the orange door: unique living since 2007

Luring cats

2012-02-05T18:53:00.000-08:00

While we are working on the new washer and dryer situation, I have taken a break to lure the cats into the new location of their litter boxes: the old washer and dryer closet. I've removed the wooden slatted vent from the door, making the perfect opening for cats. Now to get them to come through the door.

Sentinel was all in, especially once he saw I was holding a treat.

Antares was his usual cautious self.

This is as close as he would come. I would hold up a treat and he would move my hand outside the closet and then take the treat.

He's not so in to new experiences, but he will come along.

Shelves. New Plan

2012-02-01T18:50:00.000-08:00

I recently have been winnowing down the things on one set of shelves in the pantry. I made it through the top shelf and have been avoiding dealing with the other shelves, but we've suddenly had a change of plan. We're tired of making our too-tiny and semi-working washer and dryer work and we are moving on up to bigger and better models. This means that the shelves need to go away, so that the washer and dryer can go where the shelves are now.

Before: (Although you have to imagine that the cats' litter boxes were in that space, as I moved them before I remembered to take the picture.)

Old washer and dryer before:

Shelves cleaned off and ready for work:

Establishing before shot:

After: our new dryer will be vented directly outside. Currently, our dryer vents up several feet over several feet and then makes its way out a very tall side vent. It's incredibly hard to keep this very long vent from clogging. This one will vent one foot over and out. I love it! You can also see the shelves are gone.

Here's the new plan, as planned by our handyman, Wesley Johnson. Instead of moving the pipes and the electrical, over several feet, we will run them through a new hole in the wall and into the exact same connections.

Now we will purchase our washer and dryer. We are excited for a whole new world of laundry.

Vlogbrothers! On Tour!

2012-01-29T19:20:00.001-08:00

The Vlogbrothers came to Portland as a part of John Green's The Fault in Our Stars tour. Matt and I got tickets and arrived at the Baghdad about an hour before the show. The doors were open and the line was moving, but we still walked to the back of the line which stretched around the corner...

..and down the block. Nerdfighters being Nerdfighters though, everyone was very patient, even though they were excited.

The tour van was parked on the side of the venue and was a great place for pictures.

My favorite part of the van? The not-so-subtle message of: "JOHN GREEN!!!! Oh, and that other guy Hank Green. He's here too." In the Vlogbrother's world both brothers are equal, but when the book publishing company is funding your tour, clearly the author is more important.

Because we were at the end of the tour, I knew that the brothers spent a log of time signing. But this sign made me laugh. Who uses the word "ephemera" on an instructional sign? Nerdfighers, that's who.

We found a seat in the balcony and took a very dark picture of the Baghdad. For some reason the lighting was incredibly low and never changed levels. It was fine during the show itself, but squint-inducing when trying to read our very informative program.

Speaking of the program, it was delightful. There was a nice note about how much both brothers like Portland that also encouraged us to donate to This Star Won't Go Out, which is an organization founded by the family of a Nerdfighter to help kids with cancer and their families. There were bios of John and Hank Green. There was a full page of signing guidelines which were quite funny and because they were written in part to "make the experience as pleasant and nonawkward as possible given the inherent awkwardness." There was also a Nerdfigher Lexicon and a crossword puzzle with such clues as "John's lawn has lots of them." (Weeds)

A pre-show shot. The puppet stage was for Hank Sock who is popular enough to have facebook fans.

John Green read from his book and talked a bit out how the book came about. The fun of nerds is that sometimes they are highly quotable and John Green had me reaching for my pen several times:

So much of adulthood is about disguising your intellectual interests and paying the mortgage
We'd like to live here, but instead we are going to visit for three hours and drive to Seattle
On old people (meaning anyone out of college, a minority in this audience): We don't "woo!" we raise our hands.

It was also interesting to hear the thought that went in to choosing the names of his characters. I figured that authors just went with what sounded good. But John Green explained that he named his character Hazel because hazel is an in between color and Hazel the character is in between so many things.

Hank Green played some songs, which were sung along with lustily. His most popular to sing along with is of course: Strange Charm which is a song about quarks and whose chorus is as follows: Up down, strange, charm, top, bottom, if you don't know what a quark is it don't matter you still got um. The writing of this song (and its very fun video) has made the lives of physics teachers much easier. But if quarks are not your cup of tea, there is always the song about Anglerfish.

There was also a Q&A session. Both Matt and I submitted questions on cards before the show started, which John Green told us was a much better way for questions as it prevented people from asking questions that spoiled plots as apparently happened previously in San Francisco. While asking questions there was a timer counting down and whichever brother was talking when the timer went off got shocked by an electric shocker. This was strangely medieval and also very funny. Matt and I both wrote questions and both our questions were read. My question, "Who does the driving?" elicited the information that Julie did the driving and that Julie was an amazing driver. Apparently, you don't know how good some people are at driving until you are in the vehicle with them. They likened her to the knight bus driver, able to drive through cars in some situations.

Matt's question: ‎"Describe the process of coming up with the rule about signing: 'Other ephemera: No." The answer? Apparently, this came about because John Green, who last autumn signed all 150,000 copies of The Fault in Our Stars and suffered some ill effects, has had some carpel tunnel problems as the tour has progressed. So the signing has been curtailed a bit. Hank started talking in answer to Matt's question and the timer went off. Matt was very excited that his question caused the shocking of Hank. Due to the magic of everyone in the theater having recording devices, you too can enjoy Hank getting shocked as we did.

After the shocking we got a great finale of both brothers singing the Proclaimer's song "I would walk 500 miles." This too you can see as we saw it. I know! It's almost like you were there!

And with the confetti cannon exploding around us we said goodbye to TFIOS tour, bypassing the signing line (which sounded like it was quite organized. There were tickets with numbers on them and they called people in blocks) opting instead for a good dinner at the Bread and Ink cafe.

Cookbooks winnowed

2012-01-28T19:17:00.001-08:00

My "just one thing" this week was to make sure the cookbooks on the shelf were also the cookbooks I wanted and used. Here is before:

And here is after. I have been meaning for years to do reviews of my most-used cookbooks for a blog post but alas, I just haven't gotten around to it.

My next task is to go through those two very large three-ring binders and get that to one binder.

TFIOS!

2012-01-12T19:57:00.000-08:00

Back in October, when I was talking about John Green's soon-to-be-released book, The Fault in Our Stars, Matt suddenly blurted out, "Maybe I should get that for you for your birthday!" I said that it would have been good if he had that thought and then didn't say it aloud. He decided he would get me the book, but then when he went to order it, found out that it wouldn't be released until January 10 he told me he had bagged the whole idea. That was fine by me and I moved on. On January 12, I logged on to the library web site and put the book on hold. It was a bit of a wait, but not horrible. I then came home and brought in the mail, which included a package from Amazon.com addressed to Matt. I idly wondered what he had ordered.

