The other day while preparing to face the hot sun I covered myself with sunscreen. I had a generic brand, but just that smell of the lotion took me back to childhood and summer. I remembered Coppertone in the signature brown bottle. That day as I was working in the garden I made a mental list of other smells that did the same. Of course, you were either a Coppertone girl, a Sea and Ski girl, or you bravely put iodine in baby oil and slathered your body with that. Forget covering up, skin cancer, or sunburns. It was all just part of the summer ritual. (It was much later that the unforgettable smell of coconut and Hawaiian Tropic came on the scene.)
Glorious light from the east
illuminates dewy shades of green and white,
Under an umbrella of maple and pine
the fragrance of lilies fills the cool air.
Creating a sweet melody
the crossbills perch on a faded birdhouse.
On this summer morning
pull up a chair and dream.
Today the Saturday bouquet has a mix of dahlias, roses, sunflowers, cosmos and other colorful blooms. It is a surprise that we have this many beautiful flowers in this hot, hot , dry weather.
Here is the second Saturday surprise. I would like to give The Blogger for Positive Global Change to Crafty Green Poet. Her blog is here and she uses her poetry, reviews, and opinions to remind us of what is needed to keep our world a green and healthy place. The two parts of her blog I love the most are the crafts she shares using recycled materials (I already have a list of projects to do with students connected to writing in the fall. ) and her haiku. She is very deserving of this award.
The third Saturday surprise is a creation by JEJ. He is a very resourceful person. He used a CB home base antennae we had behind the shed, a saucer from a plant pot, and a blue bowl we use for camping to design a lovely birdbath for our feathered friends that are searching for water on these hot days. Because we do have dogs and cats, the birds are hesitant to use our other ponds and fountains in the heat. This is a perfect set-up. I wonder if people living below us think we have a new Verizon receiver in our back yard. I love it and I can't wait until morning to see how the birds respond. It is easy to fill, but cleaning it out may be a challenge. Oh well, out of sight, out of mind!
My dad as a young working man walking in Kellogg after finishing a shift.
Looking north toward Kettle Falls and Canada on the eastern side of Lake Roosevelt.
Mommy Dearest made my day by recognizing the "Silver Valley family of bloggers" for the Blogger Refection Award. The blogging family is myself, my brother at Kellogg Bloggin' and my sister at Silver Valley Stories and you can go here and read her heartwarming words. I appreciated her line "this family is Good People".
positive impact on a fellow teacher and that pictures of my bouquets made her smile. You can read about it here at May's Day , a lovely blog that shows me another part of the United States I want to visit. I will pass on the award on another post.
The picture above shows a bay further up the road from our house. It is a favorite cove for fishermen, houseboaters, and sightseers from across the lake like me! The view at the top of the post shows when you look north up the lake toward the bridge at Kettle Falls. The lake widens and creates a beautiful bend in the landscape. You can see the mountains north close to Canada.
This last picture was taken as we were heading south and descending down the mountain road. I love the mix of grass, mountains, the lake, and trees in this picture. This view is close to Barnaby Island. What a road trip and what a way to appreciate the beauty that surrounds me.
The two flowers that always remind me of my Grandma West's garden are dahlias and glads. I know August is just around the corner when I have these two flowers blooming in my garden. I always plant dahlias and glads because of those memories of Grandma's breathtaking flower garden in Orofino, Idaho. Last year the grasshoppers destroyed most of the dahlias, but we planted them in a new spot so I think they may be safer. Hopefully with the next round of blooms I will get a bouquet with both flowers. Other signs that August is just around the corner are the cucumbers just about the right size to begin making pickles, the freezer filling up with ziplock bags of raspberries, zucchini ready to harvest, and green beans twining up the poles. 
We ended the day enjoying a walk at Saltwater State Park with a spectacular view of Puget Sound.
