Pepper's First Christmas

Banket (bahn-KET)

Trying a new tradition. Dutch Goodies!

Wood

Wood. Warm. Ready for Winter. Here we have about 3.5 cords. This year we have all kinds...some maple, tamarack, red fir (not much), white pine, white fir, and birch.
Here is some cottonwood from our neighbor's tree across the street. Once seasoned, it will be interesting to see how well it burns.
This is October 18th. Our burning bush is just turning red.
Down the street though, is a full red burning bush. I don't know what the actual name is, just how I remember it from growing up.
Sunset from the crest of the 6th Street hill.

Fall 2008 has been good. Only one rainy day in September (I was camping) and the colors are exuberance once again. Here is my backyard, new fence, new neighbor's cars and three colors.
My new shed. Purchased from Ziggy's, built by my friend and me. Just got to put on the door and caulk the trim.
It's 10 x 16. Should be big enough for all our mammon. We don't have a garage so this will be a big help. We'll paint it in the Spring.
From the street, it looks the right size. One project down, two thousand to go.

Pepper the Dog

Here are some more pics of our dog Pepper. She is a pretty good dog for being only 6 months old. She knows how to sit, lay, roll over, and fetch. We have a good time with her this summer.
She likes to look out the window.
and sit on the back of the couch.
And sleep on the couch.

My wife is amazing. This is a piece of furniture she bought and refinished.
She resurfaced the floor, painted it white, installed new knobs, and added some colorful oil cloth.
She plans to use it as a baby changing table.
This fall, she has also been busy with a drama class she is teaching and keeping the home, baking pies, cobblers, goodies, etc. She has made numerous curtains for our windows as well as decorating the walls. And she has to put up with me. What a great wife!

Fenced In

This summer, my big project was building a fence. This pic was taken in May, it shows the terraced dirt in the corner of my backyard with no fence. Seeing as we wanted a dog, we needed a fence.
So here is an early stage pic after we put in the posts and rails. On the north side of the yard, one slat at a time.
Start to look good.
I made a retaining wall in the back corner and built the fence there as well. I realized that I needed to continue the fence that far because as soon as I completed the wall, our dog Pepper shot up the wall and chased after the world. Now she is fenced in. I have enjoyed working with bigger equipment this summer as well. I rented an augur for the holes, a Bobcat Loader for removing the dirt, and an Excavator to help my friend eliminate juniper bushes. I understand now why men love big equipment. Beats office work.

What have we been doing all summer?

There will be more posts soon. One thing we did, as we always do, is gather wood for the winter. Here is a pile of White Fir and White Pine before it was split and stacked.
Here is the first new addition to our family. Our dog Pepper. She is friendly and energetic, as most puppies are. She is a mix of Border Collie, Australian Shepherd, and Hound. She is bigger now, but this is when we first brought her to our home.

Its JUNE!

Yes, that's right.
It was snowing when I got up this morning. Sigh. The date? JUNE 10th.

Our first nearly tragic but exciting major (ok medium) emergency...

When we arrived at our cute little condo for the weekend, before the Mount Baker Quest, we were happily unloading the car, grateful to finally be there. Northwestern Washington is FAR from Moscow. Keith was getting the heavy stuff. (I love being married.) And I was unloading smaller things and putting them here and there. Our first task had been to turn on the heat. So it didn't even register when I smelled something funny. "Oh, that must be the heat kicking in," I thought. And so, though Keith or I wouldn't normally have put the cooler, or anything on the stove top, I didn't think anything of it because it wasn't turned on... right? After all, the kitchen was rather tiny. The next thing I new, as I was returning from the car with another load, Keith was running out of the condo with the cooler, saying "Honey, we have a fire. I need you help, NOW!" A fire? What?!?! But we just got here! I hurried inside and sure enough, flames on the stove and Keith throwing water on it. I remembered seeing baking soda when I opened the fridge earlier, so I grabbed it and tossed a whole bunch on the flames. (I'm not sure the baking soda really did any good, it wasn't a grease fire, but its the only thing I could think to do...) The fire died but the beautiful ceramic stove top was a plasticky, baking soda-ie, wet mess. Oh dear. Also, the kitchen was carpeted. And Keith, in his haste to remove the cooler from the hot stove, placed it on the floor and burnt a hole in it!

