A Quiet Hello

The more omnipresent social networking has become, the more we have less to say. Not sure why that is. We're just living our lives quietly these days. Can't seem to find the reason anymore to chat about the little things. The seasons change. We're still harvesting our garden. The summer heat has not abated. Supposed to be 90 freakin' degrees next Sunday. Our second corn crop is happy… me, not so much.

We planted six giant zinnias out back, and they have transformed the yard into a mecca for butterfies and bees. Next year we will plant more. It's the least we can do for the pleasure of their company.

Despite the heat the migrating birds have headed south and some of our little natives have come back from the high country. Love looking out to see a tufted titmouse and a house finch on the feeder. They haven't been here since early spring. Still waiting on the dark-eyed juncoes, but not too soon. They often are the harbingers of winter.

The half-moon rises. 

Migration

Even though the temps are still screaming summer at us (and we really wish they would stop), the birds are making their fall migration south to Mexico and beyond for their lovely mild winter. The orange-crowned warblers have been having a delightful time on the leaves of the yellow squash and eggplant in the garden. We hardly see them at all but only notice the leaves moving on hot windless days. Once in a while we do see a flash of yellow. So we celebrate that the warblers are moving though. Fall must be coming soon, right?

Have You Ever Seen...

...a hummingbird perched on the petal of a flower? I hadn't until this one decided it really liked the giant zinnia. It's been coming by for days and perching briefly like this. Pretty interesting behavior.
... or a green-tailed towhee? We hadn't until this one showed up a bit out of its range. They "rarely" show up in our neck of the woods. I noticed the white spot on its throat, and didn't catch the rufous head or green-tinged wings and tail until I looked at the pics. This bird is very hippity hoppity all the time, so it was hard to photograph, but we sure liked seeing it with the other native towhees out in the flower bed.

The View of the Back

I remembered that we wanted to show you the back of the house. The front is barn red with white trim. I mentioned that we painted the back in the opposite style. So, here it is. We love it. It's so freakin' hot in the back with all the crazy southern exposure. The blue paint and wood were severely sun damaged.
We're hoping that this light color will give the wood and paint a longer life.

Whenever we're out there now, we feel like we're on the patio of some fancy vacation house. It's all new and pretty. It makes us laugh.

Wordless Wednesday: Momma Returns With Her Twins

Painting It Red

Our first house, ca 1995, that's a dark red door!

In a rare moment of not doing everything ourselves, Roger and I hired a crew to paint our house. It was a big break from tradition. The first house we bought in Santa Cruz in 1995 was the most awful yellow-pea-green color with a crazy blue-green door. It was BAD. So, we set out to paint it one fine day, and many of our new neighbors walked or drove by to wave and THANK US for making such an improvement. We painted it a Navajo White, which is really a light cream, with white trim and a barn red door.
We are both wild about barn red. I think we may have talked about painting the Port Townsend house red, but then somehow the idea of shingling it was born, and that was that. Now that was a job. Roger and I must have blue-house karma. That big Port Townsend house was blue blue blue. Long-time Dharma Bum fans know the amount of work that project was, turning that blue house into a shingled beauty. When I was looking around at the old posts, I found a picture of the entry way of that house. Ah yes, there it was, our homage to red. We just love that color and managed to highlight it in the most lovely way here.
So, when it came time to paint our second blue house, we finally decided to paint it barn red (and have someone else do the work!). Here's a little secret about paint. No one can agree on what barn red is. We have swatches of red all over the sauna and the woodshed. Red this, red that. We drove around looking at house colors, "too dark, too light, too brown, too red, too weird…" We finally decided on a color "Brick Dust" and hired a fantastic work crew. It took them nine days to get the job done. We enjoyed their presence immensely, even when they arrived at 7:00 AM (to beat the heat). They were diligent, meticulous, good-natured, thoughtful and easy to be around. We liked them so much we barbecued a homemade pizza for them, and sent them home on many days with homegrown yellow squash and garlic.

What they gave to us was this.

PS-- I haven't even told you about the back of the house. It's the opposite color scheme. I'll do a post about that in a few days.

Where Have We Been?

Here at the coast. Celebrating the wedding of our youngest daughter Elena and her wonderful and amazing partner Jason.

Here they are with their beautiful daughter Delilah.

There are some rituals that evoke the timelessness of our human selves, the gathering of kin at the altar of love. The words we say to the bride and groom, full of every hope and open heart. We wish all good things to come their way in a future that will bring them the sweetest fruits of their dreams.

We have this one thing to surround them with always. Love.

PS: Check out the stunning white foliage from an albino redwood on Jason's lapel. It's a well-guarded family secret where that foliage grows, so it was a treasured sight to see this.