Staining fence boards, finally

Location, At Home

On Saturday we drove to Ventura and on the way stopped at a few places to check on fence stain. Still no luck finding what I want. We also stopped at two quilt shops for Clyda but she didn’t find what she was looking for either.

We picked up flowers in Ventura and put them on her parent’s grave and her aunt and uncles grave at the cemetery.

We met Roger for lunch at Brophy Brothers seafood restaurant at the Ventura harbor. We beat the lunch crowd and I had a nice plate of Calamari rings.

Clyda shopped at Macy’s while I browsed Barnes and Noble for an hour. I didn’t find anything I really needed so we drove home.

I watched a lot of golf this weekend. The US Open was just too good of a match to pass up. I only saw the last three holes of the playoff round on Monday plus the sudden death hole. Quit a match.

Tuesday I found the stain I am going to use on the fence. It isn’t exactly what we used 3 years ago but I think it will work just fine.

I started staining fence boards today. The weather is quit warm so the boards should dry fast. This will be a several day job as I only have so much room to lay the boards out to do the staining.

My stack of boards to stain. They have been drying here since January.



One side stained.

Bathroom almost done

Location, At Home

Posting two days in a row is a record for me recently. Not much happened today. I caulked the baseboards in the bathroom after I pulled off the painting tape and cleaned the caulk around the tub. The only thing left to do is replace the escutcheons around the shower head piping and the water inlet line to the toilet. These things just seem to last only a few years before they corrode.

I made a trip to Home Depot for the escutcheons and also to check on cedar stain for the fence boards. Still no luck in finding water based stain like we used last time. There only seems to be oil based stains which have darkened over time and look dirty.

I want to post some pictures of flowers from our trip to Portland and one from our yard.

The first is a variegated blue hybrid iris which was in a parkway in front of a ladies house in Portland. She loved showing them to us. I have never seen one like this.



This is a “root beer” colored hybrid iris.



Beautiful red rhododendrons.



A Leonotis or lion’s tail in our back yard. This is a volunteer which has just taken over. I have two more in front of the house which haven’t done as well but in a fairness, the ground is rocky and mostly clay. When paired with purple sage plants they are most striking.



I want to thank our friend Debbie in Portland for the copy of Clyda and I at the beach a few years ago. I decided to use it to replace the photo in the blog.
Thanks Debbie, I hope you don't mind.

Trip to Washington

Location, At Home

I am really behind with this blog as it has been almost 2 weeks since the last entry.

So, what has been happening since the last entry? Well, the bathroom is all painted and yes, I did need to get a can of Orange Peel spray and touch up the texture coat. I applied a coat of primer over that, then two coats of Glacier Bay satin enamel to finish. The color is between a green and a blue. Just like glacier ice looks like as the light changes. This all got completed before we left for Washington on Tuesday the 3rd of June. I also got most of the RV waxed. All but a small portion of the rear cap.

We left at 11 AM on Tuesday on Horizon Air which is a feeder line for Alaska Airlines. They fly CRJ-700 commuter jets. Nice aircraft with leather seats and they do serve snacks with juice or wine and Micro brew beer. In this day when few airlines do extras, Horizon gets my vote.

Clyda took this picture as we were boarding the airplane. The irony is that Michael has been accepted for school at Washington State University so we thought the plane decals were fitting for our trip.



We spent 2 days with Debbie and Thomas (friends of our son Tim) our friends also, in Portland, OR. The weather was rainy and cold but we managed to see the Rose Garden, downtown Portland, the river walk area and the new gondola. We also went wine tasting in the Yamhill valley and looked at a house Debbie wants to buy. Thomas was a gracious host and took us to two of the restaurants in the chain he works for. Fabulous food! Thanks Thomas and Debbie.

