Photo O' The Day: Busy As A Bee

It's probably pretty obvious that I significantly enhanced this photo. But I'm also partial to super-saturated images.

The Mighty Columbia

This weekend, as we were moseying west along the Columbia River, I learned that my husband can sing a mean version of the Alaska State Song. In turn, I regaled him with our Washington version: Roll On Columbia, Roll On by the famous Woodie Guthrie.

Which was great, until I googled "WA State Song" and discovered that Roll On Columbia isn't our song at all. It's some highly inferior tune called Washington My Home.

Instead, Roll on Columbia is our state folk song. Personally, I'm all for ditching WA My Home in favor of this good 'ole folksy ballad:

Roll On Columbia Roll on, Columbia, roll on. Roll on, Columbia, roll on. Your power is turning our darkness to dawn, So, Roll on, Columbia, roll on Green Douglas firs where the waters cut through. Down her wild mountains and canyons she flew. Canadian Northwest to the ocean so blue, Roll on, Columbia, roll On! Roll on, Columbia, roll on. Roll on, Columbia, roll on. Your power is turning our darkness to dawn, So, Roll on, Columbia, roll on Other great rivers add power to you, Yakima, Snake, and the Klickitat, too, Sandy, Willamette, and Hood River, too; Roll on Columbia, roll On! Roll on, Columbia, roll on. Roll on, Columbia, roll on. Your power is turning our darkness to dawn, So, Roll on, Columbia, roll on

Headboard

I'm still working on our headboard. It currently looks so empty.

Trying out different scenarios: too tall. 

A little better. 

I finally lugged the door upstairs as I was having trouble visualizing it without something solid as a placeholder. 

That actually doesn't look too bad. Room for artwork above. 

I went over to the hardware store and checked out crown molding. Who knew it was so dang expensive? I also picked up a 4"x4"x10' post which miraculously fit into Pepe the Prius. With only a little bit hanging out the end. Bailey wasn't too happy about sharing his backseat space though. 

Hair, Hair, Everywhere

I just read a few tips on the blog Craft about getting rid of that awful wet dog funk that seems to permeate everything this time of year, including poor Pepe the Prius. Here is the recommendation, which I will be carrying out with all possible haste:

"To eliminate funky wet dog odor from your car, soak a piece of bread in a bowl of white vinegar, roll up all your windows, and leave the bowl in the car overnight. In the morning, like magic, the funk is gone. There is a slight vinegar odor that dissipates in no time.

Additionally, for removing dog hair stuck to your seats, instead of expensive pet-specific fur removers, try a rubber dishwashing glove. Put that bad boy on, and run your hand across anything covered in fur (works great for clothing too)."

Fish Lake Weekend

We spent most of our weekend up at Fish Lake, near Lake Wenatchee. A colleague of my mother's generously offered the use of her lake house so we loaded the car with Bailey, boots, and food, and pointed Pepe the Prius east. Saturday we hiked up to Heather Lake...which, according to our guidebook, was devoid of heather. So perhaps it was named after a person, not the plant. Chris, enjoying a short rest, after our trek up the mountain
Altogether now: Awwwww. Sonja is admiring the view...Bailey is probably checking out mom's lunch.

Fancy camera, meet tree. Please provide 'artsy' photo of bark.

The Beast. Romping through the grass and chasing ducks is hard work.

Papa. Yours truly. Glad to be at the top.

This little guy had the gall to swim between Bailey's legs. In typical fashion, the Beast was oblivious to this amphibian's proximity, instead preferring to greedily gulp nasty brown water from the mud hole. Oh! Is that a duck I hear? I must investigate immediately!Out and about in the boat. We had some rather shallow waters to navigate so Papa practiced his gondolier skills under he reached deeper water. Has anyone ever used an electric outboard motor before? This one ran off a car battery and was perfect for tooling around the lake. Best of all it was extremely quiet and allowed for the boat occupants to carry on a conversation. Ditch that stinky and loud two stroke! Go electric! Mom, checking out a diving osprey.


And last but not least, we will leave you with another photo of the Beast, craning his neck to catch a glimpse of a passing muskrat. Anyone had any close encounters with a muskrat? No? Well, we quickly dubbed this one the dog paddling turd. It was the perfect description. Sorry, no photos. We also missed out on photos of the river otters, the osprey, and the skunk. A good weekend for wildlife.

We made it home late Saturday night, just in time to watch a few fireworks across the lake in Kirkland. Things seemed a bit subdued this year and the Beast quickly settled down after a few joyful laps around the house. He had, after all, dragged his sorry carcass up a mountain earlier in the day.

