The Beach

We wrapped up painting early and walked to the beach this afternoon. Salmon were jumping and rolling at the mouth of McDonnell Creek and we saw cormorants, loons and grebes. Tux was running, jumping in the water, digging holes in the sand, barking and doing everything possible to get the old dogs to play. It's pretty rewarding to see her feeling so good. I feel like all the trouble over the last nine months was worth it, even if she takes a turn for the worse in future.

The sandy bluff

Looking towards the Dungeness Spit 

Looking towards Port Angeles

Dog smile!

Still Painting

This is Toasted Cashew, the main color we selected for the house. Strange as it seems, lighter colors don't cover white very well because they have less pigment in them. The darker Khaki Bronze we used in other rooms covered in one coat but this stuff requires two, which means double the work. I think we'll be painting for weeks. 

Below, two rooms with Toasted Cashew on walls (ceilings still white). The creamy color warms and enriches the red tones in the wood.

Intruder

The House

Still busy around the house. We've been painting mostly. I love this color, Khaki Bronze. We used it for master bedroom, office and half bath. The dark color sort of defines the space and is a huge improvement over white. I think there is enough of it left to do another bedroom, too. The floor trim won't go back on until the wood floor is installed.

I was going to put blueberries in this spot but I came across three Pieris at a plant sale today and changed my mind. I love the pinky new growth in spring.

Projects

We bought paint for the office and half bath, but I am procrastinating on that project. I started working on the kitchen stools the sellers left instead. They are good quality cherry but the seats are awfully stained, so we bought fabric and started recovering them. I don't know what was going on in this house before, but I'm finding the same kind of staining on the backside of the carpeting we are ripping out as you see on this stool. (It doesn't smell like urine at least.)

I had a bright idea to plant blueberries in part of the flower bed in front of the house and fill in the rest with perennials. This is a good time for planting if I can still find some. Bob has pulled all the floor trim and tack board to ready the carpet  and maple for removal. The wood flooring will be delivered next week but installation won't happen for months. We'd like to get the painting finished before the floor goes down.

Tux Update

Tux  -  Weighing in at 53.5 lbs. yesterday. Liver enzymes are within normal range. Licking and biting at her paw has stopped. The only difference is stopping the Itraconazole. Will resume at 100 mg next week and hope the lesions will not reappear with the lower dose.

Oreo Cows

Work is scheduled next week to upgrade the electrical panel to accommodate a kiln. Then we'll have to figure out how to get it up here next spring.

Tux Valley Fever Complications

Everything seemed to be going so well for Tux on Itraconazole but we are still not out of the woods. She has developed skin lesions on her paw that may mean we have to move to another drug.  Tomorrow we start a week off to heal the lesions, then resume at a lower dose (100 mg) and see if the problem resolves. We have her liver enzymes checked tomorrow and see how she is doing otherwise on this stuff.

It's always something

Tag and Hoop in good shape for their age at their annual wellness check yesterday.

Needs

I need a desk. Badly.

Yard Work

We're making progress on the yard. The fence is finally finished - we'd been wondering if that was going to happen at all this year. It doesn't enclose all of the property but serves as a large dog yard and protected area for food gardens. There is a good chunk of land north of the fence that would be perfect for a few sheep but would also need field fencing, and most of the property is unfenced in front of the house. Less-than-glamorous pictures of fencing and gates below.

Here is the restored area in front of the house where everything was dying from the deep mulch and impenetrable plastic barrier underneath. The bark above the plastic was wet but the ground underneath dry as a bone. We put in a sun tolerant purple flowered rhodie, and after researching a bazillion Japanese maples decided on "Osakazuki" for its larger leaves, sun tolerance, hardiness and seasonal color changes that culminate in dramatic crimson red in fall. On the left is one of two Garry oaks in the front yard. 

In the back yard I've started a shade garden with rhododendrons "Unique" and "President Roosevelt" and some ferns. Yet to be done: extending the mulched beds around the back of the house. We do have a mole tunneling through the beds but we're going to just live with it. The mounds in the second picture below are not huge mole hills, they are the rest of the excess bark removed from the front bed. And the third picture shows the finished raspberry clean up with another bark pile from the front yard. 

Next year I will try to make sense of the flower beds along the front of the house. They look pretty crappy now but there are bulbs everywhere we dig so I want to see what we have before I do anything drastic... like rip it all out and start from scratch. I need to move a fried hosta to a shadier spot and figure out how to remove the dead ground cover in the bottom picture.

A Used Furniture Score

We spent some time in Port Angeles today where there is a nice organic foods store. I also wanted to check out a used furniture place I'd seen advertising on Craigslist. We don't want to buy new furniture after all the money we are putting out on the house, and I was picturing some sort of comfortable club chairs to put in the bay area off my kitchen. This is will be the coffee-and-newspaper spot in the morning sun, and someday there will be a rose garden out the window. Right now we'll only have the cows in the distance to watch, which isn't a bad thing at all. Anyway, the store offered some chairs on their website that interested me and I thought they'd been sold already but wanted to see what else I might find. My heart went pit-a-pat when I saw the chairs I liked were still available and we promptly snatched them up before another man who wanted them for his lounge could get them.

Here they are in their new home. They are a soft, buttery, Italian leather, made in Italy, stylish and VERY comfortable. They fit, the color works, and cost was less for the set than one chair new.

Garden Work

There was several feet of bark mulch piled up in the front planter that we've been removing hoping to save the remaining plants. I guess it was piled up thick to hide the weeds and dead stuff while the house was on the market. Now we have the work of removing it and hauling it to the back yard for another project. I bought a couple of neat rhodies and ferns for a spot at the back of the house and will distribute the bark back there.

Three foot thick pile of much and plastic, center left

Another mulch mountain

 This is the raspberry patch. The left side has been cleared out and looks very civilized. We're still working on the right side, cleared out whips piling up in front. We found a couple of blueberry plants mixed in there, too.

The dogs are adjusting well. They've started using the dog door instead of peeing in the garage at night. Tux's health keeps improving. She's been more playful than we've ever seen her. Hooper is mostly deaf now and Tag is having trouble with his eyesight and back legs. They sleep a lot and very soundly, but still pester me to throw a ball and take a walk morning and evening.