Timelapse Video of Thunderstorms by Chad Cowan

As usual, I found a great video over on This is Colossal.com that I hope you enjoy just as much as I did. I love the Great Pacific Northwest, but I really, really miss the thunderstorms of the Midwest. Growing up in Michigan, it was one of the best parts of summer, except for when the cable would go out as a result! Chad is on Instagram, and I just started following him, because I don't want to miss out on anything new.

Catching Up

We had the Around the Corner picnic at Hovander earlier this month and the weather was good. It's been hot lately, but today was cool with crazy wind  - totally blew my plan to keep digging out the new flower bed.

I have Delphiniums and a few roses to plant,  and have more roses and some tulips on order from Zulily. The soil out here is really nice,  but I'm encountering rocks and other stuff that is slowing down the process. Apparently people buried and or burned and buried their garbage in the yard in the good old days. I've found broken glass, chunks of charcoal wood and even a whole brick! So I'm sifting as I go  (Hi Hoe, Hi Hoe).

Here are some pictures from this month.

Lazy Sunday

Here are some more pics from recent days/weeks around the new place. I'm really enjoying it since we finally have some fairly consistent warm weather around here. The cats are really having a lazy Sunday today. 

Tomcat

Tomcat & Boo

Boo

The Long, Hot Summer

The summer of 2015 was very hot and dry here in the Pacific Northwest. And although I enjoyed the sunshine immensely, we really needed the rain. Starting on Friday, August 28th, it rained every day for 8 straight days. With the prediction of this rain, I figured the lawn would come back and be nice and green and be back to normal. So I decided to do a little project of taking a picture every other day of the same spot to gradually see this happen; boy was I wrong with my prediction.

The drought conditions were so bad that it has just barely had an affect. My last post of last weekend's storm and the damage that happened are another illustration of how bad things got here.

8-28

8-30

9-1

9-3

9-5

Time Lapse Cloud Video from Alex Schueth

Check out this time-lapse video of a cloud formation called Undulatus Asperatus by Storm Chaser Alex Schueth during a storm over Lincoln, Nebraska in summer 2014. It was over on Colossal.com today. It is just under a minute, and if you love thunderstorms like I do, I recommend taking a moment to watch. 

Today's Best Comic Strips

Today's Get Fuzzy and Sherman's Lagoon were pretty good.
We had another beautiful day today,  tomorrow is supposed to be just as nice,  but rain is in the forecast for the rest of the week.  Bummer.

Sherman's Lagoon - September 14 2014

Get Fuzzy - September 14 2014

St. Sophia Greek Fest 2014

St. Sophia's Greek Church

 For the last several years now I've tried to get to the Greek Fest 2 -3 times for either lunch or dinner, this year I made it twice. It started on Thursday, which is typically a quiet time, with Friday dinner time being the busiest. Thursday I went after work alone, and then Saturday I met Karen, Denise and Jo for an early lunch; good timing, because the lines were long by the time we left.


The weather was gorgeous, warm and sunny. The food is always great, I've discovered that I actually like the Loukamades better than Baklava as far as sweets are concerned. I love getting a gyro and spanikopita for the main course.

Karen, Jo & Denise

Loukamades

The Loukamades are basically a free form donut with a honey glaze with cinnamon sprinkled on top. They are so yummy.

The video is just a very small snippet of the two gentlemen that have played for the last couple of years at the fest. They are good, but it would be fun sometime to have a larger collection of musicians to join them.

Sunny Wednesday

Bizarro - August 1 2014

A few comic strips from this month that tickled my funny bone. I also added 2 new GIF's from Colossal.com; too much cool stuff ALL the time!

I am taking another vacation day, and the weather is beautiful still. The prediction is now for a wet Labor Day Weekend here, which is somewhat of a bummer because it's our first 3 day weekend of the summer at work where the office is completely closed.

I can't really complain too much, we have had a beautiful summer. I'm going to work in the yard today and get things done while the weather is nice. Maybe I'll finally get around to posting some ice cream recipes this weekend....

The Duplex - August 19 2014

Sherman's Lagoon - August 20 2014

The End of June

It's hard to believe it's the end of June already, this time of year is so slammed at work, and this year more so than usual. I have just a few things I found online today that made me smile and laugh that I wanted to share.

Last night I was feasting on PBS with the return of two really good series; Last Tango in Halifax with Derek Jacobi and Endeavor with Shaun Evans and Roger Allam on Masterpiece Mystery. Endeavor is the early days of Inspector Morse, both are excellent. Have a good week everyone!

Uncle!

How Did He DO That!

Summer Solstice

The first day of summer here in Bellingham was thankfully a absolutely beautiful one. Sunny the whole entire day. I worked from 10 to 2 and came home and worked in the yard from around 4 to 8:30 minus dinner & the news at 6.

I met my new neighbor who bought Dave Sr.'s house next door. The house had been empty since 2006 when Dave passed away. I was not happy with his dog running around loose; the 1st night they were there his dog Bear charged at a squirrel in my yard. All I could imagine is him doing the same to my cats.

The new owner is Taggart and he seems nice so I tried to nicely voice my concerns and he was responsive,  so I hope it's all good. It was actually kind of funny because his dog kept coming over to check out the cats and they were all staring at him, but standing their ground.

I think the dog actually wants to play, and he didn't bark at them, that's a start. I've been thinking it would be good for them to learn to get along with a dog,  maybe this will be the opportunity by default.

