The High Speed of Social Media Stream of Flotsam and Jetsam

Gus and I rented a fun ride for our trip in WA

I blame my kids. Smart phones were an expensive luxury but our (adult) kids wanted to be able to text and send frequent fun pics on their travels  -and so started the family of incredible handhelds. Daddy-O has even been converted and with that let's just say "pigs can fly!" We are a family of the latest iPhones and Androids with all the photo, texting, calendar, news, music and web browser apps you can tap into.

But all of this instant posting, texting, uploads, tagging and sharing has left my Blog feeling cumbersome and taking more time than using my phone for a quick update or post to the Farmers Market and to my personal Facebook accounts. Feeling overwhelmed by the social media choices available and trying to keep up I was ready to trash it all and unplug but gave myself this summer to see which social media streams will win out. So far, it appears that for ease of use it's Facebook and LinkedIn for professional work and most of my family is now also on Facebook. I don't personally Tweet though we do have my Spenard Farmers Market Facebook posts and shares being pushed out through Twitter for our Market followers. The gadget that's been left in a ziplock bag for months is my digital camera! Why lug that around when I can tap, shoot and upload with my phone that fits in my pocket?! Like the digital camera I haven't made time for my Blog like I used to and my web site has been hopelessly neglected. I don't like doing web or blog editing using my phone because the screen is too small but I opened my laptop and I did a quick review of my Facebook posts and grabbed just a few pics for my Blog that I'll share below -holy cow we have been having FUN!

Record good weather temps has let me weld up a few things for a Spenard Farmers Market garden day event I participated in. As the Community Relations and Media volunteer for the Market I'm happy to see that the Market is growing, growing and is in full swing with vendors now harvesting loads of produce bringing lots of happy market goers.

Good weather has our garden in full bloom and the new boxes Daddy-O built are producing huge, thriving greens. We held another impromptu garden party for Kristen and her friends. Kristen made a quick stop home during a layover on her way back to Boston from a research trip to the Arctic Slope. Having all my kids in one spot was a treat for Mama Llama! We found out Nigel-dog loves the hose, Black Bears love our neighborhood garbage which put us in the news... and not finding seats on Alaska Airlines Gus and I enjoyed a fun trip to Seattle on Jet Blue for the first time which is now flying seasonally to Anchorage.

At the Sequim, WA Lavender Festival Gus and I visited my parents (on the left) and toured farms, visited artists, went to street fairs and soaked up the Olympic Peninsula warm temps. Here we are at the first day of the festival -first stop was the Red Hook Beer Garden! I'm with my Grandma and Gus had to sit OUTSIDE the beer fence... hey at least I bought him a Lavender infused ice cream!

At the Festival there were three days worth of endless activities. Gus found his dream car at the classic car show, a '68 Barracuda, I bought a chicken purse in Port Townsend, and at a Quilt Show I met with vendors for my patterns, bought delicious new fabrics and bought a scissor headband for the girls at the Quilted Raven at home.

To fund more summer fun, more welding is on tap for this week as it looks like this record breaking summer of good weather is going to hold! To see what I'm up to you can find me and my latest work on Facebook if you want to be my friend! 

Sew Much Summer Fun

The weather was far too nice for me to be sewing Raven Garden Flags INDOORS! The tricky part was keeping the Magpies away from the thread -they tried to steal the extra strings of thread that I cut and had fallen on the ground! 

We had at least 8 yards (the landscape company had generously given us way more...) of top soil delivered to the house so we can put in the new lawn and front gardens... the only problem was that the dump truck's release gate got caught on our short rock retaining wall! Nothing like shoveling 8 plus yards of dirt TWICE! Thanks to Rick from Titan who helped the whole family shovel. 

It's not been all work and no play -though at times with all of the house remodeling projects, it sure seems like it! Grab a beverage as I share some of this weeks family photos. Kristen's in-laws were in Alaska from Pennsylvania for the first time and love the outdoors just as much as we do. We enjoy showing friends and family our home in Alaska -it is a nice reminder of why we LOVE living here.

Neil, Eileen and Nelson on top of Flat Top Mountain for our Father's Day hike.

