Here we are in the middle of July and it's a misty, rainy day. A good day for catching up.

Having given out the link to our family picture collection to a few more people, realizing all the while that I haven't posted anything in a year, I'm incented to update the collection with 2007 photos. ... Well, actually, I've included some late-in-the-year 2006 pictures, but you get the idea.

So, here's what interests us now.

First, here's the obligatory picture of this year's woodpile; this is about 4-1/2 cords. We disposed of last year's wood pile over the winter, keeping ourselves and our neighbors warm. This year's pile represents last winter's fallen trees, one of which is pictured in the shot of our snowy driveway, further down the page. For the past two years we rented the splitter. This year we decided that the woodsplitting task was likely to be an annual event, so we bought a splitter.
Next, this year's garden. It is augmented with another 10 yards of mulch, and several more passes with the tractor to get it closer to level. Finally, we put the accumulated pile of rocks culled from the garden to use: we laid them along the 6-foot-wide strip between barn and garden to keep the weeds down.
As in past years, we spend time tending the forested area between our house and the high cliff that drops to the intertidal. We maintain a narrow footpath along the bank edge, and have now extended it from one side of our property to the other. Here are two views from that cliff edge. One looking east, taken during a winter snowstorm, the other looking west, taken this July.
This forested area is really the remains from an old, rather poorly-done logging operation. There are 20-year-old piles of decomposing slash, mixed in with a few mature grand firs, a couple of doug firs that were unmarketably crooked and an overstory of bitter cherry, a weedy tree that recolonizes disturbed areas. Mixed in with this is a remarkably diverse regrowth of young hemlock and red cedar, salal, snowberry, wild rose, madrona, and various flowering ground covers. The bitter cherry are easily 40-feet tall; some of these shed limbs or collapse with each windstorm. It is these that we buck up and split for firewood. In the resulting clearing, we foster the native vegetation, only weeding out thistles and nettles. We also replant and foster the native conifers that spring up from the existing seed stock. Foxglove is actually an "invasive", however, it is lovely, nor does it crowd out the native plants. We appreciate it and let it be.
As in past years, we continue to help out the Olympic National Park Scientists. The next few pictures come from our various Park adventures. First a winter cross-country ski to service a weather station that measures snow pack. These two pictures - one in the sun, one in the snow - were taken less than an hour apart. Welcome to the Olympics!
The annual tubeworm survey (see last year's entries for more detail) occurred just a week or so ago. The tides were early, so we started out in the dark with headlamps, continuing our work with the sunrise.
After we finished our intertidal survey one day, we migrated another 50 miles or so south along the peninsula to a weather station near the Quinault. A NOAA scientist in Georgia had called to report a non-functioning temperature sensor. Would we please go and troubleshoot the problem. It was a lovely day - we took most of the intertidal survey team along on the lark. We expected to find and fix a loose connection. Instead we found that an elk had mistaken an instrumentation lead for a tasty bit of vegetation.
When we moved here to the northern edge of the continental U.S., we anticipated that having most of our family closer to the nation's southern border might present an interesting challenge. I think we've addressed that challenge quite successfully. Last Thanksgiving we traveled to Temecula (north of San Diego) to John C.'s house. Bowen, "Uncle Bo" to the enraptured skateboarding grandsons, joined us.
As if that weren't enough, our grandson, Rashaad, now an F-18 pilot and a marine Captain, was newly stationed at Miramar. He graciously gave us "the tour".
Contrast those San Diego snapshots with the weather we encountered at home, on our return after Thanksgiving. Here's what we found, complete with the first installment on the upcoming year's woodpile lying across the driveway.
In June of this year we traveled south once again - this time for granddaughter Ashley's high school graduation. On this occasion we managed to collect all of our children and grandchildren in the same place at the same time. We rejoiced and called it a family reunion.
In August we tackled painting the barn, roof and all. We rented a boom lift for a week to make the job possible for us oldsters. In the last picture of the series you see the results of our handiwork. We're very proud!
In November we bought a drift boat for fishing our local rivers. Here's Ruth on the oars as we float down the Bogachiel.
I'll finish up with a few "local color" picures. This first one is a view of the Olympic mountains in June, still covered with snow.
Lastly, a couple of pictures from our Port Angeles waterfront. This speaks so eloquently to the diversity that is our home town. The first is a log-yard tugboat at work. The second is a brand-spanking-new yacht built by and just launched from a local boatworks. It is destined for an unnamed client in an undisclosed (no, not that one) location.