You're Doing It Wrong

Look at these cute little guys, playing.

I have another more recent clip with 5 (5!) raccoons around the deck so the water bucket and camera have been moved out by the shed.

We celebrated our 26th wedding anniversary last week. We went to Tanaka — delicious Japanese comfort food. When I first saw the menu and items called “sandos” I rolled my eyes. HAHA. Joke’s on me. I have been there at least 4 times in the last month. Recommend!

Then we went to see Goose a hippie jam band kind of thing downtown.

As we left the restaurant there was a wave of tie-dyed people walking towards the show.

When we arrived there was a fairly long line to get in. Someone came over and told us there was another entrance on the other side with no line. My husband is a pokey walker and I was amazed how quickly he could move when it meant getting into our show faster.

“Now you can walk fast?” I called after him.

It was fun music and fun to see so many people downtown so happy to be out. There was a lady in a dress that had porcupines and amanita mushrooms on it. Whenever I’m shopping online I always look at the outdoor summer sporty dresses: Eddie Bauer, Athleta, Columbia, Prana — I saw every dress I’ve ever looked at on someone at that show.

My only complaint was that it was a little too crowded. I had a place to sit on the brick steps but my aged bum protested pretty quick. I wouldn’t have minded dancing but the crowd was really tight and it was hot and I wasn’t up for fighting my way into that. We left early. (But also I had worked all day.)

Someone has been breaking into my house and putting so, so, so many clips of raccoons on my computer. Also downloading too many photos and many of the same ones over and over as if they don’t understand how an iPhone works.

Last weekend the plan was to go to the Native American Art Market in Santa Fe, NM with my cousins for a girls weekend. My niece was a model in a fashion show and it was going to be a weekend of fun and getting away.

BUT, life intervened and there were some elders with health situations and everyone cancelled at the last minute and went to Orleans instead.

I am oversimplifying but this isn’t the place for the whole story.

This is the Klamath River at Tashawnik. There was a big fire upriver called the McKinney Fire that killed three people and vaporized a huge swathe of gorgeous scenery not to mention many homes. This is different than the Slater Fire from the 2020 fire season that killed two people and also vaporized a huge swathe of different gorgeous scenery and many homes in Karuk territory. I didn’t get to see the damage from that until June of this year.

I don’t know how to articulate what it’s like to see the damage from wildfires like that other than to say it’s hard not to cry and it’s really awful.

Back to the photo above, there was a huge rain storm and debris went into the river — I think below Happy Camp. The river looks like chocolate milk. Also a bunch of fish died.

Getting back to the Orleans trip, we had time with Mom and time with the health-impaired elders who are hanging in there like champs.

This is an elk track from Tashanik — a big one.

I got the news that the trip was cancelled while I was en route to the airport so I arrived in Orleans with my Santa Fe ‘let’s go out on the town clothes.’ I wore the same shorts (borrowed from my sister) for most of the trip. It was much hotter in Orleans than forecast for NM.

We worked around the place. Here is a giant bear pile kindly left right under Mom’s window, in the garden and on the hose to make sure we didn’t miss it. We ate lots of zucchini and cucumbers. Went on some nice walks. I read a lot. We managed to wring a decent weekend out of some not great circumstances.

This is from the trail cam. I liked the silhouette.

I found a whole folder of great clips that I set aside. And that’s other than the big folder of saved clips. I try not to save too many. And I fail at that.

My sister-in-law gave me some heirloom seeds from Fort Vancouver gift shop. I tossed a bunch out there but only a little bit of success. Look at this beautiful lavender poppy!

The seed packets had these ridiculous suggestions for spacing out the plants. Six feet. Maybe I misread it and it’s six inches. I will be more aggressive next year.

This is the garden from a few weeks ago. Looking wild.

It’s dried up a bit now. We had a great bean harvest and I’m letting the rest stay out there to harvest as dried beans that I will use to plant next year and to eat. I let a bunch of peas dry out, too. I dug up a huge bunch of potatoes. We need to eat potatoes. Cucumbers look worthless as usual.

There are a few pumpkins, not a huge crop this year which is fine since we still have a ton of pumpkin in the freezer. Tomatoes are starting to come in. I picked two in one day last week.

Look at these cute little guys playing. At the moment, most of my camera card is raccoons playing around the bucket. I’ve been meaning to put the camera in another spot in the yard but never seem to get around to it.

I am scheduling posts again — busy week and big adventure next weekend in Santa Fe and hopefully I will have photos to share when I get back. Or rather, hopefully I will get around to sorting through the photos and posting a a few.

Look! Babies! I have been wishing we’d spot some babies riding on mama but also worried about getting what I wished for. Where is everyone going to end up living?

There was a special where we could add Paramount Plus to our extra-large existing menu of TV choices for cheap so we hopped on it.

I started watching one of the new Star Treks. I didn’t expect to watch the whole series but this show is perfect.

It’s like a crime show. There’s a problem introduced at the beginning. In the middle it seems like all is lost. But then they solve the problem and everything is good by the end. There are some threads that carry over several episodes but it’s not like a mini-series where it’s really a long movie.

There are so many great shows out now but sometimes I need something that isn’t dark or grim and gets resolved at the end.