Category Archives: Our Country Bungalow

Acres in August

Views from our summertime yard.

On summer mornings I walk out to turn the oscillating sprinkler on to water our planters. The faucet that the sprinkler is connected to is further away from the house. When I walked back on this particular morning last week I took some photos.

I wish you could hear the birds serenading and the quail warning signals that a human was about.

Can you see the reflection of me still in my summer robe?

These last two photos are afternoon photos after yard work. I do the mowing on the riding lawn mower and Greg does the weed wacking. When I’m done mowing there is a set up to wash the undercarriage of the mower which takes 5 minutes with me sitting on the mower for the process. I took the photo above from my mower perch. If you squint, you can see Greg on the left walking with a white bucket.

After yard work if the deck is still in the shade we cool down with some iced cold water and we thank the LORD for being able to get the job done yet again.

Just after midnight Saturday we had a thunderstorm roll through with lots of lightning bursts and a downpour. It was welcomed. Some from our church got their power knocked out. Ours only went out long enough to have to reset the oven clocks!

As I type this Sunday afternoon we hear more rumblings in the distance. Hopefully more rain is coming. We have a new fire 30 miles from us that is thankfully being managed well. More rain will be welcomed.

We are entering the last week of August and already there are more events on the calendar. Hope you all have a good week.

 

Tried and True

I’m linking up to Talking About it Tuesday with Slices of Life for this post.

It’s hot and muggy outside and there is not much to share here. We have a family wedding of a Grand Nephew coming up in October and I’ve been checking out their registry to see what we’ll pick to gift them. My thoughts went back to our wedding registry.

We were married in December of 1974 and these were some shower and wedding gifts we received. They are still serving us well. These high quality stainless steel bowls have been used over and over again for mixing anything from cookies to cakes and brownies and for savory things like egg scrambles. Fifty two years old and it is accurate to say, ‘they don’t make them like they used to’.

My tried and true stand mixer has been a faithful friend over all these years beating up ingredients for me and saving my hands and wrists and arms a lot of wear and tear.

My aluminum pans have made so many cakes, crumbles, breads, brownies, and other wonderful treats.

We don’t have all the Pfaltzgraff Yorktowne dishes anymore. I did keep a couple of the teapots, the sugar and creamer and the cookie jar. I use the cookie jar as decor. We do have a full set of Moss Rose by Royal Albert that we collected after we were married. I purchased the Moss Rose Tea Set in Oxford in 1973 on our summer music tour before we were married and that inspired us to buy the dinner set, too. My parents purchased service for 8 of our sterling. Since our wedding we added 4 more place settings.

In walking about the house to see what other wedding gifts are still visible this pewter oil lamp came into view.

We both enjoyed and enjoy pewter. This gift was from friends from my Bethany Russian Baptist days. And these pewter gifts below were from mutual friends.

Looks like I have some silver polishing to do on those sugar tongs!

This sent me way down a rabbit hole that I’ll continue closer to our anniversary in December.

Are you still using gifts from your wedding showers and wedding day?

At Last Rain

We had quite the thunderstorm roll in last evening, a heavy downpour. We hope the lightning was not an issue anywhere. It was so good to hear the patter of the rain, though. We hope it washes away the smoke filled skies and especially that it aides in fire containment.

I’ll add a photo during the day tomorrow to see how our skies look.

Thank you, Lord, for the rain!

These next photos are from 6:30 am on the 13th of August.

The atmosphere has improved. Can you see our morning visitor enjoying the berries off our Aronia Bush?

Hopefully our storm that lasted for several hours through the night and into the wee hours of the morning did good even though the lightning put on quite the show!

We are so thankful for this good soaking!

Another Red Flag Saturday

We have another Red Flag warning in our county and surrounding counties. The rising sun is affected by the smoke.

We carry on and persevere. Our Grands had swimming and soccer cancelled a few days this past week because of the air quality.

