Updates

 Jill checked in via Facebook this afternoon. Here are a few of the animal photos she posted from their Serengeti Safari day. They have one more day of "glamping" on the Serengeti before traveling out of the wilds and  eventually beginning their flights home.

Jake came by yesterday evening to pick the raspberries and take his container full home with him. We learned a little bit about his camping road trip and how he checked off a few more roads not traveled. He's a map guy and likes to explore new territory. Me too.

I did quite well on my garden club outing Saturday morning. I explained to the docent leading our tour that I was OK with walking but not good at standing around, so please excuse me if I wander off and am not a good listener.  She did. And I did.

We visited the Evergreen Arboretum in Everett, WA, a very pleasant garden north of Seattle.

There were sculptures through the garden, here a reminder to "keep clam".

The walkways were level, smooth, and easy. 

These large dish gardens had examples of a crevice garden, a carniferous garden, and miniature hostas. 

Big blooms on a giant Southern Magnolia. 

Lots of lovely maples provided shade. 

The tour took about an hour, and then, since we had plenty of time before our lunch reservation, some of us strolled back through the garden and then found a shady bench to sit and talk. 

Lunch was at a brew pub down by the harbor. Everett is a town on the mainland shore of Puget Sound, just east of Whidbey Island. 

It was a very enjoyable outing. 

Lions and Hippos and Zebras, Oh My!

 

                                        New bouquet for the kitchen table. 

Jill has reported in from her first day on Safari. They spent the morning, and then after lunch, more time in the afternoon in the Ngorongoro Crater, safe in their viewing vehicles, seeing all manner of African wild life in this National Conservation Area. Here are some of the photos she posted.

Ngorongoro Crater

Water buffalo

Hippos, zebra, and Wildebeests

Wildebeests

They will spend part of one more day here and then move on to the Serengeti for another couple of days. What an adventure! 

Jake is back home, having reported that his geologic road trip was "interesting" That's praise for him.

Isaac "had plans" with his girl friend, so we just exchanged a few texts. 

I didn't meet any wild life during my two hours working in the yard yesterday, although Charlie Cat checked in, and escaped back into the house before the mosquitoes got to me.  I have been walking in the park in the evenings, now up to a mile, but Tom and I decided we were tired yesterday evening. 

Today we had Friday breakfast, did our grocery shopping, and I will check off my PT exercises.

This evening we will be watching the USWNT, the US Womens National Team, in their opening round of the Womens World Cup, being played in Australia and New Zealand. 

In the garden we have the first blooms of the canna and the Brugmansia.

Tomorrow, Saturday, I'm finally going to join our garden club on an outing. It's going to be more walking and standing than I am used to. Wish me luck. 

Checking In

When I woke up early I wasn't happy about it until I remembered that Jill and Irene were probably back down off that mountain and could be sending me a message! 

I grabbed my phone, docked on my bedside table, and YES!, there were these photos,

The first one is on the summit of Kilimanjaro, which they reached July 18th, and the second one is the same day 9000 ft lower, at base camp. 

Jill reports that they had a great time and that Irene was a "rock star". Now they are hopefully sleeping, having been driven some miles through scenery that is "very African", reached their hotel, and had a much needed shower. Next they set off on their safari. 

Jill has posted lots of photos on Facebook and I have spent a good chunk of my morning looking over them again and again, and enjoying the comments left by friends and family.

Jake also checked in this morning with a brief text reporting that he is in Kettle Falls, WA, having spent yesterday hiking up the Kettle Crest Trail, and "having fun".

These are all good things for a mother to hear. 

I completed another trip around the sun on Monday and had a quiet birthday. I missed my kids. I did the laundry but refused to do any housework, so Tom did what got done. We went to Red Robin for dinner so I could claim my free birthday burger, and then we stopped at a nearby Starbucks to get my free coffee drink. The nice young man at the counter gave us both drinks free, mine and Tom's, and two little Vanilla scones too. We enjoyed our "mocha frap iced coffee with whip and caramel drizzle", dessert in a cup, back home on the patio before going for our evening walk in the park. 

Yesterday I spent a lot of time peeling crumby little apples from our early apple tree so I could make the best apple pie there is, with early green transparent apples. Our espaliered apple trees are struggling to produce now that they are so shaded by large trees, but the pie? Delicious!

