2nd week August 2011, Part 1 and paintball

Two walls up on Barbara and Victor's house!

Third (south) wall framed and being held in place while Steven get a few nails in it.

Fourth (north) wall framed and partly sided.

Amy & Kevin and their kids came up on Aug. 9, and Steven put ball joints or something similar on their pick-up truck. I had a great time with the kids, and visiting with Amy and Kevin. We grilled burgers and ate at the picnic table. When Steven was done with the car he amused the grandsons by building them boats out of scrap wood. This one is Jonathan's.

I set Anna on a stump next to some of my flowers and made silly faces at her so I could take a picture of her with her adorable smile!

David plays the blues on a sax from the toybox! They always enjoy old favorites and a few 'new' (if I've been to yard sales!) toys in my "Grandma's toybox"!

Steven (Grandpa) and tests the boat he made for Andrew. The rest of the pictures from this day are on my Grandma blog. Thanks to digital cameras I take a LOT of pictures at times like this, so I have a special blog just filled with the grandkid pictures. That way they can go through it and look at every one of them. They love to see the pictures of themselves.

Back to house building. First floor is done, and they're starting to put the joists up for the second floor/sleeping loft.

Victor, Barbara, and Steven. We took a day off to go Huckleberry picking.

Stillwater River, near where we pick berries.

"Odie", our dog, enjoyed running around on the hillside while we picked berries. She made the rounds, visiting us all, getting petted for a few minutes, then off again on her rounds!

The red flowers are Indian paintbrush. I don't know what the white flowers are.

Steven, deep in a patch of berries.

Back home, these are some of my raspberries. They did very good this year. The Yellow Jackets didn't move in to 'help' me clean out the crop until the berries were almost done for the year! I was happy about that. Some years they show up about the time the berries are at their peak and I have to fight them for the berries.

While we were in Eureka this lady got out of a pick-up truck with British Columbia license plates, walked right past the sign on the pole that says "No Dogs", and told her doggie to "go poopie". There's even a visual/pictograph of a dog with the red circle and line! I guess the Canadians put everything into their socialized medical program in neglect of education and reading! lol

The way they drive down here they apparently don't have Driver's Ed... or they just don't respect our laws.

"Table for one, please!"

The family that shells peas together ... stays together!

Barbara puts finishing touches on a batch of soap she made. This batch is scented with "wild cherry blossom extract". My favorite is her oatmeal soap! I love all her soaps.

Clockwise from the guy in the blue shirt: Josh, Dennis, Steven, Brent, Tristan, Bryan. We played paintball in honor of Steven's birthday.

Team one heads for the woods. Team two waited 10 minutes and went after them. You can always tell which one is Becky... on the right, long blonde hair!

Left to right: Victor, Steven, Barbara, Becky. The rest of the paintball pictures are on the "Family Fun" blog.

Steven and Bryan. Andrew in front. Not sure who's behind Steven. I don't think this is the picture I meant to upload here.

At the end of the day the grandkids gave us lots of hugs! This is Andrew and Jonathan hugging their Grandpa!

Anna gives one of her famous smiles!

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.