WHAT I DID ON MY SUMMER VACATION

The autumn rains have started and of course they always seem to come on the weekend, so I'm blogging instead of gardening. We had a spectacular summer if you like hot weather. We nearly set a record at the end of July for the most consecutive days without rain. I think we came one day short of the record. However, we did not take our vacation until the end of August, usually a sunny time in western Washington, but of course it rained.

So, midweek we took off for eastern Washington to do some camping with the kids and grand kids. Now, it's probably been 15 years since Joyce and I went camping, so we had to stock up on new camping gear and of course attempt to find what gear we still had left out in the barn. As it turned out, we still had sleeping bags, a Coleman lantern and a camp stove, but that was pretty much the extent of our equipment. We ordered a new tent on line and a deluxe air mattress that would fit perfectly in our Honda Element. The neat thing about the tent was a feature that allows you to couple the tent to the rear door of the Element thus allowing us to sleep in the car while using the tent for dressing and storing gear. More about this later.

So, we prepared our equipment and loaded up the Honda after removing the rear seats and since we weren't bringing the dogs, we had plenty of room, although we did pretty much fill up the space. We set out on Thursday and planned on spending the night at Tammy and Tyler's in Spokane and then setting out the next morning for Priest Lake, Idaho. Doug and Michelle were supposed to meet up with us at the campground, but as we left Ellensburg Joyce noticed a boat and pickup truck up ahead that looked familiar. She called Michelle on the cell phone and asked if they were heading up Ryegrass pass and sure enough, they were right in front of us. We made a stop at the rest area at the top of the pass and had a visit with Doug, Michelle, Jacob, and Ashlynn. They were loaded down with camping gear, fishing gear, two dogs and a Guinea pig not to mention the boat and 70 gallons of fuel and had to travel slower than us, so after telling everyone goodbye we started out again for Spokane. When we arrived at Tammy and Tyler's it was in the 90s, so we were optimistic that the weather was going to be much better on the dry side of the Cascades.

After spending the night on an air mattress that went flat during the night requiring some pumping up at 2 AM we managed to get some sleep knowing full well that the next night we would be sleeping on our deluxe air mattress snug in the back of the Honda.

The next morning I helped Tyler load his canoe on top of their Element, then Tyler discovered that they were short of space. With Zander's extra equipment and the need for Tammy to sit in the rear seat with him even the Element wasn't big enough. I had also forgotten that Tyler had found us reclining folding chairs at Cabellas, which I had to find room for. We squeezed a couple of boxes of fire wood into our car along with the chairs and we finally had a full load!

We stopped to buy some more ice, beer, and lottery tickets at the nearby Safeway and were finally on the road by around 11 AM. We took a route I'd never traveled before toward Newport past new freeway construction and mega churches until finally we ran out of the suburbs except of course for the mega-churches in Idaho. Soon we were climbing into the mountains, past pine forests and log cabins and here and there a gun show in the local school house.

At last we arrived at Priest Lake, and found our way to the campground. We had a beautiful spot with plenty of trees and not too far a hike from the bathroom, or should I say toilets, since there was no shower or bath. The women were freaking about the lack of shower facilities, but Tyler, who is always prepared, had a solar shower, which featured a tiny tent for privacy and a black water bag to collect solar rays.

I was really excited to set up our tent and see how it looked hooked to the back of the Honda. I visualized Joyce and I laying back in the nice snug Element gazing up at the stars through the rear sunroof. Then I noticed something I hadn't thought about. There was a curb at the end of the parking strip so that cars couldn't be run up into the camp site. I pondered it for awhile and calculated and finally I had Joyce guide me while I backed up as far as I could go. Then I set the tent up right at the edge of the pavement. Of course pounding the tent stakes in was tough going since there was some over spill of asphalt and gravel under the dirt at the edge of the curb, but I was persistent and we finally got the tent set up. Finally it was time to connect the tent to the Honda. I pulled on the straps and sure enough, they were just long enough. Just one problem. The cloth part was a foot short of covering the back end of the car. By this time I was drenched in sweat and had to sit down and have a beer. I contemplated my dilemma and finally I thought, we can just put a tarp over the gap. It won't be pretty, but at least it will close us in. I decided to pump up the expensive air mattress made just to fit our vehicle and to get the sleeping bags set up. The air pump plugged into the rear accessory outlet just fine, although I had to run the car to make it work. The mattress was really high quality and heavy duty, with cutouts for the fender wells on the sides,which made it about 3 and half feet wide in the middle. We'd have to stuff something in there because the Element doesn't have fender wells that intrude into the car. I inflated one side and then the other and when I attempted to put the mattress it place I discovered that it was too wide! It was time for another beer and some more contemplation!
We set the mattress in the tent, took off the tunnel that connected the car and fortunately the tent can be configured about three different ways. Finally, I was down to what I recognized to be the rain fly for the tent, but it was so hot and the tent was open with netting on the top to allow ventilation, so I decided to put the rain fly away, confident that it wouldn't dare rain.

As I was unloading the rest of things and putting them where Joyce directed I noticed an empty cottage cheese container. " What's this for", I asked? "That's for peeing in." Joyce said. "For peeing in?" "Yes, so we won't have to get up in the middle of the night." "You plan on peeing in a cottage cheese container?" "Just during the night. Not during the day." I went to the car and brought back a milk jug. "I brought this along for night time use. Now this is worthy of peeing in." "Well you can use your jug if you want, but I'm using the cottage cheese container."

That night Tyler was in charge of dinner. He was making corn bread and white chicken chili in two dutch ovens. He set out to get the charcoal going and Doug helped out with a blow torch. In about three and a half seconds they had the charcoal going. I have to say, it was the best corn bread I've had in my entire life. The chili didn't get warm enough with the coals, but by this time Tyler had a fire going and set the dutch oven on the fire grate and soon had it nice and hot. It was great, especially since I had brought some beano along.

That night we discovered another short coming of the expensive air mattress. it was only about 5 and a half feet long. When I lay down, I either had to have my head hanging off or my feet. When my feet hung off my lower back hurt, but when my head hung off my neck and upper back hurt. Then there was the cutout for the fenderwells. Three and a half feet may be OK for one person, but for two, you pretty much have to sleep on your side and turn in tandem. Since we were sharing a sleeping bag there was no going it alone. I had to tell Joyce when I wanted to turn and she had to comply, or end up hanging over the side.

