Make Room for a Littler Disher Sister

On the 30th, Annie and Thomas made an afternoon visit to Dr. Amanda Dise in Kirkland while Nancy and I took first steps toward cleaning out the garage and I played with Charis and Valerie.

Over dinner, they confirmed that their third child will be a girl.  Susan had made that same determination back on July 6th. 

I feel close to all my grandchildren, but will always be closest to the girls raised in our home.  They can get fussy and loud, but they are very affectionate and often helpful.

Having grandchildren around reminds me, sadly, how foggy my memory is of the early years with my own children.  Going to work daily, and especially focusing on my doctoral dissertation when Annie was young and Nathanael was a baby, kept me from building those strong memories.

But, ever since I started this journal, my memory has miraculously improved! 

An Encore at the Monogram Club

Monogram Club President Ted Foss called last month to ask if Randy and I could make another presentation on October 6th.  He added that he hoped we might be ready by August 4th if he couldn't get a hold of his planned speaker.  He had scheduled the West Seattle High School Athletic Director but could not track him down over the summer.

I wrote a script for Randy and I to follow.  We paraphrased many of our lines, but here is our talk as written.  I was able to include many of the best items I had left out to shorten my talk back in December.  Half the talk was about our athletic success at West Seattle High School, while the second half was about our August 1972 week-long climb of Mount Rainier with our brother Don, exactly 50 years ago.

Nancy was very pleased with our talk and we were happy to be well received by the small gathering of former West Seattle varsity athletes.  As the only other person in the room to have summited Mount Rainier, Nancy was also asked, at the conclusion of our presentation, to share about her climb.

Ivy was our Dog for a Day

On the afternoon of the 19th, I spotted a stray dog sniffing around my garden.  If they look safe, my habit is to entice them to stay with the offer of a snack.  My assumption is that stray dogs are hungry dogs.

I named this female stray Tanya, (because she was tan ya see.)  Annie visited nearby neighbors to see if they had lost a dog.  I fed Tanya bread and hotdogs in the evening and a one egg cheese omelet the next morning.  I introduced her to Valerie and Charis, and the girls took to her immediately.  The girls fed Tanya bits of bread, at least until Valerie gobbled up the last big piece herself.  Later, I searched online for how to report a found dog and filled out two online profiles.

During lunch the next day, I got a call from Jeff Jones who lives one block away and up 
NE 14th Street.  Tanya is a French Bulldog that 99% of the time wore a collar, but not on this occasion.  And Tanya's real name is Ivy.  He reclaimed her from our yard while we were away at the Sleight/Eby house in Auburn, and thanked me profusely.

I love dogs.  But Luna will remain the family dog.  Tanya/Ivy was very sweet, but if I were to get a dog, it would be a setter or a spaniel.

Work Gives Way to Play When Grandkids Beckon

On Friday nights this month, Joel stopped by to pick up Thomas as they finish up their summer Kendo class here in Bellevue.  Each visit gave us a chance to entertain growing Galen.  On the 5th, we saw that Galen was beginning to crawl just short of his ninth month.  When he became fussy, he got a 45-minute stroller ride around the cul-de-sac.  The girls joined him on their trikes and scooters.  He became the picture of contentment in the stroller.

My weekly visits
to Berrydale also continued this month.

If Galen seems to be cheerful, I would be too if I napped as often as he does.

He can now pull himself up into a standing position.

Nathanael brought Cynthia and their boys north on the 10th.  He finished the repair of our roof ridge while we fed and played with the kids.

It's great that there are pairs of similarly aged little ones.  Jonny and Charis are always happy to see each other.  Hugs coming and going are common.

As for Valerie and Reuben, he shows some shyness upon arrival, but that disappears after a while.  Valerie is friendly toward Shadow the cat while Reuben is instantly fearful of our furry gray feline.

All four kept grandpa busy, especially picking blackberries in the north yard, with nearly all of them going straight into waiting mouths.

August Garden Highlights

I harvested a few cherry and Early Girl tomatoes around the 5th, but to encourage faster ripening, I did major pruning on the 12th. 
I have more tomatoes on the vine than I can count, but I don't want them to all ripen at the same time, or like last year, fail to ripen by the time the weather cools.  By the 21st, I was picking a bowl a day.

