The Big Party!

Two weks and counting until the big party we have been planning for the past several months. The garden is about as ready as it is going to be. The menu is planned. The kids have their tickets and will soon be flying over for the celebration of their engagement.

They have already moved on to the next step long ago--the wedding. In fact part of their time spent here will be shopping for the perfect wedding dress. Shops all the way from Seattle to Bellingham have been located on the map and the plan of attack set in place. Hopefully, by the time Kate actually arrives home, after a couple of days of shopping, the dress will have been purchased. Check!



Then we can all throw ourselves into the preparation of the party on Saturday. The band, the Julian McDonough trio, who played at our 30th anniversary blow out last summer, will return at Kate and Nick's request, to play into the evening. They play the hottest jazz in the area and everyone loved their playing last year.

We have settled on the menu and at Kate's request we will have:

• Barbequed Chinook Salmon (I caught on my recent fishing trip to Canada)
• Roasted Red Northwest Potatoes
• Northwest Micro-Green Salad with Oregonzola Bleu Chees and Granny Smith Apples
• Northwest Bumbleberry Cobblers

Lots of Northwest wines and micro-brews will be on hand so the party should go splendidly.

80 of our family's closest friends have RSVP'ed and plan to help celebrate into the night.

So how do we top that? What's next?

Well, the wedding venue is settled--The Ashton Court Estate on the outskirts of Bristol. Check!

The invitations are sent, the band hired, the menu set, the wedding party all set, the checks are in the mail and plans for flying to the U.K. all done. Check!

So we wait for Kate and Nick's arrival in another week so we can have a few moments of precious time with them and we await the celebration of the biggest occasion in the life of two people who have committed their lives to one another. We are excited, anxious, nervous (mostly the father of the bride speech is causing that) and so proud. Here's to the happy couple--Cheers!

My new class!

My penultimate year of teaching begins. With a new free software called Wordle I created this document that creatively describes my class with one word descriptors including student names and events and activities students will experience in my classroom. Really cool effect. After typing in the key words (larger fonts are a result of typing in the word multiple times) you can randomize the direction of the word flow, colors and font style.

School Daze!

The start of a new school year is just around the corner and as my mind begins to crank up in anticipation of a fresh new year beginning, I look forward to the very real possibility that I am beginning the penultimate year of my teaching career, a sobering thought but also one that causes me to begin thinking about my future and what I'll do with myself. The house will be paid off later this year and my wife feels confidant that we can afford for me to retire. Ah, retirement! How quickly that point in my life has sneaked up?

Actually, to be completely honest, I have been giving my retirement from full time teaching a great deal of thought over the past few years. We have been carefully planning for this transition and I do have some very real plans.

First, I don't want to just give up teaching completely. I figure I'll substitute teach for a few years partly to make money to pay for my varied interests. I need to be able to pay for my love of golf, travel, gardening of course, technology, books, cooking, etc. All this requires a certain amount of cash and since I am still enjoying working with the kids, why not sub? What I won't miss are the committees, the meetings and the seemingly endless, mindless and meaningless reforms which the profession is so fond of foisting on teachers. Politicians, having little knowledge of education and who seem to always ask the wrong people for advice, make knee-jerk decisions that we in the trenches are left to implement with fewer and fewer dollars just so they can look like they are doing something, anything, to try and improve standardized test scores and get themselves re-elected. It is all just too frustrating. I just want to teach. Yes, I want to do it right and I am always interested in new ideas and strategies to do it better, but too many of the latest ideas are misguided and show too little thought to possibly be what's best for the kids.

So, with that kind of attitude, it is time to be thinking about heading out the door and on to new and interesting adventures, leaving the fulltime work to a fresh new generation of teachers with their pants on fire and excited about everyday they come to school. I'll continue to sub in classrooms if they'll have me and I'm sure I will enjoy it most days. The nice thing is that, at the end of the day, I will walk out the door and leave the worries teachers have for their kids with someone else. No meetings, no committees, no poorly organized inservices, just come in and work with a bunch of kids for the day and leave. If the class is poorly managed, I just won't go there again. If I'd rather play golf or garden or go out to meet buddies for breakfast, I just won't take the gig. Simple.

