Lorena decided to do a smaller gardening project this summer. Last year her garden got decimated by the deer and was on the wrong side of the house to maximize the sunlight. So, this year she decided to put it on our deck. We surely hope the deer do not come up there. The added benefit is that we will be able to see the garden from our bedroom. Lorena has starts for Oregon and Sweetie Tomatoes, chives, and basil. I am hoping for cucumbers and chiles, but there might not be enough room. Maybe she will put the herbs in a pot or two so we can make room. She loves her garden!
There was a little more progress on the house painting today. They have now painted the main walls and the trim for three sides of the garage so we are starting to get a little bit of a sense for what the whole thing will look like and we like it a lot. The one thing that is totally apparent to us now is that the garage doors absolutely have to go. We are in the process of figuring out what to do about that next.
The painting of the house is finally under way. Our painter, Duane, is both an excellent painter and a good friend. His son Gavin is helping him before he starts a new job for the State of Washington. We enjoy eating lunch and talking about life with them on the days they work here. They wedged us in among other work they are doing in the area so it will not all be finished until toward the end of the month. We can hardly wait.
We (that is the royal we–it really means Lorena) decided we are not going to try to do too much with our yard because we (in this case it really is both of us) love the way it looks in a more natural state. Lorena is going to work on the front yard, the side yard, and two areas by the entry, but leave everything else alone. It will still be quite a lot of work and we will still have someone come in and mow, but 2-1/4 acres are too much to landscape both in terms of money and time. We do get lots of natural wildflowers that come and go and we will need to put down some bark dust, but that is not really too bad of a challenge.
Spring has arrived. We see a lot more deer in the yard this time of year. The greenness of the vegetation is something to behold–it only gets this green west of the mountains in the Pacific Northwest. That deep, deep, Douglas fir shade of green unsurpassed anywhere in the world. It feels good to be here.
I thought this was a nice picture of my brother-in-law, Lauro, the artist. We have several of his pieces in our house and hope to get more. Right now, he is doing something about which I am very envious. He found an old house in a very beautiful setting in the Mexican countryside that is also close to a town with all the services (Internet, grocery shopping, great restaurants, etc.). The house is old (over 100 years) and was in very bad shape when he bought it. He is methodically turning it in to an atelier. He has been taking pictures of the entire process. It will have living space, entertaining space, a modern kitchen, a beautiful fireplace, and other features. When he finishes the building he will attack the grounds. It is really going to be something when he finishes and he designed it all himself.
This deer came by just now, stood there for a long time eating grass, chewing her cud, and looking in the window. I actually moved around quite a lot, but she did not seem to mind. After awhile she sauntered off.
We had an amazing beautiful snow starting this afternoon. Right now there is about six inches on the ground and it is still coming down. Lorena took this picture from the upstairs window looking out at the entry. It is really beautiful. We really hope the electricity stays on. Our understanding is that more snow will fall in this storm than normal falls in Western Washington for the whole year. It is certainly beautiful at night, but we can hardly wait to see how it looks during the day. In the mean time we have started a fire in the wood stove and are just enjoying the view.