Remembering

This photo was taken some years ago on one of our Memorial Day trips out to some of Tom's family burying places. We would like to go again this year, just as a good way to get away, and we might venture out on Tuesday when any surge of cemetery visitors is over. It is also a good time to remember those who have gone before us, and the many hardships they endured, that make life now seem easy for those of us who are fortunate to have all we need.  

While there are many family members who have served, we don't have any actual war dead in our families. We know that many families are not so blessed, and we honor those who have died in the service of our country. We have stood among the many graves in the America Cemetery in Normandy and have felt the awful cost of young lives that war causes. We honor those lives, but not war. 

I hope you are having a peaceful weekend. For this strange year, peace will have to replace partying. 

Appointments

Yesterday I had a dental appointment. My clinic is now open and I could finally get my permanent crown put on. 

When I arrived, I signed in outside the door and waited for the receptionist to call me in. I hadn't filled in the date yet because I wasn't sure. The receptionist and I laughed over that, he behind his Plexiglas, both of us masked.  While I was waiting to be seen, I heard giggling from back in the clinic. When my Doc emerged, she was laughing, because each day they were getting new layers of PPE, now in double masks, face shields, head coverings, and little microscope binoculars so they can see without getting so close.

The technician and I laughed again when it came time to take off my mask.  I said I figured that would happen, that I might be able to get a haircut with a mask on, but not dental work. It's good to find humor in things. 

Since I was there and Dr. Ma had time, we decided to go ahead with the rest of the dental work, one more crown and then being fitted with a night guard. Two hours later I paid my big bill, since my dental insurance ran out already with the first work in January, and I came home. I will go back in three weeks to get the permanent crown and the night guard.

I felt perfectly safe there, didn't touch anything I didn't need to touch, used hand sanitizer in the car, and was very glad to have all that done. 

Our first rose

My other appointment was for physical therapy, but it was over the phone, The therapist, Kathy, had all of my records. We went over my symptoms and what exercises I had been doing. Then she decided to try a new approach, explained the concept and the exercises, and gave me an access code to my own personal exercise routine, with diagrams, written instructions, and short videos. 

She set up another phone appointment for today, just three days later. I have been doing the exercises and tying to determine if they are helping. I have pains in new places, maybe because new muscles are being stretched, maybe because they are not working. I am now stressed trying to analyze the results. This will be ongoing, and I might eventually have to get an in person appointment. 

First Fox Gloves are blooming.

In the mean time, new things are blooming in the garden, and cool weather and light showers are prolonging the blooming. I do live in a beautiful world. I sure wish I could get out and explore it further. With all of the talk of it being Memorial Day weekend, my wander lust is stirred. Maybe we'll make a trip to a cemetery at least. 

Follow Up to Eruption Day

More than a mountain was set off on May 18th, 1980. Lives were changed.

As the snow melts in the spring or early summer, flowers will now bloom in what was once the devastation zone around Mount St Helens. Time passes and changes happen. 

This week we have been hearing many stories of "where you were" when the mountain blew. For those of us locals over 40, we all have one. 

Our family story for that day wasn't particularly exciting. It was a Sunday morning, the sky was cloudy, one of those white sky days. We went to church, as we did back then. We heard about the eruption on the radio on the way back home, but we couldn't see anything because of the clouds. We turned on the television when we got home, and were shocked. By then the mud flows were raging down the rivers.

But Tom and I were busy. We were hosting a school staff picnic and spent much of the afternoon being good hosts. We would duck into the house when we could to catch updates, but the film footage tended to be a continuous loop.  

However, our kids were parked in front of the TV and were taking it all in. Jill was seven and Jake was five years old. As we followed the developments that summer, with more eruptions, Jake became intrigued with volcanoes. That eruption set the course for his life.

Jake wanted to become a volcanologist. He selected Western Washington University because it was near the sea and the mountains. He got his degree in geophysics. He worked off and on at jobs to keep himself independent, while applying to graduate school. He only wanted the University of Washington or Hawaii, because we wanted to study volcanoes. He didn't get in. Over time he settled for jobs as a surveyor.