Gus atop Flat Top with the Anchorage Bowl as a backdrop.

The whole group (I'm taking the picture) Neil, Eileen, Gus, Willie, Kristen, Nelson and Derek, on an after dinner walk to Westchester Lagoon to check out the Beaver Lodges. We had to walk off some of our BBQ dinner and growlers of beer we consumed around the fire pit.

One of Mr. Beaver's Lodges -they are HUGE -this one was at least 25 feet across! The local beavers are the size of  medium sized dogs. As we were checking out the lodges, a Muskrat swam in front of us and slapped his tail on the water and dove down, giving the Beavers a warning there were intruders.

Busy, busy beavers make for great views for the homes.

Land of the Midnight Sun. Walking home along the Lagoon about 10:00 at night.

Even this family was having an evening out.

Filling in the Squares

The key to keeping the family from being over-committed is PLANNING. In our house, if the event is not on the “family calendar” it ‘aint ‘gonna happen! The “family calendar” is the gospel of events, appointments and scheduling. We all can use the calendar and it hangs on the side of our refrigerator among our favorite magnets and photos. I keep all of my business/personal appointments and to-do’s on my MacBook Pro laptop using the Entourage Calendar (which I only discovered last year and find it wonderful-easy). The little squares on our family calendar are filling up quicker than usual which must mean its back to school time. 

Daddy-O reported back early this morning to help get students registered for high school today and tomorrow. We got our youngest registered yesterday and even managed to get school shopping done. Back to school day can be one of my FAVORITE days but I don’t look forward to the rush of busyness 

that precedes every mom’s favorite holiday. I always think of that Staples back-to-school commercial where moms are happily pushing the shopping carts through the isles leaping and dancing with joy as they buy their kid’s school supplies. August is also a two birthday month in our house, so we’ll throw in a couple of Birthday BBQ days (oh, I need to buy the Mentos Geysers supplies for Gus’ Birthday!), along with football practices, football games, elementary and high school starting, university class schedules getting shuffled and housing plans finalized. Kristen is home for the week after her adventures on the Bering Sea research vessel and she reports back to UAF for Grad work this coming weekend.

The Saturday, August 15^th calendar square is filled in with my last G Street Artist Fair. I’ve been busy making some fun new sculptures for that show in between keeping up with special orders. I mad

e a large, new Garden Chime after being inspired by birds nests I brought home from our trip. While we were in WA, my grandma gave me two birds nests that were in her hedge. She lives near a beautiful community park with fishing pond and was able to watch the baby birds, hatch and fly away. Both nests had fishing line intricately woven throughout the twigs and other nesting material!  I’m sort of a seeker/gatherer and have a lovely collection of abandon birds nests, interesting feathers and other unique natural treasures in my studio. I find a lot of inspiration in all things Nature. To make the steel birds nests, I start out with strips of plasma cut steel that I form around a bowl shape. I weld each strip into place as I form the nest to try and 

look as natural as possible. I also will weave and wrap wire around the form for additional texture. The large copper pipe I use for the chime component is reclaimed copper pipe I buy at Alaska Metal Recyclers. I cut the bottom off at a 45 degree angle using my chop saw, clean off all of the burrs and string with heavy duty chord from a new fishing Swivel and jump ring. Inside the copper pipe hangs hand welded washers to a small piece of rebar for the sound. The exposed clapper is usually an artful piece of copper in the shape of a leaf that is easily moved in the wind to make the chime sound.

There was a surprise in my garden this week. One of the Dahlia’s my mom sent was supposed to be yellow but when it bloomed this week it’s a deep burgundy, almost chocolate. Isn’t she pretty –I love garden sur

prises like this one! Sorry the image isn’t better, we’ve had a downpour of rain the last day or two. Not nearly as bad as Jim as having in Kentucky, just disappointing since we’ve been having a perfect 65 degrees and blue bird skies. Hopefully the weather will improve because I just filled in a couple more squares on our calendar –we’re fitting in a trip to Homer to go halibut fishing this weekend! I have a gift certificate to use at Two Sisters and was inspired by Vicki getting to go to Homer! Thought it would be a great way to welcome Back-to school time.