Motorcycles

Posted on May 30, 2026 by Donna

Today we went to the Art of the Motorcycle show in Lynden.  Tom is a member of the Washington Vintage Motorcyclists and helped organize the show and swap meet.  

Here are the three bikes he showed.

Tom’s bikes: 1976 Honda XL 70, 1979 Honda CT 70 and 1969 Honda Z 50

Tom’s bikes

As I have posted before, I have a lifelong involvement with motorcycles.  So always love checking them out.  The mid-1970’s Honda CB motorcycles hold a special place in my heart as I had and loved a CB 350-4 and still have and love my 550-4.

1972 Honda CB 750

1976 Honda CB 550

But there were lots of interesting and rare bikes to check out.

1948 James ML 90

1946 BSA C11

This is a bike out front that Tom was coveting.

Honda Trail 70

1965 Triumph

1964 Puch 250 Sears Allstate

1974 Honda TL 125 Trials bike

1971 Velocette Flat Tracker

1951 Vincent Rapide 998

1958 BSA Bantam D7

1968 Norton Atlas 750

1959 Matchless and 1958 Royal Enfield

1973 and 1974 Nortons

1972 Triumph Bonneville 650

William enjoyed talking with his grampa about motorcycles during the swap meet.

Ryeleigh joined me while my dad talk with his neighbor who was selling there too.

It was a great show with significant proceeds going to three pet shelters including the Skagit Humane Society.

Back on the farm, Jameson is growing.  He is still trying to get milk from his grandmother who is looking after him well.

The sheep are in the tall grassy pasture.

The fields really need to get mowed.

Finally, I finished two books.  Sheepish is a book that my dad bought for me for Christmas in 2011.  I finally read it and loved it.  Unfortunately she is no longer living on a farm, but it was nice to read about her adventures.  I can totally identify.

I also finished Silver Snarling Trumpet, a book written by Robert Hunter in his youth.  It is a fascinating description of his time with Jerry Garcia and others in the Bay Area in 1961.  It show the origins of their lifelong songwriting partnership.

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Memorial Day Weekend at the Boles

Posted on May 26, 2026 by Donna

and Dad’s new cabin.We drove over on Friday, met up with Dad and Mo, and quickly saw some deer.

But we also noticed wildlife on our farm.  A seemingly well fed coyote on our back pasture fence line.

 

Then Saturday morning we noticed a motorcycle cop with its lights on near our driveway.  We knew something was happening.

 

But we have a great farmsitter so I wasn’t too worried.  I proceeded to walk around with the beagle.  The weather was amazing, and the views wonderful.

Ryeleigh still enjoys her corner of the couch in the cabin when she’s not out on a walk.

The wildflowers were amazing.  It took a lot of self-control not to take photos of each variety I saw like I usually do.

My brother and Sue joined us on Saturday.  I noticed a new chair he had created with scrap wood from the cabin build.  Pretty ingenious and artistic.

That evening we had a nice BBQ ribs dinner, and then there was a gorgeous sunset.

Sunday morning on the beagle walk, I noticed two dead mice on Buddy’s grave.  Greg had left three of them for his favorite cat the day before.

Ryeleigh and I headed to the creek.  I captured a moment of peacefulness by it.

Then we walked over to the next ravine and enjoyed the views and long shadows.

We had picked a large stone and painted on it.  My brother moved it over to where we had scattered Steve’s ashes our previous visit in February.  I added some more ashes under the rock this trip as well.  Greg and Sue left in the morning.

That afternoon we took a variety of ATVs to Lion’s Rock.  The views were amazing.

We looked at the traffic forecasts to decide when we would return.  We all decided Tuesday morning made more sense than fighting Monday traffic.

Ryeleigh kept holding the cabin couch down.

Monday morning the beagle and I walked more.  I couldn’t help taking photos of these lovely flowers.  There were so many varieties in bloom.  It was amazing.

That afternoon I was able to knit on the porch.

But we were also able to see that there are now two coyotes patrolling our back pasture fence line, next to the calf.

 

I made cocktails for 5:00.  I had to get creative with the ingredients I had which were apples, one orange, bitters and rum.  So thanks to google I found a recipe for Apple Smash.   It was surprisingly good.

Ryeleigh held down the couch while a nasty storm blew through with heavy rains and winds.

There was a nice rainbow near the end.

We headed out this morning arriving around noon to a lot of farm chores.  It apparently was windy here too as some lawn furniture and items on our deck were blown around.  Plus we found some tire tracks and a tore up ditch from an apparent car accident.  This must have been the reason the motorcycle officer was here Saturday morning,  Tom speculates that the right front tire of the car blew out sending them to the ditch.  Our farmsitter had already confirmed that our fence was still intact so no harm to us.  Hopefully the car occupants are all right.

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Farm News

Posted on May 22, 2026 by Donna

At my spinning zoom, I was asked about this barn quilt and its history. It turns out it is based on 300 year old European beliefs about decorating barns to ward off evil but was revived in 2001 by a woman in Ohio to honor her quilting mother. More information is here.

We later had a discussion about yarn stash reduction. Penguono sweaters were recommended. Here’s a gorgeous one above.

On the farm, besides spinning my sheep’s wool, I have been looking after animals and plants. The turkey poults are growing quickly.

I brought the lemon tree outside for some sun and hopefully pollination. I also attempted to make a sun tea from a Mother Earth News recipe with raspberry, blackberry, lemon balm and mint leaves with rose petals and chopped apple. It sounded intriguing but wasn’t flavorful.

I took a moment to admire the flowers. Here is one of our rhododendrons with bees pollinating it.

Here are a couple of our rose blooms.

Poppies by the garage.

Columbine by the porch.

And even the thyme flowers are looking pretty.

Last evening I made my favorite ham and bean soup.

And then we settled down to watch Stephen Colbert’s final shows. It was bittersweet of course and reminded us about how important the Late Show has been to both of us over our lives. We managed to mostly awake to the end.

This morning I did some chores. Jameson ran over for his bottle. He is still incredibly cute.

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