There were rough years, but they were highlighted by trips to the mountains. In their mid 20's, in 1999,  he and his sister Jill, who was also now a mountain girl as well as a teacher, climbed their first volcanic peak, Mt Rainier. Here they are on the summit. 

They have both hiked in the mountains and have reached mountain tops ever since.  This is Jake on the summit of Mount Baker, a few years ago, which he climbed with friends.

 A few summers ago he and Jill summited The Brother, one of the rocky peaks in the Olympic Mountains here in Washington. 

Jake has had various jobs over the years, but he finally found the one that fits. He is a surveyor who often finds himself in the wilderness, or at least in the wilds of a mountain lake or a river or stream. He loves it when his "office" looks like this.

 Jill and Jake have climbed the topless Mount St. Helens and looked down into the crater, but there are no photos. Weather conditions allowed for no lingering. Now 47 and 45, those kids of 40 years ago are still in love with mountains. 

Edit: I have been corrected. Jill just added this photo to my Facebook post. There were photos from the rim of Mt St Helens. I misremembered. Sure glad to have kids who can keep me on my toes. :-)

She also posted this:

Volcanoes we’ve done together: St. Helens 1999, Adams (1999, 2014), Rainier 1999, Middle Sister 2018.

Many more mountain trips done together and separate.

The volcanoes are more special.

Eruption Day

Forty years ago today one of our mountains blew up.

Washington State is home to four volcanic mountains. On May 18th, 1980, one of them, Mount St. Helens, erupted.

She was a beauty. Often photographed from this vista, with Spirit Lake in the foreground, this mountain and surrounding forests were an attraction for campers, hikers, huckleberry pickers, and timber companies. May people had cabins in the surrounding hills and forests.

Several months before the big eruption, the mountain gave off plenty of warnings. There were steam plumes from the crater, and swarms of earthquakes. The governor closed off much of the access to roads into the area and closed down logging for safety precautions. Scientists warned that an eruption was imminent.

Reminiscent of what is going on today, people were angry, insisting that they had property rights and should be allowed in to the restricted area. Timber companies argued against shutting down logging in too great of an area. On May 17th, a Saturday, a caravan of property owners were allowed in for the day to check on their property, to be back out by nightfall. Logging had been allowed again closer to the mountain.  Logging would be in progress the following Monday.

Scientists predicted a typical vertical eruption. That's not what happened. On Sunday morning, at 8:32 AM, a massive landslide took off half of the top of the mountain, resulting in a sideways blast that spewed super heated gas, rock, and ash over hundreds of square miles, obliterating everything in its path. Then the vertical eruption sent a plume ten miles into the air. 

 As volcanic ash rained down, especially east of the mountain, people were not resistant to wearing their masks, just to be able to breathe and keep the harmful volcanic ash silica out of their lungs. 

Mount St Helens erupted several more time during the following summer. More ash rained down. Here in Seattle we only got a light dusting. May places were not so lucky. 

Pyroclastic flows on the mountain melted the glaciers and set off mud and rock flows, lahars, down the river valleys, causing much more destruction.

Fifty-seven people died, many of them never found. Many more would have been lost if the eruption had happened on a week day morning, when logging was taking place. 

Today, 40 years later, growth is returning to some of the areas around the mountain. She remains much studied and much observed by scientists. She has taught the world much about volcanic eruptions and that study has saved lives around the world. 

We live on a big blue marble that is a living planet. Whether it's a massive mountain sitting on a base of molten magma, or a microscopic virus floating unseen in the air we breath, we live with unknowns and unknowables. Science gives us the only clues we have. We need to heed scientists. 

Taking My Time and Making It Last

It might have still been February when I started this little sewing project. Still with scraps to use up, I began piecing together another set of place mats and a table topper. My favorite part of these projects is playing with color. 

Using up more batik fabric left overs, I decided to go easy on myself on the place mats and just do stripes of varying widths. I used a previously made place mat as a template and just laid out pieces until I got the size I wanted. Once I had the pieces sewn together I could always add another strip to each end to get the width I wanted, which I did. 

For the table topper, I decided to use up smaller pieces I had left over, using squares and rectangles, again laying them out on a template to get the size I wanted. 

