Memorial Day

We all took a moment on Monday, to pay tribute to our loved ones, by visiting the cemetery.  Harrington has a beautiful cemetery and it is especially so on Memorial Day weekend.  Folks come from far and wide to decorate the graves.   I love walking around the cemetery, remembering friends and family that have gone before us.  It's especially meaningful when my parents join us.  So many names I have heard through out my lifetime, come back to life with the stories that my parents recount of their memories.

Harrington has the most beautiful cemetery.

As promised, here are a few photos of the progress made at Alicia's place.  Roni Jo and David returned to Boston on Tuesday, back to their stimulating careers, thankful that they can make green energy deals and treat patients with sore knees and backs, instead of picking up rocks in the fields or digging out gobs of ground cover!  We call it "farmcentive".  Keep working hard at what you love, because there are always more rocks to pick!

Before...

and after....

This bed was a mess and now looks so much better.

As was this one!

Roni trimmed up the shrubs and built this little path through to Alicia's garden.

The planted garden.  Grow seeds grow!

Tools of the trade.

And we finished the day with dinner on the porch, enjoying a warm, quiet evening together as a family who loves the memory of the past and looks forward to the promise of the future, and appreciates the joy of today.

Wine on the porch as the sun set.  Roni and David have a set of these custom engraved wine glasses.  Les LePere did the design, which was part of their wedding invitation.

Grandpa chatting it up with Roni and David and Alicia and Baxter having a moment!

Grandma and Reynald.  Grandma is kind of tired like the rest of us were that night!

Even Baxter was all tuckered out!  Going.....

going........

gone!

A satisfying and productive day, capped off with another gorgeous sunset.  

Work Crew

David and Roni arrived Friday night from Boston with an agenda!  Their plan was to help Alicia as much as they could, to get her yard cleaned up and the garden planted.  And work they and we did!  David's brother John also chose to spend the weekend with us, driving here from Portland, though I wonder if he would repeat his visit, had he known what was in store!

The images for this post are of the work on Saturday.  Much more happened on Sunday and hopefully a little more will take place today, after which I will take more photos to show our progress!

Much is happening, and much more yet to accomplish!

A few days ago Alicia took all the stuff out of the chicken house, as it will once again be a chicken house, rather than a storage shed.  Two distinct piles, one discard and one keep.  The discard is the larger one!

Plants waiting for a new home!

Alicia saw an idea for an herb garden in a magazine and had a desire to recreate the effect.  

The start of the spiral herb bed.

John, Alicia and David.....the construction crew!

Finished and almost ready to plant.

The addition of compost will make a nice environment for seeds.

Last week I rototilled the garden area which was a monumental task as the ground was rough and uneven.  Reynald and Alicia hooked on to our field sub-soiler with Arthur and tore through the garden plot to break up some of the compaction, which helped, but still it was a job to get the tiller through.  The second time over was much easier!

I had to stop short of the burn pile, the site of Reynald's terrible burn accident three weeks ago.  He's doing so much better!  Back to work and healing crazy!  But, that burn pile is still there!  We'll deal with it this fall, after it's had more time to dry.

The burn pile!

Nice to see a happy smile on Reynald's face!

My brother was here this weekend as well.  He worked his head off on various projects but his favorite was mowing the lawn.  Said it took him back 40 years!  (This is the house where we grew up!)

My brother, mowing the lawn with a lawn mower that he no longer uses at his place.

His lawn in Seattle was much more level, and not as large of an area as Alicia's, so it was a bit of a challenge to get this mower to work, but it will be fine for now.

David took on the task of cleaning out some invasive ground cover.  It was a miserable project!

Poor David had an awful job!

Roni Jo and Alicia planted the garden.  It took them all afternoon and the next morning to get all the seeds in the ground.  Now we wait and watch!

Roni Jo is marking the rows for planting.

Now seeding something!

And Alicia seeding something!

Grandma and Grandpa were content to supervise all our activities.  Happy that they had earned this position through many years of hard work on this very property!

Grandma and grandpas really enjoyed the activity of the day!  

Dinner on the porch, with a beautiful sunset and a nutritious meal capped off a very productive day. We all went to bed exhausted and satisfied!

Cruisin' Harrington

This past Saturday was our little town's spring festival called "Cruisin' Harrington".  Alan, at the Studebaker garage, conceived of the idea six years ago and the festival has grown steadily.  It started out primarily as a car show, but has evolved to include vendors in the Legion Hall, a quilt show in the Opera House and more!

We all woke up to rain Saturday morning, but by 10:30 the clouds cleared and the day was pleasant and bright.

Here are a few images to give you a feel for the day.

Cars line the main drag of our town for two and a half blocks, on both side!  Plus the parking lot on the north side of the Ford Garage is packed full.  The Ford Garage is now known as the Studebaker Garage, but us old timers still call it the Ford Garage!

This is a '55 Ford.  I loved this pick up, even if the colors aren't original.

Now this is a gem.  It's a 1926 Studebaker.   It won all kinds of awards at the show.

These were engines that almost anyone could work on!  Not like today!!

You can't tell from this image, so you'll just have to trust me when I say that these are wooden spokes on the 1926 Studebaker!

Of course this orange Charger caught my eye, since orange is my favorite color!

Entrance to the Opera House quilt show.

The bright pink quilt is one that I made for a very special young lady that is graduating high school this year.  Need to get in the mail this week!

The Opera House rummage sale, where a person can get in to a whole lot of trouble!

There were tours of the Lincoln Hotel, which is being renovated.  Super cool!

A sign alerting folks to the vendors selling their wares in the Legion Hall.  

This photo is more exciting than it looks!  Jay and Carrie bought the old tavern and have plans to renovate.  You can see that the demolition has begun.  My great uncle used to run "the pool hall" as grandma used to call it.  I can't wait for it to be restored to it's former self.

And a couple doors down, Heather and Justin have purchased the "old Post Office" building and have great plans for it.

They were selling t-shirts and caps that have our zip code and the words "Harrington Washington" that looked like a cancelled envelope.  I bought a t-shirt!

Here I am walking in front of the Lincoln Hotel!  Orange sweatshirt and orange Chuck Taylor's!

Reynald is feeling a little better.  At least enough better to join me on the porch for sunset.

And what a glorious sunset it was.

There are some exciting things happening in Harrington these days.  Some folks are taking initiative to revitalize our once vital town.  It was on  the verge of extinction but now there is hope that we can capitalize on the character and charm of our old buildings and bring back some of the long gone businesses that once thrived.  We have neat architecture, small town hospitality and some much needed new energy moving our small town forward.  The future looks bright!