When I came home from the gym, he had arrived home from work. We greeted each other and chatted and then I remembered to ask him what he got from Amazon.com. He just gestured to the table, where the package was. I opened it and to my surprise...

He bought it for me after all!

Note that it's a signed copy (as are all the books in the first printing)!

I got green sharpie!

Calendula

2012-01-03T17:02:00.000-08:00

I started a second round of calendula seed later in the summer and then scurried around the yard trying to find somewhere to put them. A few of them are still blooming, even in January!

Lucky Kitties!!

2011-12-31T17:07:00.000-08:00

Since Santa came yet again this year (this is one of the perks of not having children) and was his usual generous self I decided to use the money to replace the cats' scratching post which is three years old and coming apart at the seams. Since it was Santa money, I upgraded to a three shelf unit which is tall enough for Antares to stretch out to his full length while scratching. Part of the fun was enticing the cats onto the new cat scratcher.

I did this by putting food on each level. Sentinel went first looking for the treats. Antares hung back.

A good long scratch by the little kitty.

Antares makes his move.

Happy cat.

I bought the cat scratcher at the Oregon Humane Society which is a good place to find them. They have various sizes, they are a decent price and last a long time and by purchasing from the Humane Society, your money goes to support their many programs. Plus you get to say hello to all the cats temporarily residing there.

NWCTC's Hamlet

2011-12-30T10:42:00.000-08:00

We enjoyed another great performance at the Northwest Classical Theater Company. Butch Flowers was a fabulous and sparkly Hamlet, and the play just zipped along. I was particularly happy to see Dave Bodin (a delightfully stuffy Polonius) and Dave Burnett (Marcellus/Rosencrantz/Fortinbras) as they were very fun in last year's Cymbeline. Daniccia Noreault was a wonderful Ophelia and we've enjoyed her craft since seeing her as Squeaky Fromme in Artist's Repertory Theatre's production of Assassins in 2006. She throws herself wholeheartedly into her roles.

Once again the costumes were fabulous (well done, Elizabeth Huffman) with Claudius and Gertrude particularly adorned in sumptuous, white, cold weather/Danish castle gear, contrasting with Hamlet's ratty black and simple outfit.

The proximity of the audience to the actors in this theater gives them no place to hide and they always rise to the occasion, bringing quality productions to within four feet of their patrons. Northwest Classical Theatre Company remain one of the joys of living in Portland. Make plans now to see Much Ado About Nothing in March and April.

Helpers for the last of the Christmas Preperations

2011-12-24T11:51:00.000-08:00

I've only to wrap the presents for the family and then all my Christmas Chores will be done. What is everyone getting? Potatoes! When someone grows over 200 pounds of potatoes, it pretty much guarantees her homemade Christmas presents will be potatoes.

Antares supervises the selection.

Sentinel oversees the packaging.

Merry Christmas!

It's! It's! Live Wire!

2011-12-17T11:48:00.000-08:00

We've been waiting for this Live Wire show for months because Daniel Handler (better known to many as Lemony Snickett) was one of the guests. Matt finished the thirteenth, and final book in the "Series of Unfortunate Events" just today so he was ready for the excitement, as was I.

The Alberta Rose Theater, decked for the Holidays. They were taping the Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve shows so everything was very festive. The cast all wore holiday sweaters which were available for purchase for $15.00 apiece after the show. Not surprisingly, Jim Brunburg's sweater sold at the intermission. He's an attractive fellow, that Jim Brunburg.

Matt studies the program. Aside from Daniel Handler we also saw Merrill Markoe who discussed her career as a comedy writer and her relationship with her mother. Shelley McLendon, who you might have recognized from the "Did you read" Portlandia sketch, gave us tips for getting through the holidays. Carl Adamshick also appeared and read several poems.

Our musical guest were Duover, a very cute couple with some cute songs to go with them. The first one was a great romantic comedy movie montage sort of song and the second one made us laugh with a well-placed "Awesome." The Lonely Forest played for the second part of the show. They were loud, but enjoyable hipster type rock. One of their songs would have also made a nice romantic comedy movie montage sort of song. Also, their bass player sang along in the background with the singer's words which I found charming. And the singer said some funny things, and then utterly confused me when he mentioned his wife as he looked approximately 19 years old. Which I guess is old enough to have a wife, but I wouldn't recommend it.

Daniel Handler was hilarious, opening with a witty back and forth with host Courtney Hameister about his hometown of San Francisco and Live Wire's hometown of Portland how the cities used to be friends, but now they just try and out-cool themselves. He went on to say some more very funny things and we all laughed. But the best part? Daniel Handler can play the accordion. Daniel Handler and the house band played us an excellent rendition of "When Doves Cry."

At the beginning of the show, Courtney Hameister announced all the sponsors. When she said, "Dave's Killer Bread" a guy in front of me stood up, clapping. "Wow, he really likes Dave's Killer Bread," I thought to myself, then noticed that there were people from Dave's Killer Bread throwing loaves of bread into the audience. Instant understanding. Matt, meanwhile had also stood to better catch any loaves that might come his direction. Two did. The first, he caught with his hands. The second with his face.

Other highlights? Christmas Carols translated into Japanese then re-translated into English and sung. I couldn't stop laughing. A very clever skit involving a drunk woman at a New Year's Eve party. And Courtney Hameister's moving story of her worst New Year's Eve ever.

Do you want to partake of the Live Wire! fun yourself? You can go to Live Wire! Radio and download the podcasts or you can subscribe on iTunes.

Boxing up

2011-12-01T17:47:00.000-08:00

My "just one thing" this week involved organizing the shelves above the toilet in the bathroom. Alas, I did not take a "before" picture, but imagine a cacophony of various sizes of cardboard boxes not holding anything very well.

A few years ago (one project at a time, Patricia, one project at a time) I bought two sets of the basic Ikea cardboard magazine holders, intending them for these shelves. Remarkably, though they were sitting in their packages that entire time next to the recycling bin, they were never recycled. I got them out, cut off their tops so they would fit on the shelves, sorted everything, labelled each box with my label maker et voila! Peace and Calm.

Despite the lack of need for a tour of the organized space, due to such excellent organizing, I gave one to Matt anyway. He was amused, but finds the new system works for him.

This project took about an hour total, spread out over two days. Well done me!

Curtains! Or: Nine Down, Two to Go!

2011-11-27T17:45:00.000-08:00

Given that the Roman Shades in the front room took me four years to construct, I thought it wise to purchase the curtains and gussy them up, rather than beginning from scratch. The curtains are from Ikea, the curtain rod and tie backs are from Fred Meyer and the sheers have been up there forever, but I think I bought them at Fred Meyer also.

