Kids back home, etc.

The kids came home from camp this morning. They arrived back in a not-so-pristine condition...

I was told the speaker for our campmeeting this weekend was flying in this morning also. So after picking up the kids and loading their luggage, I rushed back to town, unloaded, and then drove up to the airport. But there was no one waiting there... I checked the church, went back to the airport, but nothing. I called the Conference office and left a message. About an hour later I got a call back saying maybe they might have just gone to one of the hotels when they didn't find anyone at the airport (because I was a bit late). I called, but nothing. Then a little while later, I got a call again telling me that I was given the wrong date. The speaker is flying in tomorrow morning.

Shelley learned to water ski at camp. Now she wants to get some water skis and then find someone to take her out... Hmm... We'll see.

Shelley also picked up her very first paycheck this afternoon. A nice bit of pocket change for 1-1/2 weeks of work. We'll go to the bank tomorrow and see about getting her a bank account.

At camp, Amy mostly did art and craft type activities. One of the things she did though, was life skills which apparently included how to build a wilderness shelter. This afternoon and evening, she's been busy at work in our backyard forest, building a shelter.

I went grocery shopping for the Sabbath lunch meal for campmeeting: 9 lbs. of zucchini, yellow squash, and eggplants; 16 lbs. of yams and sweet potatoes; 1 gallon of vegetable oil; 2 quarts of heavy cream; 10 lbs. of frozen corn. The menu involves fried vegetables, yam and sweet potato gratin, and corn cooked with mustard seeds. Another family will provide the salad, bread, juice, and dessert. Tomorrow I'll start some of the early preparations of the food -- mostly peeling, cutting, and freezing the potatoes. Friday morning, I plan to cut the squashes and the eggplant and season them.

This evening I was curious about where, approximately, our property lines are. I took out our 25 feet measuring tape and did some rough measuring. The front to back depth was about where I expected, but the side to side width was much more than what we thought. Our house only covers about half the property width. There is almost an equal amount of property adjacent to the house. This is the part currently filled with salmonberry vines and a forest.

To give you a rough idea, I took some photos and stitched them together into two panoramas. (They are not meant to be good panoramas -- the lines are distorted and you can see the seams between frames.) Click on each image to see a larger photo.

This one was taken from the back southeast corner of the lawn (which you can see on the right side of the second pano image). It covers about 120 degrees of view. Our property is 100 feet wide. The halfway point is just a few feet in from the end wall. There is another close to 50 feet of shrubs, vines, trees, ferns, and skunk cabbage to the right of the house.

This second pano was taken from between the hot tub and the barbecue grill that you see in the first pano. It covers a field of about 90 degrees. In the dark shadows underneath the trees, you can see Amy (easier to see in the larger image by clicking on the image below) building her lean-to shelter. All of that forest is on our property. The back property line is a few feet behind the playhouse structure that you see.

Earlier this evening, we saw a few deer grazing on our lawn. One of them might have been a six-point buck. (I did see one walking about in the front later, so I assume he came from the back.)