Category Archives: Colville

The Rotary Trail Take Two

Last Saturday Dear and I decided to enjoy the Rotary trail early in the morning.

I wonder what constitutes a notable tree? I googled it and here is the information I retrieved.

This Douglas-fir at the north-south/east-west junction of the Rotary Trail is located adjacent to the local golf course and Evergreen Drive. It is prominent for its size (32-inch diameter at breast high) and its position at the highest point (1910 feet) on the Rotary Trail.

 

We saw a birdwatcher on the trail and he told us about an eagles nest and a Harrier Hawk that he saw on the trail.

We didn’t see the nest but we saw an Eagle on the top of these electrical transmission lines.

It was fun to capture this little guy, too. Correct me if I’m wrong birdie friends. Upon further investigation this bird looks most similar to a Wilson Snipe.

The Harrier Hawk.

Next time we walk this trail I will take my longer lens so I can zoom in closer to get photos of these beautiful creatures.

I’m learning about general revelation and special revelation in studying Psalm 19. General revelation cannot convert sinners. Salvation comes only through special revelation as the Word of God is effectually applied by the Spirit of God. So much to learn. I don’t want to stop learning about what is of the most importance in eternity.

The heavens declare the glory of God,
    and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
2 Day to day pours out speech,
    and night to night reveals knowledge.
3 There is no speech, nor are there words,
    whose voice is not heard.
4 Their voice goes out through all the earth,
    and their words to the end of the world.
In them he has set a tent for the sun,
5     which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber,
    and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy.
6 Its rising is from the end of the heavens,
    and its circuit to the end of them,
    and there is nothing hidden from its heat.

7 The law of the Lord is perfect,
    reviving the soul;
the testimony of the Lord is sure,
    making wise the simple;
8 the precepts of the Lord are right,
    rejoicing the heart;
the commandment of the Lord is pure,
    enlightening the eyes;
9 the fear of the Lord is clean,
    enduring forever;
the rules[d] of the Lord are true,
    and righteous altogether.
10 More to be desired are they than gold,
    even much fine gold;
sweeter also than honey
    and drippings of the honeycomb.
11 Moreover, by them is your servant warned;
    in keeping them there is great reward.

Hope the last two days of May are good for you in your corner of the world. We might be walking the trail again this morning with my long lens.

Mother’s Day Rewind…

On Mother’s Day in the evening we gathered for a potluck dinner outside at Dan and Jamie’s. Captured some photos of our grands with their dear mommy.

It’s not easy to get two little ones to look at the camera at the same time.

I captured a couple photos of Addy with her Granny but missed taking photos of the other participants because my hands were occupied with the grands…

Our views on the way to Mother’s Day dinner.

Lots of catching up to do before we head into June!

I’m so happy to announce I have an appointment with a new hairdresser on Tuesday morning at 8:15 am. My mop will be so happy. I’ll be driving down the highway a ways but it’s worth it.

We are having a Spring heat wave here in our corner. We had the air on for the first time yesterday. Today and tomorrow will be hotter so our air will continue to cool us and the house off.

What’s new in your corner of the world?

The Rotary Trail

I showed you our peeps. I showed you the birds. Here are the general views on the Colville Dominion Meadows Rotary Trail.

 

Is this our first moose sighting in Colville? It’s only a silhouette. I think I need one for my back acres. Or maybe a bear…

Just to prove I was on the walk here’s my shadow of me in my hat!

The last shot I took on our way back to our cars.

Now all I need to do is to drag Dear out early in the morning to walk this trail with me before he gets carried away with working on his shop!!

Here we go into another week. We are in a very rainy pattern in our neck of the woods. We head to Spokane this week for my follow-up appointment from my surgery last year. It was cancelled in March because of COVID-19 but now they are ready to have me come in. Dear will have to wait in the car instead of coming in with me.

Have a great week everyone!

Rotary Trail ~ The Birds

Kildeer

Swallow

Blackbird

Anyone out there know what kind of duck this is?

We also saw many prairie dogs.

They were so fast and it seemed like they were stealing from each other’s nests.

