Easter Weekend Album

A view of the Kootenai River from the Copeland Bridge. 

This past Easter weekend offered a potpourri of scenes, people, food and activities. 

All great, including the weather.   

Whether it was Friday-night family dinner at Sweet Lou's or lunch at Jimmy's Pub in Creston, British Columbia or a Lovestead Easter Sunday brunch or Willie's assortment of home-cooked, flavorful meats and veggies at Boundary Creek, which separates the United States from Canada, our tummies and our minds were filled to the brim with delight. 

And, yes, there were some birthday presents exchanged.  Willie and Debbie had just returned from a week on the Oregon Coast where they stayed in proximity of Flamingo Jim's.  

The place along the highway with all the yard-art items fascinated Annie decades ago when we would  drive to the coast for Spring Break and stay in the "Blue Motel," at Rockaway Beach, not too far down the highway from Flamingo Jim's. 

Decades passed and Willie married another Flamingo Jim's fan from Boise named Debbie. 

When the two compared notes about their childhood adventures in Rockaway, they decided that they probably saw each other way back when they were kids in a motel pool or maybe at Flamingo Jim's.  

Flamingo Jim's has become a family icon, just like Bigfoot, and so, what more appropriate gift for Dad than to give him a Flamingo Jim's bag stuffed with a commemorative T-shirt. 

Fifty years of Flamingo Jim's, and to think that Love family members were fervent fans in its early years. 

Bill will wear the T-shirt proudly.  

 

Our border crossing along the Pend Oreille River north of Newport. 

The agents at both crossings were very friendly and talkative when we passed through on Saturday. 

A big bud about to burst open in Creston, British Columbia.

Our favorite picnic stop is located within the Fish and Game wildlife habitat area in the Kootenai Valley. 

The wetlands were alive with duck and goose activity yesterday. 

I don't think I've ever seen nearly as many ducks on past visits. 

Bill's Easter brunch plate at the Lovestead.

 

Always gotta find a geocache, and Annie did so at the Ione park on Saturday. 

Foster soaking up some sun at the Salmo River just north of the Canadian Border crossing at Nelway. 

 

On Saturday Bill, Annie, the dogs and I stopped at the beautiful municipal park in Ione, Wash., where civic-minded adults were preparing the grounds for the annual Easter egg hunt. 

A few early birds showed up, well-equipped for egg collecting. 

Not quite the usual numbers for our group who go to this picnic area every Easter. 

Annie's flight to back to Seattle left mid afternoon so Bill took her to the airport while the rest of us headed north. 

It was an absolutely fantastic day for picnickers and their pets.  

Dogs outnumbered people 6 to 5. 

Easter Blessings

 

🐣🐣From our home to yours, wherever you happen to be, wishing you joy and peace and good memories on this Easter Day. 🐤🐤

Saturday Slight

I guess I jumped ahead of myself yesterday while proclaiming that we were going to warm up and that I would probably remove the blankets from the horses. 

Let's see.  Did it warm up?  

Not really.   A biting wind made high 40s seem like mid-30s. 

Twasn't warm, and the blankets stayed on the horses. 

But it was dry, and that meant some outdoor projects were completed. 

I even mowed twigs.  The lawn was covered with them from the last couple of wind events.

 

There are many more to be mowed, but they are in places which are still pretty soggy. 

Nonetheless, the lawn is greening up and looking much better. 

Maybe I can mow some more twigs today, and maybe I'll remove the blankets from the horses today. 

The morning is stunning with a beautiful sun-up and numerous species of birds melodiously making their presence known. 

I think we'll have no problem enjoying this day. 

On one of my indoor attempts to stay warm yesterday, I enjoyed and appreciated this brilliant writer's perspective while reading it on my sister-in-law Mary's Facebook feed. 

I liked it so much that I thought it was worth sharing.

 

by Anne Lamott

SORT OF GOOD FRIDAY, an old, updated piece:

There is the most ancient of sorrows in the world again, scores of dead children, young soldiers sacrificed by madmen. 

None of us knows quite what to make of things, or what to do. We praying people pray for the innocent. Some of us pray for impeachment, but we will have to wait till the midterms, seven months from now, and not to lose our minds in the meantime.

We pay attention to life, so we can see that there is just as much messy mercy, goodness and grace going on. It's the song that never ends. Even amid the evil, the smashing and crashing and terrible silences, the trees are all in blossom, and it’s soft and warm and bright. Spring is pushing through.

What are you supposed to do, when what is happening can’t be? When it’s all too scary and weirdly fascinating and grim, and the old rules no longer apply?

We keep hobbling forward. All we can do someday is the next right thing. I keep remembering an old Xeroxed photo of Koko the signing gorilla, with a caption beneath it that read, “The law of the American jungle: Remain calm, share your bananas.” That’s what we do — ache, love, march, donate, stay calm, share our bananas.

I asked a hopeless friend recently, “What story would help you most? A story about God? A nice story about quirky miracles?”

“No, thank you,” she said. “I’d like to hear the story about how we don’t know what’s going to happen, and how it all sucks, and that we are scared to death, and we don’t know how we’re going to get through it.”