Finally we got to sleep when I was awakened by a drop of water splashing on my face. I woke Joyce up. "Get up, we have to put the rain fly on the tent!" Fortunately, we had our head lights(small lights mounted to a headband) and were able to locate the rain fly. We had set the tent up at home and even tried out the rain fly, so we knew in general how it went. Of course at night in the rain it is a bit more difficult than at home in broad daylight. We weren't the only ones who had to fix a rain fly on their tent. Tyler was up putting the rainfly on their tent as well. Then Joyce and Tammy decided to hike to the toilet. Fortunately, there would be no use of the cottage cheese container that night!

The next morning I woke up and decided to go sit in my reclining folding chair. Tyler and Tammy were up, since Zander decided to wake up early, so we got a fire going and huddled around. Fortunately it had stopped raining, although it was overcast. We went across the way to Doug and Michele's campsite for breakfast. Doug showed us a boyscout trick for making omelets. He put an egg in a plastic bag along with cheese and whatever filling you like and put it in boiling water. In a little while you can open the bag and pour out a finished omelet with no mess.

The guys were heading off to fish and the women were going to stay back at the camp and spoil Zander and maybe go down to the beach if they felt like it. Doug managed to get the boat launched in spite of a brake on the trailer that kept hanging up. We cruised up lower Priest Lake and headed for Upper Priest Lake, which is connected by a shallow waterway. The water was smooth and we sped across the lower lake past the lakeside houses and a few boats with fishermen. Tyler, who had been to Priest Lake when he was a kid told us about the great places to pick huckleberries and a place with natural water slides at the far end of Upper Priest Lake. We navigated along the waterway between the lakes and enjoyed the beautiful scenery. It was very shallow and you could see the bottom much of the time. Finally we arrived at Upper Priest Lake and started fishing. Now Doug is an avid fisherman and he has about every device know to man to catch fish with. He has a GPS and a fish finder, down riggers, and tons of tackle. We could see the fish on the fish finder but couldn't entice a bite. Part of the problem was that you couldn't use live bait and had to use barb less hooks. You also couldn't keep bull trout or cut throat. Of course it didn't matter cause they weren't biting. But that's fishing. If you limited out every time you went out, it wouldn't be a challenge and everyone would be a great fisherman. Where's the fun in that? Anyway, it was just great being out on the boat with the guys and casting a lure and swapping fish stories. Finally, after about three hours it was time to head back. Just as we got to the lower lake the wind began to pick up. As we left the waterway we entered choppy water. The boat sped along, but the ride was jarring as we hit the choppy waves. Just as we arrived back at the boat launch it started to rain. This time the rain was more steady and when we finally got back to camp the women were nowhere in sight. We found them in our tent all clustered on the little bitty mattress.

Once again Tyler came to the rescue with a tarp and some rope. We rigged up a shelter and got a fire going and spent the afternoon clustered around the fire until the rain finally let up. That night was Doug's turn to cook and he made some tasty burgers for everyone followed up by smores and more beer. We all laughed as we recalled how Doug had punked Ashlynn the evening before. Joyce had brought along a set of walkie talkies and Ashlynn had taken one and had gone out into the woods and was clowning around. Doug took the other unit and after she had broadcast said, "This is the park ranger. We have some little girl playing around on our wave length. We need to find her." About that time Ashlyn came running out of the woods yelling, "Daddy, Mommy, the park ranger is on the walkie talkie and he's looking for me!" We all busted up, much to Ashlynn's embarrassment. We assured her that in years to come she would laugh about it. At least, none of us planned on letting her live it down. Finally, we all put our head lights on and headed for our tents.

Sunday morning broke sunny and bright, of course, since we were breaking camp and heading home. Unfortunately, we did not have enough time for the solar shower to heat up, so Tyler's mom invited the women over to their travel trailer for a warm shower. Of course, there was some consternation among other campers since Grant started the generator up pretty early, but in spite of that, the women returned with smile on their faces.

As we waved goodbye to Doug and Michele and Jacob and Ashlynn and packed up our gear we decided we'd have to try this again. Of course, we will bring a queen size mattress and a better pee jug next time.





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Our New Baby

Ever since I was a little kid I loved cars. My parents said I could name every car on the road by the time I was five. I was obsessed with cars. My favorite toys were cars, I spent hours drawing cars, I clipped pictures of cars from magazines and I dreamed of the day when I would own a car of my own. When I was about 10 years old we visited my Aunt Ruth in Yakima and my cousin Sid, who was just out of the service, showed up with a sports car, an Austin Healey. "What a cool car!" I thought. It was smaller than anything I'd ever seen before and looked like it was going 100 miles per hour sitting still. Along side of the giant American car my parents owned it looked like a gazelle next to a cow. From that moment on I wanted a sports car in the worst way.

When it came time to buy my first car I really wanted a sports car, but my parents could barely afford the insurance for a 19 year old, much less a 19 year old with a sports car. I ended up with what I thought was a sporty car, a Renault Caravelle. As it turned out it was a sporty looking car with a piece of junk for an engine. It didn't even last a full year. The brakes failed, the clutch went out and finally the main bearings gave out, stranding me in the San Fernando valley on my way to pick up my girlfriend.

As the years have gone by I have owned many cars, some good, some bad, but I've never stopped wanting to own a sports car. During the 70s and 80s there were some pretty awful cars manufactured and the sports cars that had existed in the 60s gradually either disappeared from the highway, or were neutered. The convertible disappeared and the fun went out of motoring.

Then came the 90s and foreign sports cars again appeared in America. Porsche came out with a Speedster, Honda created a roadster, Mercedes introduce the SK, and even the Corvette became a roadster again after a few years with a lift out roof. But the car that captured my imagination was the BMW Z3.

It premiered in the James Bond movie Golden Eye and it looked like it was going 100 miles an hour sitting still, just like my cousin's Austin Healey. It was the only time Bond drove a car other then an Aston Martin, but boy was it expensive! I checked it out at the auto show and looked at the price tag and knew I would never be able to spend 40 grand on a car. However, as the years have gone by I've watched the used car market and followed the price on Z3s gradually decline until at last they became affordable for me to consider.

