low 70's, except last week which got up close to 90F. This week it's cooled off and we're getting 5 minute weather days. We had a rainbow yesterday afternoon.

We went camping last weekend at Heyburn which is on the south end of Lake Coeur d'Alene, and it was perfect weather. I enjoyed the whole weekend immensely. Forgot my camera though, which made me very angry with myself because there are lots of wild flowers there of which I wanted to take pictures.

Sweet hubby, Dan, and Sue went on a bike ride while there, so me and Ruth went into Plummer and visited the Warpath Smokeshop and Trading Post.

Plummer is about 5 miles from where we were camping on the Coeur d'Alene Indian tribes reservation.

The shop carries beads. The last time I was there (which we figured out had been 12 years) it did, anyway. Just a small selection of Czech opaque seed beads. Well, things have changed. They built a HUGE addition onto the back and it's chock full of beads.

I've never seen so many beads in just one place! It was awesome! I actually had a huge rush when I stepped in the door and first laid eyes on them. There must be every color of Czech 11 seed beads there. Thousands of hanks hanging in rainbow order on the walls! They had 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, and 20's too in round and charlottes. Tons of Toho seed beads in tubes lined one aisle. They had a wall full of fire polish crystals, and all kinds of things for making Native American regalia (They have stuff for making moccasins!!!). I had the biggest blast looking at everything. I spent money. Way too much. They have Native American themed fabric and I bought some cotton for a blouse. That store was the highlight of the trip for me.

I am still diligently working on Margaret Tudor. I've got all the body pieces done. I finished them last week. HURRAY!

I also knit the two sleeve rose panels already. While camping, I worked on the first side sleeve panel (there are 4). It's not been going so well because I keep goofing it up. It's pretty complicated. I've cast on 4 times for it now. I think I've finally got it figured out. Geez, I sure hope so. I do not want to start it a 5th time.

Well, that's my news for now. I haven't given up on the blog yet. Just been really busy, Here's a picture of Zoey, who is doing lots of running in the back yard and enjoying it.

Live long and Prosper. \\//

Summer Update

As I said yesterday, It's been a busy summer. Here's an update.

The Ocean Spray we transplanted has died. Gonna try again.

My knee is healing, slowly. I have periods with no pain now. I've been getting Physical Therapy which is helping quite a bit.

We went on our annual week long camping trip to Priest Lake. It was a lot of fun. I did a lot of walking, which was hard on my sprained knee, but I think in the long run it was good for me. Despite the knee, I find I'm in much better physical shape than I've been in a long time. For instance, the walk from our camp site to the beach involves a steep hill. I've always had to huff and puff my way up it. This year I didn't huff and puff. That was a surprise.

One day we went on a hike up Lionshead Creek trail. I wanted to go up to my favorite place on this trail.

I forgot my main camera, but I had my phone with me. It took surprisingly good pictures. One of the granite peaks viewed from the parking lot of the trail.

I made it there! I haven't been able to do that hike in several years. It's all uphill to my destination but I managed it just fine. I admit, though, I did use my cane. Here's my favorite spot along Lionshead creek.

Lionshead Creek

 I was so excited when I got there I started to cry. I didn't think I'd ever see it again. Ruth took this pic of me and Zoey by the creek.

The hike aggravated my knee, but it was so worth it. Here is Sweet Hubby looking at one of the small pools made by the creek.

This is a view of the creek downhill. It's very steep so I didn't try to go down.

We hiked back to the truck. Then we went on a drive on the logging roads in the Idaho Panhandle National Forest. We went way up in the mountains where the Alpines grow. At one point we got a phone signal, so Sweet Hubby insisted we stop so he could check his email. We got out of the truck and explored the woods around us. There was a tall green plant loaded with green flowers that I'd never seen before. Ruth is standing next to it here. It's just a bit taller than she is.

It's called Indian Hellebore. It's a member of the Lily family. It has long droopy stems loaded with little bright green flowers.

Here's a close up. The flowers are about half an inch in diameter. The plant is very poisonous, so we were cautious around it.

We also found a patch of Huckleberries. They had a few ripe berries on them ,which we picked and I put them in a fruit salad for dinner that evening.

After we got home from our trip I got busy getting all the fair entries ready. The fair is next week.

My husband has officially been accepted to University Idaho. He will be working on a masters in computer science. Classes start next week, I think. Thankfully, he will be attending the Coeur d'Alene campus so we won't have to move. It will be weird having my husband going to school.