On Thursday afternoon, Debbie drove us to the airport and we caught the Horizon shuttle to Seattle. Our flight departed late but it is only a 55 minutes flight so that was ok. After spending an hour getting our rental car, being shuttled to the car agency, etc, we got on the road about 6 PM. It was probably better that we were late so the commute traffic could thin out. After driving for an hour we stopped for dinner at a nice restaurant called Maxwell’s in Marysville.

Another hour’s drive found us at our destination in Lynden, WA at Clyda’s sister Candi and her husband Mark. We were in Lynden last summer for three weeks with the RV. The real reason for this trip was to celebrate nephew Michael’s graduation from high school on Friday.

The weather was cold and showery all the time we were in Lynden but it was not raining for graduation which was good as everyone stood outside the gym afterwards to meet and greet friends. Lots of folks show up for graduation and the gym was packed. Along with Mark and Candi and Clyda and I were Marks parents John and Mryla from CA and Michaels sister Dawn who is a student at Seattle University studying ultra sound. More on this later.

Michael is an honor student and a member of the National Honor Society, a wood worker who has built several end tables and book shelves for his mother, has helped build a portable building as part of his school work and helped a friend build a house on Lummi Island. We did get Michael properly graduated. I don’t think he stopped smiling all day.



Michael will spend his first year in general studies at WSU (Wazoo) and hopes to enter the Architectural program starting his sophomore year.

Dawn has been going to school for 3 years and last fall was admitted to the Ultra Sound program at Seattle University. She was a last minute admit so had to scramble to find housing, get her grants and loans arranged and move to Seattle all within a few days. She is on the Deans List and loving the program. After a 4 week summer school she will be working a one year residency at the hospital in Bellingham. We are very proud of both Dawn and Michael and all they have accomplished the last few years.

The remainder of the trip was spent visiting and eating. Mark smoked ribs, chicken and salmon while we were there and was it ever good. Thanks Mark and Candi for a great week.

The return home wasn’t quit as nice as the alarm went off at 3 AM yesterday. We were out the door by 3:15 and arrived at the car rental lot by 5:30 after filling the car with gas. I should mention that the rental car was a Suzuki crossover (small SUV) which is the same design as Clyda’s Equinox. GM owned part of Suzuki until a few years ago so I guess they used a common design. We were back at the airport and through security by 6 AM. After a nice breakfast at Anthony’s Fish House, (thanks for the recommendation, Mark) we boarded about 7:45 and departed about 8:15 for a 2 hour 20 minute flight.

We arrived home to fog but at least it was warmer than Oregon or Washington. Neighbor Paul picked us up and we were back at the house by 11 AM.

After a nap, I picked boysenberries and later went to the Elks lodge for dinner. I watched the last half of the NBA finals. The Lakers managed to pull out a victory.

Today I worked in the bathroom putting all the hardware back on the walls and installing a GFCI outlet and new switches for the lights and fan. The outlet is wired to an outlet on the same wall in our bedroom so that is on the GFCI circuit also. I replaced the tub controls with new hardware which looks really nice.

I painted the baseboard and touched up a spot over the tub and painted the heat register to match the walls. After the paint dries I need to caulk along the baseboard and around the sink back splash and around the back of the tub. The caulk isn’t bad around the tub but it does need freshening up to match the rest of the room. It is amazing how much time I spent in this little room. There is no such thing as a quick paint job when all the other items are factored in.

Painting and waxing

Location, At Home

After my morning walk and a bowl of cereal for breakfast, I finished removing the wall paper paste Clyda had worked on in the hall bath. I did some repair around the tub with spackle and will wait for that to dry before I put on a primer coat. I am hoping that the primer will cover any imperfections created when the wall paper was removed. If that doesn’t work then I will need to pick up a can of Orange Peel spray for touch up.

I managed to get some waxing done on the RV before lunch. Not as much as I had hoped however. I would like to get it all waxed before Tuesday when we leave for Washington.

After lunch I sanded the few spots that needed it and taped off all surfaces I didn’t want to paint. The bathroom is small so it doesn’t take long to roll on a coat of paint. It will dry until tomorrow.

