June 30, 2012 A Resident Skunk



My project on Wednesday




RJ and Mike encountered a skunk on our road when they drove back to their cabin Monday evening.  It stayed in front of them for about 50 yards just sauntering along, occasionally looking back & fluffing its tail when they got too close.  Hopefully it won't want to come up to Rose Camp with the dogs around.  I'm pretty sure Jesse has learned his lesson about getting too close.

On Monday, I got out my "dowsing rods" that Larry had made for me from two metal hangers, and had Mike try it out.  He has the "gift" too, and the look of amazement on his face was priceless.  While he is Up Here, Mike is training each day with long, steep hikes with a 60 lb. pack on his back for climbing Mt. Adams and Mt. Rainier in July.  We have climbed quite a ways up Mt. Baker in the past, but now-a-days my response is, "Wow!  Good for you.  Send me a postcard."

It drizzled all day Tuesday, but the road had already dried out during the night when I took the dogs to the vet Wednesday morning.  Poor Dinga had a bad morning what with getting her shots and having her eye looked at.  She doesn't do well with that kind of attention, while Jesse just breezes through.  My checkbook didn't do very well either.

JB had planted grass in the front yard by the time we returned.  I spent the rest of the afternoon covering the black plastic that was still showing on the step down from the top tier where we had the drainage rock laid on the south side of the house.  I used some rock and large, thick pieces of bark that had been our mud path.  Turned out quite nicely.

I had promised to bring dessert for dinner at RJ's on Thursday, so that morning we made four pints of blueberry pie filling, canning three and using the fourth for coffee cake.  A favorite of all of us, especially Mike.  RJ made baked potatoes and chicken-apples sausage in his outdoor fire place.  He had discovered flat, square marshmallows made especially for s'mores when he went Down There for supplies that morning, so we had two desserts!  Can't remember the last time I had s'mores and now I can't imagine why it has been so long.  Yummm!!

Friday I spent shopping Down There.  Bought extra perishables as I really don't want to go again til JB gets back from Seattle.  He leaves on July 6 to spend two weeks with his Mom while his brother and sister-in-law go on vacation.  His son had to cancel his trip out here, so it will just be RJ, Mike and the two of us for our July 4th barbeque.  I splurged at Costco and bought Frasier River wild salmon.  Thank goodness these holidays only come once a year. . .

Looks like another nice day today, but it is supposed to cool down and possibly rain on the 4th, as usual.  Don't know what Mother Nature is trying to tell us, but we rarely have a sunny and warm 4th on either side of the mountains.  Possibly a fire prevention technique.

Thought for the day: No one can read our Constitution without concluding that the people who wrote it wanted their government severely limited.  The words "no" and "not", employed in restraint of government power, occur 24 times in the first seven articles of the Constitution and 22 more times in the Bill of Rights.  Rev. Edmund A. Opitz