My raspberries finished producing early in the month, but Charis and Valerie now claim each new strawberry as it ripens.  Both of these berries rarely make it into the kitchen.  On the other hand, by mid-month I could harvest a full bowl of blackberries every day.  And if my own yard's supply ran low, there was a huge blackberry patch near the entrance to our cul-de-sac.  Apparently, berries are especially good for kidneys so I've begun adding blackberries to my smoothies.

	I like to collect seeds for next season when I can.  This month, I collected hundreds of Evergreen bunching onion seeds (left), and many parsley seeds (right).  I also brought back more leek seeds from Auburn. This year, I've added many more flowers to liven up my vegetable garden.  Marigolds help protect the tomato crop from certain pests.  Zinnias add color and attract pollinators.  The pink Phlox is blooming for a second time, and the Aster began to bloom too.  I have 17 cucumber plants, eleven slicing cucumbers and six pickling cucumbers.  The two varieties of slicing cucumbers are producing well.  Five are in 5-gallon pots and six are growing up their trellis. With this warm August weather, some of my eleven pepper plants are finally putting on fruit.  And it looks like the warm, dry weather will continue on into September.
Charis did a great job as together we harvested many hundreds of Marigold seeds.  We'll never need to buy those seeds again, now that we know how to harvest them yearly.  And once the Zinnia flowers (below) fade, we'll harvest hundreds of their seeds too.  I'm already looking forward to a more colorful garden in 2023.

Aster

Phlox

The War of August 2022

I've had to devise defenses against four pests found in the yard this summer: carpenter ants, yellowjackets, termites, and rats.  I mounted a major offensive against the bugs with boric acid and sugar for the ants, boric acid and ground up hot dogs for the yellowjackets, and more boric acid for the nest of termites I found. 

The termite log was too close to the yellowjackets.  When I tried to get at them with my splitting maul, it alerted the yellow-jackets.  Alas, Valerie did not run as fast as Charis did.  I thought they were at a safe distance.  I got stung twice and Valerie once.

Two days later, I borrowed Joel's tennis racquet-style bug zapper.  I'd seen one used in a YouTube video to zap yellowjackets at their nest.  I waited until dark to make my attack, but forgot to put on heavy clothes.  
I was about 25 feet away from their nest after placing the zapper across its entrance, yet was still stung near my right arm pit.  Ouch!!!  The yellowjackets were both angry and smarter than me.  I went through a few AA batteries to kill hundreds of them in return. But after four tries, I moved on to a chemical attack.

I checked the gallon jug of Ortho Bug B•gon insect killer that I'd purchased months ago.  The last of the 180+ bugs it said it killed were yellowjackets.  I suited up (right) and took on the yellowjackets.  For many days I repeated my spraying at the entrance to their nest in a log.  I attacked their nest daily with a variety of toxins, but at month's end, they are still active.

I'm especially anxious about carpenter ants.  I battled them to a draw in our old house.  We sent many thousands of them to the dump when we had that first house demolished in 1992.   Their nest was in the floor of our larger bedroom, right under our old waterbed.  This summer, we were seeing one or two carpenter ants each day in the basement, first floor, or second floor.  I put out 18 ant traps around the yard using the boric acid, and sprayed much of the foundation of the house with the Ortho Bug B•gon.  No carpenter ants have been spotted since the 19th.  (Earlier in the summer, I'd put out dry insecticide for the hundreds of carpenter ants I'd seen out in the cul-de-sac.  I have not seen them there since then.)

Around mid-month, I found one or two of the Early Girl tomatoes half eaten on the vine each morning.  I needed to deploy my rat traps to the tomato patch.  Shadow can't be counted on for rat duty.  She only brings us about one a month.

I set out my rat traps late, but not too late.  I have 28 tomato plants, some with over 50 cherry tomatoes.  Perhaps it's odd that wanting to check my traps helps motivate me to get out of bed early when I'd rather sleep in. 

I also made up a big batch of flour, sugar, and baking soda in equal parts.  The rats have the choice between a quick or slow death.  All's fair in war.

Nancy's 67^th Birthday Celebrated Early on a
Dungeons & Dragons Saturday in Auburn

We celebrated Nancy's 67^th birthday a day early at the Sleight/Eby house in Auburn.  We sang Happy Birthday and Nancy opened cards during the lunch the Ebys prepared.

When the children and their spouses play Dungeons & Dragons, the grandparents watch the grandchildren.  Alas, the youngest, Valerie and Galen, prefer their mommies to us older folks despite our best efforts.

Of course, these four hour events always find me chasing the little kids with a Nikon.

