plume gables — Page 9

Large Boy Squirrels

March 26, 2010 by The Noisy Plume

We’ve had company at The Gables this week.

Lovely company.

A pair of friends drove out from Oregon to stay for a handful of days with us. As usual, our time with Katie and Sean has been replete with adventure, relaxation, and general gladheartedness.

Katie and I have enjoyed the sunshine while watching the boys climb the trees:

Really. They’ve been climbing the trees in the yard! Sean is an arborist. He and RW have spent the past few days trimming trees, improving windsail and dealing with our mostly dead catalpa tree. It’s quite a sight to see full grown men dangling about beneath a massive blue spruce with chainsaws slung about their waists.

Katie and I have been responsible for running a ridiculously noisy wood chipper in the back yard which has created a new source of deliciously sprucey smelling mulch for the rose garden. Hard, pioneer woman work. I tell you.

Yesterday we took ourselves out to the local mountain and spent the day skiing in and out of unpredictable Idaho weather.

It has been said:

If you don’t like the weather in Idaho, just wait a minute.

The sun shone. Black clouds drifted about. Fog descended down most of the mountain. A blizzard ensued. The sun came out again. We skied through fresh powder that felt like warm butter beneath our skis and then we did the weather all over again. Black cloud, snow, sun. Black cloud, snow, sun. It was a really wonderful day with truly wonderful friends.

I must say, I have missed you this week. I’m putting concentrated effort into catching up on email and computer correspondence today before hopping in the studio to finish up a couple of projects I started way back on Monday.

I hope your week has been lovely.

If it wasn’t, I hope you find rest in your weekend.

Love to you all and Happy Friday!

XXXXXXX

The Noisy Plume

Filed Under: plume gables

I’m so torn.

March 5, 2010 by The Noisy Plume

You tell me.

This one?

Or this one?

Cast your votes for Orangie or Chartreusie now, please!

PS GO HERE (YES!!! The flying fish!!! PET RAVEN!!!! SEA MONSTER AND POTATO CHIPS!!! FOREST MONSTER WHO MAKES NORTHERN LIGHTS WITH HIS FINGERTIPS!!! Lightning storm, crashed balloon. AIR SHIP after the pawn shop!!! Bubble pipe! Home to the forest of death and then the planting of the magic rock which makes the forest bloom and then LOVVEEEEEE!!!!!!!) TO SEE THE BEST THING EVER.

THIS WAS MY DREAM LIFE YESTERDAY.

I’M ON THE REBOUND AFTER SUFFERING A DRY CREATIVE WELL.

Updating My Life

February 10, 2010 by The Noisy Plume

Oi vey!

I have a plethora of life details to share with you!!!

I’ve missed you. I’ve missed my home. I’ve missed Idaho. I’ve missed Mister Pinkerton.

And land sakes! I’ve missed my princess and the pea bed!

RW and I are finally home, for at least a couple of months, in Pocatello, Idaho. I cannot tell you how good it feels. We figure in the past 6 weeks we’ve been away for a total period of about 4 weeks and it feels like it! I’m so relieved to be off the road, out of the airports and back to my homespace on this enchanting piece of property we’ve named Plume Gables.

This morning, I woke very early to the sound of Pinky knocking some potted plants off a shelf in the laundry room — the poor fellow is a bit feral after this last jaunt of ours and so I couldn’t be angry with him for breaking some pottery and making a horrendous mess this morning. In fact, I was somewhat glad he woke me up so early. I showered, put my hair in a cute-little-war-bride-bun at the nape of my neck, popped on a pair of heels and had a gloriously hot cup of tea in the quiet morning light. I watched the sun rise. I reflected on life. I evaluated the accomplishments and happenings of month of January, 2010 and then I moved on to computer work.

When I’m away, I don’t do any computer oriented upkeep so it’s been a bit overwhelming this morning. I won’t go into those details because they are heinously boring but I DO have two other details to share with you:

1. We’re up for another life change as RW has been hired on as a smokejumper at the Winthrop Washington smokejumping base!

I know what you’re thinking right now:

WHAT?

RW IS GOING TO LIVE IN ANOTHER STATE THIS SUMMER TO SMOKEJUMP?

WHAT IS THIS SMOKEJUMPING ANYWAY?

WHY IS JILLIAN SUPPORTING HIM IN THIS WHEN HIS CURRENT JOB IS ALREADY SO TOUGH ON HER IN THE SUMMERTIME?

Officially, I want you to know that I TOTALLY support him in this job change. As a couple, we’ve always believed in helping each other chase down huge dreams and life goals. Smokejumping has been one of RW’s dreams for at least a decade now. He’ll still be fighting forest fires, but he’ll be jumping out of planes to do initial attack fire fighting instead of hiking in with a crew of twenty dudes. I’m really proud of him because smokejumping is for the best of the best of wildland fire fighters. I can’t stress how incredibly elite this job is and how difficult it is to get into smokejumping in the first place. I believe in him, his abilities, his leadership skills, and his ability to work independently and I think Winthrop picked an incredible man for the job. Robert’s the bomb and the best man I know. Let’s hope he’s good with a parachute.

We aren’t moving to Washington. Yet. RW needs to make it through rookie training which has a 40% failure rate! Fingers crossed that he makes it through and gets to live this dream. I’m so proud of him, I feel so close to tears as I write this, I’m just that darn proud.