I took a strip of material from the Roman Shades and sewed it to the edge of the curtains to pull everything together.

With the furniture in place, with the curtains closed.

Furniture in place and curtains open.

Closeup of strip. I'm very happy how everything turned out.

The next step is to make a sheer shade for the windows. But that can wait as we have a workable solution right now.

Winnowing the corn, with some grinding too!

2011-11-13T09:26:00.000-08:00

I've noticed that its very difficult for me to start projects when I've never done them before. If I don't have a very clear picture of how things will go, I tend to put things off. But my "just one thing" this week was to deal with the corn I grew and so it must be dealt with.

I "threshed" (a term I'm not sure is correct in this case because I've only heard it used for wheat, but which Wikipedia says "is the step in grain preparation after harvesting and before winnowing" and that's what I was doing, so I'm using the term.) the corn easily enough. It had been drying on the table for a few weeks, and I simply grabbed a bowl and the corn and season 1 of the television show Heroes et voila! Done after only watching two episodes.

Winnowing was another matter. I had seen the concept: fan, stool, bowls etc. and had all the supplies. I had even watched some winnowing videos on YouTube. (Nerd!) But it took a lot to get out there and winnow. I also wasn't sure how long it would take, and this was a block. It reminds me of Wendy McClure's churning butter project in "The Wilder Life." She had read all about how to churn, but wasn't sure how long it would take, so she saved the task for a company holiday when she didn't have to go into work and started early in the morning to ensure she had enough time. As someone who has made butter from cream, this was rather amusing because the process takes minutes rather than hours. But how was she to know? And I was in the same boat with my winnowing.

Here is my bag of corn.

Corn that has been winnowed, safe in their safekeeping jars. I used two large Nancy's Yogurt containers to pass the corn back and forth in front of the fan.

Here's the winnowing setup, complete will spilled corn from when I accidentally knocked the fan off the stool and managed to fling corn about while trying to right it. If you google "winnow" you will be presented with a goodly number of pictures of brown-skinned people standing on a square of material covered in grain, holding a basket and flinging grain into the air.

That setup is because back in the day, people who wanted to winnow had to wait for a windy (and sunny) day. They would then throw their grain in the air, catching it in the basket and the wind would take the chaff away. Now that we have box fans and electricty, one can just set up a box fan and drop the grain back and forth between two "baskets" (or Nancy's Yogurt containers, in my case) and the fan blows away the chaff. Aside from the corn spilling incident, it went well and quickly. I think the whole process took 45 minutes with setup and break down. That gave me about 22 cups of grain. Not bad, not bad.

On to the grinding!

My mother brought over my Grandma Collins' old meat grinder. It has three settings of grind. It easily went together, attached to the table and a tiny drop of oil dealt with the squeaking.

An early pass through.

Later.

Even later!

My final product and supplies:

The polenta made was good, but not ground quite enough. I'll put it through more often the next time I grind.

Pub Quiz

2011-11-12T09:22:00.000-08:00

Inspired by the two "pub quizzes" that I attended at my church, I decided to throw a pub quiz of my own to celebrate 10 years in Portland.

Every pub should have good beer, and the people at New Seasons made sure I had a good variety.

The pub also served wine, both in glasses and solo cups.

There were four varieties of popcorn and both salted and unsalted peanuts.

People arrived, teams were formed and names were chosen.

The initial 20 questions (with 8 bonus questions) were read and the teams set to work.

Here the Trail Tigers (Drinda, Mary, George, Kelly & Margaret) ponder.

Total Domination (Blu, Heidi, Lee, Kristen & Julie) wonders what the answers could be.

The Droopy Dogs (Carol, Heidi, Joshin, Mitchell & C.J.) contemplate answers.

Behind them, you can barely see Home Team Advantage (Matt, Amber, Tyler & Geoff) thinking.

The Wasabi Honey Bears (Pat, Kevin, Deborah & Bahar) are deep in thought.

Team Slytherin (Sabrina, Burt, Kelly, Laurie, & Shan) retreated to another part of the house to think and answer.

After the initial round of quiz questions, teams set to work coloring, while I corrected their answer sheets. We had 10 song id's (5 from musicals, 5 more, one from each decade 50s through 90s) and a "dreaded fill in the blank."

In the end, Total Domination did just what their name said and took home first prize.

Prizes were the three listed, as well as the choice of bringing home all the excess alcohol.

It was a very fun celebration.
Incidentally, Total Domination chose the scratch tickets. They were quite involved in scratching them, but no one on the team actually took any home. I cashed them in and got $20.00! It was a prize for me too!

Do you want to take the pub quiz? Questions begin here.

Party Preparations

2011-11-11T09:21:00.000-08:00

I had two days off before the pub quiz which gave me time to do a massive sweep and mop. Where did all the furniture go?

Oh here it is! Right over here!

The cats, (a book I read aptly said something to the effect of "the cat has a Republican's disdain for change") were not at all pleased with the shuffling of furniture and hung about to see what would happen next.

I do love clean floors. Really clean floors, not only swept, but mopped.

New Chair New Look

2011-11-05T19:09:00.000-07:00

Thanks to a gift card from Linda and birthday money from my Mother and Aunts, I was able to change the look of the living room.

Before: I have grown disenchanted with the Chaise Lounge over the past year or so. It's not very comfortable and I've never been a fan of the white, it being hard to keep clean. Plus, it angles out in such an odd way.

Also, not one visitor has ever lounged on it. They all sit upright, awkwardly. I think lounging is an advanced visitor action that no one has yet acheived.

The other problem is that I have no place to stack my books. I've been making do with a guitar case and a stool.

It's crowded and hard to clean.

I bought an Ikea Poang chair and footstool, with a brown cushion. It's comfortable and cozy and the cats are fans, as you can tell by Sentinel's presence.

To me, it seems there is more space now.

The pink chair was (Great) Uncle Tom's chair. It's been present in all of my houses since I moved into the studio. One of the springs has sprung, so it's not the most comfortable chair. Plus, it doesn't match the decor. However, Antares has appropriated it as a massive scratching pad. I do my best to discourage it, but I'm scared to get anything else, in case he just transfers the scratching to the new piece. I have (far off) plans to make a cat perch to put there, then I will find a new chair.

This table was a Goodwill find. I really like the lines of it and it's old enough to not be constructed of particle board. Cleaning it, I could tell that it lived in a smoker's house, but it's all better now, and happy to hold my books.

I'm very happy with the new look and the birthday presents that made it possible. Next up? Finishing the living room curtains.

Jack-o-Lanterns

2011-10-31T19:08:00.000-07:00

I wish I could say I carved this jack-o-lantern, but instead, it was carved by an artist down the street.

