Family Weekend in Vancouver

Dan, Colin and I went up to Vancouver to support and participate with Celia and Keith in the first of four services for Celia's art thesis. She used a variety of stringed instruments (including the harpsichord Dan built) to present a service of Genevan psalms, scripture and silence. It was very effective and beautiful. Colin and I spent a lot of time cooking - soup for the rehearsals, and a variety of treats for the post service fellowship. Feed them and they will come. Celia did have a good turn out, but not because of the food. She has a lot of support at Regent and in her church, and people have come to appreciate her musical giftedness as well as the thought and effort she puts into creating worship experiences.

Fall Harvest

At the end of October (I'm a little behind posting my blogs) I picked most of my peppers and tomatoes and covered the bare spots with a rye and vetch cover crop. It turned out to be a good garden season even with the bad weather earlier. I made salsa, jam and applesauce with Colin, and made an experimental (and large) batch of sauerkraut from my red cabbages.

Cruising Alaska

My mom and dad invited Dan and I and Larry and Ann to accompany them on a cruise to Alaska. We sailed from Seattle on August 31.










Wow - Dan in a suit! It's formal night.



A new form of the native American totem pole...











Dan and I went for a long hike in Ketchikan to the top of Deer Mountain. Ketchikan gets over 100 inches of rain a year, and the rain forest is lush. We got lucky - it wasn't raining when we were there.
Dan finished his scarf while on the cruise. He needed it - it was cold! We were all glad to have wooly clothes.

We spent a few misty hours in Tracy Arm fjord.

This is the Mendenhall Glacier near Juneau.
In Skagway we went kayaking on a foggy lake and took the train down from White Pass. We were able to see the Trail of 98 through the fog.
Waves of cloud in the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

At the homestead

Celia said that I should talk more about what we do at home in my blog, not just the trips we take. So, here's some picture of summer at the Wilson household...

Dan does a lot of field mowing to keep the grass and blackberries under control. We've engaged in a large project to reclaim land for native plants (shown below), thereby cutting back the need for field mowing in a sizable area. Dan has done a lot of research into which native plants will do well in this area.
Below is the perennial garden.
Our friend Sheila visited from Fresno. We enjoyed wandering along the waterfront and through the farmer's market.










Right after Sheila visited I took a class in teaching reading and writing to English Language Learners. It was a week long intensive class - the first class I've taken for credit in about 25 years. The information was very practical, and I will be able to put it to use in my tutoring. At this point, I have one private student. I am working toward starting a tutoring program at our church.

The garden got a late start this year due to poor weather in the spring. Here it is at its peak in early September.





























I grew 8 cabbages like this one. Everyone in the family is making sauerkraut.

WTA "volunteer vacation"

In late July, Dan and I joined a group of hikers for a week of backpacking and trail work with the Washington Trails Association. Our volunteer vacation was in the Goat Rocks Wilderness, between White Pass and Naches.
Evening activities included lots of good food, story-telling, and scrabble. It was a really fun and diverse group of people. We were a good team.


On our day off, we were able to hike the loop trail to the high country. We also went off trail and into the snow.






















This shows some of the projects we worked on. The area of trail Dan is standing by was almost impassable because of some large rocks. He rerouted the trail and removed some of the rocks.

Lake and River outings

Banks Lake
At the end of June we returned to Banks Lake with a group of friends. The weather was cool enough that we were able to hike comfortably. We took a long hike around the top of Steamboat Rock.



























We also brought our canoe and enjoyed exploring among the rocks and swimming from the boat.




















The next weekend we took Evan and his friend to Lake Kachees.

The water was really cold and refreshing on a warm day. It was great fun jumping from the rocks.

Recently we joined a canoe club called Paddle Trails. Our first trip with the club was a paddle down the Tolt River. The river had some good riffles and rapids, but nothing too scary. Dan and I learned a lot from the leader, who was a former Olympic trainer. We learned how to surf a wave! We also learned the safety equipment we need to do whitewater canoeing.

At home with the deer ones

We finally got fed up with the deer feeding on our tender plants in the garden; with tripping over the netting that covers everything; with getting squirted in the face by the motion detecting scarecrow; and with untangling the raspberry vines from the netting...

So we put up a deer fence - 300 feet and 7 feet high. It's made of plastic and it was actually pretty easy to put up. You can see below that I am standing inside the fence while Dan plays deer and tries to get in - unsuccessfully.

So far it is working very well. Now if we could just get some sun...








Here's our first fire of the season. We had to dump out gallons of water that had filled the firepit, and then get the fire hot enough so we could burn all the wet newspaper and logs. Kind of like Elijah calling down fire into a soaking wet altar. (It's a story in the book of I Kings, chapter 18, verses 33 - 39) Well, not quite. Anyway, we enjoyed our hot dogs and burned up a lot of wet stuff.