Sweet Lily

The rain came in today as promised.  It is gray and gloomy outside and I am feeling strangely content with it.  I was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest so I think it is in my genetic coding to yearn for some rain come Fall.  I've mourned the end of summer and I'm ready to settle in for this next season.

But just to add some color to this otherwise gray day, I'm posting a picture of one of my new lilies.  It's a bit of a Costco miracle actually!!  I bought a bag of lily bulbs last Spring--truly could not walk by the stand of bulbs without grabbing a bag.  I brought them home and promptly forgot them in my garage until about July.  Amazingly, a few of them survived and are now filling my garden with the unmistakable, sweet smell of lilies.  This double 'Stargazer' oriental lily is really stunning.

And even though I am content with some rain, our poor goats are not.  They hate rain.  This morning we looked out our kitchen window to find them in their usual rainy day poses.  They look just like any other kids, all cooped up on a rainy day.

Back to School

We have come to the time of year when Summer has stagnated.  The flowers continue to bloom, but not with the joyous celebration of July.  They look more like late night party guests.  The party is essentially over, but no one wants to leave just yet. 

The trees are in the same sort of holding pattern.  Most leaves are still green, but a few rebels on each tree have begun to cloak themselves in shades of yellow and orange.  And the air too is on the cusp of changing.  Summer’s warmth comes in the afternoon followed by chilly mornings and jacket inspired evenings.  The air has that quality of stillness that suggests a gentle sigh.  Yes, Summer is on it’s last breath.

However, the stillness of August and September must trigger some sort of maniacal energy in us moms.  We innately realize that Fall is coming and behind that, Winter.  Our ancestors would be bustling about bringing in the harvest, preparing food for winter survival.  We, on the other hand, have Safeway to ensure our winter survival.  Instead, to satisfy our need to bustle about, we send our children to school.

I have just finished the registration and teacher placement process for all three girls.  I have also just written more checks than I care to remember and I have essentially dropped my last paycheck at Paper Products on school supplies.  We have two girls playing soccer this fall and we've sorted out the cleats and the uniforms.  We are getting ready for September 1st, when like a shot, the school year will begin.

Emily is a sophomore at the high school, Sophie is a 7th grader and starting Jr. High, and Grace is in 4th grade and her last year at our beloved elementary school.  We've definitely had a lot of practice at sending kids to school.  And maybe that is why this year I am just not ready to start.  I know what is coming.  There will be parent nights and paperwork, soccer practice, music lessons, and days full to the brim with the schedules of a busy family of five.  It is the beginning of a marathon that come May, will have kicked my butt.

I had a minor meltdown yesterday in anticipation of the coming school year.  And I'm blaming the weather men.  All day, the good people on the radio kept saying how it was our last nice day, how the rain was coming.  And the thought of the coming dark and gray days, combined with the school madness, pushed me over the edge.  My meltdown did feel good, even though I completely drove my family crazy.  And it is probably good that I've gotten it out of my system--a mommy meltdown is a normal part of the back to school process--at least at our house.  And yes, the gray weather rolled in today as promised.

And then this morning, my storm started to wane.  I was at the high school with Emily, going through all of the registration stations, writing numerous checks, and I suddenly saw my daughter.  We had separated for a short while (using the 'divide and conquer' technique), and I came out to find her sitting on a bench, looking over her schedule.  She didn't see me and so I caught a few seconds of seeing her while she was unaware.  She is absolutely beautiful.  She was sitting with her legs crossed and all of her school paperwork around her.  Her curly brown hair fell in waves over her shoulders.  She suddenly looked like such a young lady to me--so comfortable now in this big high school, so grown up.  And my mood lifted as I saw her.  She is smart, capable, independent and kind.  All of the years of parenting and schooling have taken shape in this young lady I am so proud of.  And that is what this is all about.

Yes, the school year, the raising of children--all of it can be exhausting.  And as I look at our daughters and reconnect with my mom friends, I can't imagine not jumping into all of it.  I am sad that summer appears to be over, and sad too that our unscheduled days are coming to a close.  And I know it is also time to move into the next season.  

A Clean Nest

This is the robin's nest that was the source of all the fuss this past Spring.  This nest was situated in the branches of the evergreen clematis by our door, and after all of the baby birds flew away, I was anxious to see their nest home.

With all of the bird poo beneath (and let's not forget the projectile poo on my window!) I imagined that the nest was going to be messy.  At least, I imagined there would be some feathers and maybe some bits of egg shell littering the nest.  But this is how it looks--perfectly clean!  I'm actually in awe of the tidy house this mother bird kept.  She laid three eggs, hatched three baby birds, and then spent weeks feeding them and there isn't a crumb!  Pretty impressive.