While I was baking, the crew we hired to prune the holly hedge finally was able to fit us in after several failed attempts, and we are very pleaded with the results.

The top of the hedge has never been so straight! This kind of work is expensive, but so worth it not to have to do it ourselves. 

I have declared that I need another dinner out today so I have invited grandson Isaac to join us if he can. We'll see. He has a girlfriend that seems to be getting most of his attention. He's the one "kid" that still needs to check in.  

Getting Older

New flowers for the kitchen table. 

 Saturday we had a family gathering to celebrate Tom's brother David's 80 birthday. He and his family live in California but most of his extended family live here in Puget Sound country and so it was fitting that we gathered at our Whidbey Island retreat. 

This is Dave, the birthday boy, and his bride Vicki, the party planner, enjoying the beach.

We all enjoyed the party and the visiting and the catching up and the laughing and, of course, the eating. 

Dave's actual birthday is Monday, July 17th, and so is mine. I thanked him for having a party this year so that I could skip it next year when I turn 80. 

I think for this birthday we'll go to Red Robin and collect my free burger and maybe we'll make a stop at Starbucks for a free birthday coffee, a fancy one. 

Yes, as our blog friend DJan likes to say, tomorrow marks another trip around the sun for me. I would love to leave a little baggage behind on the next one. 

This morning we got up, slowly of course, and got out to our berry patch to pick the raspberries and blackberries before it got hot.

We have a smaller patch now, not so hard to keep up with. This picking gave us enough for two quarts of raspberries for the freezer and one plus the blackberries to eat fresh. My lunchtime yogurt and my evening ice cream will get berry toppings. 

After that I spent 45 minutes doing my morning session of physical therapy. I spend a lot of time each day trying to combat getting older. Sigh. Facebook reminded me on the 14th that it was just 3 years ago that I had my second spine surgery. Since then  I have also had two hip replacements and an aortic valve job. A lot for three years!

But as several of us now old folks said yesterday at the birthday party, we are still here, showing up, and having fun. 

And speaking of having fun, I got a brief text from both Jill and Irene overnight, where they report that they are doing great and have reached Arrow Glacier at 16,000 ft. Tomorrow they climb nearly to the summit, camping at 18,700 ft, before summiting on Tuesday July 18th at 19,340 ft, the top of Africa, and then descending quickly to their last mountain camp at 10,500 feet. After that they will go on safari.

Meanwhile son Jake has set out this morning on a camping road trip into northeastern Washington, a fun place for a geology buff like he is. 

We will be at home, where we are mostly quite content. 

Seasons in the Sun

 

Seasons in the Sun - it's the title of, and a line from, an old song, but my garden made me think of it in a different way than the song suggests. 

As I walk around my garden I see what is beginning to bloom, what has finished, what is in bud, and what it was like in May and June and what will survive the heat of August and last into September. 

Now in July this wall of clematis and day lilies are in bloom and I am enjoying them very much. There used to be a lovely green hedge behind them, but construction next door gave us a pretty nice wooden fence instead. One little bit of the hedge survived, and we left it.

We have bunches of bright red Crocosmia Lucifer blooming around the garden now too. The hummingbirds love them. 

We all have seasons in the sun too. Our friend Dede just had her 96th birthday yesterday. We'll see her at breakfast on Friday. On Saturday we will go to Whidbey Island to attend a birthday party for Tom's brother Dave, who is turning 80. Actually we share a birthday, the 17th, but we are celebrating his on the 15th, a Saturday. I will have a year and two days to go before my big one. 

I have not had any more reports from my mountain climbing girls. They are apparently out of cell phone range, but I do have their day by day itinerary and they are closer to the sun now, having climbed from base camp at 6,500 ft to 9,000 ft, through jungle vegetation. With 10 hours difference they are now probably sleeping. Tomorrow they climb through Montane Forest and the Hagenia Zone to 11,400 ft. 

I actually went for a real walk today and yesterday. It was only about .75 of a mile today, a little more yesterday, but it was more than just walking around the house and yard.  It's not easy and I have to make myself do it, but if I want to enjoy my future seasons in the sun I need to be mobile. 

Keep on trekkin'.