My son was fourteen when we moved into this house. He was a shy and awkward fourteen year old, tall and skinny … not thin … skinny. And he wore braces. I had just married a man who was the complete opposite of his father. Husband Number One wore tailored suits and monogrammed shirts and if he needed to hang a picture, he hired someone to do it for him. The only time Joel ever wore a suit and tie was to give his daughters away and that’s only because they insisted. And he owns about every sort of power tool you can buy.

We’d only been in the house for a year when I suggested that a semi-secluded flat patch in our backyard would make an excellent spot for a tea garden. I pictured a small, perhaps prefab, writing shed and a Koi pond. Nothing special; just a place to escape to. And then my father got involved. He had just retired from teaching mechanical engineering and needed a project. I suspect he also wanted to get to know my husband a bit better.

My son had been having a hard time finding a job for that summer and so Joel put him to work. First, he cleared the existing patch of weeds and bushes and then he rebuilt a crumbling retaining wall. Meanwhile my father began visiting with his sketches in hand.

First came the foundation. I tried to help by dragging concrete bags down the hill … but my primary responsibility was to keep my shopaholic step-mom busy. My father absolutely despised shopping.

By the end of that first summer Cameron was still a skinny lad but he had started to buff up. He entered the next year of school with curly, sun-bleached hair and a surfer’s tan. Needless to say, he actually began to have fun at school.

Because we were both still working, the tea house took over three years to finish. The framework and roof took perhaps the longest time.

We finally finished the summer that my son left for college. By then he knew enough about construction to get a job at a hardware store. There he quickly became the go-to expert on Simpson Strong Ties which made him very proud. He also starting spending his summers working for Habitat for Humanity.

The other day I found my father’s original sketches and sent them out to Cameron. He and his wife both work in downtown Manhattan but they’ve bought a piece of property two hours north of the city where they hope to build a house. Like the tea house, I imagine theirs will be a long labor of love. At least, I hope so.

This post is part of Hugh’s News and Views WordlessWednesday event.

For all my friends who are quilt artists! Enjoy!

Today, I walked 17,000 steps and climbed Kilimanjaro. And it was all done indoors. How? Why? Tomorow and Sunday the quilt group the Textiliste belongs to hosts their bi-annual exhibition. Long time readers may recall they held a special last year, as a What did you do during Covid themed show, but this was back […]

Being Blown Away — TanGental

A couple of days ago I complained that WordPress had eaten my post but not the images I’d uploaded for the post.

Many of you were nice enough to try to shed some light on what might have happened.

• Hugh, from Hugh’s News and Views, suggested that the post was in quarantine pending a review by WordPress. Hugh’s a brilliant guy who knows just about everything about blogging but I didn’t write anything nasty enough to be censored. However, I checked and guess what? What he meant (which I misinterpreted) is that, if your site has been infected by malware, it will be quarantined until the malware is snuffed. Generally you will receive an email if this happens but not always. Especially if you have multiple email addresses like I do. So, thanks once again Hugh!
• A few bloggers suggested that I may not have saved the post before publishing it. That could well have been true.
• Yvonne at Priorhouse told me to turn on two factor log in asap. An excellent idea!
• Anon, blogging over at Anonymole – apocryphal alligators, suggested that I had two versions of the post open and saved the wrong draft. Also possible. I’m generally doing two things at once.

But instead of guessing, I have put a question into the Happiness Engineers. Thanks everyone for your help!

Okay guys, I’ve saved this post three times! So I’ll add one last thing – an image gallery of my friend’s artwork for your amusement. My favorite collage is Pep up your parts! What do you think it was an ad for?

Pressing publish and hoping I’m not sending y’all a blank post.

Today’s another hot day here in Northern California. It won’t be as hot as earlier this week, the weatherman claims, but it’s already 98 degrees (F). So do I believe him? We’ll see.

But I did get out early enough to take a few Thursday doors snaps – the doors to this utility box are on the other side.

But these are the doors for this utility box. Check out other doors at Dan Antion’s place!

Meanwhile I’ve been going through a huge pile of home improvement books that I found stuffed in a cabinet we rarely use. Most of them were published by Reader’s Digest, Sunset Magazine, Better Homes and Gardens and Time/Life books back in their heydays (fifty years ago). They cover just about anything you’d need to know to build and maintain a house (and garden.) Of course, changing light bulbs these days is a struggle for us. So they won’t be going back in the cabinet. I’m not sure anyone will want a book on solar heating and cooling that was published in 1978. But I doubt the basics of electricity and plumbing have changed that much.

I did find an interesting article on installing a deer proof fence.

It turns out that deer shy away from baffles (see lower left of image). So if you don’t want deer in your yard, just build a maze! There’s another interesting idea for gopher proofing a yard. Let me know if you’d like me to post it.

The heat has done in Penito. Alas.

Whelp, it looks like old Charlie will finally get to be the king. Sigh, for the next several days, I’m sure it’s all we’ll hear about.

Soon Penito will be finished blossoming and who knows what will happen next.

At least the bees have been showing him some love.

We’re heading into a potentially deadly heat wave which always causes our power company, the notorious PG&E, to fly into conniptions. Turn off unnecessary lights! Set your AC to 78 degrees! Don’t run major appliances between 4 and 8 at night. The grid is straining, the grid is straining. Oh my!

So we may lose power at any time. Thankfully I have plenty of books and a basement which is generally twenty degrees cooler than the upstairs. Hope you are all managing to stay cool during these hopefully final hot days of summer.