One of the effects of the rain in Seattle, is that many sports car owners only drive their cars during the nice weather, which as we all know is usually about 3 months during the summer. Therefore, their sports cars sit in the garage for a good part of the year and are pampered and babied. For this reason, you can find low mileage sports cars, which after a decade can still have less than 100,000 miles on them.

One day my boss, Maynard, came into work and told me about a car he had seen near his house in a church parking lot. It was a BMW Z3 with only 22,000 miles on it and an asking price of $11,500. I was suddenly very excited. "I'm going to go by and look at it at lunch time!" I told him. He said, "Why don't we go out there right now and look, I have an errand to run out by my house" So we drove out to the John Knox church and there it sat. He took a picture of me standing next to it and I noted the phone number and vowed to call about the car. I placed a call and waited impatiently, but received no return call. So I tried again, but received no answer and no response to my message. I was very disappointed, but started looking on Craigs list and the Auto Trader for another Z3. However, most of the cars had a lot of miles, and much larger prices. I became resigned to the fact that it might be a long long time before such an opportunity came along again.

Then about two weeks later I went to Craig's List and typed in BMW Z3 and there was the car from the John Knox church parking lot. I quickly e-mailed the person with the ad and scrolled down to see what else was listed. There was another Z3 in West Seattle with only 49,000 miles on it and a price of $11,750. I decided that it would be a good idea to check out more than one car and called and left a message. This time I received a response from the person with the car at the church and set up an appointment for my lunch break. Then I watched the clock and probably didn't accomplish much work until it was time for my break. I drove up to the church and the man was already there with the car. I walked around the car and examined it closely. I sat in it, not at all sure whether it would be comfortable enough for me and discovered that like many small German cars, it had plenty of leg room and seats that enfolded you like an easy chair. He asked me if I wanted to take it for a drive. I said that I would love to drive it. Then he handed me the keys and let me take it for a drive by myself. It handled so well and was so tight and maneuverable that I immediately thought I have to have this car. However, I told him that I also had another car to look at and proceeded to ask him a number of questions about the car. It turned out that he was selling it for a woman who had just been divorced and that she had been the original owner. It was only a four cylinder, but that low, low mileage really spoke to me. At some point the woman owner had clipped the side of the garage and scratched the rear fender and put a chip in the mirror, so I told the man that if I decided on this car I would offer $11,000.

When I returned to work I received a phone call about the car in West Seattle. The man was in Port Angeles on business and had a work schedule that didn't leave much time for me to see the car. We talked about meeting on Friday after work, then he later called back and told me he thought he could meet me at his house in the Admiral district at 4 PM. So I stayed after work and drove to the address and waited. He was a bit late due to traffic on I-5, but finally he showed up. I could hear him coming up the street. This car was six cylinder model, and was much nicer than the 4. It had a power top verses a manual top, wood grain dash verses plastic and most important, a more powerful engine. There were some scratches where someone had fumbled in trying to put the hardtop on the car and one ding the size of the tip of my index finger in the rear fender. He told me it had originally been purchased by a man for his wife as a present for her 60th birthday. At age 70 her husband had passed away and she sold the car to the present owner since she only needed one car. The car had been garaged with a car cover ever since it was new. It had never been driven in the rain and was immaculate. He asked me if I wanted to drive the car and I jumped at the chance. This time the owner accompanied me and we drove up California Avenue and turned around at the lookout above Alki. It was obvious that this car had a lot more power than the 4, and it was just as tight and drove just as well. I told the owner that I had looked at a 4 cylinder with only 22,000 miles earlier in the day and would tell him when I made a decision.

It was a difficult decision to make. On the one hand, the 4 had extremely low miles, but the 6 was the definitive sports car. I called JJ and asked him what he knew about the Z3. He said that they were both great cars, that the engine in the 4 was the same engine that the Mini-Cooper was equipped with. He said that they were extremely reliable cars and it was just a matter of which I preferred. He said either choice would be great.

That night I went on line and read everything I could find about Z3s. I soon discovered that the 6 was worth much more than the 4 even with the lower miles taken into consideration. The retail list for the 4 was just about what the woman was asking for it. On the other hand, with the options the 6 was equipped with, it was worth three to four thousand more than than the asking price. I went to sleep that night still without a decision. At two thirty AM I woke up with the cars on my mind. I weighed everything I had learned. As it turned out, both cars were the same color, silver, but the 4 had a red interior and 6 was equipped with a black interior. Finally, I knew that I wanted the car with the best options and the one that had the highest performance. I e-mailed the man with the 4 and called and left a message for the owner of the 6 and told them my decision.

Of course, Joyce asked me, "Do we really need a sports car?" And I told her, "Honey, no one needs a sports car. But I sure do want one." When we went to Seattle to finalize the deal, Joyce saw the Z3 for the first time. After we had closed the deal she went to sit in the car. I didn't think I was going to get her out of it. The next evening I asked her if she wanted to go for a ride since she had not yet had a chance to. As we drove along in the warm evening air with the top down, she turned to me and said, "This is the best idea you've had in a long time." I'd have to agree with her and I do every time I fire that engine up and hear that purr that becomes a growl as this car accelerates. Finally, my dream has come true.

Cedar Waxwings enjoy our bird bath

Rat Tales

After many weeks of sunshine we finally have a much needed rainy day. The garden looks refreshed and we have been experiencing that rare weather system in Western Washington, the thunder storm. While I am frustrated, since there is a lot of work to be done in the garden, this does give me a chance to write in my blog.

One of the things I have learned about gardening is that there is something called the law of unintended consequences. Just try taking out a tree sometime and you'll know what I'm talking about. Suddenly all the plants that were under the tree have a brand new environment to survive and some of them don't. But who would have thought that doing your bit to encourage wildlife, I'm talking now about birds and butterflies, would have unintended consequences.

I mean, it sounds so nice to be visited by birds of all kinds and it was for quite awhile, and then one evening I was finishing a burger while seated at the patio table with my neighbor Steve, when a BIG BLACK RAT came wandering out from between some flower pots. "Did you see that?" Steve asked. Indeed I had, and upon investigation I discovered that he was feeding on the seed that the birds dropped on the ground under the feeder. I had seen squirrels raiding the feeder and had run them off, but rats? So I started watching the feeder and discovered that not only did we have a black rat there was also an acrobatic gray rat that could climb the tree and go directly to the source of food rather than waiting for the birds to spill.