This was my work. He's a worried jack-o-lantern. The economy and all. It's rough, being a squashed-based entity in these times.

Matt went the Batman route. On the back it says, "I am the 1%. Tax me."

I had full sized candy bars to give out, but had no takers until 8:30 when one family stopped by. Three kids. They were cute. We're not in the best Trick or Treat area.

We go to Italy

2011-10-29T19:05:00.000-07:00

Our friend Laurie turns 40 this year and when her husband asked her what she wanted to do for her 40th birthday she said, "I want to go to Italy!"

With the help of excellent party planners Brooke and Darla (last seen at the Hogan Hoedown) we all went to Italy!

This is Burt and Laurie's Parlor. It usually has comfortable chairs for chatting in, but today: Italy!

Aside from a great progression of pictures of Laurie, we also got to eat bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar for dipping. There was hummus too!

A beautiful table, which also had an awning over it. Bad picture taking on my part. This table was joined by many different kinds of pizza.

There were even waiters!

Because Laurie doesn't do sugar, there was no cake. Instead, we had grape stomping. Here Laurie stomps.

Then the younger generation takes over.

And even the youngest stomped. Though not for very long.

We couldn't get enough stomping.

Including Matt.

Then Darla hopped in.

Then both Brooke and Darla found they could stomp, albeit, with support from Matt.

Looking out this window, you could even see a street scene.

Matt reminds us where we are.

It was a great birthday party and we had all the fun of Italy with none of the jet lag.

Potato Harvest

2011-10-28T14:20:00.000-07:00

What do 142 pounds of potatoes look like? I can show you, as my potato harvest from the Acreage has been sitting neatly bagged on my bedroom floor for several weeks now. "The Acreage" is what I've been calling the very large parking strip down the street. Chris and Erin, the homeowners, agreed to let me plant potatoes there. In the spring, I and the short-lived gardening partner planted eight pounds of seed potatoes. It was a good payoff.

Aside from this haul, Stephanie and I also harvested 60 pounds from her side yard making my total yield just over 200 pounds.

I offered Chris and Erin half of the crop, but they demurred and took two pounds of each kind. So I've got a lot of potatoes to feed me this winter. This is a very happy thing.

Purple Heart

2011-10-23T14:14:00.000-07:00

I sliced into one of my "All Blue" potatoes (and I have no idea why they refer to them as "blue" when they are so clearly "purple" ) today and was greeted by two purple hearts.

NWCTC's King John

2011-10-22T14:18:00.000-07:00

We enjoyed another production by the Northwest Classical Theatre Company. I forgot to bring my camera and there were three things I would have taken pictures of, if only. Instead you get words.

The drama was set in the present, which worked very well as two countries arguing and warring is not foreign to our modern sensibilities. Aside from the action on stage, there were also updates "from the field" given by newscasters as the royal families watched on television. The music, (sound design/original compositions according to the program) by Sharath Patel added a lot to the story and I found the costumes very complementary to the action. Well done Elizabeth Huffman (who also directed.)

Michael Fisher Welsh was a very good King John, and Vana O'Brien was a very good Eleanor, ably overcoming what I thought was a very bad wig. Dana Millican (who we saw before in Pericles) stole the show as Constance, pleading angrily then desperately for Arthur to take the throne. I was also impressed by both Grant Byington (who we saw in Twelfth Night) and Matt DiBiasio who were both double cast, Byington as King Phillip and also Salsbury, DiBiasio as Austria/Pembroke. Both changed so much about their demeanor that I had to read the program more than once before I realized the double casting.

NWCTC sells treats in the lobby and posts prices on a whiteboard above the treat table. This time their board offered coffee, tea, cookies and Lady Blanche. The first items sold for fifty cents to one dollar, the last was for sale for five countries and 30,000 marks.* We bought cookies.

*King John insider joke. Heh heh.

image from: http://www.nwctc.org/season.html

Corn Harvest

2011-10-18T14:14:00.000-07:00

I grew this corn, called Cascade Creamcrop, (bred by Carol Deppe, author of the Resilient Gardener) to grind into polenta. And also to make compost with the stalks. I've just started the harvest today. Doesn't it look great?

Note that leaving the husks on the cob like that caused a pretty much immediate growth of mold, so I quickly shucked them all the way before they could become a massive moldy mess. Now to pull the seeds off the cob, save a few of the best for next year's crop, and dry the rest for grinding. And that reminds me that I need to get a grinder.

Switch

2011-10-17T14:13:00.000-07:00

When we moved into the house, there was the perfect space in the laundry area for the stand alone freezer. Later, Chris and I built the shelves in the front room, and when the cat came along the lower space was good for the cat boxes. Until it wasn't. The clumping litter is dusty and the dust was getting all over the baker's rack filled with cooking tools as well as the table. Not to mention that Sentinel inevitably decides he has important cat box business when anyone visits. Still, where to put the cat boxes if not there? There seemed to be no other space.

Until, that is, one morning a few days ago when in that time between awake and asleep I thought to myself, "If I move the freezer out to the front room, that will make room for the cat boxes."

And lo, it did. The set up is not perfect as I don't like the file cabinet flanking one side of the table with the freezer flanking the other, but I like it much better than having cat litter dust all over everything.

I also lost some good side storage space next to the freezer. The ladder and one of the clothes drying racks, as well as the empty fruit delivery boxes, used to be stored in the space between the freezer and the wall. I found room for the ladder and the drying rack in the closet. They aren't as handy there, because we have to move things to access them, but we don't use them much anyway. I'm still not sure where to put the fruit delivery boxes. I use them for protection between the litter boxes and the floor, so I like to have them on hand.

Overall, though it's not a perfect situation, it's a great improvement.

PAE's Richard III

2011-10-08T07:26:00.000-07:00

We've been to several Portland Actor's Ensemble productions because they are good and also free. This year, they have added a fall show to their usual two summer productions. Because it is autumn and Portland and cold and rainy, we got to see this production indoors, at Concordia University. PAE productions are usually at public parks.

Upon entering the building (which felt odd as it is something we never do at PAE productions) we were greeted by the oldest member of PAE, Boxy. Boxy (seen on the right here) collects the donations that keeps the productions running. Recently, Online Boxy, a newer cast member, has joined Boxy in collecting donations.

We were warned. And it was quite long.

So long, in fact, that Matt floated the idea of leaving at intermission and coming back another night to see the rest. I veoted that as I knew we would never get around to coming back and would have for years Richard III only half checked off. And then I would have to read the darn play again at some future date.

This was a very spare production (as most PAE productions are) which gave us ample opportunity to focus on the words and the acting. As usual the cast was outstanding. Richard, played by Nathan Duncan, was a very beguiling psychopath. Just a few weeks prior, we learned in Northwest Classical Theatre's production of Good Will that Richard III is widely considered to be quite evil, but also quite sexy.

