Barns and More

A few farm scenes from Northeastern Washington for Tom’s Barn Collective. These shots were taken from the road on the way to our son’s home for some family time together last week and weekend.

Back here in Seattle we enjoyed the last season game for the Seattle Sounders v. Colorado Rapids.

A Sunday afternoon game and the sun came out to warm us after several days of rain. The tifo for this game was exceptional. Tifo [ˈtiːfo] is the Italian word for the phenomenon of supporting a sport team. In some countries (but not in Italy) it is mostly used as a name for any choreography displayed by fans in the stands of an arena or stadium in connection with a sport event, mostly as part of an association football (soccer) match.

We especially enjoyed our time this afternoon since the Sounders won 3-0 and we now get a bye before we head to a playoff game.

Hope you all are having a good weekend and that it ends well.

Give Thanks to God, for Good is He ~ Hymn

Give Thanks to God, For Good is He

Give thanks to God, for good is He, His grace abideth ever;
To Him all praise and glory be, His mercy faileth never.
His wondrous works with praise record, His grace abideth ever;
The only God, the sovereign Lord, whose mercy faileth never.

His wisdom made the heavens be, His grace abideth ever;
He spread the earth above the sea, His mercy faileth never.
Praise Him whose sun doth bring the day, His grace abideth ever;
The moon and stars His might display, whose mercy faileth never.

He helped us in our deepest woe, His grace abideth ever;
He ransomed us from all our foes, His mercy faileth never.
Each creature’s need He doth supply, His grace abideth ever;
Give thanks to God, enthroned on high, whose mercy faileth never.

Words: From The Psalter

ht: Cyberhymnal

Wednesday Wonder

Isn’t this a welcoming autumn driveway? I wonder who lives at the end of it. This was taken last Thursday when we arrived in Colville. Today is our last full day here and we’ll be heading home to rain, rain and more rain if the forecasters got things right. We had quite a wind event come through here yesterday that caused a few problems in the county but thankfully power stayed on here on the top of our kids’ mountain. I wonder how things are where you live.

Flashback to September 2016

From the Other Side…

…of the Great Divide. The only side of Washington that is predominately red in their politics. The line between the blue and red counties cuts along the Cascade Mountain range. The blue side has the highest population, largest cities, with Seattle (652,405) being the largest. The red side has the most farmers and ranchers and many small cities. The largest city on the red side of our state is Spokane (210,721), then Spokane Valley (91,113) and Kennewick (76,762). All the population numbers I’m sharing are from 2013. The city I live in on the blue side of the state has a population of 21,611.

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Dear and I travel across the great divide when we visit our son and daughter-in-law. We enjoy our time on that side. We find it refreshing. There are lots of great fences and barns to photograph. Here are some of those fences and barns all taken in Stevens County.

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Happy First day of September to all of you! I started the morning off with fresh strong coffee in a new cup to me that I bought at the Habitat for Humanity Shop in Colville, Washington (population 4,668). It was half off and I only paid 40 cents for it. It’s Churchill made in England with a population of 53.01 million.

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May September bring good things to us all.

“The breezes taste
Of apple peel.
The air is full
Of smells to feel-
Ripe fruit, old footballs,
Burning brush,
New books, erasers,
Chalk, and such.
The bee, his hive,
Well-honeyed hum,
And Mother cuts
Chrysanthemums.
Like plates washed clean
With suds, the days
Are polished with
A morning haze.

–   John Updike, September

Here is it September 1, 2017 and we are off again to the other side and I hope to share many photos with you as we travel a different road across the mountains to a wedding reception and then on to our kids home in Colville. Our little Addy May started crawling and I’m excited to see that new milestone and I’ll be getting lots more steps keeping her out of trouble. May September find new joy and fullness for y’all.

Barns and Critters…

Summer view from son’s mile long driveway.

We want to start a pool on when this barn is going to collapse.

A different view from our son’s driveway and part of the driveway, too, headed down to the main road.

