Raincharm’s Weblog

Today we got started on the great kitchen clean. A few of the primary storage areas were emptied and scrubbed. The contents were appraised for their value. Those found wanting were fired.

The reorganization includes trying to group like items and find them homes that make sense. While the yellow cabinet is essentially done, this task has not been completed. There is the drawer and cabinet next to the sink and the swing around cabinet that need be taken down and refitted.

And there is talk of inviting the dish cabinets into the fray.

Still on the horizon are the linens and the shed.

This visit to northern Michigan is intended to be a working vacation. Normal opening the cabin for the summer, and then going through items acquired over the last 102 years to see if some things can be pared down. Honestly any of the items that are from the first decades of the cabin’s existence will most likely be retained.

I stayed above ground while Jane went into the crawl space to connect and turn on the water. This is perhaps a little more effort than running a hose through the forest to my uncle’s well, as we did for many years. We’ve had our own well for almost 40 years now. Plus we, my parents, added a hot water heater at that time too. So hot water without boiling it on the stove, or in the stove when the wood stove was still in the cabin. One of the chores this year is getting a new hot water heater.

But once the electricity and water had been turned on, and some other basics handled, the sun on the beach called. Because you never know when the next beach day will be it would be irresponsible to ignore one.

It’s good to be here.

Got up at O-dark-30 to catch a flight, Step 1. Step 2 was to be a bus from the airport to A2. And Step 3 a city bus from downtown A2 to my Dad’s apartment.

But Steps 2 and 3 were replaced by pickup at the airport by Sister 1 and BIL. They had escaped from Canada just in time.

And so we arrived at our Dad’s apartment.  He declared I wasn’t supposed to be there yet (I had told him later based on Steps 2 and 3) and Sister 1 and BIL weren’t expected at all. (They weren’t on the calendar, so it shouldn’t be happening.)

I do think he was happy to see all of us and we had a good Chinese dinner together. I should have taken a picture, but we were involved in being there.

Mariner game today. In the sun I got down to just 1 layer. In 2 days I  should be at our family cabin where it was in the 30s today.

Packing for upper Michigan in any season means packing for all seasons. It is supposed to reach 60 by the time we get there.

And in addition to pleasant weather the Mariners won 5-4.

Usually packing for a trip is a slow gathering followed by the concerted counting of shirts, pants, etc, and then an hour of so of into the suitcase. I had started the slow gathering as normal, and then did the counting step a few days ago. Today I got to the into the suitcase step, even though I don’t leave until early morning Thursday.

This into the suitcase was different because I decided to try using packing cubes. These had been gifted to me for retirement, but I had not tried them out yet. I finally really looked at them and realized they had a regular zipper plus a compression zipper.

Three are in use, in the suitcase, although one was too full of socks to compress. I decided to take another to use for dirty clothes segregation, just because it was handy.

I will still need to do the last minute items, at the last minute.

Yard work today included mowing the lawn. All of the lawn, even the parking strip. This is the area that had extensive crow damage. But really invasive grubs damage. The crows were merely removing the tasty invasive treats who would have killed the lawn eventually. So the crows may have been doing a public service by attacking an invasive interloper.

After essentially removing what was left of the “grass” (mostly weeds) we put down compost, topsoil, and micro-clover seed.

The result is mostly clover and some other green plants. There are a few bare spots. If they don’t fill in I may seed some more. The rectangular spot next to the sidewalk is our water meter box.

Side note: I play Wordle. On Sunday on guess 3 I had two letters in the wrong location, in both guesses 1 and 2. I was having a very difficult time finding a word that fit with the letters I had, and those that had been eliminated already. I put in a set of letters that worked but were not a word I knew. It was accepted, not the answer, but more clues for another guess.

Flawn. Never heard of it and didn’t know what it meant. A bit later I looked it up to see what it meant. From AI

A flawn (short for “flowering lawn”) is an eco-friendly lawn alternative that blends traditional turf grass with low-growing, perennial wildflowers and clovers.

So apparently we have a flawn. Who knew.

We manage to get to the street fair most years. It’s weather and conflicts dependent. This year the planets aligned. The fair has been around for decades. When we were first in the area it was huge, with good quality merchandise. This seemed to ebb for a while, but it seems to be rebounding.

This year I had a particular item I was looking for. I believe they are referred to as noodle bowls. Bigger than cereal bowls, with a flatter bottom. We stopped in several pottery stalls without finding what was in my mind. Or just one, and I wanted multiples. Then we found our stand. Not only did they have them, they were about half the price of other close items we had seen.

With that errand successfully completed it’s off to the Mariners, in the sun! I am warm for the moment.

Today’s sports were fun, even though both of the home teams lost.

Josh Naylor got at least a single while we were at the game. And 2 home runs were hit very close to us, one for them and one for us. And we left in the 6th inning, with the score Mariners 2 – Padres 5, to head to game 2.

The Sounders lost to the LA Galaxy 0 – 1. It was nice to see Peter Kingston playing for the Sounders. The first time we watched him play he was with Ballard FC, the USL division 2 team we watched last night.

We’ll be back in Seattle Stadium for the Egypt vs. Belgium World Cup game on June 15th.

Hopefully it will be a little warmer for that game.

We have a very busy next few days planned with in person sports. Two soccer and two baseball games through Sunday. And rain is predicted. And cool temperatures.

Tonight will be Ballard FC soccer, their opening match for the season. No place to hide from the rain. Ponchos and seat cushions will have to do. Now we just need to decide whether to walk, bus, drive, or carpool. We want to be early enough to get a seat in the back row where there’s a small overhang.

Ballard FC beat Olympia FC 3 to 0. It was an entertaining game, but cold. It rained a bit, but not enough to pull out the ponchos.

Tomorrow we start at a Mariners game (they have an umbrella style roof). Then, probably before the Ms game is over, we’ll cross the street to see the Sounders play. We have great seats, but they’re exposed to the elements. My hope is that the rain has subsided by game-time.

Other than dinner our evening delight was watching our neighbor play coach pitch. We walked to the field (at an elementary school), about 3.6 miles from our house. It was a good walk, with much more up than down. What was even better was that we got a ride home from our neighbor.

Carl had baseball time with his elder-buddies earlier in the day. One of them locked their keys in their car. It sounded like they McGyvered their way in using bits and pieces they had including a small crowbar and a bungie cord.

While this was going on I was working in the yard. Mostly in the raspberry patch. I added some compost on top of the fertilizer I put out yesterday. And hooked up a hose to a drip line I set amongst the raspberries several years ago. I wasn’t sure it would still work, but it seems like it did, so watering was done.

I also found that I had left a half bag of topsoil closed, but in a bucket for the last 4 – 6 weeks. It was outside, under a bush, but outside. It dawned on me that it had rained more than once since then. What could possibly have happened?! So I emptied the incredibly smelly water from the bucket and lugged the very heavy soggy (still in the bag) topsoil to the hole in the backyard where a dead rhody had been removed. The sodden soil was excavated from the bag, into the hole, where it is currently drying out. Until it rains tonight. Sometime soon I will move it around to  incorporate it into the ground. I may add some other, dryer topsoil I have as well.  I’m not going to replace the rhody this summer. I want the area to recover from whatever killed the rhody, and also from the rhody itself. Rhodys are notorious for not allowing things to thrive under their canopy.

And I saw a squirrel stripping bark off of our fir tree. Apparently they do this to get to the cambrium. If they do too much it can kill the tree, and they have done a lot.

I feel like our yard is a place of doom right now.