July 2011



The out of town guests begin arriving:



Tom and Roger play croquette on July 4th



Dad and Rosalie at The Downrigger

My Dad, at age 89, took a bus to downtown Seattle, got off at the Convention Center, found his way to the BelAire Shuttle bus stop, rode the bus to Anacortes Ferry Terminal, waited for two hours for the ferry and walked on for me to pick him up in Friday Harbor to visit with my sister and myself for five days over the Fourth of July holiday.  I was so proud of him!

The date has been set and the invitations have been sent for my Dad's 90th birthday party here on San Juan Island.  June 9 & 10, 2012.  This will be a Barreca family reunion as well.  That means the countdown has begun.  I have 11 months to get this place in shape.  I started last Sunday by sending Roger up a ladder with a chainsaw.  He limbed up or cut half a dozen trees.  Amazing how much more light comes through!

preparing for Soroptimist entry in Fourth of July parade

I participated in the Fourth of July parade as a clown.  The theme was: Life Is a Laugh in a Costume.



My brother Joe's blog  always has something relevant in it.  This time he talks about (among other things) the 50th reunion of his 8th grade class.  This Fall we are celebrating the 40th reunion of my high school class and I have been helping my best friend from High School who has volunteered to host a barbecue in September.  We have been trying to use Facebook and Classmates.com and other websites to find and invite our former classmates.  Roger heard a news story about Facebook making reunions irrelevant--no need to meet in person when you can catch up with each other's lives in the cloud.  

It is amazing the memories that one can resurrect just by leafing through the yearbook.  We had a relatively small graduation class and add to that the fact that I was the editor of the yearbook . . .  I'm feeling a lot more connected than I thought I would be to these OLD classmates.  More on this subject after the reunion in September.



We hosted a potluck at our house last Friday.   It's good to get the social obligations out of the way early in the summer.  That way, the place is looking good (the lawn is mowed, the fire pit carved out from the overgrown brush) much earlier than it otherwise would have been.  Along with weekly potlucks, July brings Shakespeare on the lawn, the arrival of 100 tribal canoes, an arts festival, the Lavender Festival, among other events.  Summer is in Full Swing!





Happy Solstice!

Attended the Fremont Solstice parade with a bunch of my best buddies.  This was one of those packed Seattle weekends which included a spa day (including facial and pedicure) for me and a plant-run for Roger.  The evening finished up with a Greek meal in Wallingford and a concert by our friend Jay Hamilton at the Good Shepherd Center: Honor.  We also visited Dad for Father's Day.  And managed to squeeze in a trip to Costco, of course.

Progress on the Carport!  See these three beautifully tapered columns?  Notice the very attractive cement bases?  Can you picture the size and shape of the carport to come?  Setting these poles up was a big milestone.  The next step, placing the rafters, will involve not just milling the lumber, we will actually have to go out and cut down two or more trees to harvest logs long enough to span the roof. 

Before we do that, we are going to take out the lower branches from the nearby doug firs to get some more light coming through on the west side of our house.  It is amazing how much vegetation is closing in on us and its time to hack it all back!

Here's a picture of Suzie teaching a five month old pup, Millie, how to drink out of the fountain.  One of my many projects planned for this summer includes a mosaic bowl addition to the fountain.  I've also got some waterlilies coming up.  I've had to place a net around them to protect them from predator poodles.

Sorry for the flash at the bottom of the photo.  This is my new art piece.  I bought it from Mary McCulluch Art Walk Studio Tour.  The colors match my kitchen cabinets perfectly.  



approx 2 lbs of strawberries

And finally, strawberries!  Here's a picture of one day's harvest.  With about 50 plants in the main garden and another 25 or more in the kitchen garden we should have plenty of shortcake this summer.