O, Summer where art thou?

I wish you hadn't left so early!
It's really messing with my head this time around, and it's not even September, yet.
This weather.
I was hoping we'd have a stretch of nice weather to make up for the non-event our Summer was.
'Nuff bout that. I have been organizing my great piles of clutter. Much of it isn't mine at all, being the domain of little boys and grown ones.
The latters' possessions I am moving aside to make way for my own organization.
I would say that there is a considerable amount of it that 'belongs' to me, though, and some of it's been taken away to other places, a little's been tossed or burned, and stuff's up for sale.
For some reason I can't seem to give away my old saddle. Granted, it was inexpensive to begin with, but it has a nice Cashel cushion. I suppose some 4H-er or someone might show an interest if I did put it on Freecycle.
Space is at a premium, though, and the clutter is torturous to me as much as the weather is only it seems a hazardous juxtaposition to it when the indoor spaces we flock to in order to hide from the wet and cold are so cramped and impossible to keep clean with piles of things here and there and it only seems to get worse.
I've been neglecting my blogging for the most part, but it's been for good reasons.
I hope the Expo next weekend is fun. I wish this weekend would dry out! Last year, the weekend following Labor Day was hot indeed.
Happy Labor Day, y'all, stay dry!

Commercial Fishing Expo and Hotdog Highliners Competition in Astoria, OR

Astoria, Oregon is hosting an entertaining, informational display of "Deadliest Catch" type skill on Sept. 7, 2008 at Astoria's Sunday Market Sept. 7, 2008.NW Limited...History in Vogue will be there selling Dead Reckoning of the Pacific Graveyard lithographs for $50 each or $500 for the full "Cadillac" version with all the photos, framed and documented.

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Shooting stars (make a wish)

Many opportunities, last night, to make wishes on falling stars.
Last night we sat out on the front porch to watch the Perseid shower since it was clear out and we were close to the peak rate for these meteors.
The little boys were awake and excited to be there, and got out their little glow-necklaces they'd bought at the Regatta fireworks last Saturday (we put them in the freezer to conserve them), which luckily didn't cause enough light interference to make a big difference.
That big ol' waxing gibbous moon did some work on washing out the sky as did the neighbor's mercury vapor yard light. Still, we saw several per minute at times.
Many were the long, faint blue streaks that leave you wondering if you really did see anything at all. Others were larger and almost audible.
We watched for about an hour and a half before we all got too cold.
I wished we could have gone to a more remote location (that's funny considering we live 12 miles outside of town already) away from the lights of the neighbor and our own.
I've fantasized about watching them either from Neahkahnie mountain or out on the water maybe in the river, lying flat and looking up from the deck of a boat.
Over the years, we've had some good nights. Our "stargazing hill" was sold and now has a family living there above their new stable, so we no longer have that nearby. One year we saw several meteors with persistent trains and even some large fireballs.
Some years we've been "clouded out" and had to come home and listen to them on forward-scatter radar via the internet.
Even when there are no meters, there's nothing like the view of the night sky with no light pollution.
Last night was still great. We pointed out a few constellations (bonus to having a father with a degree in astronomy and a deep love for it), stars, saw several satellites, and best of all, nobody was scared of the dark.
A simple, good time was had.
Sorry, no pictures...