2nd. week August 2011, part 2

"Yes, I'm still a strange cat!"


Steven welded the tailpipe back to the muffler (or something like that) under Victor's truck.


Two of the eggs hatched. The hens have been setting on a collection of duck and chicken eggs.

Steven's birthday. I thought he was old enough last year! Ha ha ha ha! We had grilled chicken breasts (thanks, Stephen!), corn-on-the-cob (thanks, Emily!), and mashed potatoes (thanks, me!).

Steven uses the French Press he got for his birthday to make coffee.

The construction continues. The first floor is pretty much done and they're putting up the stringers for the second floor/sleeping loft.

Here's Steven waiting for Victor to hand him another board for the floor joists/stringers.

I dug these up out of my parents yard a couple years ago and put them in my garden. The bloomed for the first time since I planted them.

The cat guards the baby chickens! Sadly, the next day when I let them out in the chicken pen for a while, the reddish one on the left got through the fencing and disappeared. I presume it met it's demise but we didn't find it.

Cosmos in my garden.

Steven did his laundry. We all do this from time to time. I don't know why I keep taking pictures of it! I guess to show that it's not just a one-time thing for demonstration or picture-taking. It's a way of life for us.

Just like mowing our lawn with a motorless reel-style mower. We work at it a bit here and a bit there, because there's so much yard it would be a big project to do it all at once with one of these mowers. We like using it, though. It's quieter, and it doesn't stir up so much dust and other things to aggravate Steven's allergies.

The Service berries were loaded this year. I canned several jars of them.

More progress. The bracing cross-boards are put in the second floor.

Steven and Victor are nailing the base boards for the roof onto the top of the first floor wall.

Done for the day, they admire the view from the living room window.

One of Barbara and Victor's cats, "Boney" (short for "Bone Crusher", which is hilarious for this soft, gentle kitty!), lays in the trail in front of me.

Temporary supports for the ridgepole for the roof.

That's me sitting up there on the stepladder, and Victor standing nearby.

I put the remaining chick into a cage to keep it safe. The cat checks to see that it's comfortable!

Steven marks and cuts one of the rafters.

They used the first one as a pattern for the rest.

Meanwhile, I kept up with my garden work. Weeding. Watering, Harvesting. The peas and raspberries produced in abundance. For 2 to 3 weeks we got about a gallon a day of raspberries. We ate them, gave some away, and I canned 46 pints of them.

Victor's turn to do his laundry.

Barbara and Steven put the rafters up.

It looks like some kind of cage!

Almost done with the rafters.

2nd week August 2011, floating river

We floated the river from Eureka to Rexford with Tristan's in-laws. This is only a handful of pictures from that adventure. The rest are on our "Family Fun" blog. Anyone who doesn't have the link to it can send me a message and I'll email it to you.

Our little flotilla of boats heads down the river. It's like being on a log-ride at an amusement park, only this is free!

This is the 'lazy' part of the river. I spent most of it with my feet on the dashboard of my kayak!

The water is cold, so now and then Tristan and Krystina walked the bank so they could warm up. It was sunny and around 90, but the water was almost slushy!

Tristan (Front of boat) and Krystina (back of boat) hitch a ride with Randy's pontoon.

The scenery is awesome the whole way.

Now we're finally getting into the action!

Then another smooth part. With scenery like this... who'd want to live anywhere else! Man, we are SO lucky!

Late in the afternoon. Krystina and Tristan drift together on their tubes. Tristan is a lucky guy. She is so awesome!

Back into the bumpy water. The water has higher than normal for August. Usually these rocks are exposed by late summer.

I'm taking pictures with one hand and using my kayak paddle with the other. There are no pictures of the wildest parts because I couldn't do both at those times.

It was rough enough to be fun but not enough to be dangerous.

Totally awesome day!

Stopped for a rest break. It's 7 miles by road from where we put in to where we got out. The river winds and twists, and I don't know how many river miles it is. It took about 3 hours.