I thought I'd volunteer at the local Museum of Radio and Electricity, at the Literacy Council, the Senior Center, or any one of many other opportunities I haven't even explored yet. Of course, with our daughter getting married in a few months, I also really look forward to being a grandad and spoiling those grandbabies. Oh, I'll keep busy, no doubt of it. I'll also take over much of the responsibility around the house since my wife will still be working for at least several more years.

I'm really looking forward to this transition in my life. It isn't just one step closer to the grave for me. It really is just a new period of my life I hope to live and enjoy for many, many years to come. So bring it on and look out world, here I come.

But in the meantime, I still have a couple of great years left working with some terrific kids and teachers and I'm looking forward to that. One day at a time.

Gone Fishin'

For the past 2 years I have had the opportunity to go with a buddy of mine up to Canada for a few days of Salmon and Halibut fishing. If you have been following my blog then you might remember last year's trip was a rousing success. I brought back my limit in Chinook, Coho and Halibut filling my freezer with fish that lasted through most of the winter. I caught my very first salmon, a 25 plus pound Chinook.

Well, the tradition, if 2 years in row counts as a tradition, continued this year. This trip was especially important since at least part of the catch is to be the main course for our daughter Kate and her fiance Nick's Engagement Party to be held at our home in September. Those paying attention to my blog would remember I have mentioned "The Party" many times this summer when referring to the goals and objectives of my garden projects.

Rick, my fishing guide, and I plus a friend of his, headed off for the west coast of Vancouver Island and the small, isolated village of Ucluelet, British Columbia. This year Rick bought a brand new boat, a Campion Explorer model 682, complete with galley and head.

The trip to Ucluelet (you-clue-let) takes several hours and includes a border crossing, no easy task these days, a ferry ride and a hairy drive with lots of curves over the mountains of Vancouver Island.

We left about 5:30 am on Friday, August 15th heading for the Canadian border at the Peace Arch truck crossing. We took the ferry from Tsawwassen, having breakfast on board after finally getting the truck and boat aboard the ferry, then I sat back and napped for the hour and a half ride to Naniamo, B.C.

The drive across the middle of the island is full of stunning scenery, pristine lakes, cascading rivers and gorgeous mountain vistas. The only stop we made was to purchase our fishing license. We ignored the scenic spots because the fish were waiting!

The Canadian Princess is permanently moored in the inner harbor at Ucluelet. It is a 230 foot, 1930's vintage ship refurbished and moored here as a resort mostly for fishing groups, many of which fly or bus in for a few days. The weekend warriors are taken out on a fleet of fishing "puke" boats into the deeper waters off Ucluelet. Most return happy with their few Coho salmon and then fly off back to their desk jobs in the big city.


The inner harbor at Ucluelet, British Columbia. This is where we moored the boat for the night. It is always full of commercial and private fishing boats and some sailing vessels as well, so we sometimes had to tie up to another vessel and walk across it to get at the dock.

This Bald Eagle is often seen sitting in this tree on a small island just outside the Ucluelet government marina. We would sit just off this island after returning from fishing while Rick cleaned our catch, throwing the heads and entrails overboard. This provided plenty of food for the local bird, crab and sea lion population.

Sunset off a point in Ucluelet.

The Amphitrite Point Lighthouse, a federal heritage protection site, at the end of Coast Guard Road in Ucluelet, was built in 1915. It sits overlooking the entrance to Barkley Sound. Remarkable for the rugged, rocky coastline and dramatic crashing sea waves, it is easily accessible and offers gorgeous sunset views.

Our catch this year was not as plenitful as last year's though we did return with plenty of fish. The first couple of days of fishing were noteworthy for their rough seas, 6-8 foot swells and thick fog. The fishing was not particularly good though we did manage to land a few Coho and Chinook.

Day 3 turned out to be the best of the 3 days of fishing. The fog had pretty much lifted, the sun made an appearance and the sea was nearly flat calm. This made fishing much easier and enjoyable. We also had much more luck. The highlights of the day were catching a 15 pound Coho on a plug lure that did not have all the drag of a spinner attached to it. This gave the fish a chance to fight longer since it didn;t tire out quickly dragging the spinner around. The fish jumped and danced on the water and was a blast and a challenge to land. The other highlight of the day was watching Rick catch and land a 41 pound Halibut. It was enormous, or do I thought. Turns out that the world's record is 480 pounds, but our little guy was still amazing to me.