I did quite a bit of knitting while camping. I have finished layettes I want to post about, but I will have to wait until after the fair.

We are having very nice weather this week. Perfect temperatures for deck knitting, but the smoke from nearby forest fires is so thick I can't handle being in it for more than a few minutes.  Can't even see the mountains a mile away. My asthma is giving me all kinds of grief, so I'm staying indoors. A day or two of rain would be appreciated.

Our daughter, Ruth, is going back to school today. One last semester and then she'll graduate.

That's the news for now.

Live long and prosper. \\//

Our Trip

Our camping trip was wonderful. The weather was perfect, though a bit hot. That just made the lake that much more enjoyable. We chilled the whole time there. Didn't feel like going on big hikes, or drives through the mountains, or long kayak rides. I just hung around camp, floated in the lake, knitted, took Cable on walks, and relaxed. Cable was absolutely wonderful the whole time too.

Our trailer was not so cooperative. Before we even left home one of the tires went flat. So hubby got a new one. He got 2 new ones, so we'd have a decent spare. When we left, we discovered the trailer brakes weren't working. The drive to the campground isn't a hard one, though, so we went ahead and drove without them. After we arrived at the campground, we were greatly anticipating a shower. Our trailer has a tiny bathroom in it, and we filled up our water tank at a dump station on the way up. The water heater refused to work. ARRGH! I did not want a cold shower. I went and threw myself in the lake. I washed my hair under the water faucet across the road from our camp site. It was icy cold. My brain actually started to hurt it was so cold, but the clean hair was worth the pain.

A couple days after arriving at the campground my brother-in-law offered to help sweet hubby figure out what was wrong with everything broken in the trailer. Turned out to be easy fixes. The contacts on the brake connectors were corroded, so weren't getting good contact. After some cleaning, they worked fine. The hot water heater has a little circuit breaker switch thingy on it that had tripped. They reset it and it started working just fine. So we did eventually get a nice hot shower. It was delightful!

On Thursday we headed home to pic up our daughter and head to Newport, OR. We took two days to get there because it's a long drive. We spent the first night at the Deschutes River State Park. The drive down the Columbia River Gorge was grueling because the wind was blowing very hard and we were headed IN to it. The trailer bucked and waved the whole way. When we got to the park, we were glad to stop for the night. We had hook ups in the park. Yay! Real electricity in the trailer. That night we went to bed tired, but happy. The next morning we woke up to wet floors. A pipe in the bathroom had sprung a leak. At this point, sweet hubby sat down, put his head in his hands, and said "I hate this trailer." (Yeah. I admit, it's lacking in quality. But I still love it.) We mopped up the water, packed up and headed to Newport.

When we got to Philomath, OR (yes, that's the real name of that town) sweet hubby got hungry and pulled into a McDonalds. While trying to park the trailer in the terribly too small parking lot, he managed to side swipe a truck that was innocently parked in a space minding it's own business. I took pics in case the insurance company might need them.

The truck we hit had paint scraped on (white) and off (orange), and the frame around the head light got a bit broken off it. Our trailer got the worst end of it. The back bumper was bent, and there's a nice long scrape across the side along with a bright orange stripe. Some plastic things got scraped off, a door hinge bent, but really, the damage was minimal. Paint will be the main cost of repairs.

Insurance info was exchanged, phone calls were made, hubby bent the bumper back to it's proper position, and then we were on our way.

Our stay in Newport was good. We parked in an RV park located in the port of Newport. We had full hookups. Sweet hubby fixed the leaky pipe. But the park had nice showers, so we used them instead.

Mac and Alicia's wedding was awesome. It was held in a park near Newport. The weather was perfect for it and everything went beautifully. I adore his new wife and her children too.

Besides the wedding, while in Newport we visited the Oregon Coast Aquarium, and ate in some very tasty restaurants. I ate my first crab. I'd never eaten crab before. It was against the religion I grew up in. I've been missing out. It was very very good. We got to see lots of family we hadn't seen in awhile. Our daughter Sarah and son-in-law were there too, so we got to spend a little bit of time with them.