And that is the extent of our weekend photo montage. Sunday was spent working on the bikes and enjoying a nice eveing ride to Ballard. I'm also back at work painting the pantry; hopefully that task will keep me out of trouble for a wee little while.

The Garden Shed

In our neighborhood in Santa Ana, approximately 5% of the garages were able to accommodate vehicles. Instead, most were packed to the gills with miscellaneous stuff [read: junk]. A few had been converted into bunk houses or additional living rooms. We had a semi-useful garage. One car fit perfectly but an after market tool bench limited the second space to non-car uses such as motorcycle storage, Bailey's kennel and other 'stuff'.

Personally, I'm a fan of garage parking, especially in rainy Seattle. I dislike scraping my windows during freezing weather and lugging groceries through a downpour is never ideal. So this time around we were determined to use our garage for cars, not junk. Unfortunately, that left little room for my assortment of garden tools, pots, and machines (lawn mower, weed eater, etc). Time for a garden shed! We decided to resurrect the old greenhouse in the back yard.

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This is how it looked initially:

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We didn't even know it was an old green house, just something, buried under the mass of ivy.

Bailey had fun digging around.

He carved out a few tunnels and investigated the nooks and crannies.

Katherine and I did most of the pruning; the boys helped occasionally with the 'manly' work. Good exercise; that ivy is tough! I should note too, that the boys did help out near the end of the process with ivy clearing duties along the sides and back of the structure. Two picnic tables, two BBQs, milk crates, dozens of plastic potting pots, tons of garbage and hundreds of pounds [literally] of ivy later, this is what we discovered:
A black dog! Under all that ivy! Still alive, after all those years! Ha. Just kidding. We have discovered a lot of bones, though... Moving on, we uncovered a three-sided cinder block structure. Talking with the former owner, we learned that it was once a greenhouse. Judging by the amount of broken glass that we removed from the soil, it must have been a massive greenhouse.

Time to get busy and start constructing our garden shed. Here is a rough [very rough] drawing of what we're trying to achieve:

Its main purpose, once completed, will mostly be as a garden shed. It will have a chicken coop component and possible future accommodations for some lovely goat ladies. We'll see. We'd also like to put a green or living roof on, much like my parents have on their garage.
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Let's start building!

Measure twice, cut once. We learned this the hard way. :) Faithful helper/chicken herder.

Every used a concrete drill? Me neither. It was an experience.

Pounding in the floor joists. Looking good, Megan!

Our supervisor.

The man at work.

Chris and Eric ended up doing most of the measuring/hammering/cutting of the plywood flooring The last piece of flooring was tricky as it required a jigsaw cut.

The boys were awesome though and it fit perfectly. The floor is now done!

Keeping the troops occupied is a tough job. Bailey shows off his mad foot herding skills.

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Thanks to Bob and Tom (aka The Dads) for the technical advice and to Megan and Eric for kindly donating their Sunday afternoon and evening. Time for the walls...

Pepe!

I was patting myself on the back the other day because Pepe and I were having a great mileage day:

I was thrilled until a coworker sent me this photo:

Clearly, I need to practice my hypermiling.

We've been pretty jazzed about Pepe's mileage performance, given that gas prices continue to climb. I'm also excited about the new prius that should make its debut in the next couple years. Click here for reasons why you might want to wait until 2010 before buying a new hybrid vehicle.

Homeward Bound

After a bit of a sluggish start, Pepe's driver put the pedal to the metal and made great time heading west. This morning he started out in Texas, and what do you know, he's already in SoCal! Frankly, it didn't seem like he spent much time sleeping.

Way back in high school a couple of the local rowing teams were putting together a trailer of boats to send back east for a national conference. The guy driving the trailer fell asleep and rolled the rig; causing many many thousands of dollars worth of damage. Hopefully, Pepe's driver took care and caught his forty winks before heading west with his precious cargo.

Hello Texas!

Hooray, Pepe is finally heading in the right direction and he's making terrific progress.

Um. Try going West instead of East, Pepe.

Evidently my car is taking a road trip all across the country before making it home to Santa Ana. Pepe is currently enjoying the sights of VIRGINIA, rather than heading west to us. We are not exactly patient at this point. Er, I suppose that should be "I" rather than "we". I am not patiently waiting.

Pepe the Prius, Day 2

Pepe is holding firm in Morrow, Georgia. I guess that means that he hasn't started his grand westward adventure.

Woohoo! Pepe the Prius is on the Move!

The Pruis left Decatur today and moved to the 'origin' terminal, also in Georgia. Pepe has started his westward journey!