I pruned a bunch more out of the apple trees,  but I still have so much more I need to do. I'm really worn out tonight. I came in and poured a glass of mango orange juice and sat down in the living room. I looked over at it and it looked like it was glowing. The sun was reflecting off of something and lit it up, it was cool.

I'm going to watch the Winnipeg Comedy Fest on CBC and relax a bit, then hit the showers and flop into bed!

Zits 

My Sweet Little Visitors

My surprise visitors today, and a sweet little visit it was. They were curious but also very cautious about Woody coming out from under the deck to greet them. I'm guessing it was the first time they saw a cat. It was definitely the first time I saw them. I didn't think I was going to see any fawns this late in the summer. The doe was here too, but she went next door kind of quickly. The two little ones were too preoccupied to follow.

Lazy Sunday

Woody, Munchkin and Boo

The battle with the yellow jackets continues, and the cats decided to hang out inside this afternoon.

We got a little moisture this weekend, and if we had any thunderstorms like Seattle did, I unfortunately slept right through them.

Munchkin and Boo

Internet Love and Hate Story, Part Two

Buck visited Monday night, August 5th

Today's posts are brought to you with thanks to Ryan from Comcast. Bless his heart, he totally rewired the cable on the outside of the house, and to the power pole this morning.

I took the day off from work, because the appointment was scheduled between 8-10 am. He tested everything in the house first and then went and took a look outside and asked me if there had been any updates to the cable that I was aware of. I've lived in the house for 15 years, before that Mark had lived in it since at least when mom died in 1985. I don't think anything has been updated since then. He said the cable was actually broken in some spots it was so old and worn out. He was amazed the internet had worked at all, but that definitely explains why I had trouble after less than a week.

I also rented a pick up truck today from Fountain Rental so I could take some stuff to Recomp. It always feels good to purge deadwood (so to speak). I also ran some errands around town that are not easy on the bus. Then I treated myself to a burger from Boomers, which I had been thinking about for months!

 I hadn't driven since I rented a car for one day September of last year, and I'm thinking that I need to start doing this every month or so, just to be able to get out and break the routine. There are so many places that I miss going now, that I used to just hop in the car and go when the mood struck me. It still kind of blows my mind that it has been a little over a year now since the car went kaput. 

Some kind of Hawk that was checking out the neighbor's chickens

Around the Corner Summer Picnic

A week from today is the Around the Corner Summer picnic held at Hovander Homestead Park in Ferndale. Hopefully we will get our favorite spot next to the house under the big tree. And I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the dry weather continues as well.

Fragrance Garden at Tennet Lake Interpretative Center

Gardens behind Hovander Homestead house

Here are some pictures from visits to the park in the past. This is one thing I really miss about not having the car, is not being able to just head out here for a walk, or to the Maritime Park in Blaine. I love the Fragrance Garden.







I'll never forget coming out one summer evening after the dinner hour, and it was quiet and I kept seeing rabbits everywhere. I nicknamed it bunny central, including the one I saw munching on the leaves of something in the fragrance garden..

Fragrance Garden

Fragrance Garden

Wisteria at the Fragrance Garden

Giant Fossil at the Fragrance Garden

Hydrangea in front of Hovander Homestead house

Busy Bee

The busy season is upon us at work, and I have had some long days. My cold is gone thankfully, but I'm still burning the candle at both ends during the week and sleeping extra on the weekend.

I just uploaded over a week's worth of meme's to the slideshows, but am still two weeks behind on catching up to The Daily Show, ah well. The weather is still so back and forth that it doesn't feel like summer at all. I don't miss the really cold snowy winters of Michigan, but I do miss the consistent warmth of the summers.

I was bummed earlier this week when I found that something had been digging in the pot that I have my Sweet Peas in, and I suspect the squirrels. I was so excited earlier this spring, they were off to such a good start. Enough of my complaining. The white rose out back has just started to bloom and that will make up for it ♥

I was having a brief conversation with my teammates Terry and Amber at the end of the day, that I saw/experienced some interesting things on the bus this weekend. Amber said I should blog about that. I want a catchy title for those posts, and I don't have it formed in my head yet.

The story I was going to recount to them was about waiting for the bus to go shopping on Sunday morning and watching this Japanese woman coming around the corner on the opposite side of the street, and she was walking backwards the whole way. I kid you not. The bus stop on the opposite side of Alabama has a bench, and she walked backward all the way around the corner and sat straight down on the bench. Then I could hear some music (coming from her phone presumably). Then after several minutes she walked across to the stop where myself and another woman were standing, not walking backwards by the way.

Then she starts signing to herself. Finally the bus arrives, it was crowded and she sat in the aisle side of the seat with a guy who was already on the bus. By the time we reached the Cordata bus station, she was leaning forward onto the seat in front of her like she was passed out, even though she showed no previous signs of being under the influence of anything.

It has now been a year of riding the bus since my car went kaput, and I know I can't say that I've seen it all because there will always be tomorrow....

Summer

This is a complimentary funny meme to the one posted last week.

We actually had a decent day today except for the chilly breeze. And I ended up spending most of the day inside taking not one, but two naps because of my cold. I had a such a bad sinus headache virtually all day. I've got Vicks Vapo-rub all over my chest, and will be in bed within the hour. Cheers.