Hope you see some sunshine today. We have had periods of rain with a few sun breaks.

We took this walk on the Rotary trail on Saturday the 9th of May.

A Walk About…

…our property to see what is blooming on Monday May 4th, 2020. In the midst of Stay at Home COVID-19.

In our front planter these pretties popped up.

Is it a variety of a daffodil?

The Hostas are breaking through.

The White Bleeding Heart.

Fern fronds.

Sweet Pansies.

Our crooked bush that the deer like.

A lonely daffodil with one of the rocks Addy painted.

The Red Peony. We have a few of this red variety.

The White Peony.

Goodnight Colville.

Our Star of Hope that shines every night.

We had a full day of rain on Wednesday. We were busy indoors and then had a babysitting date with our grands so our kids could have a couple hours on their own. Those grands are such a joy in our lives. I’m happy to be back to hugging. No kissing but the hugs are amazing.

The pain was real without those hugs. This photo was taken after his self-will was tested and his nap time was late and he was teething. A trifecta of pain. We love this boy!

Psalm 119: 9-16 (ESV)

9 How can a young man keep his way pure?
    By guarding it according to your word.
10 With my whole heart I seek you;
    let me not wander from your commandments!
11 I have stored up your word in my heart,
    that I might not sin against you.
12 Blessed are you, O Lord;
    teach me your statutes!
13 With my lips I declare
    all the rules[a] of your mouth.
14 In the way of your testimonies I delight
    as much as in all riches.
15 I will meditate on your precepts
    and fix my eyes on your ways.
16 I will delight in your statutes;
    I will not forget your word.

Seis de Mayo Hodgepodge

1.  Question day this week lands on Cinco de Mayo. Are/were tacos on your Tuesday night menu? Hard shell, soft shell or just gimme all the tacos? Are you even a fan of Mexican food? Do you like your salsa mild, spicy, or somewhere in between? Margaritas-Frozen, on the rocks, or no thank you? Have you ever been to Mexico?.

No tacos on Taco Tuesday/Cinco de Mayo this year! I enjoy Street tacos (soft shell) but I would eat any taco. Mexican Food is my comfort food, so yes, I am a fan. Spicy salsa or in between not mild. Cadillac Margarita on the rocks please, no salt.

Yes we have been to Mexico before we had children and while we were living in Southern California. We drove to some little village just outside of Tecate, Mexico to pick up tile for the house my cousin was having built. After we got the tile safely back to the U.S. side of the border in a panel van that belonged to Dear’s father we went back into Tijuana (I forget how we got into Tijuana without the van, maybe a taxi) to do some shopping and then we decided we could walk back to the border but the police pulled up and thought we were nuts so we got escorted back to the Border by the local police who befriended us instead of arresting us when they found out my cousin was a Huntington Beach Policeman. It was hilarious to see my cousin sitting between the two policemen in the front seat and Dear, myself and Jeanie were in the back seat of the cruiser.

2. What’s something you may do this month?

Since we are still on stay at home orders I may just finish Jaymison’s First year scrapebook. 

3. Tell us what’s happening in your state or town as far as restaurants/salons/parks/beaches/businesses opening up.

Our beaches and parks and golf courses are opened up but other businesses are still on hold until our county can convince the governor that we are an area of our state that has only had one death and our medical facilities have not been stretched so maybe he will okay more services to open up.

How do you feel about it?

I feel that we could be at the stage 2 reopening at this time instead of stage 1.

Are you out and about or hunkered down? Do you wear a mask?

We go to the grocery store about once a week. We do wear masks. Another thing I’m doing is taking the very minimum with me when I go out. A license, credit card, keys and my phone. No purse. I’m using my pockets for my stuff. When I get home I take off the clothes I wore, wash my hands thoroughly, and put on fresh clothing.

4. Mother nature, everybody and their mother, mom jeans, like mother like daughter, soccer mom, mother hen, mother lode, necessity is the mother of invention, stay-at-home mom…pick one and tell us how it applies to your life right now.

Having to come up with meals everyday has made me more of the mother of invention. Although Mother nature is calling me outside a lot to weed and mow. 

