How we spent (most) of our Memorial Day weekend

The past two months have been doozies. Bernie was mostly out of town, and was terribly ill while he was gone with fever and a respiratory infection. He was barely well when I came down with my own sinus infection.

Let me just say that every "tried and trued" home remedy was tried (honey, apple cider vinegar, lemon, steam, Vic's rub on feet, neti pot, vitamin C, chicken soup, onion, teas, silver to name a few plus some over the counter meds). 

Two weeks of losing my voice and getting little sleep was enough for me; off to the doctor I went knowing full well that antibiotics will not address a viral situation.  The doctor admitted as much but said at this point the infection was also bacterial and antibiotics should fix it.  It would take a full two weeks for a full "fix", in the mean time it should get better daily. 

Feeling totally exhausted: just part of the deal.

OK then...

Rest would be really good except that we had a window of time to re-do our deck. 
Resting up can wait?
Would you believe this is what our deck looked like less than two years after the last time we stained it?
This go around would be our third re-stain in five years.
Grrrrr.
Each time Bernie had power washed, sanded to clear wood, administered two coats timed with enough time apart on days when the temperature was just right.
After the second try didn't even last a year B*hr stain became a dirty word around our house.
The stuff peeled off wood like a bad sunburn peels off us really white folks after a day at the beach.

The stairs had barely a speck of the old stain left.

The previous two times we had left the railing in a clear finish.
The deck is redwood, the railing a cedar.
The two tone look kind of bugged but the thought of sanding the railing and painting each of them was a bit overwhelming before.
This time we decided to do it all.
With Fl*od brand this time; hoping their reviews are accurate as I really don't want to mess with staining railing ever again.

After power washing every thing and waiting a day, Bernie then tackled the horizontal sanding with this beast, then he did all the vertical surfaces with a power hand held sander.
I stayed away knowing the dust would really make my sinus issues worse.
I would paint all the railings later while Bernie manned the big surface rollers.

The deck is made from solid 18 foot long clear redwood planks.
You can't buy those any more.
We are really hyper about giving them proper care against the elements of snow and heat here in Utah.

Why the original owners didn't do the railings in redwood too...who knows.
Now we had to decide between semi transparent and solid stain.
After much thought we went with solid.
Then we had 52 colors to chose from
None of them were exactly what I wanted of course.
I was looking for something not too red, not too yellow, not too blue, not too grey, not too pink, etc etc.
Something that would work with the almost burgundy colored house bricks...
Not match, not too contrast-y...
In the end we went with a color called Cedar.
Which, as it turns out, looks different in morning light vs. sunset light.
You know what I mean?

Happy to have it done!

The brick & paint combo/contrast depends totally on the time of the day.

I. Am. Happy.
I sincerely hope we can just roll the horizontal surfaces every year from here on out.
Sanding...even with all the doors and windows shut the dust still got inside.
 I am now faced with dust on every surface in the house.
How is that even possible?
(Hint:  Turns out that we are currently in a high tree pollen season here.  I thought it was kind of weird that the "dust" was a yellow-y green instead of the sanding dust color.  Guess all things considered it was the perfect time to be sanding since everything would need dusting anyway!)

Now we can sit back on the deck and just admire the garden.

(OK...I admit it...I can sit on the deck for about five minutes before I have go take a closer look at what is blooming!)

 

 

 

 

This is my first year with peonies...

Exciting!

The oriental poppies are just starting to burst open.

The self seeded columbines are wonderful.

They come in so many colors!

As does the Japanese Painted fern...

Coral bells...

Iris

and more iris...

Every day a new iris "flag" unfurls in the garden.

A stroll though the garden with a cup of coffee to see the new blooms is such a treat each morning.

 

 

 

Our son's iris collection is outstanding and happily his are ready for dividing and sharing so next year we will even have more iris!

Oh and the flying jewels are back.

The pollen on the tip of the bill is so cute.

We have three kinds of hummers zooming though the garden right now.

(For some reason I find taking hummers photos in flight harder with my DSLR camera than I did with my little point-and-shoot.  Stay tuned as I figure out how what I am doing wrong...)

Part of the hummer fun is watching the hummers regularly swoop in to look the cats straight in the eye, like ten inches away.
Hummers must be pretty smart to realize that a cat on a four inch wide rail will be unable to do much hunting wise.

The birds also regularly hover right outside our kitchen window, looking in on us just inches away from our meal as they enjoy theirs.