All these photos were taken from places that have a Colville address in late June 2017.  Colville is in Northeastern Washington in Steven’s County. The next time we visit our Colville kids will probably be in August. They are coming here next weekend, woohoo! Addy’s first visit to Baba and Gramp’s house. During that same time a grand nephew will be making his first visit to Great Uncle and Great Auntie’s with his big sister who was here once before for Katie and Andrew’s wedding in 2012.

It is definitely summer here with sunshine and warm temperatures. I’ll need to get out and water again soon. I’ve started to pick blueberries off our large bush. It’s a race between me and the birds on who gets to the ripe ones first.

I’ll be Linking up to Saturday’s Critters with Eileen and The Barn Collective with Tom the Backroads Traveller.

Mosaic Monday

This is my Mosaic Monday without linking up. On Friday the 23rd of June we traveled east over the Cascade Mountain Range along Interstate 90 to Colville.  When we reach Spokane we head north and connect to Hwy 395 to travel the last 70 miles of our journey. As we near Chewelah we see many familiar signs. In the summertime the streets in Chewelah and Colville are lined with flower displays in hanging baskets and along the road in planters. On this journey we stopped at our favorite Mexican Restaurant in Chewelah, El Ranchito for an early lunch.

Continuing north on 395 you can tell you are in logging country.

We took a back road to get to our kid’s home and enjoyed these great country scenes along the way.

Then we arrived to see who we really wanted to see. She charmed us with many expressions and moods.

Yawns galore before she had another afternoon nap.

Sometimes she needs to express herself and she gets all our attention. It was a nice drive and reunion.

We will have had three full days with the kids before we head home early Tuesday morning. Sunday was the hottest day so far here and today is another hot one with temps expected to hit 93 with possible thunderstorms. With no air-conditioning it gets hard to do anything but sit around in front of fans. It’s cooling down a bit the next couple of days.

Hope all is well in your corner of the world.

 

Colville Barns

When we were in Colville in May we took a drive along Artman-Gibson Road to Highway 20 in Colville where we saw these barns.

Linking up with Tom for The Barn Collective.

We have had a nice weekend. On Saturday we brought down our patio furniture from the loft of the garage and now we are set for time on the deck when the weather is right. On Sunday we put a pork shoulder in the crock pot before church and enjoyed an afternoon meal of carnitas tacos with our kids that live on this side of the mountains. It’s good to catch up. Hope you had a good weekend.

April Showers…

We took a different route home from Eastern Washington to I-90 taking us through small towns on highway 231. All along the way we saw excess water on properties and water very close to spilling over the roadway.

We had breakfast in Springdale at the Kozy Korner. We knew it was a good choice when all the locals kept coming in while we enjoyed our meal. Instead of heading back to Highway 395 we continued on 231 south to I-90.

This steeple on this church caught our eye in the little town of Edwall. The steeple was the best feature of this church.

And earlier in March on our trip to Colville for our granddaughter’s birth I took a photo of this church in town without a steeple but with an interesting exterior.

Speaking of our granddaughter I will add a photo of her, too, just to show her later in her live what was happening in the towns around her at her birth and shortly after.

This is me saying goodbye to our little Addy before we headed home on April 18, 2017.

April showers and March showers and snow melt have caused a lot of headaches for everyday travel in the tri-counties in Northeastern Washington. This next photo is just one example of a travel nightmare for lots of folks. This is part of highway 395 north of Colville and north of Kettle Falls.

We enjoyed our “off the beaten path” route to get to Interstate 90 and were happy that the roads had held up on this route.

I’m linking up to InSPIREd Sunday with Beth and Sally and

to The Barn Collective with Tom the Backroads Traveler.

On this Saturday I mowed the lawn while Dear weed wacked and we got the job done before another rain shower came through. We had glorious sunshine on Friday and in between rain showers today we have had some welcome sunshine.

We enjoy every minute of sunshine we get after so much rain and grey days! Hope you are enjoying sunshine in your neck of the woods.