Posts from the ‘Front Porch Musings’ category

Friday morning

Ending the week as we started with an early morning walk by Echo Lake.

I have been pounding the keyboard all week. The nights and following mornings have been deliciously cool and crisp with days of warm sunshine. Today, the end of the work week, is a bit more relaxed and I will finish early afternoon and run some errands. I have it on good authority (Russ, my UPS man!) that the chip sealing on the highway is complete. The weekend is supposed to be warmer, maybe even hot by MT standards, so I will do all of my out and abouting today leaving the weekend free for lazing about mostly…the darn floors and such are dusty again and I cleaned them not two or three weeks ago…

A happy and joyful Friday to all!

Echo Lake on a summer morning

My driveway has a curve to the west as it meets the road. West on my road leads to Montana highway 35 from which I go most everywhere. This week MT Hwy 35 is being chip sealed 4 miles in both directions from my road. I plan on avoiding it until they are through.

But, my road is also a road to Echo Lake, a medium-small lake that lies in the foothills just a few miles away.

This morning, I turned East on my road.

Looking between the bug splats on my windshield, you can almost make out that the road changes from asphalt to gravel. I am thankful to live on the asphalt part!

Along the road is mostly thick forest but there are beautiful meadows in some spots.

That is Blackies Bay to the south along the road. There are a number of small lakes/large ponds in this area.

The lake was quiet when we arrived. Karl puttered along this access and then we walked a road that borders the end of the lake and a marshy area.*

As we returned, an early morning water-skier approached. I was ready to take a photo of the geese taking off as the ski boat turned…

…but they were unfazed by the boat and it made the turn without getting too near them.

On the drive home, with the sun behind me, it was easier to see into the woods and get a glimpse of some of the cabins and homes. Every once in awhile I would see one that seemed so appealing to me.

And then I turned into my own drive and caught the first glimpse of my home…

…and it looked so very nice to me. It looked wonderfully nice to me and I had this overwhelming feeling of gratitude that I have this place to live, in this beautiful woods…

…a good dog to walk with and a good cat to come home to.

* Below are links to posts with Echo Lake photos from Fall 2008

Echo Lake Fall

Echo Lake 2

Wake us up when it’s over

I’m talking about July. Around my house, July is not a favorite. July starts out with the 4th of July holiday. The Independence day part of that is fine. I love the USA! The fireworks part we do not love so much. I love the pretty stuff. It is the noisy stuff… You can probably imagine how Karl feels about that.

And it gets hot…ok, relatively, but to us it is hot.

I turn into a bit of a curmudgeon from now until early August…our Summer – six whole weeks of it. No real excuse for it, just not my favorite time, but I seem to do better acknowledging it and laughing about it. In years past I did things like put houses up for sale, buy motorhomes – life altering kinds of things. Fortunately, this year the work schedule is very busy so I can stay in my cool little house and work away. Karl comes in about 10 in the morning and does not venture out again until 6 or 7 in the evening – after this first week of noise when we don’t go out until 1 or 2 in the morning…

Bob sprawls on the front porch like he’s melting…I think it was 79 when I took this photo, humidity about 19%…honestly, HOT!

My blog posting gets irregular in July. Photography-wise I don’t like the bright summer light excepting early morning. I’m usually not out (actually, not up) late enough to catch evening light. There are moments, of course, and I love the light in the woods through the trees…we’ll see how it goes this year.

July…wake us up when it’s over.

A day that ended better than it started

Today started with a few glitches. Bob threw up a hairball at approximately 3:50 a.m. I was sound asleep and did not come awake in time to get his blankie under his mouth…hairball and the accompanying yuck made a direct hit on the down comforter – rats! I did a quick half-awake cleanup and went back to sleep.

On getting up for good, I grabbed the comforter and made for the washer. There was not actually much of a mess and the thought crossed my mind that I could clean the corner in the sink, but that comforter had not been washed for awhile so I threw it in and started the washer.

Background: I have had down comforters for most of my adult years and successfully washed them with some regularity. The tricks are: a good comforter, proper soap, and beating the down as it dries so that it does not clump. The place I buy the comforters sells a special soap. They also sell some poly-rings specifically for putting in the dryer to do the beating – they beat the “tennis shoe in the sock” thing that I used to do.

The second glitch was that after my first cup of coffee, on going to check on Bob’s meowing, I discovered that the washer had quietly overflowed. A lot of water was on the floor of the laundry closet, entry and the room that I now know is downslope – the workout/craft/boys room. The floors are all engineered hardwood – they do not like water.

It took every towel and my entire supply of old flannel sheets to sop up the water. And a lot of time. The runners that are in that area were soaked.

The good news is that floor has not been that clean since I moved in. Additionally, after an experimental small load to see what was leaking where, it appears it WAS an overflow vs something broken so I was able to wash and dry all of those towels and sheets. And the comforter is fine and clean. And the runners had a bath.

I will be going to Home Depot tout de suite and purchasing a vac that sucks up water, ensuring that I will never have another “flood” in the house being thusly prepared. Still… worth it! If I had one of those, the cleanup as well as the cleanup of the cleanup would have gone much faster. Lesson learned.

The other good news is that the day improved from there! The sun came out. There was a soft breeze and blue sky and moderate temperatures – a perfectly, perfect day.

The cause…

…unaware!

GoatsBeard: a pretty wildflower that is open in the morning and closes at noon. I saw it for the first time this year on the lunchtime walk.

A sunshiney flower for a sunshiney day…a day that ended better than it started.

Dazed and confused…a little bit

One minute Bob, Karl and I are at home in “Wild Thing”, rolling around the countryside seeing new things, working, walking in new places…establishing routine wherever we are parked. We all slip into the “rv” routine with ease and change from a pattern of living in our quiet, somewhat isolated spot to living right next to others. And the others sometimes change from one day to the next, sometimes stay for awhile or we stay for awhile.

We walk, Bob and Karl go in and out, I work, I cook meals, I take photos, I write – same as at the stationary house.

And then one day we are back.

Wild Thing is parked in her spot. She’s cleaned up and put to rights.

The grass in the yard and the woods has grown a foot, the front porch was draped with spider webs making the house look like the Adams Family had just vacated. But the porch is now clear and in a day or so the yard will be mowed and trimmed, some flower baskets will be procured and the house will look like it always looks in Summer.

For me, coming back is always a bit disconcerting. As I get closer to home I start thinking about the house and its rooms and its general comforts. Coming in the driveway I am relieved to have the driving done, glad to be home, looking forward to getting settled and rested.

The house always looks so “home” when I walk in.

But this first day home is also a bit of a shock in the suddeness of the return to quiet, solitude and the home routine. I really don’t know why the return has an unsettled feel to it. Every trip I think that it won’t happen this time because I’ve done this a few times before and now I know.

But today and I am a little bit dazed and confused.

Not Bob. He is making up for lost outside time by spending most of his time outside…lying in the tall grass.

A bit of digression. I received several emails and a comment about being careful with the wasp removal. Ha! … I am an experienced wasp remover-killer…Please try not to hurt yourself laughing:

Part 1: Mad as a Hornet

Part 2: Taking Back the Front Porch

***A word of warning regarding this last in the series – to Buck and any other beer lovers…I used cheap beer, the kind no self-respecting beer lover would drink.
Part 3: More Wasps