Fixing to Get Ready Some More

Steve and Kelly are mountain climbers and wanted to married on a peak in Yosemite.  They were married Tuesday, six hours before the Rim fire broke out.  I took these pictures from a slide show they had running at their reception last Saturday. 

When I met Pam she was pregnant with Kelly, who is now 36.  I'm flanked by her daughters, Melissa and Kelly, Pam on the left and our friend Kelly on the right. Life has moved us all in different directions and being together again made for an emotionally charged afternoon. 

And what kind of wedding cake do mountain climbers have?  Why, a mountain of course.

I hardly recognize my soap, all dressed up like that.  They were so creative with the wedding favors.  The soap is wrapped in seed impregnated paper and the colorful balls are seed balls.  The paper on the right explains what seeds are in which ball.  Kelly also wrote up a virtual tribute to me as the soap maker. 

This was the first time Pam has been back to the house since her divorce to Bob, who is teasing me by taking of picture of me as I take a picture of him.  He humorously refers to Pam as his starter wife.  Pam and I ran together during the construction of this house and subsequent landscaping.  Many conversations were about plans and plantings.  It was great to see Bob again, comfortable to meet his wife and just nice in general.

I spent three hours this morning, powering through the scanning of the last of the slides.  I think there are about 600 all together.  People have expressed interest in the scanner I'm using.  I bought it online from Costco for about a hundred bucks.  The carriage holds four slides but you can only scan one at a time.  I'm sure there are slicker scanners but for the price, I'm pleased with the pictures.

I got a painful cortisone shot in my foot on Monday for plantar fasciitis and am supposed to take it easy on my feet for three days.  I'm wearing an air cast to help massage the ligament so I figured I might as well get these done.  We're getting ready for our Gathering over Labor Day and  my goal is have these scanned and copied onto flash drives so the kids can take them home.  The slides date from 1971 to 1979, pictures they haven't seen of themselves.  We haven't had a slide projector in about 20 years so when we moved here, I transferred all the slides into brown paper bags and that's where they've been ever since.  I'm feeling very virtuous.  I also have a kink in my neck.

Ian ran up to Doyle this afternoon to get ice so I took the opportunity to wind on this ten yard warp.  It was hanging from the front beam and I know someone is going to be sleeping in my studio so the looms will be pushed around.  I had hoped for a moment to wind this on and out of harms way.

I'll weave four scarves from this warp in plain weave and then dye them individually so they'll look like these two.  I've sold about eight of them and these are the only two left.  Christmas craft fairs are coming and I'd like to have several of these ready before then.

Petey is the first guest to arrive and he always likes to park down here and away from the night action.  My sons and grandsons are driving down from Bend tomorrow, but "the girls" have to work tomorrow so will drive down Friday morning.

The air quality from the Rim fire is problematic.  It's far worse in Reno and Lake Tahoe but it's not great here.  The burn area is now 187,466 and only 23% contained.  BTW, if you're ever interested in fire information in the west, the best site is YubaNet, hands down.  The American fire that plagued us a couple weeks ago is now 94% contained. 

Ian will take Buster to doggy camp in the morning, on his way to the airport to pick up his son Dougie.  Due to a surprising number of conflicts in schedules and life occurrences, this is going to be a smaller Gathering this year.  All three of my kids will be here but three of his won't.  I always look forward to it and every one is different.  The air is supposed to improve by Friday and will certainly be a topic of conversation for years to come.