Naturally, I sprang into action! The next day I went to my nearest sporting goods store and found my way to the gun counter. I told the young man behind the counter about my problem and he said, "So you've got varmits, huh? Suddenly I felt like Yosemite Sam! Yeah, I got varmits and I want to blast em!" Twenty minutes later I left the store with a pellet gun with a scope and the assurance from the clerk that I could definitely finish off a rat with the lethal force of my weapon.

That evening I crouched on the deck waiting for the rat to emerge. Suddenly I spotted the acrobatic rat scamper up the tree. I cocked the gun and fished out a pellet, put it in the cylinder and closed the gun. I took the safety off, took aim, and hit the side of the barn twenty feet beyond the rat. He looked around as if to say, "What the hell was that?" And went back to raiding the bird feeder. My next shot wasn't much better, but it did scare the rat away from the feeder at least. Discouraged, I told Joyce, maybe we should hedge our bets and get some traps as well. So we set out some traps in the car port and garage, the great big kind that are about four time the size of a mouse trap. Joyce came up with a concoction of chocolate sauce, molasses, and peanut butter and it really worked pretty well. The day after she set it, she had a gray rat. So she set another trap and caught another gray one. After four rats I began thinking, "Oh, oh, we've got a whole village of rats, not just one or two."

All was quiet for awhile and I began to think, maybe we'd scared them into deserting our yard and going some place where the bird feeders weren't so well guarded. Then, one night I was sitting on the deck with Joyce enjoying a glass of wine, I looked in the direction of the tree and there was a gray rat sitting on the feeder stuffing his face. I ran for my gun and came out onto the deck ready to blast him. Joyce said, "You know I used to be a pretty good shot, would you mind if I tried?" I loaded the gun and passed it to her. She rested the barrel of the gun on the railing of the deck, slowly took aim, and squeezed off a shot. I heard the shot, and then a thud. "You hit him!" I yelled as I ran toward the tree. Then I heard a rustle among the hostas and ferns and I realized that she'd hit the rat alright, but she'd only stunned him. So much for the killing power of my mighty weapon.

The next day I bought some rat poison at the hardware store and put the trays in the crawl space of the house. In a few days there was a bad smell coming up through the vents in the master bath and when I checked the poison, the tray was completely empty. I don't know how many there were, I wasn't curious enough to crawl under the house, and within a week the smell was gone. Joyce continued to use the traps until an unfortunate chipmuck got whacked! That threw her into a funk for a couple of days and she swore off the traps. We stopped feeding the birds for awhile too and we think we've wiped out the rat village. But just in case, I still have my pellet gun at the ready even though now I think I'm a lot more like Elmer Fudd than Yosemite Sam!

The Arrival of Lucky Zander

Exactly two weeks ago today, right before dinner, we received a call from Tammy. She told Joyce, "I think I might be in labor." That's all it took! A smoothly oiled machine rolled into action as Joyce marshaled her troops (me) and began issuing orders. Phone calls were placed and arrangements made for dog feeding and walking and an alert went out to our respective workplaces. There was no packing to do, the suitcases were already in the car, as they had been for two weeks.

In less than an hour we were speeding down the freeway as if the hounds of hell were in pursuit! By 7:30 we were stopped at a roadside rest stop placing calls to Sarah, Geoff, Shelly, Kathy and JJ and then we were sailing up Snoqualmie pass and on to Spokane. We stopped in Ellensburg for gas and searched in vain for an open Starbucks, but by 10:15 they were closed down and settled in their snug little beds I guess, so we settled for a coke for a jolt of caffeine and pressed on.

At 1:30AM we arrived at the hospital, which we found locked down. We had to enter through the emergency room by the psych ward and after much bumbling around we found our way to the birthing center. By the time we found Tammy, she had been given an epidural and seemed pretty mellow for a woman in labor. Of course, Tyler was focused on food, not having eaten dinner before coming to the hospital. Scott came to the rescue with a late night run to a fast food
place he knew about. At about 2:15 I said, I'm going down to the car to see if I can sleep for a bit. The other reason I went to the car was that I was not all that sure that we were parked legally (Joyce couldn't be bothered with such minutiae as a legal parking spot) and didn't want the car towed away. At about 4 AM Joyce called me and said, "You need to go to the house and let the Pugs out" I drove through the deserted streets to Tammy and Tyler's and took my blanket and pillow in with me. I found a comfortable spot in the recliner in the living room and went back to sleep with the complaints of Gunther in my ears. However, there was no way that I was about to let Gunther get up at 4:30 even if he did protest a bit. Finally he settled down and we all went to sleep until 7 AM when Joyce called again with instructions for feeding the "boys".

Tank and Gunther seemed to sense that something was up. After breakfast and a jaunt into the back yard for their morning poo, they settled down on the recliner focused intently on the front door. There they sat in anticipation of the return of their family unaware that everything would be different when Tammy and Tyler returned.

At 7:30 I gassed up the car, found a Starbucks open and got my caffeine fix, then I was rolling back to the hospital. When I got to Division Street Joyce called again, "You better hurry!" she said. Of course, it didn't take that long to get to the hospital, but finding a parking spot and my way back to the birthing center took awhile. After joining Scott in the waiting room, and reminiscing about the births of our children we were ushered into the birthing room just in time to meet our grandson for the first time. He was in fine form, with lots of black hair, which they promptly covered up with a beanie. He reminded me of his uncle JJ without the braided beard.

Tammy looked exhausted, but radiant, and Tyler just stared at Zander with a look of awe. All the while, Grandma Jo was making like a paparazzi in pursuit of a scandalous rock star snapping photos of little Zander over Tyler's shoulder, from under his arm and around the side of his head. I managed to snap a couple of shots myself, although it was hard without a flash since everyone insisted on rocking him when they held him. Joyce and Shannon were glued to their cell phones calling one person after another with the glad tidings! And I probably don't need to add that everyone was beaming.

Pretty soon we were ushered onto the other side of the curtain so that they could deal with Tammy in private. That's when Joyce came to me and said, "Tammy wants you to hold your grandson before we go home." What a wonderful surprise. I took him from Joyce and it all came back. Holding my own children for the first time and my grand daughter for the first time last year and now my grandson. He didn't cry or fuss, I guess I still have the feel for holding a baby and then he stuffed his hand in his mouth and started sucking his fingers.