We had another successful VBS week and there were many excited children participating each night of last week. Hats off to the 125 volunteers who helped make the week run smoothly.

No outdoor work this past week so I did the lazy thing and finished this puzzle.

It’s a puzzle, not treats for my pantry! It was another thrift store puzzle. This one was brand new and sealed so I was confident all the pieces would be there.

Today we will continue with indoor things.

Any excitement in your corner of the world?

Three Buck Monday

Last Thursday we had three bucks pay a visit to our back acreage.

They had a variety of head gear.

This fella’s was out of the ordinary.

This one was more typical.

Smile, you’re on candid camera.

They entertained us for a while and then they took off.

The Quail families we have on our property weren’t worried about them.

The babies are always well camouflaged.

Before July was over, I completed this wooden piece puzzle. It was fun.

I’m scheduling this post on Saturday morning while we still have power. We have been warned by our Power supplier that they are planning outages to different areas in our county because of the Red Flag warning and the existing major wild fires burning in our county and adjoining county. The concern is high winds and continued dry conditions. We might be one of the properties that will not have power for an extended period of time. Hopefully the outage won’t run into Sunday. We are completely dependent on electricity including our well/water. Time will tell if we can have a fresh shower for church on Sunday. We are not in the path of the current fires.

I’m happy to report we did not have our power shut off. The sad news are the devastating fires that burned through and are still burning in the Spokane area.

August is coming in hot and smoky and tragically. Continued prayers for all those in the path of the fires, those who have already lost their homes,  and to the firefighters!

This and That

Marilyn at Mountain Top Spice blog had a generous giveaway of Lorrie’s freshly published book called Life is Short but Wide, a memoir of life in Ecuador. Lorrie’s blog is called Fabric Paper Thread. I won the giveaway and the book arrived this week.

If you haven’t visited either of these blogs, I think you’d enjoy them. I haven’t read Lorrie’s book yet but I know she writes well and it will be interesting.

To round out the end of July we had this handsome buck visit.

My friend Linda knows I enjoy jigsaw puzzles and she gifted me this acrylic puzzle. It was fun to put the pieces together into the round frame! Once the pieces are in there are little plastic screws to hold the two clear rounds together and to lock in the pieces. It comes with hooks and a chain to hang it.

Goodbye to July and welcome to August! Hope your weekend is off to a good start.

Visitors

On Saturday morning, this fella came up behind me while I was watering and gave me a scare. I was happy that he was a friendly fella. He wanted to come inside but we set him straight. After we gave him a drink, Greg walked him down the road a piece and he seemed to get his bearings and trotted off home.

On Sunday afternoon these two fabulous human visitors were expected and we were happy to see them pull up. We welcomed them inside. 🙂

It is always good to catch up in person with one of the Mennonite Girls Can Cook and their husbands.

We had dinner together and solved many world problems.

It was a short visit and we waved goodbye on Monday morning.

These were the skies we woke up to on Monday morning.

Psalm 19 always comes to my mind when I see a sunrise or sunset that colors the sky. “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.”

It was nice to have a short reprieve from smoky skies.

Today we have ash floating in from the latest fire in our county.

Lord, please keep our firefighters safe. Give them wisdom in how to approach all the fires burning. Help them to escape when they need to. Bring them home to their families safe and sound. And, please send us some rain without lightning. Amen.

A Lemony Hodgepodge

Our lemony day lilies in their glory.

Joyce has some fresh squeezed questions for Wednesday Hodgepodge.

1. Do your goals and dreams energize or exhaust you? Elaborate. 

If I had unrealistic goals or dreams, I would probably be exhausted. These days I have simple goals and dreams and they energize me. I like to plan and I love a good plan. Truthfully, I get a little melancholy if I don’t have anything to plan.

2. July 23rd is national lemon day. Are you a fan of this flavor?

I am a fan of lemon flavor.

What’s a favorite dish or beverage you enjoy that calls for lemons? 

I really enjoy this salad dressing that calls for fresh lemon juice.