To make things worse, we happened to be staying at the condo of a man that neither of us had ever met in person. He'd done some business with Keith long distance and sort of owed Keith a favor. We both felt a little, well, a lot horrified at the fact that we'd nearly burnt down not only his condo, but eight or ten more that were connected to it.

While Keith called the owner, I set to work trying to srape off "cooler plastic" from the stove before it hardened into a permanent fixture. You can be sure, I felt a little anxious that it couldn't be done. Graciously, the owner didn't care about the carpet, (it was ancient and hideous, thank goodness) and he was more concerned about our comfort and liking of the condo than the little fire that did almost no damage (except to our nerves) and said little about it. Eventually, by keeping the stove warm, we managed to scrape off the plastic and amazingly, the ceramic top looked as good as new! God was very gracious to us!

When we had settled down a litte, we reinacted the whole thing to see just how it had happened. Either someone had left the burner on or else Keith had accidentally turned the knobs when he put the cooler on top of the stove. Unforunately, it was the latter. The fire was our fault. Oops. Our only consolation is that now the owner has more incentive to get rid of that ugly carpet in his kitchen.

Mount Baker Escapades...

Keith and I spent the weekend of our first (1st!) anniversary in a cozy condo near Mt. Baker in a glorious, woody, mountainy area of the Cascades up by the Canadian border. It was only for a couple days, and we both felt we could have stayed longer, but did enjoy the spectacular scenery and a few of the condo's 800(!) laser disc movies. Saturday, our only full day there we went for a drive up into the mountains in search of Mt. Baker herself...

But first we had to stop and see these incredible Nooksak falls.

I told Keith to look amazed. He's such a good actor.







But... it was cold here because the water is all snow run-off (of course) and there was still PLENTY of snow on the mountain adding to it. Plus it was really shady and wet. Pretty, but time to move on...

Could that be Mt. Baker? No no, far too small and not nearly enough snow on top. We heard it was snow-capped. Hmmm...

After that we drove and drove and always the mountain eluded us. We knew we were headed in the right direction but... Wait! Could that be it?





We weren't sure. Finally, after straining around every windy bend of mountain road, we found ourselves looking over the tops of trees to see this beautiful mountain! We found her! Didn't we?

We consulted the map yet again and found that we were actually looking at Mt. Shuksan.

Mt. Baker is supposed to be HUGE and yet we couldn't see her. If that isn't some kind of major contradiction... Finally, the road we were on dead-ended at this wall of snow that was blocking us from our ultimate destination. Sigh.

We weren't to be daunted. We traveled another road that would take us to a open and perfect view of several mountains.

We drove past (and through) streams and mondo pot holes...

We even caught glimpses of the shy Lady far off.

But, alas, that road ended in a dead-end of snow as well. And we weren't wearing the proper shoes for a snow-hike, you know. No, only the next morning, several miles away, as we were leaving could we see her shrouded in morning mist. Our quest was ended only half-fulfilled. But golly it was fun trying!

Long time no post...

This post is for all you wild, avid fans out there hoping for exciting news from the Dimeler Household.

Well, a lot has happened in the last few months.. well, not a lot. Actually, a lot of the same thing, except that I (Nellie) did graduate last weekend. Woohoo. MFA-ville here I am.



Oh, and we got some flowers finally. We have more besides these crocuses, but I'm too lazy to download them just yet. :-)

Wintry Winter in Idaho

Snow removal is what we do a lot these days. We have had over 10 feet of snowfall this winter here in North Idaho.

But it can be a lot of fun....neighbors all hanging out in driveways, kids playing, and adults too.
Here is my wife, Nellie diving over the deck rail into some plush snow.
Everything is white.