While we were in the Country…

…our oldest kids flew to the big city of Los Angeles.

While they were there for a quick weekend with friends to enjoy a special concert together they managed a getaway to see my pop, their Dzeda.

They also managed to get all these cousins together for brunch.

Beautiful girls. Two of my nieces with our dear daughter in love, Laura.

We are all back in our own homes again. Home from the big city and home from the country.

This country scene is from our middle son’s neck of the woods.

On our way home today we stopped at the scenic overlook of the Columbia River just before you get to Vantage. A selfie was in order. This is about halfway in our trip.

It’s good to be home after six days away. Watering was the first thing on my list to do and now I will relax till tomorrow. We are finishing up listening to a Bruno Chief of Police novel. On our trip to the country we finished Louise Penny’s The Cruelest Month.

Hope all is well whether you are in the big city or the quiet country.

Chewelah Murals and Spokane Mosaics

It was hard to get the whole of this mural in one photo. This mural is on the side of a building along highway 395 in downtown Chewelah, Washington. Chewelah is a one traffic signal town in the northeastern corner of the state of Washington.

Dear and I are spending several days between Chewelah and Colville with our son and daughter in law. It’s a nice change to be out in the country, in small towns.

From HistoryLink.org:

The early settlers named the town Chewelah (spelled various ways). According to some sources, this was an Interior Salish Indian word for small, striped snake, which refers either to snakes in the area or to the narrow, serpentine appearance of the river. Alice Sherwood Abrahamson, a member of one of the Indian families still living in the Chewelah area around 1900, offered this explanation in a memoir: “The name Chewelah comes from the Indian word ‘S che wee leh,’ meaning water or garter snake. There was a spring in what is now the southwest end of Chewelah. The old McCreas lived there and their homestead was called ‘S che wee leh ee,’ for the spring that bubbled up there. The motion of the water gave the illusion of snakes moving about in the water”

Another mural on the side of a building that I spotted along highway 395. On this portion of the highway the speed limit is 25 miles per hour so it’s a little easier to spot gems to photograph.

I’m linking up to Monday Mural with Oakland Daily Photo.

This Sunday was a full day for all of us. Dear and our son continued work on the pump house and our daughter in law and I traveled down to Spokane for the Bubble Run on the Spokane Riverfront. In the late afternoon we joined in for a birthday barbecue for our daughter in law’s aunt in Colville.

I’m also linking up to Mosaic Monday with Maggie at Normandy Life.

We have one more full day in the country before we head back home to the city. Hope you all have a great start to your week.

Country Living

Here are some things I’ve learned in the country.

Horses and other animals graze peacefully and make for idyllic photos.

You can use large old tires from farming equipment and add some dirt and wild flower seed and enjoy a wild tire garden.

You can’t take having a store close by for granted in the country. For our kids the closest is just 7 miles away, though. Vegetable gardens are the best for having fresh outside your door produce. So far we’ve enjoyed potatoes, squash, green beans. Zucchini bread is just out of the oven. Later today we’ll have tomatoes and lettuce from the garden on our hamburgers. Cucumbers the size of small baseball bats were picked today.

Having a chicken coop and chickens that lay eggs everyday is a bonus. A rooster can be annoying, though. Yep, that rooster is still alive and cock a doodle doing. You don’t need a rooster to get eggs from the chickens and roosters can get real mean. Even though you think you just purchased birds with no rooster you can be surprised as time goes by. Your days are numbered spotty! The other thing I found out about chickens is that skunks find them to be a delicacy. Our kids don’t put egg shells in their compost pile because they don’t want to attract skunks to their property. A friend of our kids just had several of his chickens killed and eaten by skunks.

There are lots of wasps, hornets, mosquitoes and other flying things in the country. It’s best to get rid of nests in the winter time.

There is plenty of room for dogs in the country. They make for good companions. They do shed just as much in the country as in the city, though.

Birds in numbers like to hang out together. Sometimes they all take off at the same time and that’s a sight.

You have to be extra cautious when driving in the county because you never know what you’ll encounter along the way. These turkeys took to flight as I approached. You need to be aware and watch for deer and other wildlife because car v. animal never goes well for the humans or the animals. We always crack up at the road signs that say “Watch for Deer next 10 miles” How do they know the deer will stay within that 10 mile area?

Are you a city mouse or a country mouse?

Doe and Fawn

This Doe and Fawn have been showing up on our son’s property each afternoon or evening. If you just go about your business and don’t make sudden moves they are content to graze with us in the distance.

If you look carefully through the chicken coop you can see them. The fawn is watching me and the doe is busy grazing. That black and white speckled cock a doodle doer is destined for the cook pot soon! In the meantime we are eating lots of eggs!

An Interlude…

…in the northeastern area of Washington State, where it is hot but no hotter than our western part of Washington right now. Why not sweat in a different location than our own for a few days?

This afternoon doe, a deer, a female deer and her fawn were grazing in our son’s yard. I’ll share those photos soon. We’ll be eating farm fresh eggs the next several days and we might have to put the rooster to rest if it keeps crowing at all hours and then we’ll have chicken and dumplings. Dear has projects to do with our son and I’m going to walk the dog in the cool of the morning. Hopefully I won’t meet up with any bears or cougars, oh my.

