Clinging to September, but curling up for winter

Sad as it is, I guess we have to admit that summer is over and we have to say goodbye to photos like this. We must batten down and prepare for 7 months of gloom and rain. But I'm ready for the worst: I just got my flu shot.

We just had this fantastic September with non-stop sunny days, balmy temperatures and cool nights for almost four straight weeks. It was what Seattle weather in September is hyped up to be, but this time instead of saying to people "It's usually pretty nice in September, sorry about the weather" instead it was "This is awesome, better take in every minute."

So we did. Part of September was spent in the Gulf Islands soaking up the sun and getting in an actual, full blown relaxing vacation. Vacations end though and we returned to daily grind of getting up at 5:15 to beat traffic, working, and then coming home to... THE DREADED PORCH PROJECT. I complained all summer about this, and it really did ruin every weekend we were in town, including this one.

Some progress was made, but it's not done - not even close. One of my more nosy neighbors said "You're just going to leave it like that, with no shingles all winter? I could never do that!" How do you respond to this stuff? Do you say, hey lady, this stuff costs money and in case you haven't noticed, we're in a recession. Or "Guess what, my wife and I work 50 hours a week so forgive me if I'm too tired to work on this every night. I have a life and sometimes it includes not restoring something."

We finally got the front door in last weekend and the exterior door trim, got the beadboard ceiling in, got all of the bare wood covered with tar paper for winter, put the electrical in, insulated most everything. Now we just need to rebuild the column bases, the stairs and walls, put on a new deck, and shingle everything. Piece of cake right? Wrong: cedar siding is $1.31/lineal foot. I need a raise like fire needs oxygen.

Sorry, this post was supposed to be about fall but I digressed into the porch. Typical.

We managed one more boat show in September, the Poulsbo Rendezvous. This is always the least well-attended boat show by the public, and therefore it's the best show of the year. It's very relaxing - hanging out with your boating friends swapping stories about where you took your boat this summer and what happened, who ran aground, who went the farthest, and generally ignoring the tourists.

So now we begin to curl up for winter. We've both already caught and mostly gotten over our first cold, although this one hung on me for two weeks. Everything in the garden is starting to mildew and yellow, pretty soon we'll be planting bulbs and spreading compost. Before you know it we'll be carving a pumpkin and planning Thanksgiving. Life goes by fast, I wish I could slow it down just a little bit.

More soon, I promise

We're trying to get back to the blog. Just too much going on to sit down at the computer! More soon...

We're Not Dead, We Just Feel Dead (tired)

Yup, we're still here - barely. July has never been quite like this one. Summer has never been quite like this one. Every weekend we are busy, and the previous week is hectic preparing for the weekend.

The first two weeks were spent preparing for and then being in two different boat shows. A show is never quite as relaxing as just going somewhere in the boat for fun. You need to be 'on' for the people who come to see your classic boat - and prepared for the same old questions.

Then the next weekend Ginger's parents were in town. Slightly less hectic, and Rick helped me get the porch posts in. But don't remind me about that project. I don't need reminding that it's progressing slower than the "Race" for the White House. We'll have a new president before I have enough finished to stop worrying about it and to end the gaping open-mouthed stares from passersby. This crappy porch hangs over my head, taunting me, and sucking, ever sucking more money and time. Ever sucking. The porch sucks. Sucktastic.

Then the next two weekends: blessed vacation! But getting out of town and wrapping everything up for a week away from life sort of ruins your life. By the time we hit the road we were so pathetically tired that the only thing keeping us awake was the excitement of leaving town for a week. 13 hours later we arrived to a screaming mass of excited family. Four days at THE CABIN (Hebgen Lake, MT) with the whole crew, all 14 of us for the first ever Garff family reunion. I'll post separately about this with pictures, I just need the time. But it was fun, and exhausting (not at all relaxing) but vacations where you actually relax usually last more than a week and don't include the worst mosquito hatch in my memory.

Then for the rest of the trip, and spanning into the first weekend in August, we saw a place we didn't know existed, the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness in isolated northwest Montana, near Troy, MT. Awesome. Plant geek paradise. Coastally influenced weather creates a mix of lush mountain plants at relatively low elevations. It was awesome. And isolated. Do not get the fish and chips.

More on this in later posts because we saw cool stuff like one of Montana's biggest Grand Fir trees at almost 5'-0" across - and at one point I actually said, "Wow, the biodiversity is so high we should do a species-area curve!" to the groans of my wife and friends. Nine conifer species over a very small elevation range. Totally awesome. Is tamarack the bomb? Yes.

We stayed at a "cabin" that was pretty much a lodge right on the Kootenai River (in the floodplain in fact, but don't call FEMA, it's dam controlled. Just waiting for the right disaster, I think). Very nice, more relaxing, good food, no mosquitoes, closer to the vacation ideal. And Lola made a boyfriend, a buff boxer named Ike who smelled like skunk. Cologne for dogs.



So we're home now, sucktastic porch and all, and everything is HECTIC again. One of Ginger's friends will be here this weekend. If you're counting at home that's 6 consecutive weekends of activity. I am very much longing for a Saturday that isn't spoken for. I am especially tired and grumpy right now, just ask anyone who has spoken to me since since I got home from my "vacation!"