lauribob's blog: Hotter than the hubs of hell

I haven't used this blog for a while, but thought I might give it a whirl again. We stayed home this past winter due to the pandemic, so I was able to get a good early start in the greenhouse. I had overall good luck with germination, except for the hot peppers. We ended up buying a bunch of starts on a trip to Spokane and put most of those in the black sacks so we can bring them into the greenhouse when it gets cold. We have way more peppers than we've had in the past with the hopes of making more hot sauce. We've used or given away most of what we made last year and are down to our last bottle or two.

The winter wasn't super cold, but it was snowy and very icy with freeze/thaws going on. We finally ended buying some of those little tire chains for your boots after Greg took a couple spills in the driveway. I thought they were great because I could walk the dog with them on, along with a walking stick with an ice point. We got a bunch of new neighbors on our road last year when the real estate started selling like hot cakes. There's way more traffic on the driveway now, it sometimes feels like Grand Central Station. I have to make sure Ruby is wearing her collar when we walk so I can grab her when someone comes zooming up the road. I've tried to let everyone that I talk to know that she is blind, but there were a lot of tradespeople working on a new mother-in-law house at Jack's old place.

The river came up in a responsible fashion and it doesn't look like we suffered any catastrophic bank loss this year. Unfortunately, the beavers decided to take down about 8 trees right on Larry's side of the property line. Odd, they've never messed with the trees right up here by the houses. Maybe they have a plan? We fenced ours so they couldn't get to them. The ponds came up nicely this spring; here's hoping they can keep enough water through the summer to be ponds instead of a swamp. We've seen a few turtles, but nothing like the old days. Still plenty of ducks, geese, and herons. There have been some turkeys hanging around, but not too much of a nuisance, along with a healthy flock of geese coming right up into Larry's yard with their babies. They seem to know that all of our dogs are too old and blind to chase them.

It was pretty chilly all through May this year, and then June hit with a vengeance. Some weird weather pattern had the northwest trapped in a heat bubble. It was 106° for about a week and finally cooled down a few days ago. Still hot for this time of year though. It broke records over on the coast and especially down in Portland. 115° or some such nonsense down there! I'm glad the kids have a swimming pool - I doubt they have A/C. They were up for Father's Day and we had a great visit with all of them after not seeing them for over a year due to Covid. So glad we're all vaccinated now and can return to normality! Unfortunately, there was a super-spreader event at one of the churches in town about a week ago, and at least 25 people have tested positive. A lot of people are wearing masks again at the grocery store. Of course, probably not the ones that didn't choose to get the shot. I heard that most of the people at the event refused to even be tested afterwards. "It's just the flu." Sigh.

I'm finding it increasingly difficult to keep up with the yard work. My knees are shot and I can only bend over for so long. It's looking pretty messy out there, but the flowers are still blooming through the weeds. Our sprinkler system is feeling it's age too. We shut the upper yard off for 4 days while the kids were here because the grand-kids set up a tent out in the yard. When we turned them back on, everything was wonky - two stations running at the same time, skipping stations, not turning off at all. 3 nights in a row we had to get up in the middle of the night to shut off the water valve to them so the pump didn't burn up. Greg dug up and replaced all the valves and the control box. About $500 later, it's all working again, but a bunch of the pop-ups need to be replaced still. Either leaking or not rotating. The little sprinklers in the gardens are buggered up too. Just trying to keep everything alive at this point. The lower yard seems to still be working OK, thank God. We did have to drag a hose across the driveway for a few days to keep the vegetables watered though. Of course it has to go gunny-sack in the middle of a heat wave!

So far no wildfires in the valley. Some huge ones up in Canada are sending their smoke down, and Wenatchee has one going up by the airport where they're under evacuation orders now. I hope it wasn't started by some idiot with fireworks. I was just outside and it felt like thunder to me - that oppressive feeling like the air is too heavy to stay up where it belongs. Suspicious clouds are forming over the Loup. The last thing we need right now is dry lightning. At least our sprinklers are working again and our generator is being repaired right now. We finally found someone to work on it and he seems honest and knowledgeable.

I'm ready to go see family and friends on the coast at last! It's been a long year.

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