All too soon we had to scramble for the exit and start the drive back to the wet side (we had an upcoming audit scheduled at work and there was more prep to do). As we drove through wind and driving rain Joyce and I basked in the experience we had just shared. We were both tired and sore from sleeping in awkward positions, but elated! Then as we were closing in on Moses Lake and the car was set in cruise right at the speed limit, we began to climb a hill. I pushed down on the accelerator so we wouldn't slow down... That's when I spotted the Highway Patrol car in the median. I looked down at the speedometer and saw the needle pointing at 80. Of course then I saw the red light flashing in the rearview mirror and pulled over. I got out my driver's license and registration all the while thinking "How much is it for doing 80 in a 70 zone?"
The officer looked at my license and said, "Mr Bunch, the speed limit is posted as 70, but when the weather is bad we generally expect drivers to slow down, not speed up." I lamely replied, "I had the car on cruise and was trying to compensate for the hill." Even I thought that sounded lame. Then came the moment when the officer goes back to his car to write the ticket and to check to make sure you aren't a wanted terrorist or drug runner up from Mexico on his way to Yakima. He came back to the car, handed me my license and registration and said, "You will slow down, won't you?" "Yes, officer." and that was it! No TICKET!

As we headed back down the freeway, at a slower rate of speed, we started talking about the strange streak of luck that seemed to come in the wake of Zander's birth. Even before he was born, Joyce had opened a piece of mail just before Tammy called and found a check for back child support, but instead of the typical 20 bucks she found more than $600. Then Tammy called and we were telling her about the good luck when she told this amazing story. After Tyler had settled Tammy into the birthing room he had to go back to the car for some things. On the way back from the parking lot he spotted a piece of paper drifting around in the breeze. He grabbed it and found himself holding a hundred dollar bill! Talk about a lucky baby. He has two wonderful parents, an extended family who dote on him and a couple of adoring Pugs (or at least one) all here to welcome him to our clan. But Zander brings his own special brand of luck. If I were Tammy and Tyler, I'd be buying lottery tickets with his birth date, and vital statistics for numbers. Who knows, he might just win enough to pay his own way in this world!

The Sun King

Awhile back someone said to Joyce, "Your skin is so smooth, how do you manage that?" Of course what was left unsaid was "your skin is smooth for someone of your age". Nevertheless, I've noticed that neither one of us has many wrinkles yet, and the secret is not some rejuvenating lotion or treatment. All you have to do is live in a place where the sun shines less than a third of the time.
As we all have been told repeatedly, the sun damages the skin and causes aging.

Of course there are other factors at work when you live in cloud country. Joyce and I also recently discovered that we have a vitamin D deficiency and of course, vitamin D is supplied by sunshine. In fact, Joyce was so depleted that with a normal range of 30 to 80, she tested 9. I was much better, probably because I spend time in the garden and get more sun. However, my results was 19. So, we are both taking 5,000 units of prescription strength vitamin D once a week for the next 12 weeks.

The really interesting thing is that lack of vitamin D causes all kinds of symptoms that we both thought were simply the result of the aging process. For example, dry skin, painful joints and muscles, depression, high blood pressure, type 1 diabetes, kidney problems and a pasty face are but a few. So I am hopeful that this course of vitamins will make us both feel better, or at least more energetic. I've always noticed that I have much more energy when the sun shines and usually a rush of optimism and euphoria. Of course this doesn't last long since the sun usually disappears after a couple of days.

This also might explain why I feel so good when we are on vacation in a place like Hawaii or Spain. (I mean besides not having to work and being able to do whatever we feel like.) In fact, my own personal prescription for vitamin D deficiency is frequent trips to the tropics. Wish I could get the doctor to prescribe that treatment and have it covered by my health insurance. Oh well, at least they covered the blood test and gave us a break on the price of the vitamins. In this day and age I suppose you can't do much better.

THE KILLING MOON

There are legends surrounding the moon and tales of madness associated with its' light, and we are under the influence of the full moon as I write this. The past few days as the moon grew steadily larger we have seen an unprecedented killing spree sweep across America. We had the slaughter of immigrants in New York, the family and cop killer in Oakland, the mother who shot her 20 year old son in the back of the head at a firing range in Florida and then put the gun in her own mouth and pulled the trigger. Then closer to home, Monday night in Graham a man killed his 5 children because his wife wanted a divorce. Oh, and then he killed himself in the parking lot of the Indian casino as his grand finale.

And that's not even the full extent the mayhem. Alabama seems to be a favorite place for these family mass murders. You remember the guy who killed his family and then drove 20 miles to his old place of work killing people along the way. I think the cops killed him in the end. An hour ago there was another family killing in Alabama. We don't know the details yet, but we will, thanks to 24 hour infotainment.

You really can't blame the moon I suppose. Only some of us are superstitious enough to believe in the influence of the moon. But it's about as good a theory as any to explain this growing phenomenon.

Some people say it's because of the economy. After all, people are losing their homes, their jobs, their savings, their dignity and they just snap. This makes sense, except that virtually all of these killers are middle class or working class. I mean, how much in real terms did they have to lose? They probably didn't have much equity in the house, and according to everything I've read over the past few years most Americans don't have any savings. What they do have is debt.

The other thing about the economy as a motive, is that during the Great Depression you didn't hear about people killing their families or strangers and then killing themselves because they were out of work and were about to lose their homes. The ones who did kill themselves during the panic on Wall Street in 29 were rich folk. There was a wave of suicides as wealthy brokers and bankers threw themselves out the windows of skyscrapers when they discovered they were broke.

The guys on Wall Street in 2009 aren't the ones killing their families and then themselves. That's because they still have a bonus coming in after they destroyed the economy, I suppose. Besides, they really haven't failed yet. The government is keeping them alive in their Zombie banks while in Alabama another red neck kills his kin.

The other theory is that these guys are paranoid. Right wing talk radio has been telling them that now that we have a black communist for our president the next thing coming is the confiscation of their guns. That being the case, you might as well use your guns to make sure the government can't come after you with their damn unemployment checks and other such socialistic plots. It's kind of like the black sheriff in Blazing Saddles when he holds the gun to his own head and says "If you take one step closer I'll kill the nigger." The theory here is that these guys think that the government is going to put their children in re-education camps after they confiscate the guns. They know this is so because we've got a congresswoman running around saying it's true and besides they saw it on Fox.