Like her, I am sometimes depressed and furious and grief-stricken these days. I often feel like someone from the Book of Lamentations, or a tense, abandoned puppy to whom someone has given LSD. The marches really help. So do walks on the mountain. So do the pets, my furry little psyche nurses.

The Christian writer Barbara Johnson said that we’re Easter people, living in a Good Friday world. The problem is, I’m not really one of those Christians who has the right personality for Good Friday, for the crucifixion part. 

The resurrection isn’t for two more days. Your mind tells you that it could all be a trick — crucifixion Friday, descent into hell Saturday, colonoscopy Sunday. 

But I do believe. 

The trees, so sticklike and gray last month, suddenly went up, as in flame, but in blossoms and leaves — poof! Like someone suddenly opening an umbrella.

I am going to pray and work for this nation to resurrect, so our leaders want to be a part of the human family again. 

Stephen Miller is family. God loves him exactly the same as God loves babies. I hate this. But that is the mystery of grace. God loves, period. Miller is a dangerous member of the family, worse than a Klansman but I would not let him starve, That’s the best I can do right now. 

Maybe at some point, later, briefly, I will feel a flicker of something more. Possibly not. Let me get back to you on this.

I am going to try to pay attention to the spring. I am going to look around at all the flowers, and look up at the hectic trees. I am going to close my eyes and listen.

 One Sunday my pastor asked the kids to close their eyes for a moment and listen. After a while, she asked them what they heard. 

They heard birds, and radios, dogs barking, cars, and then one small boy said, “I hear the water at the edge of things.” I am going to listen for the water at the edge of things.

I am going to tell my hopeless friend these stories, and remind them of those islanders in the South Pacific where the United States Air Force landed during World War II, to use as a base of operations. 

The islanders loved the Air Force being there, all that loud and blinding light from above, landing in a path of klieg lights on their land. They believed it was divine because there was no other way to understand all this energy. 

And after the Air Force left, they created a fake runway with candles and torches and pyres, to await its return. 

Light!

Let there be light, and let it begin with me. I am going to notice the lights of the earth, the sun and the moon and the stars, the lights of our candles, the lights with which spring teases us, the light that is already present. 

If the present is really all we have, then the present lasts forever. That will be the benediction.

Below:  from a summary in the New York Times Morning Newsletter

 Christina Koch, another of the astronauts on the mission, described the phenomenon [of seeing the Earth from Space]  

“You don’t see borders, you don’t see religious lines, you don’t see political boundaries. 

All you see is Earth and you see that we are way more alike than we are different.”

Let's just call these grocery-store flowers. 

They were mighty pretty yesterday as I drove by with my shopping cart and spent some time admiring them.  

Enjoy the flowers and Happy Saturday. 

Water Color, Etc.

 

After two days of steady rain, this Good Friday looks like a winner, promising warmth and no more wetness for a few days. 

The Earth in our area has certainly received a soaking.  Puddles abound along with more than enough squishy mud. 

I fed the horses in the barn twice yesterday.  When they came home on Tuesday, it was dry.  

Within hours, however, the rain began to fall, and their barnyard is now a muddy mess. 

So, I think they were more than happy to choose the barn over the outdoors for a couple of days.  

They could go outside if they wanted, but on most of my trips outdoors yesterday, all I saw were their faces, standing in stalls inside and watching it rain outside. 

I think they will be happy today, and, more than likely by afternoon, I'll remove their blankets, as we're headed toward the 70s in the next day or so.

What amazing weather for an Easter weekend!

I don't think it rained too much on Bill's birthday parade yesterday.  Gifts in the morning, a telephone visit with his twin sister, a trip to Spokane to pick up Annie and dinner at Mick Duffs topped off by a decadent cake and ice cream (salted caramel) dessert. 

Our immediate family birthdays are taking a break until April 7 when my sister Laurie celebrates a significant milestone (Medicare, anyone?). 

And, so today, Annie is home.  She'll be working remotely and taking breaks to take Foster for walks. 

Bill and I will probably resume our outdoor projects.  The grass is growing, and the lawnmower will probably go into action. 

I'm feeling the endorphins buzzing within and ready to propel me into some springtime action.

 

Yay!

Speaking of "Yay," how about the Artemis Mission!  Bill and I watched the launch and agreed that it reminded us of the space activities in the '60s when we'd tune in, as students, to the various Space activities. 

I agreed with the commentators that it's so nice to have something positive that unites people and injects them with some rare optimism. 

Their accounts of what they've seen and how it affects them are poignant, to say the least. 

Be prepared for delays between questions and answers in the video below. 

A treasure came in the snail mail yesterday from Great Britain. 

I still have a card Lynne Stockman sent me several years ago.  It features a Border Collie. 

Lynne wrote that she went to a garden store where she lives in England, saw the above card and thought of me. 

A lovely surprise in the mail. Like the other card, it too shall stay on display somewhere in this house. 

Lynne was one of my students who graduated from Sandpoint High School in 1980. 

Always witty; always very smart, and definitely thoughtful. 

Thank you, Lynne.  Bill sez we need to get together for lunch or dinner while you are in Sandpoint. 💜

Happy Friday.  

If you're local, enjoy the spring beauty and warmth ahead.