Highway 200

I met Carol halfway, at Magruder High School, to hand off the book we are reading this summer in our Olney quilting group. On the drive out, I saw the long, long lines of cars headed in the other direction.

Handoff completed, I decided to take the "Needwood Cutoff". That would take me on the hypotenuse of the Muncaster Mill/Shady Grove triangle, but it was a winding, two lane road through woods by the city golf course, I would ordinarily skip. Still I figured it was better than sitting behind red lights.

Fifty feet into the trees, I was on an overpass that hadn't been there before! The Midcounty Connector cuts through right here and now goes under Needwood! The size is amazing. I stopped the car and walked back to take a picture. Where did they put all the dirt from this excavation? Check out http://www.iccproject.com/

The G Man

We had a "leaving" party for my favorite: T. F. Giocon.

Even he is surprised that the picture of the Capitol says he has been in our office seven years! He has seen three bosses and finally gets his West Coast assignment to see the famous California beaches, like the pictures Heather has on her Facebook page today, making us all jealous!

I figure it will take five people to cover all that Tom does with such flair. We will miss his astute analysis.

His new house is five minutes from the office, by design, to avoid the typical commute back here. Says he won't miss that at all, just the folks in the office.

BBQ Season

mmmmm Neil barbequed pork loin for dinner. Add a little sweet white corn, oven roasted rosemary potatoes, green salad and asparagus.

Anyone want to come to dinner?

The Chef is in residence!

And The Winner Is ....

Sorry for the delay in blog postings. 44,000 were still without power in our County last night and apparently, they took out some of my comcast services. In the morning, I didn't have tv, and no intersection street lights on the way to work, then yesterday evening - and it was a late one with a reception to attend before coming home - the intersection lights were restored, but the internet connection was gone at home. No blog.

"You want me to do what?" That is what I had planned. Every year Neil puts together a DVD of the songs and short movie snippets and 150 pictures from the week of vacation bible school. Daniel graces the cover of the DVD this year because this glance epitomizes the theme, High Seas Expedition, and he is a skeptic won over. Last year he participated by watching, this year he was leader of the singing motions and at full voice. Believe it. It was an action packed and fun week. Neil had asked him to "look sad." Impossible!

Our Storm

Yesterday, right in the middle of Natasha's Open House, the sky got very dark, very fast and a storm blew in from the West. They almost never come from this direction and when they do, we almost always get water leaking in through the front door. No need to show you the sopping wet door rug nor the old work towels used to pick up the water showing it happened again.

Today as I was driving to work, I noticed the neighbors at the first left intersection had lost one of their remaining Bradford Pear branches - it was all over the driveway and I couldn't tell if it had come down on their cars or not. You can see by the older wood, they lost a main trunk branch a couple of years ago, but the lateral branches were spared and the tree was making a come back.

I learned on the weather report this morning that we had 2/3rd's inch of rain in 30 mintues. You can tell how it was beating down in waves (this is the sheltered side of the house!) that we had the infamous down drafts described. We were under a tornado watch for half an hour, but none materialized. Plenty of tossing and turning in the older trees - and plenty of rain. The power went out but just for seven minutes. We were lucky.

Parts of Montgomery County are still out, including the intersection at the top of the hill. I thought the stalled traffic meant an accident, but it was just two policemen trying to direct rush hour traffic on a road that handles 180,000 cars each direction during the day.

Binding

Drawing Quilt is fully assembled and quilted. I did some simple machine-quilted stars on the border and while the manufacturing learning curve kicked in after the 22nd star, none of them would pass Helen's high standard of excellent technique.

Still, the dominant rule prevails in anything I do along the lines of the basic quilts, "Git 'er done."

Finally putting the binding on. Notice the picture center top. When the kids were here in March in separate instances, they both noticed the picture, which is one of my favorites. Jim's response was a laugh and comment, "I think you are supposed to turn the frame on to see the pictures." Martta's was a little more direct, "This is a totally illegal use of this equipment!" I had completely forgotten that I had set the picture into the viewing screen as a handy storage device, but both noticed the minute they independently walked into the living room. Amazing what electronically-literate children I raised.

Miraculous Red Gift

See how nice it looks with the daisies cut back?

Perhaps you missed seeing them four feet tall and laying down every-which-way after the thunderstorms a week ago.