Matt Smith, playing George, Duke of Clarence was quite moving as he discovered that his brother had hired thugs to kill him off while he waited in the Tower. Linda Goertz, as Margaret of Anjou, was riveting as she cursed her many enemies. There were several actors in the production I recognized from other PAE productions and the ensemble jelled quite well. We attended on the second night of the production and actors were still stepping on each other's lines a bit, but not so much it detracted from the overall expereince.

After I vetoed us leaving at intermisison, Matt went to find snacks. While there, he entered his information to win a t-shirt. After the show concluded and we were leaving, I heard a gentleman asking the people in front of us, "Are you Matt Johnston?" "Are you Matt Johnston?" It turned out Matt had won a PAE T-shirt!

This was, he was assured, a special t-shirt because it had a misprint. The t-shirt advertised the Tempest as a 2010 production when in fact we saw the Tempest this year.

It pays to stay to the end.

Timer Found

2011-10-06T07:25:00.000-07:00

I found it under the freezer, broken and full of dust. This was our "laundry timer" when we lived in the Fortress of Solitude in Southwest Portland. We shared the washer and dryer with the other tenant in the building and we used this timer to remind us to grab our clothes from the dryer when they were done.

Good Will

2011-10-01T19:50:00.000-07:00

We had another great night of theater from the Northwest Classical Theater Company. Grant Turner, Artistic Director of the NWCTC, put together a one-man show about the life, times, and works of William Shakespeare. It included over 20 speeches from the canon.

The ShoeBox theater is looking lovely with a fancy new floor.

It was interesting to hear not only about Shakespeare's life, but why plays were important to Grant Turner and to the NWCTC. Thanks Grant Turner!

Muddy Buddy

2011-09-18T19:42:00.000-07:00

Didn't Matt just do some race that involved mud? Yes indeed, last weekend he did the Warrior Dash. This weekend, however, is another race with mud, the Muddy Buddy. Let's follow along.

Matt and his partner Bill get ready for the race. A port-o-pottie note. The Warrior Dash (with, admittedly, more people) had a much better ratio of port-o-potties to people. At the Muddy Buddy there were 10. Five here and five at the start line. Next year, I'd like to see double that number.

Despite my stern countenance, it was much easier to be an athletic supporter for this race this year than it was last year. Last year we had to be there at six, which meant we had to leave at five am. This year we had to be there at eight, which meant we left at a reasonable seven am. Also this year the time between the start of the race and the start of the awards ceremony seemed more compressed, which was also nice. Also, last year the race was in October and it was freezing. By which I mean the official temperature as we were driving to the race was freezing. This year it was three or four weeks earlier and much warmer. And this year it rained on the drive out, cleared up for most of the entire time we were outside and only began raining when we were leaving anyway. Lovely.

So many details to attend to.

Like prepping the shoes for the mud.

Bill arranges his number.

Finisher medals at the ready.

They were big, heavy things.

A preview of the finish line.

A preview of the mud pit right before the finish line.

Prepping the number for the helmet.

Excellent bed head.

Matt at the starting line.

Matt and Bill at the starting line, Matt demonstrating his layered effect.

Official starting line photo. This year there was a double loop which meant each person got to bike and run each segment.

More starting line readiness. If you look closely, you can see that Matt has again used the Ramen to mark the bike to avoid confusion.

A broad view of the starting line. Many of the "buddies" dressed alike, either in costume or in general athletic gear.

After Matt and Bill were off, I staked out a good spot for a mid-race picture. It was near the Muddy Buddy truck, which I assume carries all the equipment to each race.

Here's my framing shot.

I took a goodly number of practice photos, but still nearly missed Bill as he ran by.

I was better at capturing Matt on the bike.

The announcer, bored with waiting for the first racers to cross the finish line, began throwing Chex Mix samples across the mud pit to people on the other side. This was rather amusing to watch.

Before completing the last obstacle, the buddies had to meet up. The first one to arrive, waited in the holding area for the next one. Sometimes the wait was long and they got to chatting as with these participants.

"You can choose any height, or just run on through." These youth repeated that sentence over and over for each team that approached the climbing wall. Though they would happily let people run through, they did cheer most enthusiastically when people climbed the ropes.

Matt climbs over.

And down.

Matt crawling through the mud. He's just going under the second set of flags from the left. Bill is making his way into the mud.

More mud. Ick.

Bill crawling under the flags.

Crossing the finish line.

With medal, sports drink and happy to be done.

But maybe a bit of a rest is necessary. And more posing.

So much mud.

For instance, on his teeth.

The youth working the finish line did not escape the mud. Some participants gave them full-on muddy hugs.

Also new this year: towels!

Perhaps you haven't seen enough mud?

Official finishing photo.

Perhaps they are number 1?

Getting ready for the showers.

Pre-shower mud.

Off to the showers. Which were hoses.

Toweling off.

Cleverly changing clothing in public.

Not all the mud is gone.

Items must be spread out across the grass in order to properly pack them again.

Though not as impressive as Matt's injury during the Warrior Dash, some brambles did grab him during the Muddy Buddy.

"Clean"

Initial results: Team Edge Your Bets is in fourth place overall.

This is good.

Revised results: Team Edge Your Bets is in fifth place overall.

A fifth place finish this year meant no medal during the awards ceremony so we packed up to go. As we headed toward the parking lot, the rains began.

Team Edge Your Bets exits the 2011 Muddy Buddy.

Tree Before & After

2011-09-12T19:37:00.000-07:00

Today is an exciting day because today is the day that Leo's tree will be trimmed. Leo's tree is a very old beech tree that shades the North side of our house. Let's look at before and after photos.

From inside the house:

Before

After

From the front porch:

Before

After

From the street:

Before

After

Looking back at the house:

Before

After

Overall, the area feels much lighter, both in terms of light and in terms of things dangling down from above. It's a big improvement.

Warrior Dash 2011

2011-09-10T19:54:00.000-07:00

It's time for that obstacle course bit of muddy fun known as the Warrior Dash.

Here, Matt readies himself for the race.

A look at bag check.

Some pre-race granola. The promotional people asked what the energy was going to be used for. Matt said, "Rocking" and they wrote it on his bag before handing it over.

Matt at the starting lineup.

Some starting lineup photos.

This year, I saw remarkably fewer Celtic/Scottish/Viking/caveman style costumes. Here we see men in pink fuzzy bathrobes.

I do appreciate the massive lot of port-o-potties at this event.

This woman was the "Mistress of Mud."

What does it take to make a great fire jumping photo? A lot of practice.