Phone selfie

It was a hectic 4 days. Through it all, Cable was an absolute angel. The reason we camped in Newport instead of getting a hotel room was because of Cable. I didn't want to kennel her. We needed to leave her alone and since hotels won't let you do that with pets, the trailer went with us. Cable was so well behaved I kept wondering who was this dog and where was Cable? It was one of those occasions where I felt so inadequate with our ability to communicate with each other. I wanted to tell her how so very proud of her I am, but she doesn't understand English. We did get an opportunity to take her to the beach and let her off her leash for awhile. She loved it! She ran and ran and ran and played in the waves and chased seagulls. She was so full of joy!

We drove home in one long 13 hour trip. The drive went much better. No wrecks, but we did have a flat tire. We were glad for the brand new spare. It took us just a few minutes to change the tire and then we were on our way. We were glad to be home. Then, to turn on the kitchen faucet and have water come out? That was awesome!

You may be wondering why so few pics. I didn't take many. I was a total failure as a photographer this time. I had the camera with me. Just didn't feel like using it. I was more into feeling the trip rather than photographing it this time. If it weren't for my phone, there probably wouldn't have been any photos at all.

Next post will be about the knitting I did while away.

Live long and prosper. \\//

Ellie Goes on Vacation

I'm back. In fact, I've been back for a week. Just been too busy to sit down and blog. Even though I'm not working at the fair this year, August is managing to be a hectic month. I had a great time on our camping trip. My tan is awesome! I spent quite a bit of time in the lake swimming or floating on my recliner. The whole week was very very hot. Actually got above 100F degrees a couple of the days, so lake inhabiting was called for.

I didn't get to hike up to Lion Heads Creek like I wanted. But I did do 2 nice long hikes in the woods. The woods is so beautiful around Priest Lake. I took tons of pictures of wild flowers, most of which didn't turn out. But I'll share a few that did in a few days.

I got some knitting done, and some beading. I'll talk about that later too. I have 2 pairs of mittens done. Gotta block them and then take pics.

My daughter, Sarah, arrived here from Rhode Island on Monday. She is visiting for a couple weeks. She is hanging with us for the first week. Next week she and sweet hubby are going on Ride Idaho, a long bike ride that is just over 400 miles around north Idaho and Montana.

I took pictures of Ellie on our vacation. I promised the ImaginingEllowyneWilde group I'd post them. So here they are.

It was a hot day. Ellie decided to spend some time in the cool shade of the woods. There are lots of big rocks in north Idaho. She started her walk at this one.

The floor of the wood is covered in lovely green moss.

 It was soft and cushy, pleasant to sit on.

There were lots of beautiful Pinedrops in bloom under the trees.

Ellie found a lovely little stump to sit upon for a brief rest. She found a nice walking stick too.

Eventually she ended up back where she began.

We camped on the east side of Priest Lake in north Idaho. Every day she spent time on the beach enjoying the sun and a swim.

She played among the driftwood logs.

And climbed a Spirea bush just for fun.

She spent some time on her cousins boat too, working on her tan.

She had a wonderful time on her vacation.

Live long and prosper. \\//

Going Camping

It has been a very busy week. That's cuz we're going camping, leaving today and returning in a week. We're going to one of my favorite places in north Idaho. I'm excited! We'll be near where this picture was taken a few years ago.

Me and Tommy, June 2008

I'm hoping to try hiking up there this time, but I don't know how I'll do with my gimpy leg. It's a tough steep climb up for a couple miles. And it's gonna be very hot next week.  I will see how it goes.

The campground has no hookups for our trailer. Just outhouses and shared water faucets placed strategically around the park. However, it does have WiFi. Whoda thunk? I'm taking my Nook tablet so I can keep in contact with the world. But I won't be able to post here while I'm gone.

Which reminds me, I won Bingo in the Imagining Ellowyne Wilde Yahoo group yesterday. WooHoo! I've won an an adorable pants and top outfit. Someone won the outfit I donated too. She lives in the Netherlands. It is kind of amazing to me to be able to communicate on a daily basis with people of like passions all over the world.

I've managed to finish two knitting projects this week-the red mittens and the purple doll dress,  but I haven't had time to take pictures. So it'll have to wait until I get back.

I need to finish packing the trailer so we can hit the road. Behave yourself. Until I get back...

Live long and prosper. \\//

I Feel Refreshed Despite It All

So, we went camping this weekend. We stayed at Riley Creek campground on the Clark Fork River, up near Priest Lake (the town, not the lake). This was our first choice for the weekend. There were but 3 sites left when we got there, so we were pretty lucky we got them. But before I get into that, let me start at the beginning.