I finished the day by picking 11 baskets of berries which is the largest amount I have picked at one time this year. Clyda decided to make a small cobbler for dessert tonight. Yummy!!!

A much needed wash job.

Location, At Home

I mentioned in last Fridays blog that I needed to remove the sap from the RV awning after the trip to Yosemite, well, today was the day. With the RV parked next to the house, there is no room to extend the awning so I needed to put it in the street to open it for cleaning.

We live on a cul de sac so I waited until all the neighbors had left for work and then pulled the trailer out and parked it at the side of the cul de sac and extended the awning. There was a lot of sticking noise from the sap as I unrolled it. Using Soft Scrub on a rag I started on the under side and working upside down, or looking over my head, tackled one square foot at a time. Talk about hard on the back and arms………I guess. It took me about 2 ½ hours to do both sides of the awning. Not all the spots came off but I think I got the sap off.

After lunch I started washing the rig. It’s at time like this when I wonder why I ever bought such a large RV. It is basically a hand wash job so that means lots of climbing up and down an 8 foot ladder. With the washing done I decided to wax the front cap which gets all the bugs while traveling. Waxing isn’t to taxing and so this was done quickly. Now I really need to wax the rest of the unit but Clyda has other plans for me tomorrow.

She has been removing wallpaper and paste from the hall bath so now it is up to me to complete that job and get a coat of primer on the walls. We would like to get that bath done before we go to Washington next week. Don’t know if that will happen or not.

Memorial Day

Location, At Home

I hope everyone had a nice Memorial Day weekend. We didn’t have much planned. On Sunday we walked the last nine holes of the City Gold Tournament while watching Kevin Marsh, the son of friends play. Kevin has won the tournament twice in recent times but yesterday was not to be. He came in fourth after a disastrous two holes.

After the tournament, we went to Don and Bev’s house for a BBQ for Kevin. It was a nice afternoon and has become somewhat of a tradition on Memorial weekend. Clyda is paying for it today as the course is quit hilly and her knees bother her.

This mornings local paper featured a picture of the tournament winner at the 18th green on its front page and through his legs you can make out Clyda standing back of t he green. Her 15 minutes of fame!

I replaced the hall bathroom fan which is always fun as I had to get up in the attic to remove the old one. Of course, the new one is not the same exact size so wood spacers needed to be added to make it line up with the existing opening in the ceiling. After it was installed I tried putting the vent cover on and it wouldn’t fit as the fan needed to be recessed in the cutout to the bottom of the drywall not the top as I had positioned it. After another trip to the attic and help from Craig all is now as it should be. I am filling the opening around the new fan casing with spackle so the fan won’t draw air from the attic instead of the bathroom. The fan is 110 CFM which should make my friend Budd happy the next time he visits.

It's berry picking time!

Location, At Home

It’s berry picking time. To be specific, it’s boysenberry picking time. My berries usually start to ripen about the 2nd week in May and continue for 6 weeks. This year the vines are smaller but the berries are nice sized.



Today’s picking was only 5 baskets as we have had cool weather the last few days. Nice warm days make for a bumper crop. About the most I have ever picked at one time were about 25 baskets. That amount is unusual and only happens once a season at the peak ripening stage. Notice, I recycle strawberry baskets for my picking.



After picking, the berries are washed under a stream of water as I dump some into my hand so I can look for leaves, etc to make sure they are clean. I let the clean berries drain in a colander and then put them on cookie sheets and into the freezer they go. After freezing over night the berries are packed in one gallon zip lock bags and marked with the year and put back in the freezer again. Frozen berries look like jujubes, the candy shaped like raspberries.






Most of our berries are used for cobblers or canned into jam. When we have too many for the freezer Clyda cooks them down for juice and cans them later. The juice is frozen in quart jars. She also makes boysenberry syrup which is really good on pancakes or French toast.

There you have it, the life of boysenberries.