Category Archives: Our Country Bungalow

Busy Saturday

During the last day of our group garage sale the tree guy stopped by to see about our dead tree. Instead of making a second trip out he was ready to drop it right then and we were happy to get it done.

The tree came down in under 10 minutes free and clear except for a couple branches on the other trees in it’s path. I wasn’t home to yell ‘timber’ since I was at the garage sale.

We think the dead tree was beetle infested. Yuck!

Now the work of trimming the branches and cutting the rounds will begin.

Besides that project our master shower project is beginning, too. Demolition starts today.

The garage sale was a huge success. We had 8 or 9 families participating. The first day was the busiest with $3000 worth of sales. We made a good amount in the 3 days and it was worth the extra work we put in. We are happy to clear out things we aren’t using anymore.

Hopefully I’ll be able to get around to see what I’ve missed the last week. Hope all is well.

Busy Times

We’ve had a busy few days with company. We enjoyed a meal together on Memorial Day.  The rest of the week I will be involved with a group garage sale. I didn’t have time to complete the answers to the Hodgepodge questions this week. My usual Thursday, Truth for Today, will not be happening this week. Hope you all have a good end to May and beginning of June. It was fun setting a Memorial day table. I’ll be back next week!

 

A Day in the Country

On Friday May 26th we made a dump run and then enjoyed some breakfast out.

The views above are from the roads we take to the dump.

After dropping the truck off and switching to our car we enjoyed another drive in the opposite direction. It was fun to spot these ducklings with their parents on the road to Rocky Lake.

Home again enjoying the lush green of Spring.

Happy Tuesday everyone! We are busy with company today. We might even be chopping down our huge dead tree. Have a good week.

May Growth

We are in the greening time of the year which also means it is mowing season.

Our red peonies are bursting forth and we’ll have many bouquets to enjoy.

I was sad to see one of our 90 foot trees is dying. You can see the one that looks brown. That tree will be coming down soon.

The buds on our White Peony. I really need to divide this plant up.

Our deep red peonies. We have 5 bushes of these.

Irises grow well here and grow wild and multiply!

We are ready for Memorial Day, Flag Day, The Fourth of July and more!

On Sunday we had some severe thunderstorms with gusts of wind, downpours of rain and hail, too. The noise of thunder and the flashes of lightning kept me awake from 2am on. We had some minor damage but nothing serious. We have never had storms this intense. Exciting to watch. They predict more excitement into Monday. The bonus is that I do not have to water for a few days. I had to mow twice last week things are growing so quickly. All of these photos were taken last Thursday and Saturday.

Happy Victoria Day to our neighbors North of us, O Canada!

Hawk Flying and Turkey Strutting

The hawk was too high in the sky for me to get better photos. I zoomed as close as I could.

The male turkeys have been strutting about these Spring days.

Besides hawks and turkeys we have visits from quail and robins and swallows. Hummingbirds are returning, too. Everything has grown quickly and I’ll need to get out to take some photos of the greening of the yard and the peonies about to open. With the heat we’ve been having I’ll need to water instead of counting on the Spring rains to do that for me. We are getting some of the haze from the fires in Alberta. Fires this early does not bode well for our fire season. A peculiar thing that we’ve noticed this year, too, is an abundance of moths flitting about.

Hope all is well in your corner of the world.

Our State Bird

We’ve been enjoying some summer weather here the last few days. Things are growing fast.

It was fun to spot our state bird in the bushes of one of our planters and it stayed long enough for me to zoom in for some photos.

The American Goldfinch was designated as the Washington State Bird in 1951. This beautiful golden bird is found throughout our state and is commonly seen in flocks in fields, bushes and trees.

The state bird proved a point of contentious debate in the state of Washington. After more than two decades of voting and arguing, the state chose the American Goldfinch (Spinus tristis) officially in 1951.

We had a good weekend with lots of outdoor work that takes it’s toll on my wrists and back but still gives a measure of satisfaction to get the work done.

We had a nice Mother’s day starting off at church and having dinner at our Colville Kids’ home. Thanks for stopping by.

Hello May

Happy May Day!
“Come, my soul, put on your springtime clothes and gather garlands of heavenly thoughts.”
Spurgeon

Looking forward to our May flowers! Our last couple days of April brought temperatures into the 80’s!

Spring has brought some common visitors back to our yard.

These stay right where they are all year round in all kinds of weather.

Our daffodils came up and they are in their full glory.

