Apples

Thrifted Finds

I have been lucky as of late in my search for thrifted treasures...

Garage Sale - 40+ year old camping coffee/tea pot (never used) - 3.00

Goodwill - A brand new floor model bookshelf from target (the exact match to the ones on my library) - 25.00

Gratitude

This year has been filled with lessons of acceptance and gratitude for me. I have been surprised again and again by people's willingness to be selfless, to give of themselves without being asked by the recipient which in many cases has been me. One such gift I received though it did not cost the giver much gave both me and my whole family something that I could never have been able to afford on my own. It achieved the very thing that I have been trying to do for the past 5 years and that is get home. Two priceless airline tickets were handed to me by a friend with no strings attached, a sort of pay it forward because others had done great things for her in the past, and I cannot explain how much this meant to me. I was able to introduce my daughter to my family which for many of them was the first time ever having seen her! I am touched and so deeply affected by the very heart of this gift! I being a giver myself will undoubtedly give more often and whenever I see the opportunity because I now have seen firsthand just how much you can affect a person's life by the simplest thought or action. I only hope that others will take what I have from the experience...

Happy Birthday Fred!!!

A Special Message from Raine...

Be Happy As You Spend This Special Day With The One You Love And Always Remember That Their Are RAINEbows Just Around The Corner!!!

Wishing You A Very Happy Birthday and To Always Stay Young At Heart...

Vacation Memories (Cousins)

End of Summer Suprises

Well my garden was what you would call modest this year due to funds and wet weather and I had all but given up on what little I did plant so when I arrived home from my trip to Washington and was greeted with these lovely sights I was ecstatic! What a great welcome home gift. In the second picture if you look really close you can see tiny little broccoli florets!!! I hope they get big enough to harvest before the frost!!!

Rain(e)y Day

Well lately we've had a lot of rainy days. This summer in general has been very reminiscent of the Washington weather were I grew up. Now, even though I am actually missing the sun and my crops have forgotten how to grow the rainy day activities that Raine and I have been engaged in have brought back a lot of my own childhood memories. One of these is salamander hunting. Salamanders need to stay moist and in this sunny hot climate they spend most of their time underground or in old roting pieces of the forest and can be very hard to find, but when it rains they all come to the surface to play. We have spent many mornings/afternoons this year out in the rain under the forest canopy in search of these magickally bright creatures. They come in all sized and are fantastic to scope out as they are neon orange against the green and brown forest floor. Here are a few pictures from one of our hunts...

One month ago...

We were dining with friends and lighting things on fire...

Tall as the Trees

She is getting so Tall, look at those legs...

Traffic Jam - Country Style

You've heard of Snakes on a plane well how about Goats in the road!!!

These three hoodlums brought us to a full stop on the way home from work last week. They had escaped from their house and were very interested in the "cuisine" on the other side of the road.
One of them ran right up to Raine's window and jumped up to see if there was anything good in her outstretched hand!
Man I want a goat!!!

Amelia's Boredom Survival Guide

Raine and I recently came across a new to us set of kids books while out garage sale(ing). There are a series of books that are "written" in a random notebook style by a girl named Amelia. She fills these books with ideas like what to do during long car rides, 51 ways to beat boredom, school survival guide, etc. They are very cute and filled with some funny stories and a lot of great ideas. Raine was able to pick up 2 at a garage sale for .50 each and has been enjoying reading them randomly ever since. Last night she read about Amelia's making a list of approved / disapproved foods to put on the frig for her mother. She essentially takes a piece of paper makes a yes and no column and writes in all the things that she would like to see or not like to see for dinner. I thought this was hilarious and considering that Raine is so food oriented would be a lot of fun to do together before we went to bed last night instead of watching TV. It was an instant hit! At the last minute I made a few rules about doing 1 at a time and sounding out / spelling all of our own suggestions and it turned out to be a creative learning activity as well as a lot of laughs. She is such a funny kid sometimes and so imaginative in her choices! I have put her final list below in its' original form (spellings and all)...