Keep in mind, I did this over days, weeks even, doing just a little bit at a time, playing with color and shape. This was my creative break from gardening and exercising and reading and cooking and house keeping. 

When I finally had the tops all sewn together, I then had to find enough fabric for the backing. As you can see, they all have something different on the back, but still color coordinated. 

Fortunately I had a big enough piece of one fabric, left over from a quilt, to make all of the binding for the three mats.

Last week, I finally got back to finally finishing sewing down the bindings. Now they are finished.

I love how the color looks with the little hodgepodge bouquet I picked from the garden. 

Someone asked me before what I do with the mats I make. Do I give them away? If I were making sets of four, I might give them away, but with just enough fabric for the three pieces, I keep them and we use them. I love changing them out with the seasons, or just for fun.

I still have some fabric left over, in smaller and smaller pieces. What should I do with them? I could make more masks, I guess, but I would prefer something that takes my mind off of pandemics, something fun.

I guess I'll dig deeper into my scrap box. Maybe a quilted wall hanging is in my future, just as long as I take my time and make it last. 

Getting It Done, and Getting Away

The vegetable/cut flower garden is planted. The tulips are lifted and the bed on top of the wall is planted. Plants Tom grew in his green house are transplanted, and seeds are in the ground.

I helped clean out beds to prepare them for planting. Tom planted all of the seeds and I did the transplanting. We are a good team. Now we need the sun, and an occasional rain, to make them grow. 

John Dever sang it well in The Garden Song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9ZYZa5U9zM

Since you see it in my new header, I should mention that the wisteria on the deck is in full bloom. 

Then on Thursday we ran away. We had pots of geraniums, again from Tom's green house, to take to the deck at the Whidbey Island cabin. We got up early, did our weekly grocery shopping in an almost empty store, grabbed some breakfast, packed a lunch, and set off on a drippy morning. We found a drive through Starbucks on the way for our getaway treat. By the time we got to the ferry we were out of the rain. 

Arriving at the cabin we visited with Tom's cousin who talked to us from the deck of his next door cabin. We sized up the garden work we needed to do there, got changed into garden clothes, and spent an hour weeding in the cabin garden.

 The tulips are all done here too, and it is time for the self seeded California poppies and columbine. 

After a leisurely lunch, we went for a walk on the beach road. I managed 1.4 miles, with a stop at the beach. Then it was time to be lazy. We found comfortable places to lounge and read. Tom fell asleep and I finished my book. I even spent some of that time reading in the sun on the deck. 

A little after 5:00 we packed up to head home, planing to heat up left overs when we got home. We had to wait for a ferry, and on the road, still north of Seattle at 6:30, we decided to stop at a Subway shop and get take out sandwiches to eat in the car instead. 

Fed and happy with our day away, we arrived home about 7:30, content to have been away for the day, but always happy to be home too. 

All About Me

Monday I had a phone appointment with my cardiologist to get the results of my last echo cardiogram. The news was good. There was again hardly any progression of the aortic valve stenosis. I am good to go for another six months, and most likely well beyond that. 

After two months of off and on misery from sciatica caused by an aggravated bulging disc, I emailed my primary care doctor. Last Friday I had a phone appointment with her to go over symptoms and decide on a plan. I am on the list for physical therapy once my medical clinic re-opens, which is expected after May 18th. The good news is I might get some help. The bad news that I might have to live with chronic pain. The doctor didn't say that, but the printed material she emailed to me did. Since the condition seems to be getting worse, not better, I'll take whatever help I can get. 

I wear my hair very short, shaved up the back. After two months without a haircut, the grow out isn't bad except for the ugly hair on my neck. Yesterday I had Tom use the edge trimmer on his razor to shave my neck and clean up the hairline. I am very happy with the results and I think I'll start wearing my hair a bit longer when I can finally get a real haircut. Tom does not want to be involved when my bangs get too long though. :-)

Oh, and I finally shaved my legs! I know, probably too much information, but some of you can relate. I never wear skirts or dresses, and during most of the year I don't wear shorts or short pants. Shaving my legs, with my back issues, is hard. Now that I have removed the winter wool, I guess I'll have to keep it up. 

