The Fire and the Rain, and other stuff

Yup - we've had both since we have been back home. We had a heck of a lightening storm - well, several, actually. But one was with some dry lightening that started a fire just over the ridge from us. The Forest Service got right on it and held it to a little over 100 acres, but it was looking a little scary for a while from our deck. The wind was blowing pretty hard. You can barely see Black Butte in the photo below.
So, we had another storm which dumped soooo much rain in a short amount of time. Dean measured over half an inch in less than half an hour! This is on the north side of the house where we have done no landscaping yet. The white in the foreground is the drain pipe from the driveway that goes under the blacktop. A little Grand Canyon!Shannon arrived Saturday night - did it in 2 days - he was anxious to get here, I guess. Sage, his best friend/dog and him are sacked out on the couch - watching TV.
The first project to be undertaken was cleaning out the "shed" and turning it into a "guest house" - right now, for Shannon to stay in while he is here so he can have his own space, and eventually for friends to stay in so they can have their own space. All of this JUNK below - and much more - was crammed into the space formerly known as the shed. We won't be parking the Element in the garage any time soon - until we find space for all the "stuff"The guys put a nice window in the West wall of the place so whoever is there will have a fantastic view. This is the "before" photo. More correctly, it is the during photo, but I forgot to take the actual "before" one. Gotta get back in the habit of documenting things for the blog.
The other thing that has occupied Dean and my time was getting caught up on the yard and garden. That was a HUGE job and I truly know what "growing like a weed" means! I weeded 1 bed of the veggie garden just below the deck and this was the result.The plant on the lower left is Dean's hop plant. He planted 3 last year and only 1 made it, but it is doing very well this year. Some of the vines are already up on the deck railing.
The weed pile didn't get burned this spring because they ended burning season a week early because of the dry weather. Of course, since then, we have had a lot of rain, so they should open it up again - but they won't. Unfortunately, this much rain at this time of the year means that the weeds and other vegetation will really grow which will mean a bad fire season over here.
The garden is mostly in, though and I will post some photos as things get going.
We have already harvested some strawberries!