My own theory is that America is crazy! The whole goddamn country is one gigantic madhouse. We no longer manufacture anything. We sent those jobs to the guys who were our mortal enemies just 30 years ago. Does anybody remember Red China? Guess what. They're still Red! So we shipped them all of the decent paying jobs and in return we're receiving inferior products, toxic even, which we can buy at bargain rates at our local Walmart.

Oh, and we can't have a decent health care system because that would mean some oligarch couldn't get rich and we all know what a crime that would be. In fact, we tell ourselves we have the best health care system in the world when what we really mean is that we have the most expensive. By any other measure we are not even in the top ten when it comes to health care.

And how about refusing to face the fact that oil has been running out since the 1970s and what reserves are left are controlled by people who want to destroy us.

Or maybe someone can explain why we transport food from around the world to our grocery stores while paving over our best farm lands right outside town. Or why we can't run an election anymore without screwing it up. Or why when you call for assistance you get someone who can't speak English in an English speaking country. Or why we think buying and selling debt to each other is the basis for an economy. Or why we let sexual predators lose on the streets and lock up pot smokers. Or why contracts for speculators are sacred but contracts for workers can be renegotiated. Or why we spend more money than all of the other countries in the world combined on our military. Or why we think everyone is entitled to their own gun. In fact, according to some Americans, the world would be a better place if everyone was armed with a gun.

You see what I mean? These are not the actions of mentally stable people.

GARDEN DETAILS

Something new has been added! I have just created another blog (it's been raining an awful lot and I can't get outside to work). It's called GARDEN DETAILS or WAY MORE THAN YOU WOULD EVER NEED OR WANT TO KNOW ABOUT MY GARDEN. I did this because I want to blog about my garden in detail, but realize that not everyone is into gardening as much as I am. Garden Details will feature pictures, plant lists, plans, projects, observations and all kinds of things that will probably bore anyone who is not a gardener.

Garden at the Edge will continue to be about all the exciting things that happen to Joyce and I here in Cloud Country. zzzzzzzzzzzzz Oh, sorry, I dropped off to sleep for a moment. Anyway, I've created a link and you can check it out if you are wide awake and need to read something that will bore you enough that you can fall asleep.

OUTRAGE OF THE WEEK

It's funny how easily we can get stirred up by something we hear or read on the internet. The other day I heard that a bill had been introduced in the House that would ban organic farming and could even impact gardeners growing vegetables in their own back yard. The story was that a Connecticut representative, whose husband was a lobbyist for Montsanto had introduced a bill called the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009, which would make it impossible for small organic farms to stay in business and would require that everyone use pesticides. I was getting ready to post a blog about this outrage when I decided to find out if the story was true. I went to Fact Check . org and got the true story.

It turns out that the bill would separate the food part of the FDA from the drug portion so that there would be more emphasis on checking food for contamination. Also, the husband of the Congresswoman was a pollster, not a lobbyist, who had conducted a poll for Montsanto as well as Bill Clinton and Nelson Mandela. But the hysteria continues on the internet unabated, describing a plot by food nazis to force back yard vegetable growers to stop growing food for themselves or from sharing with their neighbors. Of course, the government is so effective in their enforcement efforts that they have managed to stomp out every pot grower in the country over the past 40 years. You just know they would be very efficient in going after the tomato growers! They might have to let the war on terror go for awhile, however while they focus on this much more important task.

Mao's Revenge

I find few things more annoying than an alarm clock. Ours makes a sound that grates on the nerves like an electronic cat caught under a rocking chair. Some unknown sadist most likely in China designed this as revenge for our exporting McDonalds to them I'm pretty sure.

The other morning I'd gotten up to use the bathroom when I heard the alarm go off. Usually, Joyce switches it off a few seconds after it sounds. But on this morning it went on and on and on. Now I realize that every 5 seconds of that grating yeeeee yeeeee yeeeee feels like an eternity, but I swear this went on for a good five minutes. I thought that Joyce must have gotten up at some ungodly hour to vacuum or rearrange the cupboards or something and forgot to turn the alarm off, but when I came back into the bedroom she was still in bed. I went over to her side of the bed and turned the alarm off and then I nudged her.

"Hey,Joyce, the alarm has been going off."
"I turned it off!"
"No you didn't. I just turned it off."
"Well I was trying to!"
"No you weren't, you were asleep."
"I unplugged it and took the batteries out. I was just getting ready to take it apart!"
"You were getting ready to take it apart?"
"I was looking for an axe!"

My sentiments exactly!

OUTRAGE OF THE WEEK

Generally, I'm a pretty laid back person and lately I've been trying to chill out in order to keep my blood pressure under control. However, this past Tuesday when I opened the mail my blood boiled. Capital One, the credit card we've been using mostly to make online purchases etc sent us notice saying that they had raised their interest rate from 9.9% to 17.9%. What had we done wrong? Had we been late with a payment, or not paid a payment at all? No, we'd never been late and usually pay the balance every month. Had our credit rating dropped? No, it's still excellent. Had we put more than we are allowed on the card? No, the balance was modest.

I had been hearing that many credit card companies were raising rates, but I figured it was on customers who were less credit worthy. How naive of me! Before George Bush left office the Republican Congress, with the help of some key Democrats, including our current Vice President passed a real turd of a bill making it harder to declare chapter 11 bankruptcy. At the same time they lifted the limit that credit card companies could charge up to 30%. Of course, I'm getting kind of long in the tooth, so I can remember when there were usury laws in the United States that prevented them from raising rates beyond 12%. Thirty percent was considered loan sharking and it was illegal. The only people who loaned money at that rate was the Mafia.

The argument for the increase in rates is a real piece of illogic. Some customers are having trouble paying their credit card bills. It's a lot more risky to loan money to them, so we'll raise the rates on our good customers as well as the bad ones. That way those who do the right thing and are prompt about paying their bills can bail out the deadbeats.

How am I going to deal with this? The next time I receive the bill, it will be paid in full and then I'm calling Capital One and telling them to fold the card four ways and put it where the moon don't shine! I don't need them, nor do I need their credit. I'll pay cash thank you and if you don't want to accept my check, then I won't do business with you. I got along fine without their credit card before and I can again. So their attempt to make me their bitch is going to backfire. If everyone with good credit does what I plan to do, then the credit card companies will be stuck with nothing but the insolvent and that would be just what they deserve.