And look closely, a clear spot of dirt in the garden with no weeds. I could only pull weeds today from 6am-8:15am when I got so hot, I thought it must be 11am ... time for a beer to cool off.

Was I disappointed. Hot, red-faced and sweaty like 11am on a normal weekend, but we are under a "heat advisory" so the heat got to me sooner - after only two hours of work!

I do draw the line. No beer at 8:15am.

But look what has volunteered from last year and the deer won't touch it - the celosia. I am going to have to go buy some more to add color to my garden before the Germans arrive on August 7th. I call it a gift from God, who must have known how discouraged I am getting with the abundant deer population right about now.

BLT's

It is hot, hot, hot. Let's have BLT's for dinner tonight I thought. Shouldn't we have some tomatoes from the garden by now?

My mouth was just watering thinking of those sublimely delicious and juicy home grown red slices.

Nope. The deer had the same thought. Reached right over the top of the barrier and plucked away the ripe fruit.

Drat the deer.

Lipstick Vinca

Not much news on this front. Tomorrow we have a heat advisory for temperatures (factored for humidity) of 105 degrees from noon to 9pm.

My border of flowers along the front sidewalk are filling out - lipstick vinca on the right; just pink vinca on the left.

Pretty together. The neighbors have said they like the display. The deer, squirrels and rabbits have not eaten them at all. The adjacent zinnia's are eaten down to the ground which accounts for the blank spot on the left. Sigh....

Yesterday and Today

We did a paper piecing homework assignment for quilting last night and I took the picture then, but did not get the blog posted last night. I cleaned up afterward and ran the dishes, but then went straight to bed completely forgetting my daily duty!

The instructions were for a series of rectangles attached to a kite. But look what happens when adjacent to each other: medallions. Pretty. Carol won the parts so we shall see what the final quilt turns out like.

So this is for yesterday and here is today's:





And on the general subject of the hostile environment now in Montgomery County for growing a vegetable garden.

Can you see the deer damage to the round reinforcing wire tomato tube? We found it dragged out to the center back yard all mangled like this, and the pepper cleaning bitten off.

Bad deer.

Vacation Bible School

Excessive Set Requirements.

I recommended that be the feedback to the people who set these theme vacation Bible camps up. Look at this set. Way larger than life! It takes up most of the sanctuary and I claim it couldn't have been built without this engineer. Neil spent about a month getting all the parts created for assembly. Painting done by others, but you should see the back supports to make this a safe place to spend five days.








We have 100 students enrolled and there about 50 support people so that makes it one of the largest ever for us.



He came home and took a multi-hour nap waking just in time for my arrival home. Not refreshed totally, but ready to head back tomorrow and the next four days!

3.6 Earthquake in G'burg!

Actual Picture Of Earthquake Damage. Red Cross Is Accepting Donations.

The Pleasant Grove fault line, active 300 million years ago, settled a little - like an old house creaks - on Friday. Maryland has had 61 earthquakes between 1758 and 2002, two of this same size - one in 1758 and another in 1939.

Still it was a quake. I was downstairs drinking my morning coffee at 5:04. I thought a heavy truck (fully loaded and heavy) was in our neighborhood and had crashed into the new pod across the street. The windows shook so much, I wondered if the patio door would break, but it didn't.

Both the rumbling and the loud percussion shock traveled through my body, not just my ears, and I actually got up and opened the front door to see if there were mayhem at the pod. Nothing.

It didn't occur to me it was an earthquake of 3.6 magnitude.

Sat back down and a couple of minutes later heard the same deep vibratory rumbling, but lessened in degree (2.0 magnitude). This time I thought the truck was out on Quince Orchard Road and that is why I missed seeing the accident. However, there was no sound of crunching metal or broken glass.

Still didn't realize it was a quake and an aftershock until the newscaster mentioned it at 5:18.

Neil's account: There was a rushing sound like a train for about 2-3 seconds, then a loud noise, like an explosion. I thought that it might be a traffic wreck or a truck bomb or other explosion off in the distance. It was noticeable, but no prolonged ground shaking as in California quakes I have been in. No bigee (see picture).

