Delusions of... Everything

Snow Day

Today we are getting some rare Seattle snow.  The weather gods kept predicting it, but we don't usually pay attention to all the hype.  Because of the water and mountains surrounding the area it's always hard to predict snow and many times the threat of snow is just a threat.  Recently a new high tech satellite system was installed to track incoming weather and apparently, this time, it helped predict the snow accurately.

Yesterday at 4 pm this is what my back courtyard looked like.

And the front of my house.

This is how the courtyard and the front of the house looked at 9:30 this morning.

This is the hill in front of our house.

And our vehicles, which are staying put today!

How's your Wednesday going?

Blogfest West - Or Fun With Snooty

Blog Fest West was renamed Fun with Snooty because, well, she's the only one who came!  The Baroness was scheduled to come but she got sick, antibiotic type sick, so she did not make the trek down from Canada.  Asthmagirl and I stuck to the plans we made when we were anticipating a larger crowd, picked up Snooty from the airport and headed to Burien.

The series of events went like this:

• Trip to the Burien Farmer's Market
• Lunch at the Pub
• Dinner on my patio
• Early to bed, late to rise before heading off to the Pike Place Market
• Boarded a WA State ferry bound for Harstine Island via Bremerton
• Arrived at one of the most beautiful places on earth!

For those who could not make the trip you really missed out on this part of our adventure!  AG's dad and step mom (Opa and Oma) live in a little corner of paradise!

The view from the deck...

 

Seriously the view from almost every window in the house looks like this!

And we got to spend the night at that lovely place, how lucky were we?!

Both Oma and Opa are master gardeners and it's reflected in their gorgeous yard.

The next post will be about our fabulous breakfast on Harstine Island and some words about Snooty!

 

Sky Watch Friday

I haven't taken a picture of the mountain lately!  I love how it's the first week of July and it still looks like it does in the winter!

Hump Day Haiku

 

Feel a sense of calm

in a garden oasis

in my own backyard

San Diego Zoo Safari Park vs. The San Diego Zoo

If you go to San Diego and are trying to decided between the Zoo and the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, make the trip to the Safari Park.  It's worth the 30 minute drive!

The safari park sits on 1800 acres.  This give the animals lots of room to roam around.

 

The elephants especially love it.

This little one had a great time playing with a box.

We paid a little extra to take a photo safari.  It was a splurge that was well worth it.  We had close encounters with grazing animals, rhinos and giraffe. 

A bonus to this safari was feeding the giraffes!

 

We were all pretty darn excited about this development!  The giraffes were so cool!

After our time at the Safari Park, the San Diego Zoo seemed really anti-climatic.  My advice if you want to experience both parks is to go to the Zoo first then go to the Safari Park.  You won't be able to do both in one day.  We spent all day at the Safari Park, but only a couple hours at the Zoo, that's because there were only two animals we wanted to see.

Koalas

And Pandas

We also saw Baboons having sex but none of us had the guts to photograph that event!

(I'm still editing Sea World pictures, so it will be a few days before that post hits the internet!)

The Planting Has Begun

 The weather, my health and my knee all cooperated enough to allow the first planting of my garden over the weekend.  The garden spot is close to the house, in full sun with the added benefit of the concrete parking area that radiates heat.  I"m hopeful that even if we have a mild summer, there will be enough warmth to allow growing, or I could just be a delusional naive optimistic gardener.

 I planted onion starts, garlic, asparagus and nasturtiums.  I don't plan to eat the nasturtiums even though I know they are edible.  I planted them in my vegetable garden because my grandpa always planted them in his garden.  In the back of my head I remember something about them keeping slugs away, or I could just be a delusional naive optimistic gardener.

Before planting I laid out a new soaker hose to replace the old one that somehow broke in half.  How does a hose that just sits there break in half?!

I have many more seeds to plant and 5 tomato plants that I'm keeping in the house until it really warms up, but at least I got started!

In the beginning there was lots-o-dirt.  Hopefully in the weeks to come I will share pictures of green sprouts and full grown plants that yield some harvest, or I could just be a delusional naive optimistic gardener.

Now I'm off to make lists, do laundry and start packing for our family Spring break trip to San Diego!  We are catching a plane on Friday after school and work.  I'm looking forward to a few warmer days than we've had in Seattle.

Not So Wordless Wednesday

I want to thank everyone for their advice and words of encouragement about my veggie gardening post yesterday!  You all rock!

Today is the shared birthday of my grandpa and my brother, both deceased.  My grandpa would have been 102 and my brother 46.  My grandpa loved the spring.  He loved to garden and grew all kinds of veggies and flowers from seed.  His favorite flower was the Daffodil.  In honor of him and my brother I'm sharing some spring photos from my archives since my yard is only just starting to bud.

 

Enjoy your Wednesday!

Preparing the Garden

This year I've committed myself to grow some veggies.  Our yard has the perfect full sun location that we've never really done anything with, except grow Dahlias and weeds.

While I was away scrapbooking last weekend Handy Man turned all the soil and added some bags of chicken manure.  

Now it's up to me to rake it out and plant some seeds.

The plan is to plant spinach, radishes, beets, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, pumpkins, green beans, garlic and onions amoung others.  Some I will start from seed straight in the ground and others I will purchase as starter plants.  I also plan to plant some raspberries in a different location. I'll keep you posted as the garden progresses.

If you garden what are your favorite things to grow?  What veggies have you had the most luck with?

 

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

Hopefully by the summer there will be a nice little water feature here with all kinds of interesting plants around it.  Maybe a fountain and river rock?  Maybe a little pond?  We have a lot of work ahead of us!

Tap, tap... is this thing on?

I have so little to report it seems a waste of your time to even make a post.  Blogging has not held much interest for me lately.  Sometimes I wish I could start all over with a new blog and not have so many people I know reading it... *sigh*  (No, I'm not talking about any of my regular commenters, or my high school friends, or my Pearl Jam friends). 

I have not heard back about the position I interviewed for three times.  They said they would get back to me this week and since it's only Tuesday I'm trying very hard not to think the worse. *sigh*

The weekend scrapbooking trip to the island had it's ups and downs...  The low tide was extra low and I got a few fabulous shots of starfish that are not normally seen there.  Are you ready to see a ton of pictures?

The seagulls were feasting.

There was a ton of seaweed at the high tide mark and it smelled stinky and really good all at the same time.

Since I was a little kid visiting the low tide at Lincoln Park in West Seattle I have loved starfish.

 

 

This starfish was huge... maybe 18 inches across!!

 

This one was tiny, like the size of a pancake.

 

I love this next shot... I'm thinking about printing out a large version to frame.

(Title of today's post brought to you by Asthmagirl and by the letter B for beach and brrrrrr, it's cold this morning)