Time Traveling: Day One

Good morning, my friends. In my mental wanderings of yesterday, I decided to tell you about our trip as each of the three days unfolded. But first, I'll catch you up on the day's activities here at home. My to-do list is long for each day this week, but I'm only looking at one day and one item at a time. Doing it that way will keep me from driving myself crazy. 

So let's talk about what's going on in the garden first. It was a day for hoeing, but first, I walked around to check out the landscaping. The mint is blooming.

The echinacea have taken their place as the stars of the garden right now.

The bees and butterflies love them.

The Edda clematis has produced a third flower. It's less prolific than last year. I'm just happy it survived the snow this past winter.

The Checkers dahlia continues to open a little more each day. It's not quite there.

And there are ripe tomatoes in the greenhouse. 

Here are some more over here. I'm thinking I might harvest what I have and try refrigerating them until I have enough to do something. If more don't come along soon, I can always use them in salads.

We thought the Red Cardinal clematis was finished for the year, but it put out two more last gasp flowers.

There are more flowers on the purple hydrangea. I want to try to get a picture of the whole thing in better light. It was in bright sunshine when I took this picture, which fades the colors some.

Here are some eensy-weensy green beans. There were some that were ready for harvest at the bottom of the plant. This is the problem with the first ripe things to appear. There isn't really enough to do anything, and yet, they won't be good if left on the vine.

I noticed one of the sunflowers is showing its center. I'm excited for these to start blooming. There's a good crop of sunflowers this year in many different varieties.

Despite checking the zucchini thoroughly for ripe ones, it seems I always miss one or two. I found another one yesterday. There is enough zucchini for two batches of relish now, and that will be enough for the year. After that, I'll have to get more creative with my zucchini usage. 

There are a couple of desserts I want to try, and there is always bread. I like to shred it and freeze it in proper portions for zucchini bread, and then I can have bread whenever the mood strikes.

On the sewing front, I was able to finish off the July block for The Joyful Journey quilt. This one is called "Peace at Home."

Sadie helped me trim it.

Here are the seven blocks I have for this quilt so far.

Also, I finished off the ninth block for the Domestic Affairs quilt. This one is called "Wear a Smile."

Here are the nine blocks I have for this quilt so far.

And that left me with nothing to stitch. I'm at the "short" slot of my embroidery dance card. Choosing at random, I selected this block called "Joined in Thread." It was a part of a stitch-along project that took place at the peak of the pandemic, when we were all still locked down inside our homes. The group was called "Love and Hugs from Australia."  This one was created by Leanne Knell.

There were several blocks released that could be sewn into a larger quilt. I didn't make all the blocks, but I've made a few. This "Bee Brave" mini was one of the designs from that series.

Okay, so let's just hop into the time machine...I think there's room for everybody...and let's travel back to last Tuesday, July 18th. It was our first full day after arriving at the campground late the previous afternoon. Our first task was to put our boat in the water. We had a rented under-cover slip, and that was very nice. It was a comedy of errors getting the boat into the water. We've done this hundreds of times, but watching us, you might have thought it was our first time. I actually looked around for anyone pointing and laughing at us.

Mike had done some work on the boat before we left home. This involved adding some Simple Green to the bilge along with some water, letting it slosh around as we went down the road, and then draining it into a drain in our own driveway. Well, that was all well and good except Mike forgot to put the plugs back into the boat bottom before launching it. He quickly realized the bilge was filling with water and the boat would sink if he didn't take it back out.

Okay, so he quickly got the boat back on the trailer, but then forgot to actually attach the bow end to the winch. So when he started to pull the trailer out of the water, he nearly pulled it right out from under the boat. Yikes!!! Fortunately, no harm done. We got the boat properly seated on the trailer, drained water from the bilge, and then launched it. Mike tooled around the marina for just a bit making sure we hadn't damaged the propeller. That's him out there near the center of the image below.

We still had to go park the boat trailer and attach bumpers at our slip. There's always a lot to do getting the boat into the water for the first time. 

I wandered around taking pictures of the two bridges. This is the Snake River Bridge, also known as the Lyons Ferry Bridge. It has a history. I'm cutting and pasting here, so I'm sorry if this is repetitive. The bridge was originally constructed in 1927 and known as the Vantage Ferry Bridge, where it carried the North Central Highway over the Columbia River in Vantage, Washington, replacing a four-car ferry. By 1923, the ferry was transporting 50,000 people across the river annually, and it was clear that a bridge was needed to replace it. Later, the construction of the Wanapum Dam downriver of the bridge in the 1960s flooded the town of Vantage, and state officials decided to replace the existing two-lane bridge, which had become unsafe for high volume traffic, with a new four-lane bridge. The old bridge was dismantled and put into storage. Meanwhile, at Lyons Ferry, crossings of the Snake River were done by ferry, but the construction of the Lower Monumental Dam caused the river to slow, thus increasing crossing time. State officials then decided to reconstruct this bridge at this location. And here it is, as you see it now. 

In this next image, you can see the configuration of the Joso Bridge on the left, and the Snake River Bridge on the right. I'll say more about the Joso Bridge in a little bit.

When we were satisfied we could venture out safely, we zoomed off, leaving civilization behind.

I'm only kidding a little bit about "leaving civilization behind." There was nothing out here. We were heading west on the Snake River toward the Little Goose Lock and Dam. 

The only life forms detected were some cattle grazing in a pasture that was watered for their dining pleasure. The rest of the landscape was brown and tinder dry. In the image below, you can also see some boxcars stopped on the railroad tracks.

It was interesting geologically. Possibly I missed my calling as a geologist because this stuff fascinates me. Here is a good example of columnar jointing. It's the same formation that can be seen at some of the better-known locations such as Devils Postpile National Monument.

Here's a closer look at a section of this same formation. See how the earth's movement has caused it to twist like a corkscrew?

Here's another look at it in a different location.

It was on this day that we saw the birds I wrote about in yesterday's post. We were out for a couple of hours, and then headed back to the marina. It was fun passing under the Joso Bridge. Built in 1914, the bridge is 3,290 feet long, built of steel and set on concrete piers. It was once billed as the highest and longest trestle in the world. It fascinates me for reasons I can't explain. It's almost as if it touches something within me that I can no longer remember.

Birds nest in its girders, although these nests all seemed abandoned.

Here's another picture of it at sunset. I want you to notice also how the floating dock acts as a breakwater for the marina keeping the water smooth for boaters coming into and leaving the area.

Opposite the marina is a nice picnic area. This is a KOA campground, but it's also available for day use by residents in the area.

So that brought to an end our first day. I'll tell you about Day Two in tomorrow's post.

Coming back to today, I have several housekeeping chores ahead of me, and it's time to water the flower pots again. Also, I'm going to make a stab at getting the carrots pickled and processed today. If I can finish all that, I'll get to my sewing. Tiny House #27 is still waiting for me. 

When I left the sewing room yesterday, I'd progressed only as far as cutting the sections apart.

Tiny House #28 will be released tomorrow, and so I need to get busy on this. If I have time, I'll spend an hour on it, and then start working on sewing together the Vintage Linen quilt top.

That's all I have for you today. It's time for Sunday morning blueberry oatmeal pancakes. Have a good day, everybody!