We spent a lot of our off hours sitting at the Eagle's Nest Marine Pub dining on hamburgers. I tried their fish and chips the first night and they were so heavily battered and overcooked that it was like eating a piece of styrofoam. Even the hamburgers were overcooked but they were loaded with veggies and condiments plus a platter of good fries so I stuck the the burgers. The only other place we ate at was Romans Pizza and Grill, a friendly, rockin' place popular with locals and visitors alike. The food is adaquate, the service friendly, the music LOUD, but it took us well over and hour to get our food and then it was cold. The night was chilly and I had my heart set on some steaming clam chowder, but it arrived luke warm and and with a thick milk skin on top.

We arrived home on Tuesday afternoon, divied up the fish and headed our seperate ways. I brought mine home and spent Wednesday morning fileting about 8 Chinook and Coho salmon in the kitchen. What a mess! But by the end of the morning we had everything bagged up in Seal-A-Meal bags and in the freezer.

The bottom line, my freezer is full of beautiful salmon and halibut filets and I'll be able to easily feed the 70-80 folks we are expecting for The Party in September and have enough left over for quite a few meals well into the fall season. Mission accomplished!

Garden Border

One of the final touches to this season's garden projects is the addition of some long needed concrete curbing around the borders to the flower beds. We had some of this curbing installed by a company specializing in it about 4-5 years ago when we came upon their booth at the county fair out in Lynden. We managed to edge the entire border of the then existing garden except for right around the deck area. Since then much new bedding has been added, the Secret Garden and the remade south berm this summer alone. We found our original company had gone out of business and weren't sure how we were going to get the job done. Recently we came across Capstone Hardscape and Curbed Edges in the phone book and had them come by. They gave us a great bid for the job and

The line of the new curb is laid out with a flexible pipe, then a spray painted line is applied.

Mike Ellis and his team from Capstone Hardscape and Curbed Edges, LLC came by and added the final touches to the edging of the garden. His team arrived at 9:00 am, were very professional, cleaned up after themselves and were done by 5.

All that remains is for me to shovel in some cedar mulch and our garden projects will be about done for the year.

A sod cutter is run along the spray painted line to create the trough the concrete edging will run along.

The concrete is shoveled into the top of the machine which extrudes the concrete in the desired shape. In this case they created a mower edge which allows me to place the inside tires of my riding mower on the curb that makes a clean cut as I mow.



The finished product is a smooth elegant curve which gives the beds a professional looking finish, makes weeding, edging and mowing a snap cutting down immensely on the time it takes to manage the garden. In a space as big as mine this is a real advantage. In a couple of days I will be able to backfill the beds with soil or mulch or both and resume watering.

**************************************************

On a different note, we have been looking for a decorative concrete bench to go in the Secret Garden; a place to sit and watch the garden grow, to sit with a friend, eat or chat away from the rest of the garden. Our search had taken us to shops specializing in fountains and statuary. Everywhere we've looked the benches were well over a hundred dollars. That seemed a bit steep considering it is just concrete poured into a mold. I found Bode's Precast out in the county near Lynden. We were headed to the fair in Lynden anyway so we stopped by and to our surprise they had exactly what we were looking for and it was only $60. So on the way home from the fair we stopped back by and bought one. It weighs a ton! But it is now in place and adds a lot to that space.

Another Paint Job!

The 2008 Bellingham Chalk Art Festival was held this weekend and what started out with so much promise quickly fizzled as the rains came. The chalk art really never got off the ground, but Cornwall Street was still crowded with artists of all types, food vendors along with the Bite of Bellingham celebration and lots of home grown music. Bellinghamsters don't let a little liquid sunshine keep our webbed feet from getting out for a little fun.

We drove down in our little red Miata, top down in cloudy skies with sunshine making occasional appearances. Each artist had their own covered booth and we walked from artist to artist without seeing much we liked until we came upon Pham Quoc Hung. We were immediatley drawn to his work. The artist himself was there. He struggled with English but his humble pride in his work was apparent. His work was almost flying off the wall of his booth.