This year's result:

Sliding down the mud slide. At this point, I accidentally turned off the camera (I was using Matt's camera) and so missed the final slide down the mud hill. I can, however tell you that a person near Matt threw up as he was sliding down the mud pit. The announcer gleefully announced this.

Ribbons at the ready in mud land.

A muddy Matt. With injury!

Emerging from the mud area.

Drinking a bit of water to wash down that mud.

My favorite mud picture.

Path to the "showers" which again this year was a pond.

Also new this year (I think) was a place to donate your muddy sneakers. There was a man with a megaphone saying the following in a monotonous tone: "Please remember to tie your sneakers together before placing them in the pile. Please take as many as you want, but less than an entire box of sunflower seeds. Thank you for your donation. Please remember to tie your sneakers together..."

You can read more about the organization here.

Post shower/pond.

Still a bit muddy.

Our walk through the parking lot. Driving in and out what much improved this year. There was very little idling in the car, which I appreciated.

Undressing at the car. Matt remembered clothing to change into this year.

We could see one of the obstacles from where we were parked.

The Tomato harvest begins

2011-09-08T07:09:00.000-07:00

It's September, but we in Portland, land of the Arctic summer, will take our home grown tomatoes any time we can get them.

Seven down, four to go. Or: Roman Shades Finished!

2011-09-05T07:08:00.000-07:00

They took a lot of hand stitching, and a lot of movie watching, but I have completed the Roman Shades!

A "before" photo.

A bad "after" photo of the shades in the raised position.

Completed shades!

I purchased the material for these shades in 2008. I started on this project by practicing for the front room by making shades for Matt's room. Those were completed in January of this year. I was then ready to begin these shades.

My friend Heidi had extra backing generously donated it to me for this project. That not only helped, it saved me about $35.00. A big thanks to her.

It feels good to have these shades done. Next project? Purchasing curtains for the French Doors in this room and sewing a border onto them using the leftover material from these shades.

Driving through the fires

2011-08-26T07:04:00.000-07:00

There were several lightening strikes the previous night which started some fires along our route home.

Matt calmly drove...

...despite the blazing inferno on the left side of the road.

Okay, it wasn't a blazing inferno that was close to us, but he still drove quite calmly while we watched the airplanes drop the fire retardant on the fire.

High Desert Museum

2011-08-26T07:03:00.000-07:00

The next morning after the show we ate a delicious breakfast at Corey's Bar and Grill in Downtown Bend. We had one of those fabulous waitresses who did not take any guff, and at the same time when I was trying to decide asked me what I was after and made a completely different recommendation that got me exactly what I wanted. If I were weathly, she would travel around with me and be my forever waitress.

Having eaten, we headed out to the High Desert Museum. Here, Matt gets his picture taken with Snowshoe, the resident Lynx. You can read Snowshoe's story here, though it will probably make you mad. Thank goodness he has a good home now.

A turtle wants to say, "Hi."

We toured the Miller Family Ranch and Sawmill, checked out Thomas the otter in the Otter exhibit. Thomas was sleeping. We also learned about Scat and visited the Spirit of the West exhibit. It was a fun museum.

On the grounds, I really liked this shrub.

But sadly it had no ID.

Driving towards home, we saw smoke. It's fire season.

Summer Love Tour

2011-08-26T00:10:00.000-07:00

We're right now taking this photo in Sisters, Oregon. What are we doing in Sisters?

Did you guess that we are on our way to Bend, Oregon to see A Prairie Home Companion Summer Love Tour 2011? You guessed right!

The Les Schwabe Amphitheater did not earn our love due to the chair issue. Reading the web site of the amphitheater the night before we left for the show, I learned that only short chairs are allowed, with legs of no more than six inches. Or you can sit on blankets. We do not own short legged chairs. I called Mom and Aunt Carol first thing in the morning, knowing that Mom wouldn't want to sit on a blanket for hours, and she promptly ran off to see if she could buy short legged chairs. It being the end of the season, they were in short supply, but she located a triple folding lounge chair that fit the bill and off we went.

What did we see when we got there? Tons of people bringing in full sized chairs. Mom complained, security nicely asked people to move, 95% of the people moved but not this guy sitting in front of us. Security asked nicely, I asked nicely (Excuse me sir, but we did not bring our tall chairs because they are not allowed and instead we are sitting on this blanket. Could you please move your chair so we can see?) Nothing. He just shrugged and said "I didn't know" as if that rendered him invisible. So this was my sitting flat view of the show. The leaning over to the right got me a view of the stage and a very sore half of my sitz bone the next day.

Sun going down.

Pre-show pictures. We played the card game Citadels while we waited to see if the tall chair people would have to move.

It wasn't a full show (which I found a bit disappointing also, and a bit of un-truth in advertising) but we got lots of segments with the sound guy. I love the sound guy. There are two on the show itself and we had Fred Newman. He did an excellent whale, among other things.

Garrison spent a lot of time walking through the crowd and singing while hoards of people took pictures. These are the ones that Matt captured.

Fun things about the show: the sound effects segments, the sing-along, the sing-along through intermission. Not so fun things: the amphitheater's inability to enforce their own policies, the fact that we didn't get a full show.

Picnic and Much Ado

2011-08-20T18:53:00.000-07:00

I made a delicious picnic for the MAunts (the "Bro" declined to come) before we took in a free showing of Much Ado About Nothing. However, I neglected to factor in a commute that included a bridge closure and the resulting increased traffic which meant that we were much later to our picnic than we thought we would be. This resulted in a quick meal eaten before it could be photographed. However the menu was: Cherry Plum Soup, Green Salad with dressing, Ham and Asparagus Quiche, Roasted and Marinated Green Beans, Very Much Marinated Potato salad and for dessert: Chocolate Mint Cookies. It was a good meal, albeit one eaten with a sense of hurry.

The play, put on by the Portland Actor's Ensemble was delightful, with Sara Faye Goldman bringing a great gravitas to the character of Hero, particularly in the scene when she is accused of not being a "maid," if you know what I mean.

As always, people watching was great fun. At one point, I caught the mother-daughter combo sitting next to us both asleep.

Jade Hobbs played not only Margaret, but also a tree in the orchard.

Here we see Benedict hiding behind the tree, all the better to overhear an important plot point.

Allison Rangel (in the black hat) was an excellent Sexton, with a very self-important air which helped propel her through her character's incompetence.

Thanks to PAE for another good summer of Shakespeare.

Hogan Hoedown

2011-08-20T15:42:00.000-07:00

So Brook and Mike Hogan had a Hoedown to celebrate being married half their lives. That's right, they are 44 years old and they have been married 22 years. Matt and I were thrilled to drive out to a barn in Wilsonville to fete this great accomplishment.

First off, Matt was excited that there was a hat to fit the generous "Johnston head." He looks good, too.

I'm easier to size.

We had good BBQ.