5. April showers bring May flowers…what’s blooming in your yard or garden today?

A lot of plants are ready to burst forth but these are showing their color first.

6. Insert your own random thought here.

We’re still lighting our star of hope each evening. This star is for our earthly hopes. Our eternal hope is set!

We hope that we can gather together again with our church family and have Communion together again.

We are in a stage that we are seeing and hugging our grandchildren again and that brings us such joy that is hard to explain. Post coming soon.

We hope we can travel to see our “Coast” kids again, soon.

We really miss not being able to go out for Cinco de Mayo or other times when we want to enjoy Mexican food. The two photos above of Katie and Andrew were taken at two different Mexican Restaurants that we have been regulars at. La Corona in Kirkland, Washington close to our Kenmore home was our weekly Tuesday date for early dinner. Our favorite waitress, Liliana, would see us drive up and have our Cadillac Margaritas ready for us. Now that we live in Colville our Mexican restaurant of choice is El Ranchito in Chewelah. We enjoy the friendship we are developing with Hector and Sergio. The photo of Andrew in the birthday hat was taken at El Ranchito. We hope for a time when we can comfortably go out to eat again.

Thank you to Joyce for coming up with the questions for Wednesday Hodgepodge.

Our Backyard Zoo

Today is the last day of April and the final letter for the April A to Z Challenge. Our back acres are a mobile zoo of sorts. The animals come and go as they please. The birds fly in and out.

 

 

 

There are a few other animals and birds who come and go into our backyard zoo that I haven’t managed to get a photo of. It’s always a treat to see someone new show up for a visit. Our yard was totally fenced in when we first moved here but we’ve taken a few sections of fence out for Dear’s shop project so the four legged variety of animals have easy access now.

And that is the finale for the April A to Z Challenge for 2020.

Hope things are well with all of you on this last day of April. Will May bring good news of loosening of the Stay at Home orders? We are hoping for that. We did hear our Farmer’s Markets are opening and that fishing and hunting are also okay with social distancing.

We’re in Hot Water!

So how timely is it that we are on the letter W for Monday April 27th!

We have not had our heat going a lot the last few days which aided our discovery of a noise that was confusing. We heard the noise in one of our guest rooms that is also the grands play room.

We have determined that it is a hot water pipe leak somewhere in the vicinity below this room.

We have a couple call outs to local plumbers and hope to get this glitch addressed soon. I will be calling our insurance company to see about our coverage for this problem. One of the options in addressing this is to go through this floor to pump out the water and repair the leak. If that’s the case it will be great to get rid of this carpet and put some new flooring in this room. Our entire crawl space has a bladder between the floor and the crawl space and that’s where the water has been accumulating. It’s ready to burst! Yikes! We will know more once we get a plumber out to assess what needs to be done. In the meantime here are more water photos from our favorite walks along the beach, Emma Woods in Ventura, California from 2008-2010. The waves of Emma Wood.

God is in control of the waves of the sea and all the waves in our lives, too. If you don’t believe that I pray that God will reveal himself and his power and sovereignty to you so that you can believe.

Happy Monday to y’all. I’ll let you know what the plumber reveals. Makes us thankful for social distancing since hot water and showers are at a premium right now to keep the leak under control.

Off With Your Heads!

On the letter O today and I’m using an old saying to show our tree service chopping or felling two trees we were concerned about on our property. Two Douglas Fir trees came down in a jiffy with the right equipment. The grinding of the stumps took a bit longer.

We didn’t like how this tree was leaning towards our bungalow.

Timber!

Our experienced tree service guy said it was a really good choice to take this tree out as the base of the tree was rotting on the side of the trunk towards our house. We were thankful for that decision. We were only going to have the one in the back taken down until the tree people offered to do this one for half the price since they were on our property with all of their equipment already. They got in a full day of work with good pay and we got two down for the price of one and a half! We are counting our blessings!