Lemon curd is a favorite to enjoy on scones or in pastries.

3. “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade“…is this something you’re pretty good at managing? Have you had to do this recently? If so tell us about it. 

Yes, I’d say I do pretty good at managing but that is because of knowing who holds the world together and who is the author of life. I’m in His hands.

Recently when our heat pump stopped pumping out cold air we managed with other tricks of the trade by cooling our house down overnight into the morning. We also bought a tower fan that moved the air for us quietly.

4. Something you love that is lemon yellow in color? 

I like the lemony border on these plates. We don’t have a lot of lemony things in our home. I love the lemon colored day lilies that pop up in early summer in our yard.

5. How would you describe your attention to detail? 

When it comes to planning a trip, planning a meal for company, planning how to set the table or planning holiday decor, I’m all about the details.

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

Speaking of Lemons, this memory of our Grands with a Lemonade stand at their Granny’s birthday party was so sweet to revisit.

Hope your summer days are filled with refreshing treats like lemonade.

Simple Joys

It is the sweetest experience to be doing my regular shopping in town and having these two find me in the store with a big hug! Simple but a very special joy for me.

It is also so sweet to enjoy flowers that pop up year after year that I had no hand in planting!

We had a wild thunderstorm come through on Friday morning! We had lightning and thunder and a good soaking of our planters. I’m happy when God does the watering for me!

During our heat wave which is continuing this week it was a good exercise to finish this summertime puzzle.

On Saturday afternoon, JJ had a Taekwondo exhibition at Yep Kanum Park.

It was time for the Yep Kanum Park Celebration in Colville, the celebration will bring neighbors and visitors together from July 17-19, 2026, for a vibrant weekend of activities. Attendees can enjoy live music performances, local artisan markets, food vendors, and family-friendly events. This year’s celebration promises to be a wonderful celebration including performances by musicians, local artists, a classic car show, a youth baseball tournament, a pickleball tournament, and plenty of entertainment for all ages.

JJ gave a demonstration of his kick that split the wood in two. I have a video of that but I’m not able to share it here.

On Sunday after church we enjoyed the finale of the World Cup with Spain defeating Argentina. I’m one who has enjoyed every World Cup soccer game despite the teams I was cheering for coming up short. We were rooting for Spain in the end and were happy for their accomplishment.

I’ve been following ‘Drew Cooks‘ on Facebook and we enjoyed two of his recipes on Sunday.

Blueberry biscuits were very good. We also enjoyed chicken thighs in the crockpot with a soy sauce, brown sugar, green onion, garlic, and ginger. Delicious!

Our area is experiencing wild fires with smoke making our outdoor spaces unhealthy. We can identify with those of you on the east coast experiencing smoky skies and hard to breathe air. Praying for our firefighters!

Last and least, it is always fun to spot these frogs in our yard, as long as they stay in the yard!

How was your weekend and what does this new week hold for you?

July at Home

Summer has arrived in our corner of the world. On Friday evening our A/C stopped pumping cold air into our home. Of course it was after hours which means we won’t be able to schedule a service call until Monday after 8am (today). We have had the windows open and are enjoying the summer breezes. Thankfully the air has been fresh without the fertilizer and other natural livestock scents dominating the air!

Our July views prompt gratitude and thanksgiving to our God who created all things for us to enjoy.

lavender

We have a new umbrella this year and we’ve had to put extra weights on the base even though it’s supposedly a 40 lb. base. Before we added the weight the umbrella had tried to fly away.

Bee Balm

Coneflowers

Hosta

Bluebells or a relative?

Day lilies

The baby swallows have exited their nests and learned to fly.

We have several Quail families roaming our acres with babies, toddlers, and teen quail in tow. They always make us smile. There is always a scout quail that chooses a higher position to warn the other quail of any danger.

Deer have been more sporadic.

Hopefully before the morning ends we’ll have a scheduled HVAC appointment for this week!!