Spring Rhubarb.

Soon we’ll be enjoying the Peonies.

For close to 5 years we have been half-satisfied with our internet service. Where we live Satellite service has been our best option. Our plan was expensive and doesn’t deliver for the cost in our opinion. Lately we have another choice for Satellite and we took the plunge and ordered Starlink. Dear is on the roof getting the space ready for the Satellite dish.

That dish moves and finds the optimum position in relation to the Satellites. Very cool. It lets us know if there are obstructions. It also will melt snow that might accumulate on it. Our other service had a data limit and this service does not. We are happy campers. It was expensive for the initial cost of equipment, etc., but the monthly fee is $50 dollars less than our previous provider. We are pleased. When we called to cancel our previous service they offered us more data and a $50 discount on our plan. Too little, too late.

Hope you can enjoy lots of pretty blooms in May and joy in your hearts!

Thirty Years Older…

After JJ’s 4th birthday party we celebrated this guy who is 30 years older than JJ. He joked about a trapezoid so he got a trapezoid.

Happy Birthday, Andrew. We are all thankful for you and glad God brought you to our family.

While family was in town we enjoyed digging through some very old bins of stuff.

Addy loved twirling in one of Auntie Katie’s dresses from years ago.

JJ gravitated to this infant sized superman t-shirt that he squeezed over his head and onto his body.

Some good conversations transpired.

More bin fun with Katie’s old Barbie and Ken dolls. Clothes and lots of itty bitty things got dumped on the floor!

 

Mid April

On Tuesday of this week we took a drive to Chewelah for lunch and I took this photo on the way home as we traveled back towards Colville. This was a nice change after a very rainy Sunday night through Monday late into the early hours on Tuesday. So grateful to see blue skies and be warmed by sunshine!

We still are dropping into the freezing range at night but the days have seen sunshine and temperatures into the 50’s. We worked outside today getting some things cleaned up and cleared out at our country bungalow. We have a truck load to donate to a garage sale at our church to raise money for our MOPS (Mothers of Pre-Schoolers) program. Dear changed out our winter tires to our all purpose tires so we are ready for travel on roads with easier conditions.

Our westside kids are traveling today to our home for the weekend. We look forward to a good catch-up and some celebrating.

How’s your April shaping up?

Time is Passing Hodgepodge

The two guys in this photo above celebrate birthdays this week.

Thank you Joyce From This Side of the Pond for Wednesday Hodgepodge! Click over to join in the fun.

1. April 13th is National Scrabble Day…are you a fan? 

Yes, I enjoy Scrabble. Haven’t played in ages!

Do you enjoy word games in general? 

Yes, mostly.

What’s an eight letter word that tells us something about your life currently?

Peculiar; unusual, or particular or special. We are heading into a period of hospitality at our Country Bungalow that does not involve biological family. We are confident that it will be a blessing as we adjust in the month of May and into part of June.

2.  Do you have a junk drawer? Is it full? Do you know what’s in it? What’s in it? 

Yes, yes, and yes. It’s full of things like keys, tape measures, charging wires, and junk! Thank you so much for this question as it caused me to clean out that junk drawer and make it more useable!

3. When does time pass quickly for you? When does it pass slowly? 

When our family is all together, time passes quickly.

Time passes slowly when I’m awake in the night at 2am and not able to get back to sleep.

4. These eight vegetables are in season during spring-asparagus, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, celery, collard greens, garlic, herbs. What’s your favorite? Any on the list you refuse to eat? Last one on the list you ate? 

Favorite would probably be carrots. I wouldn’t refuse any of these but I’m not a fan of collard greens. On Monday we had some asparagus, carrots and new potatoes roasted.

5. What’s the oldest thing you own? Tell us about it. 

Dear has a French Violin from the 1700’s. That is old and probably the oldest thing in our home. Dear’s dad got it from someone when Dear was 10 or 11 and decided he wanted to take violin lessons. Dear’s dad Rex has always acquired interesting things. Our baby grand piano which we got from Dear’s folks is over a hundred years old.

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

This little guy turns 4 this weekend and we will celebrate him with Dinosaurs. Time flies when you have Grands!!

All of our kids will be together this weekend and on Friday evening we’ll start things off celebrating our Son-in-law’s birthday which happens to be today. Happy Birthday Andrew. Can’t wait to celebrate you on Friday!

Thankful that you stopped by to read this post and leave a comment.