Living in the shadow of a volcano

There was an article in the Homer News the other day entitled: Living in the shadow of a volcano is a nuisance, but kind of cool...At this point I think it's just a nuisance. This morning I got up at 6:30 because Marina spent the night and she was still on Greear time. So I was giving her a bath between 6:30 and 7:00 when I heard thunder. The first time I thought it was Matt sliding the bathroom door open. The second time I was standing there talking to Matt. I said "do you hear the thunder?". He said, "the volcano must be going off".

I looked out the window and saw dark clouds to the east. Nothing in the west. Within 15 minutes a black cloud blew from the west and turned the sky over our house from dawn to dusk. It was black for about 30 minutes, like an eclipse of the sun. This time, there is no snow falling so the ash is still dry. It blows off the spruce trees like pollen in spring. My dog has an 18 hour bladder but I had to let him out around 10am. When he came in I wiped his paws off with a damp rag. Then I dipped them in a bucket of water and there was about a 1/4" of ash at the bottom of the bucket. When I opened the door to throw the water on the stairs, he slipped out and lay down in the driveway with wet paws. I just got him to come inside and repeated the footwash. Dude is staying inside now until bedtime. I threatened the kids with a spanking for anyone who lets the dog out again. He is like an 86 pound ash magnet. We desperately need it to rain or snow, but I can see the sun trying to shine through the ash fog.

On a more cheerful note...Marina spent the night last night. She and Maya had a sleepover. I am enjoying having a little helper around the house so much, I may never let her go home. She took another bath when Maya woke up. She told me she found a way to get Maya to swallow: by putting a little piece of candy inside each bite of food. I tested her theory by pushing a little nerd inside Maya's mini muffin. It's like giving dogs pills, when you hide the pill inside a piece of meat or cheese. Well, it didn't work on Maya. She still didn't eat her homemade apple cinnamon mini muffin.

The only thing more fun than watching the birds at our feeder is watching the cat.

The boys trying to catch a bird.

Colton gives lessons on how to catch a bird. No luck today.

Maya loves wearing her brothers' hats and gloves.

April Fool!

Maya's little horse on a stick. Matt replaced his batteries the other day. His muzzle wiggles when he whinnies. He would be so cute if he didn't play the Lone Ranger theme. Where's the volume control?

Loose ash all over the deck.

Coloring with Marina. Notice the uneaten mini muffin in the right hand corner.

Marina picked out this cute little ballet dress for Maya. She gave it to Maya for her third birthday.

Scratch what I said earlier. I just lost my little helper to Chris. Chris suddenly remembered that he and Marina used to be great buddies when they were younger.