You know what the worst aspect of the whole affair is? Capital One just got 3.5 billion dollars of taxpayer money to help bail them out. So they took the taxpayers money and then they turned around and screwed the taxpayer after they received the bail out. Are you outraged? I know I am.

Music of the Spheres

Now that my entertainment system is back up and running again, thanks to my son-in-law, Tyler, I have been thinking about adding to it. It is pretty neat to be able to stream movies, listen to my i-pod through some really decent speakers and enjoy all of the bells and whistles I now have. However, for several years I have been thinking about setting up exterior speakers, so that I can enjoy music while I'm working in the garden.

Of course, this brings up the subject of the type of music I will play through those exterior speakers. After all, I'm not the only one listening to the music when it is playing out doors. There are my neighbors, who are all too close, but to tell the truth, I could care less about their preferences in music. I refuse to play Onward Christian Soldiers. I'm more concerned with the wildlife and plants and their reaction to the tunes. Sounds crazy, right? I guess the potential impact on wildlife might be obvious. I am working hard to try to attract wildlife into our yard, or at least some types of wildlife. I would prefer not to have visits from coyotes, although Joyce saw one a couple of weeks ago out back. It's the birds that I don't want to scare away. We've set up feeders and bird baths and have been enjoying an increase in avian traffic ever since. I doubt that hard rock would be appreciated by the chickadees and juncos that flock to the feeders. Any type of loud noise generally scares them off.

However, the plants are a whole other question. Ever since 1966 when a guy in Britain named Clive Backster hooked up a dracena plant to a lie detector, there has been a segment of gardeners who believe that plants are capable of tuning into human emotion. It seems that Backster originally hooked the plants up to monitor the effect of water consumption, but instead found something totally different. He discovered that like humans, who react on a lie detector when they perceive a threat to their well being, plants also reacted. According to his notes, while he was doing his experiement the thought came to him "What if I burn the leaf of the plant" Now, he didn't verbalize this or touch the plant, he merely thought about burning the leaf. When he had the thought, the needle jumped right off the chart! His experiment has been replicated in labs around the world in the years since.

One of the things that came out of that experiment was the discovery that plants respond to music. Apparently, they hate death metal and hard rock, but they love classical music. Of course, this limits my choice quite a bit. What if they are OK with singer songwriters such as James Taylor, but can't stand Ben Harper? What if they like show tunes? You can see the problem. I guess I'll have to do more research into this before I set the speakers up. If I feel like rocking, I may have to use my ipod with headphones. I'd hate to go to all the work of nurturing and pampering my favorite plants only to kill them with the wrong tunes.

Eye in the Sky

Last Thursday when I was driving home I noticed something had been added up at the corner of the road we live on and the highway. The county had erected cameras next to the stop lights at the intersection. Now it took years before they decided to put traffic lights at the corner and a number of people were seriously injured or died because there wasn't a signal for way too long.

I must admit, the light is not a bad idea, but the cameras are something else. It seems like more and more we're being observed, watched, spied upon wherever we go. It's standard in stores, the ferry dock is under observation, you can check out the traffic on all of the surrounding highways on line. After they finished the new Narrows bridge they announced that the cameras at the toll plaza would keep your image for something like a year or two, just in case they needed to prove something against you in court.

We seem to take this erosion of our privacy in stride and of course it's all for our own good. After all, we might catch a terrorist! Except that when y0u receive the ticket in the mail showing you running a red light, or speeding through the intersection, terrorism seems like it may not be the top priority.

So I resolved I would warn Joyce as soon as she got home in case she hadn't noticed the cameras, which had not been there in the morning. Imagine my surprise when the first thing she said when she got out of the car was , "I think I just ran the red light up at the corner. I was looking at the oncoming cars and the left turn arrow was flashing yellow when it suddenly changed to red when I entered the intersection." "I guess it's too late to warn you about the camera, then." I said.

I thought I would try to put a good spin on it however and said "Well at least they aren't supposed to put it on your driving record even if they give you a ticket. They can't prove who was driving the car since they take a picture of the back of the car and not the front."

'It seems there were a lot of complaints when they took pictures of the the front of the car and mailed the photo to the driver's address. I guess someone's wife opened the letter and discovered their husband with another woman. Bet it was some politician who got caught and changed the policy!
So, now, we're watching the mail for the ticket. I suppose the cameras are an in-expensive way to try to close the county's budget deficit. They aren't doing a whole lot to help our budget though.

Agony of De feet

Like most men as they grow older I have to be nagged to do the right thing about my health. This may be one of the main reasons men don't live as long as women. I happened to mention to my wife, Joyce, the other day that I had noticed that when I my blood pressure was tested the past few times at the doctor that the readings had gone up. The thing about my wife is that she does not nag. She simply makes me an appointment with the doctor and tells me I need to be there. So of course I found myself at the doctor being told that I was now a diabetic and that I had hypertension. So the doctor tells me that I need to lose 30 pounds and to basically get moving.

Now, while I am a passionate gardener and get exercise in the garden, I am also arthritic and find that I have to pace myself, or I will have to pay the price the next day or even for a few days if I am particularly ambitious. Ever since I first had to attend PE class in junior high school I have hated calisthetics. To voluntarily do sit ups or God forbid pushups is not high on my list of priorities. So I had to look around for some kind of exercise that I will do because I do not hate it. Joyce suggested walking on a treadmill. Now this to me is in the same realm as doing squat thrusts. It is deadly boring and there just isn't any way you can jazz it up enough to make me want to get on a treadmill and walk like a donkey grinding corn.

Of course the solution is to walk outdoors. While I like Port Orchard, it does not offer lots of options for safe walking. Seattle has walking trails all over the city and even out in the country in places like Orting there are walking and biking trails on abandoned railroad right of ways. However, Port Orchard is on a penninsula and was never a manufacturing base, nor did the train ever run here. People got to Port Orchard in the old days by boat, not the train. Consequently, there is not much land dedicated to walking. The road we live on has narrow shoulders and people routinely drive 15 to 20 miles over the speed limit, so it's not really a good option.