Raine's List

YES / NO

mash ptotoe (mashed potatoes) / mustard

chicken / chicken feet

clams / radishes

fish / eggplant

lobster / sprouts

soop (soup) / penutbutter (peanut butter)

cake / whale crockers(whale crackers)

oranjis (oranges) / tea

ries (rice) / beer

Ice crem (ice cream) / milk

stak (steak) / pikls (pickles)

zucchini / egg roles

Blue Skies & Putting Blueberries By...

Saturday was filled with blue skies...

And the makings of blueberry pies...

We went to a local family run fruit farm for some u-pick fun.

Raine had been here before and was eager to show me where all the different fields of vegetables and fruits are, how to go about getting your picking baskets, where we could pay and buy fresh peaches on the way out, and even the location of the porta potty. She was a wealth of information:)

I had no idea what a professional berry picker! She gave me a great tutorial on what a "good" blueberry must look like and would frequently check my baskets to make sure I wasn't picking the "bad" ones.

We worked hard through the morning and picked a total of 10 pounds of blueberries to fill up our freezer for the long winter. It was a great day filled with light, love, learning and was just what was needed by all...

Rainedeer

Summer Babies

It seems to be a year for twins....We have two baby foxes living down the road from us this year,

And two fawns at work...

Notes from Raine's Babysitter...

"Raine decided that McKenzie needed to learn to write... (we've been working with Kenz, but have been a little lax this summer) Raine has been very patient with her.. I'm gonna post this on the blog this week too..."

Bat Relocation Program

Imagine yourself at 2 in the morning being awoken from a sound sleep by what seems to be a very loud and obnoxious cricket with a squeak coming from directly next to your bed. Well that is exactly what I thought was happening at 2am this morning but as I was coming to I started to realize that this sound was to loud and the squeak just didn't fit into my "cricket" theory. "Oh God!" was my only thought as I crawled to the end of the bed looking to see if my hunter (Willow) had cornered some poor mouse with a cold and brought it to me as a present. To say I was shocked to see a bat lying at his feet would be putting it mildly. There it was staring off into space clicking (the sound I was having trouble identifying) madly too scared or hurt (I couldn't tell which) to fly while Willow just looked at me like "Mom, look at this thing!" I took stock, exited the bed (because now it was safe to touch the floor, no mouse!) and shooed a very proud kitty out the door before proceeding down to the mudroom to get Raine's trusty (used in ever animal emergency in the house) green butterfly net. Raine hearing my mad dash down the stairs and the few curses that followed the original discovery was now fully awake and following me back into my bedroom to see what all the commotion was about. The look on her face when she realized that it was a bat, especially since just a few short hours before we had been sitting out on the lawn at dusk watching these very cool creatures fly out of the barn and swoop down near our heads to check us out was priceless. Anyway long story short Raine and I in our nightgowns and crocs holding a bat in a butterfly net took our midnight visitor outside after determining that there was no visible reason why he couldn't fly and tried to set him free. Now I ask you, Have you ever tried to get tiny little bat feet untangled from a butterfly net without actually touching it? Let me tell you it is not possible so I sent Raine back in for my trusty utility gloves. After spending some time trying to get him to fly away and failing miserably we decided instead to attach him to the side of our barn thinking that when he came back to his senses he could simply fly up into his home. This method worked a lot better and we were finally able to feel good our rescue and go back to bed with a promise to check on our friend in the morning.Update: He was still hanging on when we left for work but when we got home that afternoon it looked as though he had flown back up into his house. So once again The animal protctor and I had saved the day!!!

Teacher Gift

Raine and I put together this little teacher gift last wednesday for Mrs. Forslund. It consisted of a homemade cinnamon rhubarb muffin, strawberry rhubarb jam that Raine and I made the day before and some lemon lavender shortbread cookies. She loved it and sent home a thank you card with Raine the following day...

View from my front Porch...