Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Cool Down

Fractal Color Shine

This is a bit different from what I usually showcase, but I kinda like it. I put the cyan font color to bring that color onto your screen.
 
We have definitely had a cool down here. The east side is burning up and I feel so sad for the many people that have lost their homes to the forest fires. The town of Pateros has really been damaged. We used to ride our motorcycles over there and stay every summer. We would sit along the banks of the Columbia River and cool down because it was always so warm over there. One time it was over 100° in Pateros and we decided to go for an evening ride and my husbands bike wouldn't start. So I was pushing him and his bike down the street so he could bump start it. Here I was with my jacket and helmet on, pushing this heavy bike and him! But he got it started and off we went. Anyway, back to the fires. Lots of people aren't going to have power or water for a month! But perhaps they are the lucky ones because they didn't lose their homes. 
 
Most of the businesses in towns like Winthrop, (which is my very favorite place to go) depend on the summer visitors for their livelihood. So they will be hurting financially.
 
They cut the hay in the big field across from us so we have seen  the eagles and hawks soaring above us. The field mice have no place to hide so the eagles, hawks and ravens have lots of free food.
 
They are harvesting raspberries and blueberries in our area right now. And the weather has been helpful this year to our berry farmers. I am so glad this county still has so much agriculture land. It is a battle to keep it because the developers would love to build houses on nice level farm land. This is one of the things I feel so strongly about is protecting the farm lands in the U.S. And it upsets me when I hear they allow foreigners to purchase up these huge farms, like they just did in Idaho. A Chinese company just bougtht thousands of acres of good farmland to grow alfalfa to send back to China. This is just so wrong. Just like a Japanese developer purchased over 500 acres from a cattle rancher right next to us. Of course they want to develop it into houses, but so far we have fought them off. I only hope and pray we can continue to fight them off. 
 
Gonna get back to work. 

Thursday, July 17, 2014

Burning UP!

Summer Explosion

The weather here has been extremely hot. It sounds like it is going to change, but we are just not used to it. I don't have to work outside in the heat so it doesn't bother me but I feel for our sons and all who have to work out in it. I really feel sorry for the firefighters that are working so hard in 100° weather. My husband used to be gone weeks on end fighting forest fires during his 33 years in the Forest Service. Our kids  have told me they remember the smoky smell when he came home. Back then they didn't have portable showers for the fire fighters like they do on some fires now. His fire fighting boots would smell smoky till they were worn out. The money was good, but I was left home with 3 little ones and we all missed him. I had to get his dirty clothes washed and dried right away because he had to be ready to go on the next fire. One time I didn't even get them washed before he got that call! I can't remember if he took the dirty ones or not.

But the eastside of Washington is burning up. So many of the trees are dead because of pine beetle infestation. So they actually look brown and burnt and are tinder dry, just ready for that lightning strike or whatever. 

It sounds like the midwest is colder than usual, the polar express or whatever they call it. It didn't use to be this way. When I lived in Iowa the summers were very hot. Our air conditioning was to open the window at night to sleep, put a damp towel over you and hope for a cool breeze. But yet there are people that deny their is climate change!

It only took by grandson 2 days to get my computer cleaned out, the new solid state hard drive in and back to me! And it is definitely faster and I don't get "Not Responding" anymore. So that was definitely the problem. 

I am not doing near as much design work as I was, though. I have so many made already I just don't need to but I miss it! Mozilla has changed the way they choose their Featured designs and I think they must be picked by a machine or something because I have noticed when one of mine is featured it is one that is really not very good...and yes I do make many that are not very good! As do others, so they aren't choosing them by which ones are really extra good, so that makes me wonder about how they are chosen.

Now to Brand Thunder...something is screwed up on their site, too. You can't submit designs anymore. They told me weeks ago they were working on it, but I check once a week and it is still not working.

Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Time on my hands!

Fieflies in the Forest

Wow, but I have extra time on my hand this week. My desktop computer that I use for designing was getting tired and my grandson said it needed a new hard drive, which he hadn't replaced the last time he upgraded it for me to Windows 7 (which I totally love). So we got a solid state hard drive from Amazon, my very favorite shopping place. He picked up my computer Sunday and is working on it. I only hope I got everything backed up so I don't lose anything. And I totally dread having to install all my progarams again but it has to be done. So anyway, I do have time on my hands so am actually getting some stuff done that needed to be done but didn't really want to do. You know how that is! If you don't want to do it, it is much easier to put off and then when you are doing it, you think,"Well, that wasn't so bad after all!"

The Persona theme I put at the top of the blog was one of my first ones ever and was actually one of my most used at one time. It reminds me of catching fireflies when I was a little girl in Iowa, except we called them lightning bugs. Fireflies sounds more exotic, I guesss.

I hope everyone had a great 4th. We did. Our oldest son had to work, but our daughter and youngest son came over and we sat on the patio, roasted hot dogs in the pit and had a really good time. The weather was great and it didn't cloud up until later afternoon. At the last minute I had decided to make baked beans. I don't have a recipe, just throw brown sugar, molasses, smoke, lots of onions and dry mustard. So tasting is the only way to tell if you got enough of something. I used a different brand of beans this time and I could not get them to taste right. They just seemed real blah! So, more stuff got thrown in and since I made a smaller batch I didn't know what size dish to bake them in. I actually had them in 3 different sizes before I found one that was just right. I threw them in the oven and figured I would just bake them a long time! Which I did. When we decided to eat I opened the oven and they were really, really thick. And I mean really thick! But none of us could believe how good they were. They were actually the best I had ever made and my son cleaned the spoon and I think he would have cleaned up the dish if he could have! I had to soak the dish & spoons for 48 hours but it was worth it. Our daughter makes the best macaroni salad in the world. She uses some special spice ingredient from Penzeys that I have never heard of, but it sure does make the salad really, really good. She makes a huge batch and left some here and sent her brother home with some, plus she had more at home. 

One of our grandsons (my go to computer grandson)  and some buddies hiked up to the top of a mountain and camped out so they could watch the fireworks all over the County. They got rained on a bit, but guess it was pretty specatacular.

Our one and only great grand daughter turned 2 yesterday and we went to her birthday party Sunday night. I think she was the belle of the ball, too. She was so excited over her birthday cake and showed it to everyone. It had layers of different rainbow colors. And sooo good! I don't make cakes anymore unless for something special. So enjoy it when someone else does, plus I don't have to clean up the cooking mess.

Enough for now, but will probably get back on soon since I can't design! Have a great day....week!

Hope you like my summer blog design. I updated it the morning of the 4th.

Glories of Green

Redwood Forest Mist is the design I am using right now. I was really happy with the way it turned out.

Redwood Forest Mist

💚Marching on to Spring💚

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