Dayton, WA.-All Wheels Weekend part 1

 I was interested in things beyond the awesome chrome and shiny cars (some were dirty!). I liked how the Cooper above (the Mouse that Roars) had tires I could easily change and then this giant jeep had tires which were incredibly tall!

 

I also loved all the fun things you find on people's rigs. I don't rightly know what the car with the great airplane hood ornament was, but I loved it and the REO Speedwagon was a super cool rig! 

 Of course, we saw very few (2 in fact) Mercuries, but no car show would be complete without a DeLorean.  Minus the flux capacitor......

 And a car from another movie! OK, not exactly, but it reminded me a little bit of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang!

An advertisement on one of the cars we saw. It fit a GREAT many of them! I'll post just cars later-

Dayton, WA- All Wheels Weekend Part 2

All Wheels Weekend Saturday ended with a demo derby. Being a fan of the Tillamook County Fair derby, we were a bit skeptical. But, we were pleasantly surprised. For $10 a head we got a super impressive 3 and half hour show! They did a lot of heat races, which sounded boring since the track wasn't very large. However, they were anything BUT~The cars were raced over and over and over and they basically took each other out if they could. The Dayton Fire Fighters and EMTs took to the track several times. No one was hurt, but it made for a great show. 

 These two photos here are favorites-most of the cars that tipped were just tipped back over on their wheels and then they drove off. As the announcer said, the drivers had 'their bell rung.' I'm sure some are pretty sore today, but hopefully a few have some extra cash!

 Jon took videos, which were loud and dusty. I'd love to post one..I'll have to figure out how to do that. The demo derby consisted of three derbies. A small car one (which the cars above may have crashed in--I sort of lost track!), a truck derby (an old Ford, a middle aged Chevy, and a Dodge. The Dodge was hammered, but won..only cuz the Ford was pushed onto the cement guard and couldn't get off of it..and he lost a wheel! It was noted as the Ford drove off, put a new tire on that baby, punch out the door, and she'll run again! The Dodge..probably not!). , and then a regular car derby. I believe the green car above won that. The red and yellow car came VERY close, though!  As you can see fans were of all ages~And you can also tell it was HOT!!!!!!

Early June on the Mtn Ranch

Jonathan and Steve have been doing fences the last few days. However, Jon went up alone one day with the camera and took some amazing pictures. I chose a few of the over 100 to share!

 I love all the flowers blooming up on the mountain during the spring. Yes, it is still spring up on the ranch. The fence of wild roses is rather stunning.

  Deer playing peek-a-boo!

Things you find in the pond-A GREEN dragonfly, a snail floating on the ceiling of the water, and polliwogs! 

This snail Jon took several photos of-finally, he saw it tilt and realised it was a snail underwater with it's foot on the bottom of the surface of the water~which is really strange. 

 At this time of the year, the pond is green and not full of pond weed, the cows have not torn up the edge of the pond, and everything is peaceful. I only hope the killdeer nest hatches out its babies (it was near the pond!).

 As Jon drove home, he captured the ranch in his mirror and camera (my camera). I think this is one of my favorite photos,.

Mole Rescue

Jon found a mole in the middle of a gravel drive-it was furiously attempting to get thru the gravel, but couldn't. So, Jonathan caught him and brought him home. We kept him overnight and learned so many cool things! Moles eat earthworms-they really like earthworms. We watered last night, so the yard had many night crawlers available for a young and agile man to snag. So, Jon did. He dumped several in the plastic tank where the mole was residing and we got to see some amazing action! It was like Tremors! (only with a mole) It dug and the soil jumbled around...it made two holes (one in each corner at this time) and it rose up out of a far hole, sniffed around and LUNGED! It snipped at a worm and snagged a HUGE one and pulled it into the tunnel. The one it snipped, stopped moving. We found out moles have a toxin they use when they bite worms so they can keep a worm larder underground. 

 We took out a bunch of dirt in order to get photos of our guest. He was pretty annoyed with us for messing up the tunnels he had made and he was also wanting to escape. Moles look like they are swimming in the earth and get oxygen from the ground-incredible creatures!