If you are a teacher of reading you may have heard of Stephanie Harvey. Her first edition of "Strategies That Work" written with Ann Goudvis was a book teachers read and reread to try to unlock the mysteries of teaching reading comprehension to students. Now she has published a second edition that gives teachers more tools for teaching comprehension for understanding and engagement. I am sitting in a hotel room in Seattle and get to spend the next two days with Stephanie Harvey. As a teacher I have always been a lifelong learner and this workshop will be like a mini college course in teaching reading comprehension. I have my pen and notebook ready for "class". All of us have helped a reader. It may have been a student, a child, a friend, or a grandchild. When students can't understand what they are reading, we often don't know what to do next . I look forward to new learning the next two days that I can take back to enhance my own reading comprehension in the fall. Besides I get to spend quality time with four other teachers from my staff. That always makes a workshop even better!
Thirteen years ago I said good-bye to this house.
I left behind good friends, good times, and a school I loved, but I wanted a change of scenery. I wanted to relocate closer to my hometown of Kellogg, Idaho, a smaller school district where I felt I could make a difference, and after a difficult divorce I also wanted to retreat to a quieter place. When I interviewed in Inchelium, Washington I had to find the town on the map. I didn’t realize you crossed a ferry across Lake Roosevelt to get there or that there is another set of Twin Lakes in Washington. I went from a school of a thousand middle school students to a K-12 school of 250. Since Inchelium is located on the Colville Indian Reservation I learned a high percentage of the students were Native American. Between the move, the new job, different cultural traditions, and isolation I certainly got a change of scenery. Now I love the small school setting and the family feeling at the school and the community. It was a smart move and I have never looked back with regret.
I was touched recently to be awarded the Blogger Refection Award from La Tea Dah at Gracious Hospitality. When I was thinking about beginning a blog hers was one of the first I read. Through beautiful pictures, scripture verses, quotes, and good writing she teaches all of us about gracious hospitality and how to take time to enjoy your surrounding, rest, and reflect. If you haven’t visited her blog take time to experience it. 
This award was started by a sixteen-year-old girl at Lothlorien, Realm of the Lady of Light! This is how she describes the award:
The word for Sunday Scribblings this week is wicked. My favorite use of this word is the slang term in the British Isles for "excellent" or "great." My dogs are wicked watchers.
Last night Shelby was watching a tree. She stared so intently at the tree we figured a stray cat was up there. No, she was just watching a pretty little bird. That is all she did was watch and observe. It was wicked. 
Their favorite watching place is on our bed. The window above our bed has the best view of the gate. If JEJ is gone they will watch out the window for hours. They take the job seriously. They will rest their chins on the window sill and just stare. If he is arriving in a vehicle they usually hear that long before they observe him coming down the driveway. This is when I hear the wicked bark. It is an excellent bark that announced that someone is home. I have been told they do the same routine when I am gone.
One evening the dogs got excited and wanted out. We figured this was our time to check on the raccoon. We should have figured a bit more before we let them out. The food stealer this time was a skunk. The wicked watchdogs were stopped in their tracks. The wicked skunk did what skunks love to do. 
He left a wicked stench that stayed on the dogs' fur when came into the house.
Very early this morning I awoke to the smell and sound of rain. It was not just a drizzle. Relief. Later when the light was peeking through the clouds I could see white fog lifting from the lake. Relief again! It was so pleasant to sit outside this morning in the cool rain.
I walked around the house to see if the rain had actually helped. There had been enough that plants were drooping over from the moisture. Not too many roses are still blooming , but I found a blossom that had gotten a nice morning shower.
The trumpet vines were turned toward the light in such a way that they acted as rain catchers. Birds were using these flowers as little drinking fountains.
Later in the day it cleared, but still stayed cool. I was able to pick flowers that would last longer that a day in a vase because there had been some moisture. Although the hot weather causes hardship, it also helps flowers like the sun-loving zinnias burst into bloom. I was able to gather enough today for a bouquet. 
