This was the sunset last night. I learned this morning that it was a shower up by Priest Lake...
July 5th
The 4th is always super busy for us, at the pottery shop as well as
with the parade and the park. I pretty much repeated myself this
year in the parade--riding the bicycle playing harmonica while holding
a sign advertising the music and fun in the park. This was the
best attended parade that I can remember, with people even lining the
last block of the parade, which usually only has a few... The parade
has a route that features a death spiral at the end, winding back to
the parade route, which causes gridlock and the parade comes to a
standstill. This year I pointed out to a few vehicles they were
at the end of the parade and could turn the other way, which
freed the bottleneck and (IMHO) saved the parade!
The bunting clad youth in this photo have won the best adult winner's
mug twice in a row, perhaps mostly because of their rather audacious
dance routine...
After the parade a group of musicians came to provide music, sometimes
with me (mostly on harmonica). This half of the group includes
the two ladies on the left that won (or placed) at the Weiser old-time
fiddle competition in twin fiddling...
The other half include the Fosses (in front) that live along the lake
and organized it. With the big turnout and pleasantly hot day a
splendid time was guaranteed for all...
July 6
Here is the forecast from the National Weather Service:
I include this because they've started using the icons to simplify the
forecast (or perhaps for non readers, although how they'd get to the
site is another question). Also it's a sign of the times that 95
or 92 just rates a "sunny" icon but when it hits 96, that's
"hot." In my mind hot starts around 80...
July 7
We picked a 5 gallon bucket full of peas yesterday, and spent a couple
hours shelling them for eating and freezing... There's a second
planting which will hopefully yield more in spite of the heat...
The strawberries are finishing up, and the first red raspberries were
spotted yesterday. The cherries are gaining color but it will be
a week or two till they are ripe. I froze spinach last
week, and there is more on the verge of flowering to be picked...
Meanwhile we sold more pottery in the first week of
July than in all of June, so the shelves are showing some bare spots,
thus I'm producing about as fast as I can. The limitation is the
two kilns and the drying time necessary before firing... Lately I'm
firing both kilns every day...
Today right in town I saw a small raptor (kestrel?)
being harried by a flock of swallows, and realized it had a swallow in
its talons... The swallows were helpless to do anything, but
showed remarkable communal response to the attack...
July 8
With the hot weather Butters hasn't gotten so much exercise, so I walked him around the Millpond today...
By the time we were half way around he sat in the water here for 5
minutes without moving... Meanwhile all the good photos came by...
A great blue heron flew by very close...
Shortly after an eagle did the same...
We all went for a swim when we reached the side with the park and
public access. They were both very busy, especially being a hot
weekend in July.
The whole area is jumping, with new buildings and new businesses
getting announced nearly every day. Adding to the clutter,
a new store, Clutter, is opening where the icecream/video store had
been, promising found items, made items, and home items. It's a
shaky time to be in retail, as buyers flock to Internet
shopping. But fortunately for us our combination of local
handmade is still much in demand...
July 9
By this time in the summer, I still appreciate the wild flowers, but
I'm too busy to photograph them. Last evening in a north Idaho Facebook
group, there was a discussion about a flower called Pine Drops.
It reminded me of one I've seen which I called Pipsissewa, probably
because I saw the name in a wildflower book years ago. But it led
me to wonder what Pipsissewa looked like, so I looked at the Wikipedia
link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimaphila_umbellata, and
I would have sworn I've never seen it before. Then today I
was walking Butters along Lamb Creek and I saw that same flower and
took a photo to add it to my flower photo collection:
July 11
We revisited the Camas Prairie and Clearwater River region yesterday
for a funeral. We lived there for about 9 years in the last
century... There were many familiar faces, but we've all aged
nearly 20 years. The house we lived in when serving the
Lutheran parish is now a thrift shop, benefitting the local
community...
It's a farming area, with few camas flowers left on the prairie, where
the Nezperce used to come and harvest the camas bulbs to use as a
staple flower...
The Bitterroots rise in the misty distance...
On the way back we drove along and swam in the Clearwater, a river that
exists solely in Idaho, joining the Snake at Lewiston... An old
rail track runs up one side, and a federal scenic highway on the left...
July 13
These ducks swam towards Butters as he got in to cool off, and he ignored them and got out when cooled. Cool.
July 15
Here are some garden photos:
This is the broccoli and cabbage bed (with a volunteer potato and
poppies on left and sunflower on right, . You will see a lot of
volunteers) We've only gotten a handful of broccolis so far, and they
tend to be small first heads, but we eat the side shoots until November.
This bed is roughly in the shape of the state of Idaho. At front right
the volunteer poppies are blooming in the strawberry bed. To the
left are volunteer sunflowers growing with carrots, onions, beans, and
chard, and in the right corner our sweet corn section.
This moth was resting in the raspberries when I went to pick them in
the morning... I forgot to take photos of the main garden because
I was waiting for better lighting... Another day...
We explored the cataracts of the upper falls first. It looked
like it kept going up forever, but after about a block it turned into a
normal mountain stream...
I followed the rough trail along the upper falls, and stopped to sit on
a handy rock to photograph part of it. Butters photobombed...
Yoda and Indiana Jones showed up as well...
The main falls is best viewed down a steep path to the area below it.
My son Birrion brings a tripod and filters and got some very lovely
artistic shots. My picture of him has mist making it
pointillist...
On the way down the mountain we saw some smoke ahead, and a Dept. of
Lands firetruck was pulled in by it, with one woman on duty. It
was a fire about 8 feet in diameter on the upside of the road, which
seemed to be reduced to smoke, so we assumed it was put out. But
perhaps it was a "prescribed fire" where they allow the burn to create
natural firebreaks in the forest, because later we'd heard it had grown
to 30 acres... To me it seemed likely a fire started by a
cigarette butt, due to being so close to the road...
Books read and other media of note
Ark
by Patrick Thomlinson A combination mystery suspense save
humanity from extinction type book, very engaging.