On Thursday I went out to the trailer to do my annual thorough cleaning of the inside where I polish, scrub, and dust everything so it all looks new again. After I was done I gathered up the cleaning supplies and headed to the house with the intent to start packing. As I was walking up the back steps a freak occurrence took place that resulted in me falling on the steps. Ouch. My foot twisted in ways it shouldn't sending me flying and I smashed both knees firmly into the wood when I landed. I sat on the steps and cried it hurt so bad. Daughter Ruth helped me back into the house after a bit. I applied ice to my foot and thought to myself  'I think I broke my foot'. I decided to wait and see how it went over the next hour or so before rushing to the emergency room.

After some ice and whatnot, I poked around a bit and it was pretty certain that I did not break my foot, but I surely did sprain it badly. So, basically, I had to keep off that foot as much as possible. I could hardly hobble on it. My knees swelled up and turned a lovely shade of purplish black. Loading the trailer was gonna be difficult. But sweet daughter Ruth jumped right in to help. She hauled everything out for me and put it away. I just had to gather it in piles around the house and tell her where it all went.

When we arrived at the campground we set up camp and I prepared to spend the whole weekend with my leg propped up on my folding foot stool. I sat on my brand new purple Coleman lumbar chair that I bought the week before to replace the one I'd worn out. My new chair is extremely comfortable, so I didn't mind sitting in it a lot.

The weather was kind of chilly, but not rainy or snowy. It was partial sun and clouds. So we wore long sleeves and had a nice camp fire. I had planned to ride my bike, but that plan got thrown out obviously. I couldn't ride with my foot injured the way it is.

We were going to go kayaking. That I could do with a gimpy foot cuz once I'm sitting in the boat, the feet are no longer needed. However, the river is up so high and the current so swift they were not allowing kayaks and canoes in it. So that ended up being out.

So, what did I do all weekend? I knitted and beaded of course! And ate, and sat and chatted, and drank whiskey, and hovered around the camp fire and relaxed. It was one of the most relaxing camping trips I've ever been on. I came home so rested and refreshed.

My foot is feeling much better too. I've got a couple more weeks of healing at least, but the worst is over.

I have pics of the weekend crafting.

I am calling this the Flirty Fir sock because that's the name of the yarn colorway. I LOVE this colorway. It is so pretty.

I also love the sock pattern. It is so pretty, and knitting up very fast cuz I'm having so much fun with it. It's a very simple 8 row repeat that I memorized after just knitting through it once. It's a slip stitch pattern.

I had planned to work on the bead embroidery project and make a major dent in how much is done on it. I packed all the beads and necessary tools. Then promptly forgot the the embroidery frame with the partly done project on it. I could have kicked myself if not for the gimpy foot.

A couple days before we left I got this new pattern for a Christmas tree ornament cover and happened to have the beads along to start it. (I always pack more than one project!). So that is what I worked on.

I have one more point to do, and then the next part starts. The pic does not do these beads justice. The crystals are copper colored and extra sparkly. The seed beads are silver lined matte pale orange. So everything shines so pretty in the light.

Tommy was absolutely golden on this camping trip. He was so well behaved I was beginning to wonder if we'd brought the right dog. He was so thrilled to see brother-in-laws dog Tripper too. I think I could safely say Tripper has become his best friend. They had a very good time together.

I have figured out what is causing the blue screen of death on my laptop. My virus protection software has developed a conflict with Windows 7 after it's last update. I do not know how to fix it. For now, the virus protection is disabled, but that can't remain. I need protection with all the foreign sites I visit. I will be tossing around ideas on what to do. Hopefully, I can find a solution. I think I'll start by uninstalling the program and reinstalling it and all the updates. Sigh.

Live long and prosper. \\//

Cough Cough!

We had a fabulous camping trip in the most beautiful place on earth (and I've been to some really beautiful places) with Sweet Hubbys family. There is no other place as beautiful as Priest Lake. I love it up there.

The weather was hot, but the lake was so refreshing. We kayaked and hiked. Some rode their bikes. We ate really really good, celebrated Sweet Hubby and BIL's 50th birthday, daughter Ruths 22nd birthday, and had a really great time together.

Dan, Ruth, and Sweet Hubby kayaked to the upper end of Upper Priest Lake to Navigation camp ground, which is an 18 mile trek. When they got there they went up partway on Upper Priest River. Ruth found petrified wood along the river. She's pretty excited about that.