"I've seen fire and I've seen rain, James Taylor
Today was the first day in a long time I saw rain. I also saw the evidence of fire. When I studied the outdoor thermometer early this morning it was below 80 degrees. What a change. When I looked at the sky it was hazy with smoke from forest fires. I am relieved for the cooler weather. It meant I could work in the garden weeding and deadheading without wilting and getting a sunburn. I am also apprehensive for the thunderstorms that may come tonight. It is always a balancing act with summer weather.
The headlines of the paper today said that the firefighters got weather help. The Bulldog Fire is north of us about thirty miles. The Tunk Grade Fire further west is close to Omak which is about 100 miles away. It is the largest fire in the area and has burned 16,000 acres. A ban was put on open burning in our county today. Our fire danger is high.
We live in a community with our own water system. The well pump quit working today so our system tank was half empty. All of this is a concern to homeowners that live in a rural area that is very dry. Everyone in the neighborhood is conscientious and ready to help. I love that about Martin Creek Community.
I'll sleep better tonight because the weather has cooled. I will hopefully get to work more outside tomorrow. I will also watch the sky, weather reports, and fire updates to see what is happening in our area. I will lay awake though if I hear the sound of thunder and the sight of lightening. Also I dread the smell of smoke as it fills the night air. This is what the fire season holds for us in northeastern Washington.
Today is my niece Z2's thirteenth birthday. The day she was born was as hot as today . I was staying in Kellogg and Dad and I suffered through the heat while Mom went to help out in Meridian, Idaho where my sister's family lived. My niece has many talents. Above she is spending some quality time with Grandma before a family picture. She has always had a way with fashion and been the one that loved frilly clothes and up-dos... right?
She has always been an enthusiastic child, especially when she learned to say "cheese" before a picture was taken. Here my nieces were preparing to celebrate at my wedding reception.
Z2 loves the finer things in life. She is a talented musician, vocalist, actress,and dancer. Here, at an early age she took dance lessons from her Uncle Raymond Pert at my house. 
The outdoors is a place Z2 loves to embrace. A few years ago we went camping and she hiked, swam. and did glamour shots on a log at Sherman Creek. You can't keep her out of that camera lens. 
Z2 is also very helpful. When her father needed the back-end of a cow in the current melodrama he is acting in and directing- she came to his aid. While he is milking the cow, she had a carefully choreographed part with her leg . Have you ever seen a lovelier cow leg and black hoof?
The topic for Sunday Scribblings this week is hair. I am going to date myself tonight as I think back to what we did to have beautiful hair before the time of curling irons, electric curlers, blow dryers, or those crimping irons. What I know for sure is that we suffered. Women in my age group and older may recall having their hair done up in bobby pins, clippies, brush curlers, multicolored plastic curlers or pink sponge curlers. We then slept on them. Who had time to sit under a hair dryer like the ladies at the beauty shop? Besides, not too many of us in my neighborhood had those fancy portable Sunbeam Hair Dryers at home.
was the moment my dad was barefoot and stepped on a clippie, a brush curler, or a bag of plastic curlers in the bathroom. We brought out the Cuss Box when that happened. My brother probably had his moments of annoyance as a bobby pin had to be fished out of the toilet or curlers fell in the bathtub. They always seems to be where they didn't belong.
When I was older suddenly everyone wanted just body in their hair. Dippity Do was the product that helped when we rolled our long hair in orange juice cans or huge plastic rollers. We kept our bangs straight with pink hair tape. I remember not having pink hair tape one time and using scotch tape. Not a good idea! The pink mark across my forehead took days to fade away. Then we ratted our hair, smoothed our hair, lightened our hair with lemon juice, and grew out our bangs. It was amazing the rituals we suffered through in becoming a woman just to be beautiful. I laugh now when I hear someone say, " I am having a bad hair day." Try having a bad hair decade! There was relief when it was cool and hip to wear bandannas over your hair and it didn't mean you were in some gang!
Today I'll take an occasional curling iron burn or hair that needs a trim over bobby pins, skull busters, and Dippity Do! To find other Sunday Scribbling posts on hair go here.