Fortunately, downtown Port Orchard offers a decent alternative. This weekend we initiated our walking program. On Saturday morning we got up early and prepared to take a walk along the marina and back up through bustling downtown Port Orchard. This began with a debate between Joyce and I. I watch as she is getting ready and I notice that she is reaching into the basket where we store the dog leashes. "No" I say. "We're not bringing Max!" "But he needs the exercise too" "I don't want this to be about walking the dog!" "It's not. He'll be fine, you'll see." Now, I know this debate could go on and on and we'll never get to the walk, so I say, "Fine, but I'm not walking him or cleaning up after him if he decides to take a dump in the middle of the sidewalk."

So, it's settled, and we proceed to the marina, where Max does surprizingly well. We make the circuit in about twenty minutes and guess what! I feel better afterwards (other than the knee, which is throbbing) On the way home I said to Joyce. "Remember when we came back from Spain last year? We had done so much walking that a little jaunt like this would have been a breeze." At that time I had made a resolution that I would continue to walk and try to get in better shape. And I even followed through briefly, walking at lunch time in Lincoln park. However, like most resolutions it soon became easier to take a nap at lunch time, especially during the holiday season, than to get out and walk in the rain.

This time is different. I would like to be healthier at age 65 than I was at age 55. I spoke to my brother last week and was telling him about the doctor's ultimatim. My brother started exercising when he began to gain weight twenty years ago. He said that he walks 40 minutes a day on week days and 80 minutes on weekends and on a treadmill at that. I told him that I think the secret is staying active in the first place. It's much easier to stay active than to try to start from less than zero and get up to speed 20 years later. For one thing, your body is very busy falling apart. It's amazing what you can be injured by once you pass sixty. I had to have a cortizone shot in my elbow because I used the leaf blower a little too long. That is just sad! At any rate, we took our second walk today (Max came along too, of course) and the knee isn't hurting today. Oh, and Joyce had to clean up Max's doo doo when he decided the flower beds in the marina would be a great toilet. Who knows, maybe there is hope, if not for Max, at least for me!

Garden at the Edge

In the movie Being There is a scene in which Chauncey Gardener is asked about his outlook on the economy by the tycoon who has taken him in. Gardener has no idea what the tycoon is talking about, so he talks instead about his garden. He says that in the garden you have seasons to plant and to grow and to harvest and to rest and the tycoon is convinced that he has said something profound about the nation. This blog is about my garden at the edge of America out here on the left coast. My garden is my art. It is my refuge and my passion. But I am convinced that my garden is a metaphor for so much more. It teaches me lessons about life and death and rebirth. It convinces me that something strange is going on with the climate. It provides an oasis for wildlife sometimes welcome and sometimes not. It reminds me that no matter how a man plans and organizes, sometimes nature takes charge and what results is better than anything you can imagine. It connects me with creation and it is a prototype of an ancient memory buried deep within the collective unconscious. It makes it possible to endure the drudgery of a 3 hour commute day in and day out year after year.

Some of my earliest memories are of my father in his garden digging trenches to irrigate his vegetables in the Yakima valley. I remember that my favorite flower at age 4 was the humble pansy. I loved the little faces I could see and called them Andy pansies. I can recall my father gathering lava rocks to create a rock garden at our first house. As a child I loved to dig in the dirt. I could be content for hours at a time if my mother gave me a spoon and set me down by a pile of dirt. I loved the smell of the earth, the feel of mud squished between my toes and of course I tasted it (what kid doesn't?) I was fascinated by the life I discovered as I dug in the earth, earth worms, sow bugs, ear wigs, ants... I even went through a phase of ant farming when I was about 7. But I never really had my own garden until I was an adult.

Like many men I started out growing vegetables and had very little interest in ornamentals other than trees. I built a large garden on Vashon Island and grew every vegetable that will grow in this maritime climate and tried some that will not. I grew a beautiful crop of corn only to lose the entire lot to maurading racoons. I tried to grow vegetables during the winter, which they claim is possible in this climate, with a little success. I planted perennial crops such as asparagus, rhubarb and horseradish. My goal was to grow as much of our food as possible. After a few years I gave it up as too much work for too little gain. Somehow, I've come full circle and have begun growing vegetables again for another reason. Then it was an attempt at self sufficiency, now it's a matter of food safety, good taste and variety. Along the way I learned lessons that continue to be of value.

Why are some of us drawn to the land the way we are? I have a theory that it is ingrained deep in our psyche and genepool. Two hundred years ago 90 percent of Americans lived on farms. Millions of Americans were drawn to the new world with the hope of owning a piece of land of their own. My own mother's family were farmers and parts of my father's family lived on a farm. I can recall visiting my aunt and uncle in Southern California in the 50s and 60s where they lived amid lemon groves. My uncle worked for a wealthy family and basically ran their farm for them. Every year when we would visit he would talk ab0ut how much of the land had been sold the previous year. Every year the subdivisions crept closer and closer as the avocados, lemons and oranges disappeared. Finally, there only remained four or five acres of the original land. Today the area is unrecognizable. We drove through my father's hometown, Oxnard, a few years ago and I couldn't tell where it began and where it ended. It was solid sprawl from Santa Barbara to LA.

In the Yakima valley where my mother's family settled there still remain farms and some of her family still has apple and cherry orchards, but we have lost touch with them. It was not all that long ago that Americans still had roots on the land, but today we have been displaced. We have lost any sense that we once had about where food comes from and what is good. There are children today who think vegetables come from the supermarket. They don't know if carrots grow in the ground or on a tree. Each generation is less healthy as they lose touch with the land. They are fatter on average and less fit as they sit engrossed in television and video games. Instead of climbing trees, building forts, using their imaginations to create their world, children are told what to think by the media they are attached to and in the process they have absorbed the toxic American culture that we have created. What is worse is that we are exporting our toxic lifestyle to the rest of the world.

It is not totally hopeless, however. As the economy tanks, more Americans are turning to the garden as a means of saving money. As the taste of food becomes less important to corporate farmers, it has become more important to the home gardener. As food is transported longer and longer distances, small local growers are selling produce in farmers markets across the country and people are beginning to learn to eat in season. More and more gardeners are putting away the toxic pesticides and chemical fertilizers and trying alternatives. Is it enough? Can Americans regain some of the freedom of choice that they have lost over the past three decades? I hope so, for the sake of my children and grandchildren.