The Hogan's last name just happens to have the same number of letters as a certain dog that a certain game is named after. We played Hogan throughout the night.

There was petting of the horses.

And practicing for the Line Dancing.

Matt made friends with a horse, while Burt watched.

He knows how to make the connection.

The horse was also interested in me too. Actually, we think he was interested in our hats.

The Hogans hired a fabulous firecracker of a woman named Joyce to teach us three line dances. This was a highlight of the evening, and I have no pictures of it, because I was enjoying myself so much I couldn't be bothered to take photos.*

Brook is looking like 22 years of marriage has done her good.

We persisted in playing Hogan until we won. I got a cap gun and caps.

Matt won the sausage.

With a 1,000,000 reward, it was hard not to cash in on the Hogan Gang, but there is probably some etiquette about not turning in the hosts of the party.

Here they are, live and in person. Thanks for having us Hogans, we had a blast.

*some readers of this blog may remember when I refused to have anything to do with Country Line Dancing and actively made fun of those who did it. What can I say? These days, I'll do anything for structured social dance, even listen to Country Music.

Roman Shades mid-construct.

2011-08-18T18:52:00.000-07:00

Leftover bits of the mounting board and the dowels.

A "wrong side" view.

Will the shades be up before school starts? Stay tuned.

The corn is as high as...

2011-08-13T19:58:00.000-07:00

Antares' eye.

Roman shades, construction techquine

2011-08-11T07:04:00.000-07:00

One of my goals for my three week vacation in August is to start and finish the Roman Shades for the triple window in the living room. In truth, I planned on working two hours per day on shade construction from the day after school got out until I was done. However, June and July seem to have come and gone as well as more than a week of my vacation and I'm just beginning this project.

In this step, I am supposed to be pinning the casings for the wooden rods. I pinned one casing, tested the wooden rod and found it didn't fit and switched to pinning the casings around the wooden rods. This worked much better and I will use this technique more in the future.

The corn is as high...

2011-08-05T07:03:00.000-07:00

We're not quite to "elephant's eye" yet, but this is the first peek over the window sill.

A date! That doesn't include a movie!

2011-08-05T07:02:00.000-07:00

To celebrate the first week of Patricia's vacation, she planned a fun date. We started with lunch at the cooking school. It seems to be called "Techniques" now and no longer "Restaurant Bleu" Maybe they got tired of people mispronouncing "Bleu?"

Lunch is three courses: soup, entree, dessert. For soup, Matt chose the Salmon Chowder and I took the Summer Squash Puree. My soup had an unexpected kick to it, which I found quite delicious.

For the entree, Matt chose the Chicken Croissant and I had the Steak Frites. The fries were very good (and I'm picky) and the steak a bit overcooked, but still delicious.

Matt chose the White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake (beating me to the punch) and I had the Profiteroles, which were filled with three different kinds of ice cream and topped with a chocolate sauce. My favorite ice cream was the coconut flavor.

After our delicious lunch, we headed out to a Portland institution. Oaks Park. Here we are at the sign telling us how many years people have been having fun.

The park opened at noon and we arrived around 12:30. The lines weren't very long and we rode several rides. Here we are in front of the Looping Thunder Roller Coaster. It's a small roller coaster but still quite exciting at the first dip.

I enjoyed the constant shifting of center of gravity on the Disko. Matt commented that it was much like snowboarding.

We also rode the Eruption, which is one of those use-centrifugal-force-to-pin-you-in-place-and-then-turn-you-sideways type of rides.

After that one, we gave Matt's stomach a minute to calm down and went on the train.

I think the best thing about small amusement parks such as this is that the crowds are proportionately smaller too. The rides aren't as big as bigger parks but we didn't wait more that 15 minutes for each one we rode. We also got to take in a Ferris Wheel (one of my favorite things to do) and I drove a go-cart for the first time in my life. We we raced down the big slide (I won) and rode on the Herschell-Spillman Carrousel. The man running the ride told us that the first time he could remember riding the carrousel (it's officially spelled that way, I know not why) was in 1947. And that every year they look for the oldest rider and the youngest. The youngest so far that year was 4 weeks old and the oldest was 91 and rode because her parents used to ride the same carrousel in the early 1900s.

The other thing I found incredibly fun about Oaks Park was observing all the teenagers. When we first arrived it was us and a park full of 14 year olds. As the day wore on, more family groups arrived. Also, teenagers were all running the rides and I had great fun observing them and imagining the secrets behind the scenes at Oaks Park. Having seen the movie Adventureland, I spent time trying to identify which employee was the Ryan Reynolds character and I think I spotted him. He was running the Rock-O-Plane and gave a super long ride to another employee.

It was fun to be out in the sun and the rides on a lovely August day.

Applesauce success

2011-08-04T07:01:00.000-07:00

Four quarts and three pints came out just fine. Thank goodness.

Applesauce disaster

2011-08-03T07:01:00.000-07:00

I canned this morning and my first batch of seven quarts of applesauce boiled away in their canner for the the proscribed 20 minutes. When I took them out of the canner, the applesauce exploded out of jars, seeping out of the canning lids and rings. Despair! Where did I go wrong? I packed the jars with one-half inch head space, as instructed, but will increase that to one inch for the next batch. I also forgot to remove the canner from the heat and let the jars sit in the water for five minutes before removing the jars. This might have been a problem too. Discouraged, I repackaged the applesauce into jars and put them in the refrigerator to eat now. I've one more batch to go, so wish me luck.

Kitties and sun

2011-07-23T15:51:00.000-07:00

There's only one window in our house that gets afternoon sun, and the kitties are happy there is a shelf for them to fully enjoy it.

The Last Harry Potter Party

2011-07-17T15:50:00.001-07:00

The last Harry Potter movie has been released, which means it is time for the last Harry Potter Party.

We arrived at the theater early and Matt had his customary seat next to Jessie. They have sat next to each other for all eight films.

After the movie, we returned to Burt and Laurie's house. As usual there was delicious food. Here, Matt demonstrates the powers of a fruit wand. In the foreground you can see the Leaky Cauldrons, cupcakes with frosting and pudding on top. Both were made by Laurie and were delicious!

There were even prizes that came by Owl Post.

Usually we have a trivia game, but this year, Laurie thought of an incredibly fun new game. She had all the audiobooks loaded on her iPhone and she shuffled them. She would play a segment and contestants would listen and then, when they thought they could identify the correct book, they put the card in the air. It was fun to play and to watch.

Here, everyone is pretty sure it's 7. Points were tallied and seats shifted depending on the standings in the points. We played for hours.

During a break in the game, prizes were awarded. Matt got two. His first prize was "Most Parties Attended." Jessie (Matt's faithful seatmate) also took home that prize. Matt also won "Biggest Winner of Previous Trivia Quiz" Willow and Marley also won that one.