In news not about me, we visited my sister Laurie last week in her home a long drive away, staying not always six feet apart, but with no hugging. We took her some tomato plants and the genealogy project Tom was doing for her, to finish up what her late husband was putting together. Losing her husband in early January has meant an added loneliness factor during our self isolating, but fortunately she has children and grand children near by. 

Today Tom's sister came for a visit. We stayed outside, sheltering under the cedar tree during a light rain. She kept her mask on. She also picked up her tomato plants and some geranium cuttings. Tom's plant nursery is now almost dispersed. This week we'll plant our vegetable garden. 

Life goes on, one day at a time, and most of the time I even know what day it is!

Mother's Day

Our morning radio talk show hosts were asking, "Did you cheat this weekend?" They were referring, of course, so social distancing and limiting social gatherings.  I had to answer that "Yes, we did". But only a little bit.

Our son Jake joined us for the afternoon, and while I didn't hug him, we also did not stay six feet apart as we shared food and conversation. We are taking a chance on him.

The day was very warm, hot by our Seattle standards, and we moved with the shade. We shared grilled burgers, grilled asparagus, oven roasted potato wedges, and watermelon chunks at the umbrella table, and talked. When it was time for rhubarb pie and ice cream we moved under the cedar tree, and talked more. We are pretty sure we could solve a lot of our nation's problems if everyone would just listen to us. :-)

When he left four hours later he took with him the tomato plants his dad and grown and potted up for him, and a big chunk of pie. It was wonderful to have him here and spend time just with him. 

It was a very good Mother's Day!

Decorating Our Garden

With the sun shining, the rain stopped for now, and the temperature warming up, this week it was time to decorate the out of doors and set up for out door living. That means emptying the greenhouse where tender plants were growing, and the shed, where garden furniture and "yard art" were stored.

We cleaned all of the outdoor furniture and put the oil cloth table coverings on. We set up the new rainbow umbrella which had recently arrived from Amazon. 

I see I took this photo before we put out the new chairs and retired the old, winter chairs to the shed.

 We moved put all of the fancy succulents and spikey plants out of the greenhouse and arranged them on the patio.

 We decorated: hearts in front of the shed.

 Tom's fancy leaf geraniums raised from cuttings, here, there, and everywhere. 

 The weird pregnant onions, not really onions at all, and bird friends. 

 The patio pots have all been refreshed. I should mention Tom washed the patio pavers to start the process. 

 The impatiens and plectranthus are planted.

I removed all of the pieces from this wall, brushed them off, brushed off all the spider hiding places on the wall, and put them all back in the right place. That fuchsia is my Mother's Day gift from Jill and the kids. 

I did the same with Tom's nozzle collection. 

Over the years we have collected or been given lots of decorative pot stakes. Here are a few. 

Lastly for the patio Tom moved the heavily pruned brugmansia into place. 

 The tulips faded fast in warmer temps. Next week we'll lift the cans the bulbs are in, set them in a back corner, and plant something else.

It's columbine time.

And perennial corn flower, Mountain Bluet. 

Pacific Coast Iris. 

The Welsh poppies have popped. 

The island bed in the lower yard is filling in. 

May apple flowers. 

Down the garden path to the deck, everything is going green. 

A place to contemplate. 

Tom is hanging up the old cabin windows with Rusty Bird decorations. 

He has his drip system ready for his tube planters. 

Native False Solomon's seal

Sweet little Star Flower, a native ground cover. 

Domesticated Solomon Seal. 

The tomatoes are planted, along the garage wall, 

and in front of the now almost empty green house and holding area. 

Tom has tied the golden hop up since I took this photo. Some of his fancy leaf geranium collection will sit in front of it. 

In the front yard, the ground is disappearing. 

More geraniums, and the Lewisia in bloom, on the front porch. 

On Friday I got all of the glass flowers placed in the garden. Here are some of them. BTW, there are chickadees nesting in that bird house. 

And finally, the rocking chairs are waiting in the shade. I spent time there on Friday afternoon, and that is where I am heading now. The weather station is reading 89 degrees! The shade might be too warm.

The rhubarb pie is baked for tomorrow. Jake will be coming over to join us for some grilled burgers and a visit. Jill and the kids are away. 

Happy Mother's Day! I plan to rest now.