Junior and I

Last night Peggy and I went to the Mariner game. We had way too groovy seats, about 15 rows behind home plate. Maybe you saw us on TV. We were just behind the annoying three ladies begging for rally fries, I think their sign said they would smile for rally fries. And they had these lame glitter smiles on little sticks that they held in front of their faces. But enough about them. This evening was all about ME, and Junior.

Jose Lopez (one of Peggy's favorites, but I still am not impressed with his everyday defense) was having a night. He doubled in the first, and homered in his next at bat. He was hit on the hip on the first pitch on his third at bat. What up with that! It was a sorta ugly moment. Pretty hard glances were exchanged, but that was the extent of the deal. Then JUNIOR came up.

One pitch into his at bat, at a quiet moment I yelled "Protect him Junior!". Two pitches later; BOOM, home run. It was beautiful.

Here is the great part of the story. As he stepped on home plate, he paused, looked right at ME and pointed!!!!!!!!

Wow, Wow WOW WOW.

I guess I am like the lady in white from the Natural.

Or, if you just do not want to give me credit for anything, maybe I was just confused and maybe Peggy was correct, maybe his mother or wife was sitting somewhere close behind us.

Here is what the Times, and apparently Junior had to say about "THE MOMENT":

Plate umpire Marty Foster had no sooner issued a warning to both dugouts than Griffey, on a 1-1 pitch, sent a shot over the right-field wall for a two-run homer.

It was his 14th of the season and 625th of his career, and Griffey pointed at his mother, Birdie, in the stands as he crossed the plate. She was in town for a charity golf tournament.

"She doesn't get to see very many games live," Griffey said. "She's going to take credit for that one."

Ouch, this hurts me deeply

Phase III

Planted the plants along the fence line. Three huckleberry bushes. Pies galore next year!

Fern central along the back fence.

As seen from the edge of the property, garden area, gravel lane and garden area

Phase II

About a year ago I started to landscape my mother's backyard. It was a daunting project. Overwhelming to me. Yes I have heard the story of how to eat an elephant, one bite at a time, but imagine having to eat the elephant ALIVE and the elephant could grow between bites!

The back yard was a mess. An area shaded by huge cedar trees that has always made growing grass impossible. Impossible for me anyhow. I am sure some smart guy from a golf course could make grass grow there. It contained a dilapidated shed/chicken coop. Fred, her former boarder (and hoarder) had saved and stored countless pieces of possible construction materials in every corner. And the weeds had taken over. I mean taken over. The weeds were so bad they would gang up on you if you dared to walk through the back yard. They were like a unruly, inner city gang of weeds, the worst kind.

Phase I

With the help of many folks we took down the shed/chicken coop. Last summer I re-gravelled the driveway and gravelled the area on the side of her house to almost the "good shed". I spent many weekends pulling weeds, weed whacking and swearing at the weeds. Then one weekend I realized I could not do it alone. I enlisted Terry, my brother-in-law to help.

Terry can DO things. Terry is a framer and if you are reading the newspaper you can guess that Terry's business is down. I hired Terry and shared my loose vision with him. Terry can do things and is an artistic guy. He assessed the back yard and refined the vision to include USING the hoarded scrap crap that Fred has stored in the yard. We came up with three zones and idea for a fence (to corral Nelly). And then as luck would have it, Terry got busy.

But Terry toiled week nights and weekends. His efforts are shown in what my mother is calling the great wall of China. The vegetable garden walled in by the cement blocks with its "Industrial" look.

I weed whacked, borrowed Uncle Don's roto-tiller and started to destroy the rest of the yard. Why 83 year old Uncle Don spent an hour or so tilling (what a man!). I trenched out the pathway and lined it with Fred's hoarded cement rails. I raked and hauled more crap that you could think was in that old dirt.

And Saturday, we gravelled the path, got excited and went plant shopping, got worried and stayed late to plant the plants. Was so impressed with the look that on Sunday I went for two loads of bark.

Now, at the end of phase two we have the beginning of a very nice looking, serene backyard.