Hazy, Hot and Humid

It is Saturday, so it is a "Farmer Jane" day. I am in my old clothes about to lather up with Deep Woods Off. Already 72 and forecast to go up to 95, which wouldn't be so bad, except for the humidity that goes along with it.

To keep me cool while I work, I am going to visualize this picture of Judi's back yard where we had lunch when we visited. Temperature was 78-85 so the deck is the place to be out there.

Oh, and the biggest difference between summertime Lake Oswego and Gaithersburg? No gnats.

Up Side Down

Outside Neil's home office window is a row of Regal Lilies. These can be seven feet high in ideal years, but are always at least six.

We just received two new specimen lilies that rival the Regals for size, but way out class them for tropical beauty. They are called upsidedown lilies and look like they have leopard spots but are brightest and deep orange.

Welcome aboard.

I'll photograph them in situ next year.

The Neighbors

We saw the Nalley's had a garage sale over the weekend, but they have done that before. Then in the middle of the week a pod showed up on their curb.

Now we know, the neighbors are splitting.

If you are looking for a nice house in the suburbs, let us know. When the listing goes up, we will let you know the price. It will be priced to sell.

Neighbors since 1982. Not the first to go, across the street and down 1, 2, 3 - all new since then. Looks like we are the old-timers.

Church Quilts

Interesting center this weekend in the usual 9x7 set of squares in the charity quilts I hem in my spare time. The quilters make these single-sized quilts for shipping overseas or for use here after disasters, like Katrina.

My job is to put the binding on - a simple 20 minute job by machine in most cases, but it does give me the opportunity to review them all.

Imagine all the variations with this pattern of a random center piece of triangles alternating with whole corners and bicolor corners. Some squares are just stripes of color.

I may have to play with this pattern for a while with fabric from my stash and see what comes of it. Perhaps white, black and splashes of red. Let me ponder the possibilities.

The Other Side Of The River

I took this picture from the other side of the Naches River Valley.

I have been in a car many times following on the right side of the river on the road over the Chinook Pass. But, there was a major landslide that covered the road and necessitated a detour to the other side of the river.

I felt sorry for the farmers over there, who were largely by-passed by the world. A snug hide-away valley completely unknown to regular travellers until the slide. Now it is the main highway.

Here is the video - normal until 120 seconds into the film - taken from a helicopter when it first occurred.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAw2RHZR8MI

Let's see if that works.

The Really Big Bowl

My new salad bowl is so big, it can hold a whole watermelon diced and two tubs of blueberries! Jim taught me how to make this salad.

It is so big, I had to take its picture out on the deck.

And by sitting it on the deck railing, that means you can see that some of the backyard sod is coming back, but other remains quite toasted.

I think I will add new grass seed this weekend, so I can see if it will revive when I introduced some seedling cousins.

Sudoku

Contrary to popular opinion, I am not addicted to doing Sudoku puzzles.

The reason I like to wake up on weekends and try the five star puzzles, which only appear in three papers on Friday (yes, I save them), Saturday and Sunday, is simple.

The first cup of coffee tastes better when I am doing my weekend mental acuity test. I figure if I can solve a five star, then my brain is "tarp as shacks", and I can tackle any weekend job on my to-do list.

This morning it only took fifteen minutes, so I know this will be a good day.

We Never Knew

Every year "about this time", as Lesa would put it, we are always invited to her house for a barbeque and crab feast. We have done this for years, and this year, we learned that God is on Lesa's side when it comes to planning this event.

We woke up to steady rain this morning, which lasted over five hours. But as we passed noon, the clouds broke up and by 6pm tonight, it was lovely - lower humidity, clear sky and comfortable temperature. Time for the feast!












The patio was filled with people, including out of town guests who don't leave until Monday! But the feast was on. I had found from Samuel Adams Irish Red, and it was a fun acknowledgement of Steve's Irish heritage. But there were plenty of sodas and all kinds of beer in three big coolers.

We ate and had our usual good time, then we learned the real reason for this annual celebration - five of Stephanie's friends disappeared into the kitchen and brought out a birthday cake covered with burning candles - and a basket of gifts. They had wanted to buy a wine of the month club subscription, but Pennsylvania wouldn't deliver where Stephanie is finishing med school at Penn State. So they purchased several bottles and had them all labeled for use.

