Gardens

 

The house at dawn

I planted the peppers and tomatoes in patio pots to keep an eye on them. Since I was gone on vacation during planting season, things had a late start but I have harvested plenty of yellow squash, Swiss card, zucchini and cucumbers. I made tasty refrigerator pickles with the latter

Some seeds I save year to year like zinnias orange cosmos and nasturtium 

Inside of a poppy

A new plant for me: the popcorn plant. Its leaves smell like popcorn 

This is a closeup of one of my orchids. I think it looks like an eagle

As you can tell, I have a lot of gardens and much time is spent keeping it relatively weed free and trimmed. I lost a lot of plants over the winter. Also I learned that I should never grow fennel and dill near each other as they cross pollinate yielding something that smells like neither. pulled out a trash bag of these mutants

I also spend lots of time biking and running getting slower and slower. I will talk about more fun things in another post

Summer

 This is my favorite time of year. I have not been a diligent blogger. Have spent many hours gardening 

Not long after we returned the kids had arranged a photo shoot out on a farm for my 70 th birthday. Photos to follow. 

Seventy seems so old and so close to the end. I don’t really feel old but I can do the math. Tempus fugit 

Some of the following were taken by Naomi and I, the last ones by the photographer 

A nice night

Alaska

 It’s been a while since I have published. I’ve been traveling and working hard to get my gardens in. Almost done with that

We went to the Norwegian town of Poulsbo where they were have a Viking festival 

Starting off on a kayak ride in the Puget Sound. A beautiful clear day. We could see the Olympic mountains 

All was great until we turned and faced a strong current and no place to take the kayaks out  One step forward, ten back

Pike’s market

Seattle art museum. I unfortunately fell as I was taking this picture as I didn’t see some silly grate on the sidewalk 

In Sitka we went to a bear refuge. Sitka brown bears. inland they are called grizzlies. They look cute but wouldn’t want to meet one in the wild

We went to a Big Lebowski festival in Bremerton. Drank Caucasians 

Fancy lighting in Victoria BC

A wharf in Victoria 

Orca sculpture. We saw bits of them while on the cruise

In Victoria they had an area of cute floating homes

On the ship they had elaborate light shows wit dancers. We saw two of these. 

Ketchikan. I think I liked this one the best of the 3 Alaskan cities we went to

Every place had Tlingit totem poles

Salmon ladder

Salmon sculpture in Ketchikan 

These colorful buildings in Ketchikan used to be whorehouses but now are restaurants and shops

Sitka harbor 

In Sitka we went to a tide pool exhibit. You were encouraged to gently touch the creatures. Anemones and sea urchins would squeeze in on your fingers if you touched them

This is called a basket starfish 

We went to the Sitka raptor center which saves mainly eagles. We saw plenty in the wildlife 

Also took a walk in the lush rain forest in Sitka. Ketchikan gets 200 inches a year. Our place gets 35 but for the past 3 weeks, we have gotten nothing. A horrible draught 

View from our balcony. Never had one before 

We went up to 60 degrees longitude to see the Hubbard glacier. It looks small but is 70 miles long and 350 feet tall

From my map app.  The blue dot is our ship in Disenchantment Bay

You can see the glacier. Lots of ice in the

Mural in Juneau 

Juneau 

The ship hires a naturalist to give lectures about wildlife and to point on whales. Everyone was eager to see one. Lots of screaming and running towards the spotter. The main whales are orcas, humpbacks and grays. Saw parts of them all

I was on this same ship 11 years ago  They have updated it since

Back at the Viking festival 

Sunrise on Puget sound

Steve’s sister and her husband 

Bremerton is a naval base and has los of shipyards which have nice parks in front of them

The mild climate in Bremerton is good for beautiful flowers. I love wisteria 

Their patio. Can watch the river otters swim by 

We had to cross the Tacoma Narrows bridge to get from the airport. It’s predecessor many years ago was sent in motion by the wind and bad design and collapsed. We saw a movie about it in physics class

Flying to Seattle 

Also I received a message from blogger that one of my posts violated community standards. I don’t know if all my posts are now marked obscene or just the one I wrote more than ten years ago. I had just gotten a new iPhone and was trying to write an email by voice My email address starts with ‘spudpug’ but Siri heard ‘buttp**g’

Not sure why that word is in Siri’s dictionary and why someone complained   I have seen worse  But it does make me less enthusiastic about blogger

In May we went on an Alaskan cruise starting in Seattle visiting Steve’s sister first who lives now across the sound right on the water. After the cruise  We went back to her place hoping to meet up with their NYC brother but he canceled