 Their 'hands' are made for moving earth and they move it FAST. They are mostly blind, so they don't see well and are rarely found above ground. They eat worms, invertebrates, and nuts. The worms, as I mentioned, are stored, but they also have traps in their tunnels so when a worm is caught, the mole can run and get it. Like an underground spider, only not as creepy!

After spending time with a mole, I am more understanding of the Redwall creatures. I almost talked to it in mole speech, but decided not to....We let him go in a nearby pasture and hope he has a great time digging in an area several blocks from his 'home'.

Tulip Time-

Blogger has become increasingly frustrating to use, which is why I have not updated in months! I decided I wanted to share my tulips with you-These are only a few of them. I do have some planters that are not blooming well and some of the older ones are not quite ready yet. I'll add those with photos from previous years-

 These tulips, the bright orange ones, are always the very first tulips to come up. There were so many I've moved them a bit to make a bank of orange. They are incredibly festive and I'd love to know their name!

 These are my second ones to bloom every year. I have two sets of red tulips-in this photo you can see the ones on the bottom are a bit different. I also have those star shaped tulips in a different part of the front bed. In this next (not able to be rotated) photo you can see the leaves are a different type as well.

BUT, this April, not all was well with the stratosphere. Or something. We ended up with a couple of pretty incredible frosts. As you can see, it was not encouraging to the fragile tulip blossoms.

These crinkled edge tulips look quite a bit like Audrey from Little Shop of Horrors!!!

 I did clip (the next day, after another frost), a ton of the orange ones. I realised if I put them in a tall vase, you wouldn't be able to tell they were droopy! As you can see, the petals show definite frost damage, but they did open and close, so we enjoyed them inside for several days.

 These are some I did not plant, they have peony like petals. It appears I don't have any photos of the white or yellow ones-I'll have to find them to photograph them this spring!

                                This one is a lovely pink tulip. Such a striking pattern on their petals.

As much as I adore daffodils, tulips are so lovely. I never look at one without thinking of my daddy (they were his favorite flower) and of fairy tales. The reason the tulips close up at night is so the fairies can sleep safely!

Frosted Beauties

I grew up with something we called hoarfrost. Most people in the states are not familiar with this word, but it is so beautiful! A partial definition of this is from Wikipedia:  The name hoar comes from an Old English adjective for showing signs of old age, and is used in this context in reference to the frost which makes trees and bushes look like white hair. It may also have association with hawthorn when covered in its characteristic white spring blossom.

 Love looking at the birds as they perch in the frosted trees. They are so much easier to find!

 Hoarfrost is cold, beautiful, and very fragile. Buford Buckshot, being made of metal, was intricately decorated overnight.

 

More of the different foliage in the yard. Above right are black eyed Susan's and dollar plants, next to those is my golden willow we brought from the coast, and last are ivy leaves. Such incredible shapes and designs in the frost!

 
 I wandered over to my neighbor's house and caught some super funky crystals adhered to different kinds of yard art. I loved the frosted Christmas light and the LED snowflake below will look incredible lit up...if the solar powered panel got some daylight! (I'll have to go over tonight and see.)

I particularly love this little garden bug that was spinning in the breeze. And I also noticed, the breeze we had in the night made the frost crystals form on only one side of these dried flowers. Pretty cool, huh? 

I opened this post today with birds and figured it would be fun to close it with birds as well! Birds are so much fun!

more recycled Christmas!

This one is blurry, it is a garland I made for over the bathroom mirror. Much less work than the real tree one. No pine needles in the sink!

These two decorations pictured are special. The greenish garland (I really need to spruce up the color next year!) is the one pictured in the Recycled Christmas post. It is a favorite since that doorway is horrid and looks bare all year long. The balls garland next to it was made by  our neighbor. She used some old Christmas balls, yarn, and Mardi Gras beads to create this. I was very impressed. 

 I made tiny decorations to put around our light fixtures in the stairwell. Kind of Dicken's in a modern sort of spin!

 I particularly love this garland. This is in an area with Ford decor, so the blue and silver and white matches perfectly! Making the bows is not as difficult as I thought it would be-I may have mentioned that before!