Flower Crop

While we have been harvesting a  modest amount of vegetables, the products of my cutting garden are abundant.

Sweet peas don't like the heat, but enough persist to make small bouquets. The lilies are going much too fast. :-(

The dahlias are coming on strong.

A few giant marigolds brighten the arrangement.

That big purple dahlia is new, and deserves its own staring role.  The first asters are beginning to bloom. 

 Zinnias are so bright and wonderful. 

We dig the dahlias each year, store them in the garage, and then replant them in a raised bed for cut flowers. All of the rest of the flowers are annuals and are raised from seed.

So what do I do with all of this bounty of beauty?

The zinnias and the lily are in the powder room.

 Sweet peas are on the kitchen table ( Are those Charlie ears I see)?

 And a little bunch sits on the display cabinet by Great Grandma's clock and the little July figurine by Josef that my sister gave me as a birthday gift several years ago. 

 The dahlias go on the coffee table in the family room.

 And the purple dahlia jug sits on the kitchen counter. 

Most of the arrangements will last four or five days, and then I'll get to do it all over again. 

Crops

We picked our first tomatoes this weekend!

 These are the first tomatoes of the season, from plants Tom raised from seed. The first weekend in August is early for tomatoes here. 

The basil is big enough to start using. The zucchini has been slow and not prolific this year, which is probably a good thing. 

The green beans are coming on, and we have been picking carrots and beets.

 Sunday evening I put them all together for our dinner.

 We honored those first tomatoes by using them to make a caprese salad. 

Yum! It was all delicious! The taste of summer.

Oh, and I started my day with breakfast on the patio, cereal with fresh berries (from the store).

Ah, summer!

SeaFair in Seattle

The first weekend in August is quintessentially Seattle. 

This is SeaFair weekend, the culmination of weeks long community celebrations and parades, the Torchlight Parade last Saturday, and finally the hydroplane races on Lake Washington. 

The Navy fleet is in town. Tourists are everywhere, The Blue Angels are constantly buzzing the city in the sky overhead as they practice and then put on three air shows in three days. Locals who can't handle the noise and the traffic and the general buzz leave town. The rest of us soak up summer in Seattle. 

Last Saturday Jill and the kids ran the Torchlight Fun Run 5K. Jill wanted to do it because you run on the viaduct, and this is the last year it will be standing. The new tunnel is complete, and soon the viaduct will be coming down. Jill is not a runner, but her kids kept her going the whole way.

In Jill's words, she said her kids "tried to kill me". But they were all smiles at the end of the run. 

Then they stayed for the Torchlight Parade that lasted well after 10:00, with pirates and clowns and drill teams and bands and all kinds of fun stuff, and fire trucks and cops on motorcycles too. 

We could hear them in out yard when the Blue Angles arrived on Tuesday. Jill and Isaac left town on separate adventures, and Irene came to us on Wednesday.  Tom and I usually go to Lake Washington on free day Friday to watch the air show, watch the hydroplanes test and qualify, and get a taste of the flavor of the festival. It's my thing more than his, but he comes along. We took Irene with us this year.

 We expected cool damp weather, but the clouds broke up early. We walked along the lake, past the pit area, to find just the right place to watch the action, that place where Jill and Jake and the kids have been camping out on Race Day Sunday in past years. This year no one is available to go on Sunday, so we were representing the clan tradition on Friday. 

 When we arrived, the hydros were taking turns out on the lake, testing their boats and throwing up rooster tails as their turbine engines whined. 

 I watched everything. Others occupied themselves differently. 

 A flotilla of geese came by. 

 And then these birds showed up. I love the power and the roar of these jets. The show the Blue Angels put on is great too. 

 Solo pilots climbing into the sky, spinning, and then dashing down in death defying dives. 

 Like big bees, buzzing in all directions. 

 The color of this photo, taken with my phone, came out strangely, but I like it. 

 The fluer de lis farewell. 

 Then we went to find fair food and check out the exhibits, looking for free stuff. This giant sand castle was cool, and real. 

 Stunt planes continued the air show, buzzing and spinning and diving overhead. 

 As the day heated up, the lemon aid stand was popular. I waited in the shade. 

 Tom found some lobster, and Irene and I found ice cream. Then Irene made me play mini-golf and spin the wheel and we won hydro hats. Grampa had to wear hers. Of course we were wearing our hydro shirts. 

 Back in our chairs by the lake, where the crowds had dramatically thinned out after the airshow, we watched vintage hydros take the race course, their piston engines thundering. We old folks love hearing the thunder boats. . 

 Having to be towed in was a frequent event with the old boats. But so was death, as the old boats had no safety canopies like the new turbine boats do. 

 We sat by the lake until 6:00, watching the competitive hydroplanes run qualifying laps, and set the field for the official race, which started on Saturday and ends on Sunday.

The view at my feet.

I'll watch the final on TV Sunday afternoon. Tom might pay attention. We dropped Irene off Saturday morning at her church for her adventure, going with her youth group on a mission to serve homeless in San Francisco. 

Tom and I are quite happy to be staying home. 

Coolness

It's drizzling again this morning, and 58 degrees, a delicious, moist coolness after days of 85 to 90+ temps. Everything is still dangerously dry, but it's easier to breathe. Even the flowers in the garden think so.

I'm having issues with downloading photos from my new iPhone. This photo persists on laying down sideways. I guess you just have to tilt your head to look at it. 

 Charlie follows me everywhere in the garden now. 

They say the sun will come back soon, but hopefully not so intensely. 

Going Paperless?

It rained, sort of. Drizzled anyway. The heat spell is broken!

Tuesday was payday. Payday is the day when our pensions are deposited in our checking account, and it is the day when I balance the checkbook (Yes, I still have a check book, although I mostly use it for record keeping, since I write very few checks.).  We have gone paperless, meaning we get bills but no statements: no bank statements, no credit card statements, no pension or Social Security statements. Comcast and Sprint phone service statements are via email.  Everything comes by email.

Our monthly bills are paid through auto pay, either from a credit card or directly from our bank/credit union. Credit card bills (we use two cards and buy almost everything with them) are paid through the electronic Bill Pay feature with our bank. 

I was all set to take care of the accounting Tuesday morning, when....NO INTERNET!  I couldn't do anything I needed to do to balance the check book or make payments. 

I recently read the book The President is Missing,  by James Patterson and Bill Clinton. It is about cyber warfare, and the imminent threat that all electronic media would be shut off.  Since these days everything is done electronically, through computers, you couldn't buy groceries, pump gas, run electrical grids or communication systems, or transportation systems. You would not have access to your bank accounts, and once you spent the cash on hand you would be out of money. It would be so crippling that we would be plunged into the dark ages. 

I decided I would not do well in the "dark ages". 

The Internet was down regionally all day Tuesday. It really cramped our style not to have access to our WiFi. Wednesday morning there was still no Internet access, so I called Comcast, again, and found that service was restored and we just needed to have our modem reset. Phew! I could pay the bills!

It's scary to realize how dependent we are on services that could disappear over night. Should I at least go back to receiving paper statements? 

When you hear politicians discuss which is our nation's greatest threat, forget about nuclear weaponry or illegal immigrants or even terrorist attacks. Our biggest threat is a cyber attack. Cyber security is much more essential than a wall.