Visits with Galen, like this one on the 31st, give Jean and Joel a chance to get away in the early evening, and afterwards I can do the family shopping at the Covington COSTCO.

Back home on her actual birthday, Thomas and Annie continued to deal with the piles of books around the living and dining rooms.   Nancy spent most of the day working on finishing the moulding around the kitchen pocket door.  Valerie and I picked strawberries and tomatoes.  (She needs to better distinguish between the green and red ones.)  Annie baked a blackberry cobbler which she served to Nancy over huckleberry ice cream.

I bought Nancy some door hardware that had just come back in stock.  I've also been picking a cucumber a day for her which she seems to eat like candy.

On the 24th, I had the pleasure of rocking Galen to sleep on my chest next to Jenkins Creek while swinging in Joel's hammock.  He napped there for over an hour until Jean called, wondering why we were gone so long.

A 2nd Party on the 28th

Susan hosted a second birthday party for Nancy on the 28th, a week after her actual birthday.

Two years ago, I got those great semi-candid portrait shots of Charis in this same room and with similar lighting from Susan's east facing windows.  I want to try the same thing with Valerie in December, but she has lots more hair now than Charis had then.

My domains are the basement, kitchen, yard, and garden. Nancy's is the whole house.  She may walk painfully with two canes, but she'll screw down hardwood flooring for months, or stand on a ladder for hours to install hardware on the beautiful and unique doors she's bought for this big house she designed.  

Nancy, Susan, Julie, and Helga (left) had time for good conversations.

Susan made a blackberry pie from her huge berry patch.  And before we went home, we also picked apples from her tree.

Two tired and very pregnant mommies helped keep their little ones in good order.  But Nathanael was the chief supervisor of the kids.

Helga brought two dozen roses for Nancy.

The Gospel According to Mark Read by Sir David Suchet

Perhaps instead of a monthly quote, I should feature an outstanding YouTube video.  I came across this one while looking for his reading of Jeremiah.  Here are the notes which accompany the video.  There may be none better.

"Mark is the earliest of the Gospels, the one written closest to Jesus’ lifetime. It is short, urgent, passionate and dramatic and reads a little like a front-line dispatch from Christ’s life and death. Often we hear the Gospels in short sections, but it can be a revelation to read – or hear – the whole of the story at once.

Just before Holy Week, we will have a unique opportunity to hear the Gospel of Mark in its entirety, read by one of the great actors of our times in St Paul’s Cathedral (London). The evening will be a dramatic reading of the Gospel, without commentary.

David Suchet is one of the best-known and best-loved actors of his generation. He has worked for the RSC, in the West End and on Broadway, and his most famous role is Hercule Poirot in the long-running television series. In 2011 he was awarded a CBE for services to drama, and in 2014 was given a lifetime achievement award by the Royal Television Society for his performance as Poirot. Raised without religion, he was converted by reading Romans 8 in a hotel Bible.

A practicing Anglican, he has made highly successful BBC documentary series following in the footsteps of St Paul and St Peter, is Vice-President of the Bible Society and his best-selling audio book of the Bible, released in 2014 by Hodder, fulfilled a 27 year ambition."

A master class in how to read Scripture; simply glorious.

Bits and Pieces 

Judith Durham was one of my favorite singers.  She passed away on the 5th at the age of 79.  She was the lead singer of the Australian folk group the Seekers.  My three favorite songs were I'll Never Find Another You, I Am Australian, and A World of Our Own.

Susan remarked that Shadow is slowing down.  I've seen the same.  Like all of us as we age, a sure sign of growing frailty is when we notice how stiff we are when we first get up in the morning. 

Watching Shadow wake up, reminds me how I feel each morning.

I got my weight down to 174 on the 25th but then attended the annual AquaSox baseball game in Everett and couldn't (wouldn't) say no to already-paid-for all-you-can-eat burgers, beans, chips, cookies, potato salad, and pop.  Randy invited his engineering friend Paul in Don's place.  The Frogs lost to the Spokane Indians 9-10.

Grammy Kim drove up from Dallas, Oregon on Tuesday the 23rd.  This was great timing since Annie started back to work at Seattle Christian School that week.  She returned to Oregon on the 28th.

With Annie's return to teaching, Thomas and I are back to sharing care duties.  I have the girls from lunch until Annie comes home.  And with summer's end, I'm back to changing Valerie's diaper in the afternoon.

This is the result of just one brief pass through my tomatoes on the 28th.  I've been giving them away as fast as
I can pick them.

My Quote from August