Where have we been?

 Home.  Quiet, Peaceful, Doing lots of projects but obviously  forgot to post about them.  I'll try to catch up a little bit. 

 And admit that I've been very bad about this blog thing.  

In October we went to Houston, Lake Charles and Atlanta, but seems like we were having too much fun to bother with photos.  The New Year came and went, I got a brand new hip (99% recovered now, thank you very much),  and Al did more digging in the new yard.  Seems like he just can't help himself if a few days pass without shovel activity.  

A short trip to Victoria - 

A brand new a$phalt driveway -  

Southern view of the Olympic Mountains from that pretty new driveway - 

Northern view from that same beautiful new driveway - 

yes, those are cows, just a block away.

  The skinny strip of land above the neighbor's house is the Dungeness Spit, the longest natural sand spit in the United States.

A very creative new fence, using every scrap of wood nearby,  built around the little old greenhouse, to keep the deer from munching the good stuff - 

He built another fence to enclose the work-in-progress patio/party area - 

(This is taken from the back door deck, garage on the left, Patch/Shed on the right, birthday revelers enjoying the festivities.)

And celebrated the milestone of 1,000 months! 

How many months old are you? 

Where did Summer go?

 Apparently I missed it and didn't put any updates about all the goings-on around here.  And it has been brought to my attention.  You know who you are.

Lots of people visited, but Homer makes a perfect guest cottage so everybody has their own space, which works out so nicely for all of us.  We were having too much fun to even take pictures, so there is no proof of any mischief that might have occurred.

May was the annual Irrigation Festival - you already know how I feel about men in uniform.  Now add big brass instruments and there might have been some swooning. 

The house got skirting, but no crinolins, no ruffles.

And paint. 

Al and his builder buddy enclosed the front porch.  Not completely, but enough to keep the wind at bay.  Now the chairs stay where we put them instead of blowing into the neighbor's yard. 

Painting the shed/Patch/Gert's old house.  Have you seen that outfit before? Just so you know, he wears these same duds to Home Depot.  Watch for him. 

I'll be back with more soon.  Really.  Enjoy the glory of Autumn! 

                                                ps - need one of these? 

Chaos Theory

You've seen the Patch now you get Al's playroom, from all angles.  What would Gert think of his old bedroom?   Mr Fix-it claims that it will get better, but for now it looks like mayhem, even though he seems to know where everything is.

 

Watch out for men with chain saws

 Eight or nine trees got hacked, literally.  Al spent the next five days burning all those branches and twigs.    It might take these poor trees a while to get over the shock, but I'll keep you posted on the harvest of apples, pears and plums. 

We had a very small Fat Tuesday party.  Shrimp n Grits became Polenta and Prawns.  With Mardi Gras Cheesecake bars.  

(The swirling was fun- aren't you impressed?)

Okay, seems like you want pictures of the Patch, so here it is from almost every angle.  Come play with me!

Yes, I know that I'm the luckiest crafter of all time.  Not only do I have this marvelous room, I'm married to Al!  Who could ask for anything more? 

Not much to tell

Al was excited to use his new meat grinder with Bonnie's pink Kitchenaid.  The meatloaf was the best he's ever made.  Sorry you weren't here.

Really sorry you weren't here for this wonderful seafood Alfredo.  That is parsley right from the garden.  No, he didn't go out into the Strait of Juan de Fuca to gather all the seafood.  No, he didn't make the pasta from scratch. 

There are still so many old blue jeans that got moved to the new Patch, but now some of it is the headboard in the guest room.  When will you be here?

Never throw anything away seems to work so well for me.  Pendleton shirt scraps - thank you, Jeane. The precision quilters shudder to see these things, but I have fun in the new Patch playing at haphazard quilting.  Much more fun that cleaning house or organizing a closet.  

 

2025!

 One quarter of the way through this century!  Remember all the Doomsday frights about the world ending and every computer system crashing?  Yet here we are.

             Time to catch you up on what we've been doing so far this year.

The final cabbage at 52 - it tasted much better than it looks.

Same with the very last artichoke. 

                  And one tenatious rose hung around to greet the New Year.

Apparently it's now official because Homer made the big move down the alley.

Now we have a different view of Vancouver Island and Victoria.

                            And Mount Baker, which we couldn't see before.

Yesterday with the sun working just right and zoomed to the max - the foreground is the Dungeness Spit and way over there are the Canadian Rockies!

An old man clearing the deck/ramp of our first snow,

 So an old woman wouldn't slip and break a hip.

           Still a lot of re-arranging to do, but we're slowly settling - y'all come!

Drip, drip, drip

 The gutter guys came!  Who knew that could be so exciting?  This very old machine makes them right on the spot, which maybe everybody else knew about but I'd never seen such a thing.  See that big spool thing at the left of the machine?  The flat material (I don't know what it is) goes through some rollers inside and comes out a long gutter!  It's a miracle. 

Check one more thing off the list.  

Final stages of the ramp, built by two old fellas, not usually sitting down on the job.  Very good use of a lot of Trex.

The final final harvest from the greenhouse.  That sorry looking eggplant was the total production from one sad plant and has been in the refrigerator for far too long but Al is amused by it.   The tomatoes and peppers were picked yesterday and are filled with winter solstice goodness.   Maybe we'll leave a plate for Santa in case he is tired of all those cookies.