We walked back and forth between his acrylic pieces and the wood block prints he displayed. One piece we loved was sold out from under us, but we finally settled on an original acrylic (left) in bright hues of red, orange and browns, a real departure for us. The still life titled Tropical Fruit is about 2' X 3' and as yet has not got a home on one of our walls. We just love it!

The block print, right, was of two lovers nestled next to an ox with birds flitting about, a frequent theme in his work. The colors in thess photo are pretty close to the actual print.

We purchased our two new acquisitions which were fortunately, carefully covered in black plastic for as we drove home in our open Miata, the rain began to come down in buckets. By the time we pulled into our garage we were drenched. So we are spending a quiet afternoon preparing for a dinner party this evening and deciding where these beautiful new additions to our art collection should be displayed.

A New Paint Job!

After many years of needing it, months of planning, much rending of garments and tearing hair out by the handsful, we have finally got our house painted.

We have known it needed doing for years but kept putting it off figuring it would cost us a small fortune. When we finally got serious about it we started asking around. One day while visiting at some friend's home we noticed they had a new paint job and that it looked great. They gave us Ken Anderson's number and we had him stop by to bid the job. We were shocked at how inexpensive his price seemed. We loved the job he had done on our friend's home and so we gave him the job.

Ken came by about 2 weeks before painting began and pressure washed the entire house and even did the deck. He also handed off two paint sample booklets and said he'd be back to begin painting August 1st. In the meantime we had hundreds of colors to select from and no idea where to start.

We recalled a house a few blocks over that had a color scheme we liked. So we walked by their house one afternoon and asked if we could put our paint samples up against their house because we loved their colors so much. They were very flattered and invited us to go ahead. Leslie held one paint sample after another up against the wall until we found what we thought were the right colors.

Time passed and got away from us and the day came for Ken to arrive to begin prepping the house for painting. We still hadn't done what we had said we would which was to go to the paint store and bring home some quart samples. We intended to paint a strip of paint and the coordinating trim color on the side of the house just to see if we liked it.

So the day came, Ken arrived and we zipped off quickly to buy the samples. Arriving home we painted a swath of color across the side of the house and stood back in horror! NOOOOOOOO! The color was hideous. Impossible! No way!!! The color looked like a pastel green Easter egg. What do we do? Ken needs to know what color to buy gallons of paint tomorrow morning so he can begin painting.

In a panic we drove around through several neighborhoods looking for something we liked. Nothing. Finally we decided to just drive back to the paint store and hash it all out until we made a decision. I wanted the paint to go more gray. Leslie was just not sure anymore. We looked at the same several strips of color options we had been focused on since the beginning and our eyes finally settled on this one color that was green but more towards the gray side. I don't know, it's hard to explain. You really have to go through this process sometime to understand the pressure and frustration it can be. We purchased a quart of that color along with a darker trim and also selected an even grayer option and trim color.

Back home we applied the paints to the wall of the house and waited. As it dried the color popped and we had our choice. "Dishwater" was the color name and "relic" the trim color. Not great names so for fun we elected to change the names for purposes of better story telling. The body color of the house is now called "Puget Sound Foam" and the trim color "Great Northwest Forest." Much better, huh?

We informed Ken of our decision and the next morning at 7:30 am we awoke to the sound of Ken making final preparations for painting. About 9:30 am we went out to go mattress shopping (a whole other blog entry). We returned a couple of hours later to what appeared to be a white house. I thought it would change once it dried. Leslie was worried it wouldn't. We decided to leave again and do more shopping. Leslie was nervous the whole way home, sure she was going to hate what she would find when we drove up to the house. Surprise! As we slowed and turned into the driveway we looked up at exactly the color we had chosen--It was beautiful. The lightest of greens, almost an overtone if that makes any sense. The color had dried while we were gone and the color popped just as it had in the sample we painted on the house the day before. It is a strange color though as it seems to be one color when the sun is on it and another when it is not. Cool!

So, here it is. The on-line unveiling of our newly painted home.