Randy kicks Brent into the river! Actually, it's a set-up. Brent was having a blast jumping in over and over. I was taking pictures, and Randy went over and stood like that! This is where the river flows into the reservoir, so it's pretty deep and calm right here.

Standing on the shore where we took the boats out, looking across and back upriver. It was a great afternoon. Tristan married into a very cool family! They're so much fun, and downright nice people.

Third week of August 2011

Kind of fuzzy, but here's a Buck along our road.

Tristan came out in his truck and got his Trooper started, then drove it to town so yet another mechanic could look at it. I followed him in our car and brought him back out here to get his truck. The sad thing is, this mechanic had the same result as the others... "No can fix". The next day he drove it back out here and I took him home. So it's parked... again.

Putting the sheathing on Barbara and Victor's house.

Barbara is standing on a stepladder inside, nailing from above. Steven has nailed scaffolding boards onto the roof to stand on. The sad thing is, only a day or so later while he was putting the tarpaper on the roof, he was about to do the bottom row of tarpaper and was pulling the nails from the scaffolding board and about to step to the ladder when the last nail bent and the board twisted from under his foot. He tried to get his foot on the ladder but he fell about 10' to the ground. He didn't break any bones, thank goodness,(and amazingly!) but sprained his left ankle and more than two weeks later (today) he is still having trouble walking on it. He's up and about, but he has to take breaks and elevate it for a while when it gets hurting bad.

Either Barbara enjoys doing roofing, or just like pounding things with a hammer!

My flowers by the porch seem happy. These are the ones that were droopy and straggly and I got for 50 cents on close-out at Wal-mart earlier this summer.

A view of Barbara and Victor's house from the top of the hill. The ends of the roof haven't been trimmed off yet.

Up close.

They're still putting on the sheathing over the rafters.

This pepper plant has 6 bell peppers growing! The weight is so much the plant was leaning over the pot against the porch railing!

Last week of August 2011

Randy gave us two Kiwi plants. They're supposed to survive to Zone 3, so they should do okay here. I planted them along the back fence of the garden and Steven is going to help me build a trellis for them. The little rubber "bug/caterpillar/thing" on top of the TV is guarding the plants while they wait to be planted!

Me standing in the last opening on the north side of the upstairs of Barbara and Victor's house. The piece of siding for this part is being put on with just a few screws so it can be removed to put things in or remove them from the upstairs/sleeping loft. Right in front of me is the hole where the stairs are being built. I stepped over it to get to the opening.


In Kalispell I spotted this guy on a bicycle pulling a trailer made with a shopping cart mounted on it! I took this picture while sitting at a stop light.

Tristan is on the other side of the driver in the Search & Rescue van for the Fair Parade.

My collection of pictures on a board won a blue ribbon at the county fair. Barbara entered some of the soap she made and one of the cloth tote bags she made me for my birthday (the butterfly one), and won ribbons for both.

An imaginative person made this cool little train out of 55-gallon drums and used it to give rides to kids at the fair! There is no midway with rides and games at our county fair. Just exibit buildings and the food court. The concessions in the food court all have to support a non-profit.

Tristan and Krystina's pet turtle!

Tristan tips it a bit to show the cool colors on it's side.

Barbara has been putting the insulation in their house.

Barbara and the adorable "Boney".

On August 30th we went to Kalispell to help Barbara and Victor clean out the last of the things in their storage unit so they wouldn't have to pay another month. It also happened to be Amy's birthday, so we stopped by to see her and the kids. Here's Jonathan (age 9) with one of his awesome Lego block creations!

Andrew (age 5) spent quite a while showing me his favorite sea creatures in this book.

Anna (almost 2) had been bouncing around on the trampoline and landed in Amy's lap!

David (age 7) peeks out the window of the playhouse, while Andrew hangs upside-down from the rings over by the porch of their house!

Then we met Barbara and Victor at Storage. We loaded the last of the stuff into their truck, and onto our utility trailer and in our car. Barbara used one of the ragrugs they keep in the back of their truck, to sweep the floor of the unit.