We worked most of Thursday, all of Friday and Saturday.
Sunday...we rested.
And headed out to the back country.
I'll share what we saw there later on.

Remembering Mom: The Feline Edition

So we were watching a television show about baby kittens when Tate hopped off the couch and jumped up to take a closer look at the program.
He's never done that before.

He watched very intently.

We wondered how long the show would hold his interest.

The show kept going.
He kept watching.

Was he remembering his mom and litter mates?
Nostalgic for the days of kittenhood?

He would look away during the commercials.

Once the show resumed he was tuned back in again.

Eventually his bossy Aunt Frenchie came by and told him he should get down.

He batted her away and watched until the show was over.
"You are not the boss of ME!"  we could almost hear him say.

Tate also enjoys the flowers blooming outside as seen through the storm door or front window.

The backyard garden is coming alive with the spring sunshine and rain. 

This year's squirrels are proving to be a tough group.
They have taken down all three of our bird feeders.
I usually enjoy squirrel antics and don't mind an occasional raid on our bird feeders but when they started busting things up, I am not so amused.

Made me so mad I started thinking about making me some squirrel stew, if you get my drift.

I looked in both my Mennonite Girl cookbooks and didn't find a single recipe for squirrel anything.
No squirrel stew, baked squirrel or fried squirrel.
Perhaps in their next book this obvious oversight will be corrected?

I am happy to report that I did recently acquire another cook book  put together by group of not quite so pretty Christians in Louisiana that did include a great fried squirrel and cornbread dumpling recipe.
(Incidentally I would LOVE to see the Mennonite Girls and the Duck Dynasty Boys interviewed together about cooking and their Christian faith.
Now that would be interesting.
I can dream, can't I?)
I will get back to you about squirrel stew after I get Bernie to bag a few rowdy squirrels for cooking.

Tulips were awesome this year.
Even the ones that were planted several years ago out front managed to bloom.
We didn't know tulip blossoms are the most favorite food for area deer when we planted them.
Each of the past five years the tulips have just barely budded before they were neatly bitten off by the neighborhood deer.
(Several deer live in the back yard of a house in the next block.  The home owner isn't much for gardening apparently.)
These are the variety that blooms late in the season.
Each year I vow that next year I will buy hundreds of tulips next season.
Someone remind me to do that next fall, OK?

The apple blossoms are almost spent, the white petals have been blowing about the garden like confetti.

We have not had a lot of rain this spring but last Friday the rain came and brought a rainbow into my garden.

And so it goes...another mixed up mishmash blog post.
I am still busy with assessing second grade kids; they are so droll I can hardly keep from laughing out loud most days.
One question in the Science part of the assessment asks the question "What hides the sun on a rainy day?"
The child that answered "Rainbows" had me smiling for days.
I think he is lucky, like me, to live in a place where we so often do see rainbows.
And sometimes the rainbows even touch down right in our own back yards.

Fast Visit

 

Family visits are always much too short.
My folks manage to make a short visit go crazy short.
Two and a half days...not long enough!
They left San Diego on a Thursday to drive up to Salt Lake City with my Dad's Honda Trail bike. At age 89 1/2 Dad has decided he was too old for it anymore.
Dad routinely rode the Honda bike around La Jolla until just a few months ago. Parking is awful in LJ; a little trail bike make running village errands a far less taxing adventure, at least in terms of finding a parking space.
Jeff said he would buy the honda from them; Dad said he would throw it on the back of his van and he and Mom would drive it up once to SLC once spring arrived.
It was a beautiful weekend for a visit.
They arrived on a Friday afternoon; and left to drive home again on the following Monday morning.
They may be retired, but they have a very busy life.
Dad nearly drove non-stop all the way home!

A stroll around the Temple Square Garden was in order during the brief visit.
As was a few photo ops.

The great grand baby got his share of photo op attention too.

 

 

A seat in the sunshine, and then it was out for Chinese food for dinner that evening.

The bedtime routine was switched up just a bit:  "Good Night Moon" was read by Great Grandmother that night.
My Mom has spent years volunteering in school with reading programs for second graders.
I doubt Luke will ever have difficulties learning to read; he has been studiously flipping pages in board books since he was four months old, and will turn the book right side up if it is handed to him upside down.
He comes from a long line of readers.
I was glad he got to be read to by his great grandmother once again and hope they will share story times again soon, either here in Salt Lake, or there in San Diego.
Either way...it will be a really special time.