Beautiful Red Currants

Red currants are so beautiful that I just love gazing at them. They are so round and shiny, like rubies growing on a bush. I planted a bush last year and here is the result. Enough for a pot and a half of jam when once I added a few raspberries and the 12 black currants that our non-so-productive black currant bush provided. Black currants are not so pretty, but they do have a lovely flavor. Maybe we should have just eaten these fresh, but it’s nice to think of them down in the storage room in tidy jars, waiting for winter.

Vacation

Two weeks vacation is so refreshing for the mind…mostly from not answering the phone and emails and not hearing the constant buzz of machines all day.  This year’s movie was Cinderella which I shall post here when it’s edited. 11 days on Orcas, about 12 hours at home to sleep and do 5 loads of laundry and 4 days down at Seabrook on the coast. Wonderful to go, wonderful to come home.

The Farmhouse

The Little House on the Prairie

The Bath in a Bin

Eastsound Tideflats

Kayaking on Mountain Lake 

Down at the Ocean

    

On the North Jetty at Ocean Shores

Sand in our bottoms 

Jumping the waves

Bella liked chasing the seabirds 

Building our Ancient Civilization

We diverted a stream to make a river and moat around our beautiful island city

A view from the north side

Open Mike

(or is it “open mic”?)

Hooray we are home sweet home. One happy memory for me was singing at my first open mike on Orcas Island, at Doe Bay where there was, as my cousin put it, “a mixed crowd.” I introduced myself and my mandolin and explained that as this was the first time I’d done anything like this I was quite nervous, so could everyone please start talking again? There were about 35 people there. I sang two songs, one nervous and warbly and I spaced on the words once. But the next one is about Orcas Island and I love it and I sang better, and Julie said the warbles didn’t go out on the mike. Everyone got quiet and listened and afterwards told me they really liked it. I do think it helped that I sang right after the Hare Krishna monk chanting and just before the half drunk cowboy singing about how he “lost my stash, out in the trash”.  Pete the stoned dreadlocked man was next.

My sister was wonderful and smiled and gave me thumbs up when I looked out in the room and saw all those people. My niece Emily was also very encouraging and put my name on the list when I was still to chicken to. I felt wonderful in the end, doing something I’ve always wanted to but been too terrified. It’s a beautiful spot, looking south from Orcas down towards Anacortes past Cypress Island on one side and Blakely on the other. The cafe where I sang has windows all along one side that look out to a beautiful little cove. And the “mixed crowd” was nice and forgiving.