Dirty, Sore and Happy

Am I crazy people? I'm thinking the answer is YES. This past weekend Dr. H and I participated in the Dirty Dash here in Spoklahoma. For those of you not in the know, the Dirty Dash is a 10K obstacle course with lots of mud pits. SO. MUCH. FUN. I can't remember the last time I was that dirty (or this sore). We signed up for this race on the Thursday before, and I spent two days trying to get my mileage up to be able to complete the 6.2 miles of the race. This was rough as I usually max out at 3 miles, but the race was totally worth the effort!

Check out that MUD!

 For more pictures of me and Dr. H, head over to Here and Here.  

Summer = Cherries

Last weekend Dr. H and I spent a lazy Saturday tooling around farming country gorging ourselves on cherries and strawberries. We picked a ton of each, and now have some of these gorgeous jewels tucked away in our freezer for the colder, less colorful months ahead. We also spent some time at home cooking up some delicious food with our bounty. We made strawberry shortcake on Saturday and have been eating it every night since then.

Cherry Gazing

Rainier Cherries

Dr. H in the Strawberry Fields

We took home two of these bad boys

Hanging out with a couple of friends

Hanovi: Great Horned Owl and a Heavy Beast

Tilt: Western Screech Owl. My Fav.

Me ant Tilt Hanging Out at the Open House

Is it weird that this is what I do all the time these days? It has gotten so routine that sometimes I forget that everyone else doesn't spend all day hanging around owls.

Life After Alaska

Just in case you all thought that once Dr. H and I returned from Alaska all fun came to a screeching halt, I am here to set the record straight. The very same week we returned we went to a Neko Case concert at the Bing Theater, which was AWESOME! Such a talented lady. We also purchased mountain bikes, went on some epic rides (almost peed my pants riding along the super steep drop off on High Drive), made another batch of beer (Hefeweizen this time to celebrate the grand opening of our neighbor's new German-style pub in his garage), and went down to Portland to visit with some friends.

The weather here has finally started to feel summery, and my garden has absolutely taken off. We have already enjoyed the first zucchini of the season, we have lots of green tomatoes just waiting to ripen, our potatoes are almost ready, and our onions are getting huge! In fact, I just finished a delicious all garden omelet. YUM! More pictures to come in the next few days. Here is a little taster of life on the Eckenrod Homestead.

Chicks taking a nap in the grass

Skagway: The Disneyland of the North

Skagway feels much like Mainstreet in Disneyland. Cute, albeit touristy shops, quaint storefronts and lots of ice cream parlors. Dr H and I managed to find both a bike shop and a brewery in Skagway though, so our couple of hours in Skagway were well spent :) We also took the White Pass train from Skagway, and it was beautiful!

Engines of our White Pass Train

Note the little trestle bridge

View down from Trestle Bridge

Really old Trestle Bridge- We did not go over this thankfully

I love the way the background looks like a green screen

Dr H and an antique snow blower for a train. It is Huge!

Skag-Disney. This old storefront is covered in driftwood.

 Seriously some of the best fish and chips ever. Plus good beer.

Skagway lost some serious points when we found this little joke of a store. It's very existence kind of made me want to shoot myself in the face. I can't articulate just how little I respect this woman. Hate me if you must....

That's right. A Sarah Palin Store. 

Wishes Granted! Juneau!

Here is the Mendenhall Glacier we saw in Juneau,  and the trip through the Tracy Arm up to Steven's Glacier. Just beautiful!

Mendenhall Glacier

Yep, those are icebergs in a lake

So wish I was in that little canoe!

Glacial Waterfall

Waterfalls along the Tracy Arm

There is a glacier back there.

Steven's Glacier behind little island with iceberg

And a couple of photos just for fun. Even though they are a bit embarrassing.

Towel Elephant

Amazed Chipmunk

Long Time Coming... Ketchikan and Beginning of Cruise

Here are the much anticipated photos of our Alaskan cruise. The trip was awesome and the scenery idyllic. The southern Alaskan coastline is just gorgeous! Rather than make one huge photo journal, I have decided to break these posts up by site visited. So here is Ketchikan!

Best part of the Cruise: Room Service

View off of balcony north of Seattle

Ketchikan

Just what every red-blooded American needs

My future house

awww

very old brothel

More Gardens: Native Plant Garden

Weed Eating

Native Plant Garden Beds

Garden Beds Prepped and Grass Cut

Tools

I just can't get enough manual labor! I love it! :) With the help of my dear Papa who was visiting us all the way from Puerto Rico this past week, I have put in a new Native Plant Garden in the Dishman Hills Natural Area. Getting this garden ready to be planted involved a fair amount of weed wacking, hand-tilling and swear words. The planting though, was a total success. I had a class of around 25 second graders join me in planting on Wednesday morning, and their excitement and pleasure in getting to play in the dirt made all the hard work completely worth it. If you are around the area, go check it out! And pull a few weeds while you're at it.

A Camping I Went

I spent all last week up in the Colville national forest at an outdoor ed. camp with our school district's 5th graders ... and now I am tired. And very very happy to be home!

Run As Fast As You Can

That old Lewis Caroll quote is ringing true for me this month. It has been all go go go in my little corner of the world, but all that effort is basically just to keep from sinking under the mountain of work that is constantly growing. Luckily, a lot of the work is actually quite fun. Here are a few snapshots of some of the things that have been going on around here.

New Garden Beds

Back Garden Complete

Chickens in their Natural Habitat

Our Girls are Growing Up: Gretta

First Garden Bounty

Biking Sites

Biking