West Richland Real Estate Blog

Because the beginning of school is just days away! So, don’t be surprised to see lots of mom and dads smiling at the grocery store, post office, or wherever you might see them this week.

Every time there’s a little bit of thunder and lightning in West Richland, I’m out of town on some business travel somewhere. I come home and the family regales me with stories of how loud and scary the storm was. And, unlike the rest of the family, I actually like thunder and lightning! But I always miss it.

Not last night:

Heard the rumblings a little before 11 pm, and went outside to shoot as much as I could. Lightning is tough to shoot! I put the camera on a 15-second shutter speed, and got really lucky with this one.

West Richland had been overcast and really hot for two days, but nothing happened. Then the skies finally opened up a bit last night — while I was home, thankfully. I finally got to see and hear some thunder and lightning for myself. And it was fun.

A contact on Flickr once told me, “You have the most amazing skies where you live!,” as he was browsing through some of my West Richland photos. I think he’s right — pointing the camera up is almost always a good idea in this city.

I’m not sure tonight’s sky was “amazing,” but it sure was interesting. This is what I saw while taking the dog for a walk at around 6:30 pm. I don’t think that’s a cloud formation — I think it’s smoke. Or maybe a combination of the two. I know there are fires to the south, the west, and the northeast of us, and only smoke would make the sun turn into a little orange ball like you see in that photo. If it was clouds, you wouldn’t see the sun at all.

You can click the photo to see a bigger version on Flickr.

Update: I bet it’s from this fire on Mt. Adams, near Yakima.

When we moved into our West Richland home, we had no idea that the previous owner was a bigtime plant and flower-lover. Over the first couple summers, though, we discovered that she had planted an amazing variety of things — some quite common, and others somewhat rare.

Neither Cari nor I are green thumbs, so we’ve removed some of the plants and things that the previous owner had planted, i.e. — we used to have a 60-foot-long row of rose bushes along the front of the property. Those are gone, but along the side of the property we’ve kept a row of lilac bushes which just get bigger and more beautiful every year. Those lilacs are in bloom now, and our house looks more beautiful because of it. See for yourself:

We have such a variety of plants and flowers in our yard and our neighbors’ yards. Here are some snowballs from last May:

This is also a test to see how a photo looks in this blog template.