The View from My Office

We woke up this morning to sunshine streaming through the windows, and the sound of foghorns coming off the water.  I love that sound--even in the middle of summer.  We don't live right next to the water, but we're close enough that when the fog rolls in, we hear the foghorns loud and clear.  In the summer when our windows are open, it sounds like the ships are right across the street.

This morning the fog was low and hadn't come inland very far, so we had beautiful sunshine.  I packed up my truck and headed off to work.  The garden I was working in is high bank waterfront on the Seattle side of the island.  Normally from this place you can see the entire east side of the sound--from Mt. Rainier to Mt. Baker, with Seattle in between.  I walked out to the bank's edge this morning and it was as if there was no edge.  All you could see from the high bank was the soft muted whiteness of the fog.  The fog rolled up and over, drifting in waves, lapping at the edge of the bank.  As the morning progressed, the sunshine began to weave through it and soon I could see the water down below.  It wasn't long before the sun dispersed this heavy summer fog.

All I could think about though, was that I have an amazing view from my office.

Goat Maintenance

 Silver getting his hooves trimmed

It sounds funny to say, but the goats occasionally need some work, or goat maintenance as we call it.  Their hooves were overdue for a trim, they were in need of a bath (which they get on a hot summer day) and they needed their worming medicine.  All three jobs I've been putting off for about a month.  But little Sweet Pea, who we refer to as our "special needs" goat, has had a cough that was getting worse.  Goats have to be wormed regularly which is something I still don't fully understand, but when Sweet Pea starts to cough it is my reminder that it is time for treatment.

We usually do an oral worming medicine, which works pretty well, but once a year I bring out the big guns in the form of a three shot series.  And I am sooo proud to say that I now give the shots!  I couldn't do it when the goats were babies.  I would think I could, but always at the last minute I would call for Brian to do it.  I was a wimp, a chicken, a pushover--a lame goat owner.  And then in February when it was time for their annual tetanus shot, I decided to just do it already.  I was once the girl who wanted to be a vet!  It was time to jump in.  Yesterday I was so quick with the shots, that I managed to impress my daughters, who (especially my 15 year old) are not easily impressed with me anymore.  So for that reason alone, I do the shots.

Lily jumps right in the stanchion!

As usual we had to corral Blackberry and pretty much drag him in the stanchion.  He is easy to work with once he's restrained though.  And then we have Lily who walked out of the goat yard, jumped on the stanchion and put her head in the restraints where she knows the treats will be!  Just like regular kids, some are easier than others.  But after all four were bathed, with hooves trimmed and shots given, they pranced around the goat yard feeling all clean and frisky.  And then they proceeded to roll themselves around in the dust.  Typical...

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Blackberry all freshened up after his bath, now rolling in the dirt!

Happy Goats!

Sophie feeding Sweet Pea a cedar branch--a favorite goat snack.

Sweet Pea is such an exceptionally small goat that she likes to "stand", spending a lot of time on her back legs.   Not sure if this is normal for goats....

The girls put a necklace on Silver--he loved it!

Such a pretty goat! 

We ended the field trip when the goats discovered my pots.  And I thought the deer were bad!

A Vine Home

We recently moved a very mature evergreen clematis vine.  And yes, being the end of July, it was the worst of times to be moving plants.  I have loved this vine because it frames the view out my desk window.  But we have been changing things around in the garden and this vine had definitely gotten too big for it's location.  The journey to our front door had become more like a walk through the jungle.

Before

After

The plan was to move this vine in the Spring.  A good plan.  But I noticed a robin spending a lot of time in it and realized she was building a nest.  So we waited.  Then waited some more for the baby birds to leave the nest.  By the time the robins had vacated their home, our life got busy.  So suddenly here we were in late July moving a giant vine, fully aware that this is a bad idea.  I love it's new location, but I'm only giving it 50/50 odds of survival. 

Yesterday, Grace found a little green tree frog on the post where the vine used to be and I'm guessing this little guy was another resident of this vine.  He was most likely wondering what had happened to his home!  I quickly grabbed my camera and had some really cute pictures of this frog, but someone (I'm not naming names...) deleted some pictures off my card.  So, you'll have to take my word that he was a very cute little tree frog.

I love the fact that you can now walk to our front door without being attacked by twining arms of clematis vine, but I'm missing all of the birds I used to watch who found shelter there.  And now I'm realizing that a little green tree frog called it home too!  (I wondered where those froggy noises were coming from...)  My husband is loving the openness of our porch now.  He loves that you can see out to the garden.  In fact, everyone who has come to our house has remarked that it looks so open now.  Gentle hints that it was getting hard to get through the jungle.  I'm looking out at the open space and seeing visions of another vine--just maybe smaller this time...