Morgan and Tommy did much better this trip. Morgan was much more relaxed and took things in stride. I took him on several walks with just me and let him sniff to his hearts content. He especially enjoyed the heat. He loves it when the mercury hits 90 and above.

I took my knitting and beading, as usual. This time I knitted lots and didn't bead at all. I've got the Bayerische bug. I have to finish those socks in time for the fair. I'm halfway down the toe of the first sock. It's a time consuming pattern. Lots of cables and twists. It's going well though. I plan to really concentrate on them over the next 2 weeks.

I will have pics of our trip later. I took my camera, but never used it. Sis Sue, however, took lots of pics, some just for me. As soon as she sends them to me I'll post 'em.

When we got home I discovered something bad. Chenille had managed to hide herself in my bedroom and was trapped there the whole time we were gone. No food, or water, for 4 days in a hot room. Boy, was she pissed when I opened the door. She's okay, but she sure let me know in no uncertain terms what she thought of the whole deal. We looked for her before we left, but we didn't find her, so I figured she was outside. As far as I'm concerned, it's her own fault for hiding in there.

The heat is still going on today. It's supposed to get up into the mid 90's. On top of that, some where upwind there is a wildfire that is smoking us up pretty bad. My eyes itch like crazy, and I'm coughing up a storm. I will be spending most of my time indoors to avoid any asthma attacks the smoke could cause.

Have a good day.

Bye

Gone camping. Be back in a few.

Have a great weekend.

Camping in Montana

Got a lot to catch up on, so this is gonna be a long post.

We returned from our camping trip on Sunday afternoon (I haven't felt like blogging). It was a very nice weekend. The weather cooperated, and I had fun. Here are some pics from the trip.

We camped on Bull River, which is in the Montana mountains.


Ruth and I took Tommy and Morgan for a walk along the river.


This is the valley that Bull River runs through.


One of our little mini side trips was to visit the Cabinet Gorge Dam


SIL Sue and her dog, Tripper. Tripper preferred to stay away from the edge of the viewing area because it was a long way down.


Ruth enjoyed the gorge from a geologist point of view. I learned quite a bit about it from her.


Our next side trip was to visit a Cabinet Mountains Cedar Grove. We Parks have a 'thing' for cedar groves.

Here's Ruth trying out the hollow middle of a tree.


Speaking of hollow tree middles. This one was really cool. Nathan is yelling "Hey, this is cool. Lets climb inside!" Ruth runs at the opportunity.


I took this picture by poking my camera inside a hole around the roots, pointing it up, and hitting the button. Yes, we had 4 people in there-plus a dog. Tommy was there too, though the camera didn't catch him. Cedar trees are BIG!

Of course, if you climb in, you usually have to climb back out. Nathan was first, but I missed him. Next was Ruth, Sue, then Sweet Hubby.


The size and beauty of these trees is very awe inspiring.


This was a spot between 2 logs thick with a carpet of Spring Beauties.


Sweet Hubby, his twin brother, Tripper, and Tommy-trying out a log.


Of course, Ruth found the big rock.


Tommy sez "Come on Mom, you're holding us up!"


We didn't take Morgan on the walk with us. This was his first camping trip as a blind little guy and being in the wild terrified him. So we parked in a nice shady place and left him in the truck. He was perfectly happy taking a nap while we were away. After we returned, I made him walk with us to the picnic table and let him explore new scents. We walked pretty slow. Having a blind dog is going to be quite an adjustment for both of us.

Now, that is some root ball!


Tripper posed for me while we ate a picnic lunch.


When we returned to camp, the boys chilled for a bit.


There were tons of Ocean Spray bushes blooming in the area. They are so pretty. This bee was working hard on Ocean Spray duty for the hive.


His little pollen sacks were just about bursting.


We ate good, as usual. The first night we had hamburger and hot dogs, potato salad, and fresh fruit. Second night was bar-b-cued steak with garlic mashed potatoes, salad, etc. This is Sue chopping lots and lots of garlic.


That's my bead box in front of her. I beaded, rather than knitted-even though I took my knitting with me. It was very hot and muggy. I just couldn't bring myself to put wool in my hands, even if it is Malabrigo. I will post what I beaded tomorrow.

The last night we had Chicken Marsala cooked in Sue's Dutch Oven, along with garlic bread, salad, and pasta.

Our camp site.


Dan and Sues' camp site next door.


All in all, a beautiful place to spend some camping time.


Have a good day.

~~~~~~~~~~