It’s going to make for a bloody tough summer for me, tougher than the past two I’ve made it through while he’s been hotshotting. But I know this is something he needs to do and I don’t want him to have any regrets in life. So we’re all going to make it through. I know that already.

To be quite, terribly frank, I would rather have RW smokejump for ten years straight than

stay on his former hotshot crew for one more year for reasons I shant disclose here.

***IF YOU ARE NEW TO THIS BLOG, WELCOME! PLEASE CLICK ON THE COLORED LINKS IN THE ABOVE PARAGRAPHS TO SEE THE WIKI DEFINITIONS OF WHAT RW DOES OCCUPATIONALLY!

2. The Rumors of the Sea series is going to hit the Etsy shop tomorrow. I have had a heap of inquiries about this design series so I’m going to set the listing time for 7PM MST. Be there or be square! And thank you so much for your interest in this series. I’m still so excited about it, the concept does not yet feel finished so if you miss out on one of these designs, not all is lost! I’m still dreaming of all the different things I can do with metal, glass and stone when it comes to recreating the sea with jewelry designs…

These necklaces are SO cool and are built entirely from scratch, including the enameled focal pieces. The only things I didn’t make with my bare hands are the pearls, coral and iolite components. Obviously! I’ve worked so hard on this series, I can’t wait to see where they fly off to!

Now I’m off to eliminate the remainder of my computer duties and then out to the studio to swing some hammers!

Loving on you birds something fierce,

THE NOISY PLUME

PS Thanks so much to all the amazing guys and gals that took the time to meet up with RW and I on our journey to and from Tucson. It was such a pleasure to camp, eat, drink, laugh and love with you. Thanks for your friendship and for being part of our lives!

Filed Under: fire fighting, hotshots, hotshotting, news, plume gables, smokejumping

Handsome but good for nuthin?

December 5, 2009 by The Noisy Plume

Methinks not!

Last night, while in the midst of a dinner party at Plume Gables, I opened up the door to the laundry room to see Mister Pinkerton crouched over a dead mouse on a rug. Of course, I screamed. He picked the rodent up in his mouth and leaped out the doggy door into the night.

This was perfect timing for him to prove his hunting prowess to RW since the man tends to go on about how worthless Pinky is when it comes to seeking and destroying rodent populations around our property. I always knew the great white beast was hunting in the night and lazing about in the day. While he is getting rather corpulent these days I like to think it’s because he’s eating eleventeen meecies every single night, in the bewitching hours, when we can’t see him.

WHISKER TWITCH

This is all to say, if you have an outdoor cat that sometimes lives in YOUR laundry room during the day, have a little faith in the fellow when it comes to the rodenticide. Just because he’s not bringing his dinner in for you to see, every single night, it doesn’t mean he’s not slicing and dicing with his killer claws under the grapevines or over in the raspberry patch.

Happy Saturday to all!

We’re getting a Christmas tree today and you know what THAT means!!!!

That’s right. I’m gearing up for the second annual Christmas Tree Photo Contest right here at The Life and Times! Get your cameras out and start taking a few photos of your Tannenbaum!

To entice the few of you who are photographically lazy, I’ll let you know

in advance that the individual with the winning photo

will get a superfluously lovely care package from

Mister Plume and I! You can never tell who might win! It depends entirely

on how the vote goes…which could be in any old direction!

OFFICIAL CONTEST RULES TO COME, ON MONDAY!

Fa la la la la,

THE NOISY PLUME

Filed Under: cat, christmas tree, plume gables

The Princess and the Pea!

November 19, 2009 by The Noisy Plume

New bed new bed fal la la la la laaaaa!!!

I look miniature!

[My great great grandfather was a Norwegian gnome. I’ve been told I resemble him quite a lot.]

We’ve been in the process of getting our first real bed EVER for a couple of weeks now. Two weekends ago we popped over to Salt Lake City to snaggle this sweet little bed frame from Ikea ($100 — what a deal). We ordered our mattress and box spring from a company that makes such things in Boise, Idaho and they finally arrived yesterday! I was dancing around The Gables like The Madhatter! RW also arrived home from his successful elk hunt yesterday JUST IN TIME to put everything together for the first, truly comfortable sleep we’ve ever had together!

I’M SIMPLY THRILLED TO MY FINGERTIPS.

I’m even thrilleder (not a real word) by the fact that when I’m up in this bed, I feel like I’m living the story of The Princess and the Pe a! It is so tall! One LITERALLY has to climb up into it. This morning, RW thought it was hilarious to put a tube of lip balm under my back, over and over again, whilst saying, “There’s a lump in this mattress, is it a pea?”

And now, I will testify, that it really is worth the money to get a fabulous mattress. I slept so well last night. My body feels so FRESH and energized. Wheeeeeee!!! Now I’m off to answer your emails and conversations!

Have yourselves a beautiful day!

Love,

PLUME

PS Last night I finished a handful of jewelry that I cannot wait to show you. One is the ring that rules them all. Oh gosh.

PSS Yes. That’s STILL the mustard yellow, sponge painted bedroom we live in. Don’t worry, I’ve been gleaning paint swatches from the hardware store so we can overhaul the

choma-disposition of this room. All in good time my little cheepers!

Filed Under: plume gables