Holy moly, this weather! It is SPRING! I keep thinking it’s just a tease and that we’re in for some nasty arctic push or something (like much of the rest of the country) before “real” spring arrives. But February is waning and there is just no sign of that. What an odd and warm winter for us. (And a severe winter for the east coast and the midwest).
I received a text message from my long-time friend, Diane (I’ve known her for as long as I’ve known Helen—since 2nd grade! In fact, I believe we were together in the same “reading group” when our teacher was informed by another teacher that President Kennedy had been shot.) Her parents live not far from the Harstine bridge on the mainland and she was going to be there today, wondering if we were going to be around. We were! So she came to visit this afternoon. It was the first time she’d seen the house and it was so great to see her! We gave her the grand tour. (Fun to do, to again see everything through the eyes of someone who hasn’t seen it before). (As usual, click the photos to embiggen).
We had such a nice visit and I picked her brain a bit about entertaining. She is a master of that! She has a very creative mind (and abilities) and one of her many talents is laying a fantastic spread for large groups of people. Décor, organization, class on a budget, and nummy cooking. (I still have many more tips to glean from her!) Part of which, “how do you keep yourself from getting frazzled?” She just seems so calm. Like, “Yeah, we might be hosting a wedding at our place this summer.” ZOMG!! I mean, I’m already stewing a bit about us hosting our neighborhood potluck/road committee meeting in September! She will be my go-to resource, and we’ll likely “experiment” on her and her husband. Heh!
Actually, Helen is really good at this, too. But she also gets a whole lot of help from her husband (who is quite a cook himself) and I’m not so sure that’ll be the case for me? I know that for me, when it comes to cooking, I always feel that I need about 4 more hands/arms! Evolution needs to step up there!
The weekend for me was major cleaning (yeah, those floors again…) and John ventured up north with buddies to meet up with a fellow “gold prospector” to try their hand at capturing some gold! It was also the first “real” test of John’s highbanker/dredge/sluice contraption. They went up to the Index/Goldbar area at the north fork of the Skykomish River on a gorgeous sunny day (that started out butt-cold but transitioned to uber-mild once the the sun rose above the trees). They had a blast. The area is also known for garnets and they found a bunch of those! It wasn’t until they had brought home the fine sands to process through the blue bowl that they knew if they’d found any gold. They figured not much, since it wasn’t apparent on-site, and it’s true that it wasn’t a haul or anything, but they did get some!
As you can see, traversing those ROCKS was KILLER!