Are you having an interlude, an intermission from the regular?

Good Fences

I’m sharing the rest of the fences from our time at our son’s in Eastern Washington.

These are the gates and fences along the walking route my daughter in law and I enjoyed during our visit.

Spring is pretty in this part of Washington State. It is also a perfect environment for mosquitoes and wasps.

I’m linking up to Good Fences #113 with TexWisGirl from The Run*A*Round Ranch Report.

We’ve started a new project at this old house. We are replacing the front walkway up to our front door.

Out with the old, in with the new.

Barns and Farm Structures…

On our first morning at our son’s in Eastern Washington my DIL and I saw these small barns and farm structures on our walk.

Linking up with Tom at The Backroads Traveler for The Barn Collective.

Good Fences – Northeast Washington

When we were visiting our kids in eastern Washington the girls took walks each morning while the guys worked on some projects. These are some of the sights we saw on the early morning walk. This property is adjacent to our son’s. I thought the horse corral was very nice. The horse farthest in the photo above is named Hutch. (As in Starsky and Hutch) I don’t know the name of the one closest to the fence.

I’m linking up to Good Fences hosted by TexWisGirl at Run*A*Round Ranch Report.

Quiet in the Country…

We had our first visit to our son and daughter in law since they were married last June. They live on 7 acres in the northeastern part of our state and the first thing we notice is how quiet it is. Even the dog that our son inherited when he married his dear wife is quiet.

She did not bark once during our whole visit! Here she is greeting us on our arrival.

The girls took a 3 mile walk on Saturday and a shorter walk with a steeper climb on Sunday while the guys worked on a truck and a chicken coop. D & J bought 8 chicks who are growing rapidly and who will need a coop for comfort and laying of eggs. They thought they were 8 chicks but come to find out one is a rooster. That might change the quiet they are enjoying now…

These are some quiet scenes we enjoyed on our walks.

Quail were running across our son’s property. I find them so fun to watch.

The country might be quiet but you have to equip yourself for the possibility of meeting up with wild animals and we didn’t take our walks without bear repellent.

We had a lovely quick weekend with quality time spent with our kids and it was so quiet in the evening and during our walks. We also had a quick storm roll through with the promise of the rainbow when it was over. God’s promise to us. “I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.”

I’m linking up to ABC Wednesday for the letter Q. Q is for quiet, quality, quick, and quail. Thanks to Mrs. Nesbitt and the ABC team for the start and continuation of this meme.

I’ve got lots more to share from our trip to visit our son and daughter in law that will show up for memes in the future like Good Fences, The Barn Collective and Signs, signs.

Today I will mow the lawn early since we have a forecast in the 80’s again and then I’ll run some errands. Hope you weren’t in the path of the storms that caused so much damage yesterday in the middle of our country.

Meeting God in Quiet Places ~ F. LaGard Smith

Wherever we are, God is always close. But as Jesus himself demonstrated, there is something about quiet times and quiet places that helps us to get closer to God. That special solitude provides a time of rest and renewal from a secular world that is busily ignoring God. It is a time of remembering who we are and why we are.

In the Cotswolds, I experience daily the words of that great hymn written by I. B. Sergei:

My God and I go through the fields together.
We walk and talk, as good friends should and do.
We clasp our hands, our voices ring with laughter.
My God and I walk through the meadow’s hue.

He tells me of the years that went before me,
When heavenly plans were made for me to be.
When all was but a dream of dim conception,
To come to life, earth’s verdant glory see.

For those who walk hand in hand with Jesus, every day is a holiday – a holy day before God. Some of us are specially blessed to have a life more conducive to the peace and quiet of holy days before God. But as someone who finds himself thrust back each year into the harsh reality of big-city madness, I know that the greater challenge is to find God in the midst of a metropolis. To see his hand in the inner city and among the urban sprawl; to find time for him in an already-overbooked schedule; to find a quiet place amid a constant bedlam of noise.

If we don’t take the time to remember, we’re in danger of forgetting his blessings. Therefore, take a few moments every day, if possible, or perhaps plan ahead to spend an afternoon walking in prayer with him. Whenever you feel your hand slipping from his, take some extra time to remember all that he has meant to you. And why not write down some of his special blessings throughout the year?”

This is the village of Buckland in the Cotswolds. I was so excited to stumble upon it with Dear and Katie in 2004 after reading this devotional by F. LaGard Smith. The book is “Dedicated to the people of Buckland, who have opened their hearts and homes to make me feel a part of the village.” We strolled around Buckland and it made me want to re-read the book. This book was one of those “treasures” that I happened upon in my thrift store shopping. I found it at the Senior thrift shop on Whidbey Island in the little village of Langley, Washington. If you ever visit Washington take a ferry to Whidbey Island and enjoy the many quaint towns and beautiful scenery this Island affords. Whidbey Island is one of those places on earth that you can feel closer to the Lord just by being there. May you walk hand in hand with Jesus wherever you are today, in the hustle and bustle, or in a serene and quiet place.

The top photo is from a walk I took with our daughter in law and the house you see down the road belongs to our son and her.

The Happy Wonderer ~ ellen b.

To honor and encourage

Tag Archives: Chewelah