August 20, 2011



Pine Drops



Pine Drops up close



We screwed the last boards into the deck yesterday! Whoo Hoo!! I put globs of cold tar in before the last board, which had to be cut lengthwise in order to fit. A ½" round and some caulking will just perfectly take care of the small gap that is left.  I refuse to write any more comments on when this project might be completed.


Larry and Elsie visited Thursday night just to get away from doing anything else. Seems it had just been one of those days. The final straw came when they got home to find everything torn up inside. A chipmunk got into the house and their two dogs had chased it all over trying to catch it. After cleaning up the mess, Larry went to make the daily egg collection and dropped two on the ground making quite another mess. As Elsie was gathering vegetables out of the garden, their Beagle came over to her and spit out a dead chipmunk at her feet! "There. All taken care of."

Like ours, their two dogs are such characters. They keep us all laughing even in the worst of moments. Just can't picture life without them.

Last evening on our walk, I spotted three pine drop stalks. I usually have to go searching for them, but these were just a little ways off the road. I picked the tallest one, although maybe I should have let it dry where it grew. They are so different, and perfect for decorating. I have seen stalks grow anywhere from one to four feet high.  In the photos above, the stalk on the right is the new one I just picked and is almost four feet tall.  The one on the left is a dry one from last year.

There are a lot of other stalks around now also. Dry balsam root stalks with seed pods on the end are everywhere. Which reminds me of when my Aunt Nene visited us a couple years ago. It was the first day of August, and when she saw those dry stalks, she told the following story. When she and her cousin were in high school (in the late 1930's), they would sneak cigarettes from his Mother's purse. When his Mom realized what they were doing, they got a good scolding. So they would pick the dried balsam root stalks and smoke them! She warned us not to try it as it was very harsh on their throats. Not sure I would have tried it anyway. . .  What really cracked me up about this story is the dropped-jaw looks on the faces of Nene's son and daughter.  They had never heard it before and couldn't begin to imagine their Mother smoking!

The fire in Tumwater Canyon looks to be almost out, as there is very little smoke this morning. With our summer weather having finally arrived, so has the fire season.  Hope it can be kept to a minimum this year. 

Not much else to write about. I did all my ranting yesterday.

Screwing in the last boards!
(Don't know where that black smudge came from.)