There are more photos I’d like to share from the grinding and the chipping but my country broadband is acting up again. I’ll have to also show the wide open spaces we now have with these two trees gone. Dear and our son chain sawed the logs into manageable rounds that have been hauled up to our sons place to be stacked to dry. Our son will have enough wood to keep his place warm next winter from these two trees and then some. We haven’t had to burn wood to keep warm at our country bungalow.

Today is Friday y’all. I know some of us need to remind ourselves each day about what day of the week it is!

This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. Psalm 118:24 (ESV)

 

A to Z Challenge ~ C is for Colville

C is for Colville. Colville is our newest hometown. We’ve lived here since September 2018. Between hubby and me our first 37 years we lived in Los Angeles, Orange, and Ventura County, California. Dear and I were both born in Los Angeles County. We lived our years through high school and college in Los Angeles County. After we were married we ended up in Orange County where our first two children were born. Before we moved to Washington State we lived in Ventura County where our daughter was born. Our next 30 years we lived outside of Seattle in Washington State. And now for our retirement years we are living in the outskirts of the city of Colville still in Washington State.

Here’s a little history about Colville:

The first white man in the area that is now Colville was David Thompson, who came in 1811 to explore the Columbia River for the Northwest Fur Company. A few months later a water route was opened from Astoria up the Columbia through Canadian waters, and overland to the Great Lakes or Hudson Bay. During that first year, nearly 11,000 pounds of furs were reported shipped to the fur markets of London from the Colville area.

In 1825, Fort Colville, named for Lord Andrew Colville, a London governor of Hudson’s Bay Company, was built at Kettle Falls, a few miles west of Colville. The fort functioned as the center of trade in the Northwest. A large farm supplied wheat, oats, barley, corn and potatoes to sustain the personnel at the fort. (Today, both the fort and farm sites are under water, covered by Lake Roosevelt, a part of the Coulee Dam National Recreation Area.)

By 1840, the Hudson’s Bay trading post was processing 18,000 furs a year. When the boundary of the northwest was drawn at the 49th parallel in 1846 and the territory of Washington was established in 1853, Hudson’s Bay Company, being a British company, withdrew from Fort Colville and moved to Canada. The War Department in 1859 ordered a military post built just northeast of the present townsite. The post was called Harney’s Depot at first, then Fort Colville. Four companies of the United States Infantry were stationed there. (This second Fort Colville, located at different places at different times, sometimes confuses visitors.)

The town of Colville was founded in 1882 when Fort Colville was abandoned. The first school, a hand-hewn log building, built shortly after the founding of the town is presently located at the Keller Historical Center within the city limits.

Colville is the county seat for Stevens County. Stevens County is a county located in the U.S. state of Washington along the Canada–US border. At the 2010 census, its population was 43,531. As of July 2018, the population was estimated to be 45,260. The county seat and largest city is Colville

These are backyard views of our Country Bungalow in Colville, Washington. We do not live in the city limits of Colville so we don’t have the same services that the City of Colville offers within the city limits.

Colville is a city in Stevens County, Washington, United States. The population was 4,673 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Stevens County.

Here are some random photos that I have of the Colville area (Stevens County).

Our favorite grocery store.

We have a Super Wal-Mart and I’m bonding with this store that has most everything we’d need for living in the country.

The Country Store can fill in the gaps for farmers and other property owners.

This is our road. We are up this road about 2 miles.

We get some interesting creature visitors in the country.

The view out to Colville city limits from our kids’ driveway.

This is Colville mountain with our huge C for Colville and a lit up cross.

Highway 395 coming north into Colville with one of our local farm/produce shops, Front Porch.

 

When we come down our road to town we have the choice to go south to Colville or north to Kettle Falls.

 

 

Welcome here to our Country Bungalow in Colville, Washington. Colville is pronounced, Call-ville!

I could have used the letter C for the COVID-19 epidemic but I decided we are getting enough information about the Pandemic. Diversions can be good when we really have no power to change the big picture. We do have the power to change the little picture by keeping our distance and compliance to the mandates set down to slow the spread of the virus. We will continue at home keeping the faith and praying for the end of this. Looking forward to better days or better yet the return of our Lord Jesus Christ.