A tour of our backyard trees. Our cherry tree, robust and heavy with fruit. I think the birds have been pecking at the cherries a little, but from the looks of it there will be more than enough to go around. I think some pruning is order on this guy, but that’s something I’ll probably have to read up on.

The peach tree. In a less ideal spot than the cherry, right by the fence line where it can get buffeted by winds whipping across the school field and subjected to the hands of passerbys. Still looks reasonably healthy (a bit of leaf curl in spots) and fuzzy fruit starting to grow.

Tree pictured below on the left is a crab apple, not sure what the one on the right is. Any suggestions?

Our oak tree. Stately and great for climbing. I don’t think you usually see oaks bifurcate this low to the ground (or at least I haven’t seen that many). Makes for a beautifully balanced tree (and a massive spread of acorns).

And just because, here’s a lily growing in the front yard.

So what is it exactly that an Environmental Planner does? After almost a month on the job I’m still not entirely sure, but I’m at least starting to get a handle on my position.

Things I do know… I work four 10-hour days per week in order to get a three-day weekend. I haven’t decided if this is worth it yet though. It always seems worth it by the time I get to Thursday, but certainly not on the three days prior. This schedule means that wake up at about 5 AM to make sure I’m walking through the front door by 6 AM so that I can leave work by 4:30 PM. That’s a long day. And also a very early day. I know it sounds insane (5 AM?!), but really I’ve been having no problems getting up, usually waking before my alarm goes off. A strange thing about this latitude seems to be an early rising summer sun (I often wake at 4:30 AM to sun starting to peak through the blinds). So the early morning obviously isn’t great, but I am functioning at this point. At some point I’d like to start biking the five miles to work, but that will just add to the insanity of the morning, so we’ll see.

I also know that I work in a cubicle staring at a computer screen for hours on end. Here’s a very sterile picture of my office. I’ll need to add some more homey pictures and trinkets one of these days.

So office life isn’t ideal, but I run around on my breaks and always make sure I print things to the farthest printer so I have to run up and down stairs to get my documents. And so far the work has been fairly interesting. I’m learning a ton and am particularly enjoying working with mapping software. I’m told that this is a particularly good project to be a part of. We’re working jointly with the Washington State Department of Transportation on a $400 million project to rework a five-mile stretch of I-90 through Snoqualmie Pass (there are also plans to continue the project for another ten miles or so). Here’s a picture that I did not take of part of the first phase of the project.

Anyway, right now I really don’t have much responsibility, which is kind of nice. There is some level of ingenuity required, but really I spend most of my time helping out the other planners with their functions. Creating documents as needed, tracking down information, running copies, nothing too tough.

In other news the company I work for, URS Corp, just acquired a rival engineering firm for $2.6 billion, adding 25,000 new employees to the current 30,000. Those are some mammoth numbers. And no end to the future potential job openings I suppose.

And the rain brings the cool. I took the dogs out for a run in the industrial sprinklers of West Valley Middle School across the street this evening just as thunder clouds were rolling in. We ran and played in the rain as the cloudbursts slapped fat rain drops across our faces. The air was still heavy with the heat of the day but the wind was cool and the rain cold. It all swirled together and gave the moment a dense tangibility. Marvelous.

There is a massive grassy hill behind the school where if you climb up above roof level (and you can climb much higher) you can see much of the city. This I did (while the dogs tired themselves out running up and down) and was treated to blowing patches of falling rain splattering the roof tops for miles. Hey, when you only get eight inches of rain a year you’d better enjoy it when it comes.

Holy smokes, it’s scorching here. The picture below was taken on our back deck in the shade at about 5:00 this afternoon. Tomorrow I think we’ve got a chance to hit 100 degrees. It still feels better than 85 and muggy in Grand Rapids though.

Ugh, since it’s been far too hot to do anything active outside we’ve been painting like crazy the past couple of days. Mary decided to attack the kitchen, pulling apart and repainting all the cabinetry while I’ve been busy working the roller on the living room, kitchen and one of the bedrooms (the other two bedrooms likely will follow as energy dictates). Everything is coming along nicely, but it’s also involved double digit hours of work.

Meanwhile, I think I really am going to love it in this city. At least for a while if nothing else (ultimately I’d like to be closer to the Pacific, but until then there’s plenty to explore). I can see if you need big city ambiance why you might be frustrated living in a smaller agricultural community (though as 72,000 pop. and 229,000 in the metro it’s no podunkville). And I suppose if you have no other option but to live in the higher crime areas, I can see why you might want to get away. For us though, I think the pace and the size will fit us just fine.

We’ve got all the big chain stores we need. Affordable and pleasant grocery stores. Affordable housing (this is by far the nicest house we’ve lived in at a mortgage we can actually pay). Easy access to mountains, rivers, and green space. The Pacific coast is a weekend trip away. Pleasant climate but with actual seasons (fall colors, snow in the winter). Vibrant Hispanic influence (soccer is everywhere here). No real traffic to speak of (my drive to work is a zippy low-traffic stretch of road past orchards and the Yakima airport, I also drive home to views of Mt Adams and Mt Rainier).

And then there’s always Seattle, two hours away.

I know we won’t be here forever, but so far, no complaints.

My family is on the road (currently stopped in Mitchell, SD, home of the world famous Corn Palace, I’m told a picture was taken, so we’ll have see what all the fuss was about).

In the meantime, I am officially in the new digs (hurray!) and have spent the past couple of days spending large amounts of money at Lowe’s and Home Depot and getting sunburned while doing yard work. I forgot how great it is to own your own home, especially at the beginning when it doesn’t yet feel like home and you get to go through the hours and hours of labor, but in the end it’s all worth it because things are exactly how you want them to be. And I’m really not trying to be facetious. It’s good to have projects to work on. Right now my project list looks something like this:

Done
– Weed whack overgrown backyard and edges of front yard
– Clean out gutters (full of Oak tree debris)
– Scoop up all the dog crap in the backyard from the previous owner’s dog (I nearly filled a 32 gallon trash barrel, quite discourteous indeed)
– Buy and install new fridge
– Buy mower (have not mowed yet)
– Buy some sort of eating table (bought a picnic table that was on sale at Lowe’s, good enough for the immediate, actually, over the past two weeks I’ve eaten all but one of my meals outside with the people I was staying with, seriously, the weather here is unreal)
– Weatherproof backyard deck
– Nail done loose nails in deck
– Find and destroy wasp nests

To be done this weekend
– Assemble picnic table
– Mow yard
– Organize all the junk left behind by previous owner in the garage and along side of house (seriously, for the next house I buy I’m going to include something in the contract about not leaving anything behind with failure to comply cost being some sort of monetary penalty)
– Sweep out garage and rip out some of the shelving that I don’t like
– Trim hedges
– Chop down two evergreens in the backyard (ratty and in terrible locations)

And plenty more to come I’m sure over the next two days. Today’s major project was weatherproofing the deck. Hours and hours first cleaning and prepping the wood and then applying the sealer (sadly, with a brush that was far too small for the job). I made this task priority number one though since the dogs won’t need use of the backyard for the next couple of days and the deck needs at least 48 hours to set. At some point over the next few months there will be loads of landscaping done with at least one major terraforming project (likely grading out some of the backyard, tearing down parts of back fence, and rebuilding). I think we’re also planning on repainting just about every room in the house including the garage interior. New carpet will happen at some point. Some new doors and light fixtures. And I’ve also been throwing out the idea of doing a complete overhaul on the kitchen (this one will be a ways down the road though since we’ll need time to save up some money).

It’s funny how much more satisfying work is when noone is making you do it.