I put on some Marvin Gaye this morning, turned the lights down a little bit and armed myself with Q-tips to go out and assist my pumpkin patch in some sweet, sweet pollination. I found a lazy bee inside one of the flowers and noticed an odd behavior. Though he was flying flower to flower, between each one he was landing on a leaf and kicking all the pollen off his legs......strange......in any case, hopefully I will have some fruit appearing soon.....
I've put a lot of work into the backyard recently, including finishing the pond. No, really, I think it is actually done now. All I have to do is learn a LOT more about caring for the water and getting Ma Nature to balance it out for me. The final redesign for the pond included cement and stone walls bordering the lower pond. I have never worked with cement before but am very happy with the way it turned out.....
THE POND PROJECT(by the numbers, for joanne)
900....................................capacity, in gallons, of the pond
12,652...............................amount, in gallons, that the previous seven designs leaked out
8.........................................number of times I 'finished' the project
87.......................................trips to the hardware store
500....................................initial budget, in $
1,500.................................final cost, whoops
6,000.................................cost to have it installed professionally
1.........................................weeks to have it installed professionally
0.........................................amount of fun that would have been
61.......................................weeks to install it myself(see NOV '06)
6.........................................mouthfuls of stagnant mud water while siphon-starting shitty pump.
150....................................cost of brand new pump on bestnest.com
3........................................pairs of pants ruined by expanding foam sealant
1.........................................times I glued my forearm to my bicep with expanding foam sealant
16......................................."toolman" taylor references by onlookers
Also, my pumpkin patch has been blooming for almost two weeks now! I have two kinds of pumpkins, one good for carving and another that is good for baking. Should make for some fun at Rachel's SEVENTH ANNUAL HALLOWEEN PARTY. One question though, as the blossoms fade away, they are falling off.....is that normal for pumpkins or does that mean they were not pollinated? Anybody know?
First off, check out rachel's excellent post about our exciting weekend.
So, I was surfing the net in an extremely productive manner tonight and stumbled across this little gem. If you are webcam enabled and are not pregnant or suffering from any heart conditions, I strongly suggest downloading the demo and playing for a bit. The software utilizes your webcam in some pretty innovative ways, from bouncing soccer balls on your head to cheesy, but fun, special effects. The best part, we played for over a half hour and the games were so physical that we had both worked up a sweat by PLAYING VIDEO GAMES.
Also, though this is late news, we had a huge fire in West Seattle last week only a few blocks from our house. Turns out one of the many condo buildings under construction was set on fire, an arson. The blaze was so large that it set off smoke detectors in homes 10 blocks away. I hear a lot of people complaining about the overdevelopment of West Seattle and the irresponsible practices of those looking to make a quick buck throwing up cookie-cutter townhomes and condos and wonder if this was somebody who took it a step too far.......
An outstanding and diverse menu, an impressive group effort for a new record level of whiskey consumption, some intense early morning discussions and an abundance of shooting stars courtesy of the Perseid meteor shower all combined to make my time at Sparks Lake unforgettable. This is my second year camping at this heaven on earth though Rachel's family and friends have been coming to this same spot for almost three decades.
We arrived on Thursday, pitched our tent, tossed back a couple of cold ones and went right into dinner production where I continued my personal sparks tradition of potato prep (missed you Isaac!). Rachel's dad had a cooler full of chickens which he cooked on a rotisserie and Joanne created a wonderfully mysterious gypsy sauce to put on top of the meat. Nobody told Seaton I'm not allowed to play with sharp things and he handed me a big knife to carve the chickens with. I think Rachel actually ended up with more bandaids on than I did this trip, a rare event.
We camped in a sweet little spot overlooking the water. The second day we woke up and made coffee and a nice fire to keep us warm, it had dipped down below freezing in the night and Rocky made sure to get us up before sunrise when it was still icy. The morning is a beautiful time at sparks. This picture is the view from our tent in the morning.....
After a huge breakfast I realized that I woke up wayyyy too early and promptly passed out under a blanket in the nearest hammock I could find. After a little nap it was time for sparks-style swimming. This is very similar to regular swimming except there is less actual movement and more laying in the sun on a big raft and drinking ice cold adult beverages. It's a very strenuous way to spend the afternoon and should only be performed by experienced professionals like us. I manned the kayak and 
took pride in delivering EIGHT ice cold adult beverages at once to the floatilla without spilling a drop. This exhausted me and I retired to the shore for a well-deserved hammock nap
. We spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying more ice cold adult beverages and congregating in the sun while Bruce and Sue prepared a fantastic dinner of veggie and chicken curry, papadum, naan, mango lassi and delicious sauces all followed by a medley of cookies :)
When we weren't "swimming" or eating, Rachel and I filled our time canoeing across the lake and taking a looooong hike. Rocky highly approved of both activities. He led the way on the hiking trail, it was really nice to be at a place where we could have him off the leash. He is so worn out that he has been sleeping for most of the last twenty-four hours.
The hike was a little longer than I had intended and when we got back to camp we were beat. Luckily there were delicious carnitas for dinner. We stuffed ourselves and then laid in a hammock to give our throbbing legs a break.
The final day had come, Doug prepared his famous Chile Rellenos and we packed up and moved out. We packed the canoe to the brim, well actually, way above the brim, and said our farewells to Sparks Lake until next year. Thanks to everybody for making it such a great experience! I had an awesome time!
Racephotos.net posted the photos from the race today......they are AWESOME!!! Check 'em out...
The Chelanman Try-a-Tri was GREAT!! I've finished my first triathlon just in time to start training for my second. The event included a 1/4 mile swim, 13 mile bike and 3.2 mile run in and around beautiful Lake Chelan. The highlight was the bike course, it went right along the coast of the lake, vineyards on one side, water on the other. The swim was very exciting. We left the start in waves of sixty and swam the course like a school of fish, except fish all seem to swim in the same direction.....and don't have feet to kick each other with. It was full contact swimming....I inhaled water twice because the water was so choppy! The water temp was cool but not cold and it was crystal clear so I could see the bottom at a depth of twenty feet. After finishing, Jason and I both felt euphoric enough to know that this was something we needed to do again. We have our eyes set on the Kirkland sprint triathlon on September 16th. Thanks again to Rachel's dad for making the long trip and acting as photographer for the weekend!
Over the past few months I have found myself sitting at the computer from time to time, staring at my blog with my mouse pointer poised over the button that says "Delete this Blog." My myspace page had already met its fate in my attempts to simplify my life a little bit and I was tired of being at the computer after an online course I recently took. My blog's
days were numbered. Rach saw the early warning signs of a blogicide and took action. Last weekend her parents visited and brought me a wonderful gift. At Rachel's request, her mom had laid out and printed the entire contents of my blog and had them bound into a book so if I did delete the blog I would have a copy of all the stuff I had written. It was such an amazingly thoughtful gift that I have decided to resurrect 'a bad case of wanderlust' and resume documenting the adventures of Joe and Rachel (a.k.a. Captain Chaos and Ridiculous Girl) for the benefit of our distant friends and family, we love you all very much.