Surprise! Stephanie's birthday is within the week, but get this, so is her father's. Since their birthdays are so close, Lesa has always had a big party for both, but no one was told the reason other than, "Hey, y'all. Lesa's cookin' again. Let's go!"





Just a small party for 20 this year, and it made it all the more enjoyable knowing we were feting the two birthday kids. Happy Birthday, and many more!

Orchids

Returning from the West where the day time highs were 78-83, we were assaulted by 95-103 degree heat this week, and one feature absent in the West, humidity.

This cool looking bouquet was at the concierge's desk, and every time I passed it by, I felt cooler as I transitioned from the outside weather to my elevator lobby.

Green orchids and spray painted blue teasel. Who knew. Even the tall spire going out the top into the bright station lights was green all the way up.

Gorgeous. Now, give me some rain.

What 100 Degree Heat Does

I took this picture for two reasons. First, with the one hundred degree heat wave, the gladiolas bloomed at once; and second, see the slight patch of yellow at the end of the grass on the left of the flower near the street? Yes, it is yellow and dried out. That is also what happens when you fill the low spot in the front yard, sod and then leave for vacation.

If it doesn't come back with watering, we will re-seed. If it doesn't come back with re-seeding, we will re-sod. This dip has been 25 years in the making, so I can wait another year until it is totally restored.

It's Worth It

I love visiting Judi's house, because no matter where you look, when you are sitting in a room, there are unique displays of art.

It might be a framed picture, a colorful crewel pillow, a painted tile, artfully arranged books or a carved blue bird of happiness, like here.

Take a moment to look around in this eye-candy house. It is worth the time it takes to pause and take things in. Everything is just right.

Judi's Garden

I love to visit Judi's garden. It is so sculpted and interesting. No matter where you turn, you think, "isn't that a delightful surprise?"

I learned how to sculpt the lawn from her and became the lady in our neighborhood, "who takes out grass".

And here is her generous approach to the flower beds: Plant the seeds in a row, one for the market, one for the crow, one to eat and one to grow!

Come visit.

A Bit Of A Tizzy

We had a short overnight at Judi's to be ready for a morning departure from PDX back home. Neil questioned the time we arrived, and it turned out to be "direct", not "nonstop". We went to BWI by way of Kansas City - two straight lines - but we didn't leave the airplane.

Judi is selling her house. Go check out the pictures. I managed to take some, and Neil magically loaded them up for advertising.

4971 Suntree Lane 97035.

We had lunch on that deck - delicious.

Now That Is A Solid Table

Still at Whistlin' Jack's restaurant up on Chinook Pass for dinner with Judi, Mom, Andy and Neil when this picture was taken. Look at those solid supports for the picnic table! It won't collapse.

We had fish for dinner mostly, and determined the Whistlin' was a marmot and the building dates from 1931, before heading down the Naches River Valley. We were detoured to the other side of the river where the fellow was prospecting for gravel and drilling holes and the whole mountain slide down and re-routed the river. Quite spectacular. I'll have to look up the link sometime and share.

Now we have loaded Judi's house particulars onto Zillow and I am the photographer! Over night here and a non-stop from PDX to BWI tomorrow and back to our regular schedule.

Cocktails With Uncle John

The Court of Sir John. It seemed like Mary and John were only here for a few minutes. We could have talked the night through!

Margaret and Judi putting the finishing touches on the preparations for Mary and John's arrival. Check out the size of those olives for the martinis.

Dill Dip with carrots, celery, and radishes; Christmas almonds; pita chips; and wheat thins with sliced Swiss cheese. Who needs dinner?

Judi patiently lets me take her picture while we visit. And being West of the Rockies, Neil enjoys a Coors Light. Let me just mention that I have no control over where these pictures are going because I am loading them all left. But at least you are left with the impression that a good time was had by all.

Nana's Background

What a cheery way to start the day when you check your email. This Gramee never gets tired of seeing her number one grandchildren and notice Nana has Omar Sharif Bridge ready to play on a moment's notice.

We arrived in time for a fabulous macaroni dinner - a very good "do" this time - and home made strawberry short cake....mmmmm

Neil crashed early and I made it until 9pm (midnight our time).

John and Mary for cocktails, dinner at Whistling Jack's, and big breakfast out on Sunday are a few of the plans.