Monday, August 31, 2015

Marius is Off to Milna!

Marius (center) off to Milna!
Slavko's renovated apartment in final cleaning
Living room, showing some nice tile work
Sparkling bath
The view from apartment window, right down to the Riva































































































Lunch on Sunday at our house with Marius.  Some last minute chat, and he is off to spend two months in Milna.  Slavko has prepared a small apartment for rent, second from the sea, with lovely new tile work and Marius will be the inaugural tenant.  We are looking forward to some great stories and wonderful photographs later in the year.


Sunday, August 23, 2015

The Super-Soaker Water Fight of Mid-August

Papa launches a sneak attack with his water pistol,
temporarily overwhelming Eason's defensive capabilities
But Eason rallies and gets Papa on the run

Wednesday, August 19, 2015

And They Are Gone

















Charles, Melanie, Julia (and I) enjoy their final evening at Cain's Lake this year with a meal of broccoli and a side dish of broccoli.  (They had lots of it.)

Saturday, August 15, 2015

Chaz and Melanie Are Here





































Charles and Melanie have been vacationing at their cabin on Cain's Lake  for a couple of weeks.  Here, Charles has continued working intently on his paintings, manufacturing an inventory of recent quality (gorgeous) works before he starts his marketing blitz, looking for a gallery or agent.  Still, we have managed a bbq or two, a few runs to Bellingham for supplies, a canoe paddle around the lake, and some morning coffee get togethers. (Photos by Melanie)

Helicopter






























































On a beautiful day last week, Eason and I went up to Eliot's job site on Chuckanut to watch the helicopter lift concrete and materials.  Pretty awesome.  Eliot and the company he works for are building a writing studio high on a rocky knob overlooking Padilla Bay.  You can only access the job site by foot path.  We were not allowed up while the helicopter was operating but still got pretty close to the action.  Close enough to blow the hardhats from our heads in the helicopter backwash.  (Or what-is-it-called.)

Sunday, August 09, 2015

Catchup

Eason and Lori picking veggies down at Lori's
Charlotte waves bye-bye as Eason drives her away!
Climbing the scaffolding at Eliot's, getting ready to put in new windows
The little ferry to Guemes Island for a day's outing with Irwin, then climbing
Guemes Mountain in 90 degree weather with just a drop of water
Who is that in the blue shirt operating this excavator demolishing
Charles neighbor's house on Cain;s Lake?  Hint:  it's Eason!
G'ma Julia blows out her birthday candles with help from Sally in the background!
Brandon is helping her too, with Eliot and Irwin
Charlotte with Spencer and Sally at G'ma Julia's birthday party
Olivia's house in Winthrop getting spruced up for its starring role in the annual Home Tour
Olivia getting ready for home tour with fabulous painting (ahem) in her studio
Charles and Irwin at Cain's Lake discussing the finer points of....?
Irwin gets a veggie tour to Lori's too
Trees at my house coming down -- the easy way
Wild cherry over my studio coming down -- the hard way
Charles on the floor grimacing as he tries to push
cold steel into cold steel to fix his incinerating toilet at Cain's Lake
Eason with his award-winning painting at the Mt. Vernon Children's Art Walk
(See the green "Award of Merit" ribbon on the left?)
Good attendance at the Children's Art Walk
My septic line invitation to all rodents to come enjoy the fragrance
 and then lodge under my house
Eason helps me fix another flat on my truck:  next, new tires all around!





















































































































































































































































































































I am so bad!  So far behind my recordings on this blog! Well, here's some of the stuff happening lately . . .

Thursday, August 06, 2015

Charles Writes: Baby You’re A Rich Man Too


 And one afternoon in late July
On a day that does not seem
Like so long ago but really it was
A serious long time ago and
I had a magical experience on that day
With a girl beeing a girl
And me beeing a boy
Around a girl beeing a girl
And I think we had a moment in time
And I remember that time like it was yesterday
And like all of the rest of remembering it has
Been such a long time of remembering that I only
Remember the good times

When I was 17 my friend David and I were out at Omak Lake on a summer afternoon and one thing lead to another and we started to dive off of these rocks on the shore of the lake and we tried to dive like the native divers in that Elvis Presley movie about Acapulco and we dove straight into the water about 15 feet down and somehow we thought this was great fun so let's go dive off of some run-down old wooden bridges that span the river that are even higher than these rocks and that summer we drove around the valley on hot afternoons to these old wooden bridges and we dove like winged athletes from these rickety old bridges that spanned the Okanogan River in towns like Malott and Riverside and we dove from about 20 feet  up in the air and this gave us such a thrill and our young muscular bodies were stretched out into an arch as we sailed off of the bridges and hit the water with better form after each dive and we were improving divers but mostly we were having a blast and beating the heat and feeling very alive in our 17 year old bodies and yes I felt afraid at times but I was never going to tell anyone I was afraid so we just kept on diving and driving around the county looking for bridges to dive off of and one day we decided to dive off a bridge that was not too far from my girl friends house and I called her on the phone and told her where we were going to bee at 4 o'clock that afternoon and it was a perfect day to dive into the river because it was hot and the sky was a clear cerulean blue and David and I were steadily diving off of that little wooden bridge near Tonasket that day and as I was getting out of the water late in the afternoon and climbing back up on the railing of this seldom used bridge when my girlfriend showed up in a car driven by her smiling older sister and her best friend who had a great laugh and was a lot of fun was with her too and my girl friend had her hair in pig tails and she had on a over-sized striped shirt combined with the short shorts and I couldn't take my eyes off of her and the girls thought we were funny people to be diving off of these old bridges and they poked some good natured fun at us for beeing goofy boys and then I decided to demonstrate to the girls that no this was a sport and we were athletes and the girls laughed about that as well and I just had to show them how cool this diving was and I took a majestic leap off from the railing of the bridge and soared into the water and when I came up for air in the river the girls gave me a cheer and they clapped and when I got back on the bridge the song "Baby You're A Rich Man" was blaring out of the car radio of the older sister's car and I hear those words of the Beatles now in my head just as clearly as I did on that afternoon and I thought yes I did feel like one of the beautiful people at that moment.  My girlfriend came over to me and kissed me on the ear and told me that she was really looking forward to me taking her out on Friday night and I stood there in my wet cut-off jeans with water dripping off of me and I thought oh my god yes chasing girls around was really what my life was all about and this moment put my life into focus for me and yes I thought, "Baby I'm a Rich Man Too!"

And even though we lived far away from where the world was a happening place my friends and I were happening and alive and sharing in what the rest of the youth in the world were sharing in in the 1960's and yes again I need to say we were rich in our beeing young and alive in that moment.

-- Charles

Sunday, August 02, 2015

Slavko! Aha! Beauty!

















Aha!  My Beauty of the Night!

I nursed this from a seed that I collected last Fall in front of our house in Milna. 

The first blossoms came, just in time for Julia's birthday brunch.

Saturday, August 01, 2015

Lynne Writes: Blue Moon

Julia's birthday
for celebrating this year
once on a blue moon

 (from Lynne's blog . . . Uli Day)