Aside from a very cool wand, he got a wind up Harry Potter Quiddich toy. We checked to see if the cats were interested. They weren't.

It was a fitting end to the Harry Potter Parties and congratulations to Laurie (and Burt!) for being such good hosts.

Butterbeer cookies

2011-07-17T15:50:00.000-07:00

My friend Sara, she of Pike Schemes fame, sent me a blog post for Butterbeer cookies, knowing that Matt and I attend a party with every release of movie. I awoke the morning of the party with a hankering to bake, so Butterbeer cookies, here we come.

I've always had trouble rolling out dough to the specified thickness. Way back in home ec., we watched a movie (yes, on a projector) about baking cookies where the cookie bakers had some great wooden rods the exact thickness needed. I always wanted some of my own and today was happy to discover that some of my wooden spoons are exactly the thickness needed. I had to move them around a bit, but they worked wonderfully.

Finished cookies. The glaze--whose recipe I indeed doubled as suggested because it was good enough to drink from a shot glass--didn't firm up like I thought it would, even with time in the refrigeration, so these were very sticky cookies. But they were delicious, if I do say so myself!

This was also the excuse to buy a set of biscuit cutters, which I've been wanting for years. No more will my biscuits be cut with drinking glasses. They are pretty ingenious. The three cutters all stack together and they are two sided, with the opposite side being a fluted edge. The stars came from the cookie cutters that came with my mixer.

Thanks for the recipe, Sara. If only you had been here to eat them.

What's going on in the garden?

2011-07-07T15:40:00.000-07:00

A (mostly) monthly check in.

Kitties would like to go in the garden, but will settle for sleeping.

I bought these boots last year and they were a good investment.

One corner of Leo's yard. The birch tree is growing, that swath of green you see is a whole lot of lettuce and in the foreground are newly planted nasturtiums.

From the other angle, more nasturtiums in the foreground (I over planted) Dinosaur Kale in the foreground and that's corn along the fence.

This hill will hopefully be a spot for squash. The California poppies and bachelor buttons have self seeded from last year. This year I will try to collect some seeds so I can direct the seeding next year.

Swiss Chard in the back, beets in the middle, Nasturtiums in the front. That Swiss Chard was transplanted to that bed on 5/24 and it just stayed about 3 inches tall for a very long time. Cold, cold spring.

It's bigger now.

Aside from the fact I planted too much, the lettuce has been a shining star. In the front is Furellenschalus, which is quite pretty. In the back is Deer Tongue.

I thought Furellenschaulss was a strange German word until I realized it was "For Ellen Schlauss" Very clever.

Another close up of Deer Tongue

I've not had the best success with squash and now I think I know why. It always grew pretty well until mid-summer and then sort of fainted like a southern bell with her stays too tight. Vern Nelson tells me that squash are thirsty beasts and need a drink every day. So I've followed his advice and set up these milk jugs to pour water into every day to give the squash a drink. The only other problem may be that the soil didn't warm up until just recently, so I don't think I have enough season left unless we have a long, hot summer that extends into mid-October and the rains don't come until November. I am not at all confident that this will come about. Next year I have plans for a cold frame and a much, much earlier start.

Beets.

More squash hills

Onto the backyard. The cherry tree is blocking most of the view from the back corner now. Alas, it was not a good year for cherries.

Columnar Apple tree and the future raspberry space.

Framework for the Belgian Fence. Because the apple trees are not yet supposed to be planted, I'm utilizing the Belgian Fence for the tomato plants and the boarage I have planted to attract bees and increase the tomato production.

From the corner by the compost we can see the contorted quince in front left, being overtaken by radish gone to seed. There are nasturtiums planted around the blueberry plants and the peas are climbing up the trellis. I did well with peas this year.

A view of the strawberry (excellent harvests also) and the asparagus fronds.

I had some extra room on this row and so some nasturtium and calendula were planted here.

A close up of the tomato plants.

Close up of the strawberries. They are Seascape and delicious.

A close up of the peas. They are about done for the season.

More peas.

This year I harvested a full pound of asparagus in my two week harvest period! Next year I get to harvest for four weeks!

Flowering radish, the trash can with a failed attempt to grow potatoes in (I forgot to figure out where the dirt to fill the trash can would come from.) We've also transitioned our compost from the black metro compost bin, to the metal canned Compost Digester I made using instructions from Seattle Tilth. The advantage of the digester is that you don't mix in the browns, just throw all your scraps in there and the bugs go to work. The Metro bin will get moved to the side of the house for carefully mixed compost making.

A close up of the nasturtiums with the blueberries and a very large dandelion.

I've been using the laundry detergent containers to water the blueberries while they get established. They each have a tiny hole in the bottom to dribble the water very close to the plant.

Both columnar apples. They need to be pruned, which is on the menu for July. I missed the window last year.

Moving on to Emilia's yard, we can see a bed waiting to be dug, and two beds, one with wheat/corn and one with wheat. In the back of the picture is the rain garden, which has been planted with corn, in addition to the rain garden plants.

Corn has also been planted on the side yard and there are three squash hills.

A view of the rain garden and the asparagus mound. I thought all the asparagus died, so I started piling on the pulled weeds, to compost on the mound, but that amount of mulch gave the asparagus reason to live and several shoots have appeared.

Close up of corn. This is a heirloom variety that is to be used for polenta. I'm also growing it for the stalks. They will be used to make compost.

Corn in rain garden.

Wheat. This may just get used as carbon for the compost. Or I may extract the wheat for the wheat berries. It kind of depends on how busy my autumn is.

The asparagus mound/weed storage area.

Careful watch by a kitty.

Sentinel elected to stay in bed.

Bike Trip Summary--You Too Can Ride the Willamette Valley Scenic Bikeway.

2011-06-30T18:38:00.000-07:00

We rode from Portland to Eugene over six days using the Willamette Valley Scenic Bikeway. We generally rode about 35 miles each day and we stayed in motels. This was our first bike trip and we wanted it to be fun and relaxing, not grim and challenging. In addition, though we are both fairly fit people, and one of us (Patricia) is a pretty regular bike commuter, we do not often go on long rides. We're also busy, and didn't have a ton of extra hours to devote to training. Slow and steady was our mantra.

Planning:
In reading about the Willamette Valley Scenic Bikeway during the summer of 2010, I realized that the mileage between cities and towns was about 35 miles per day. That was also the approximate mileage from our house to Champoeg State Park, where the trail begins. I spent about two hours planning the itinerary including what towns to stay in, mileage between, interesting things to do, places to eat on each day. In November we looked up places to stay and made note of them. That was also the time we reserved the yurt at Champoeg and bought the train tickets, including the bike tickets. Both yurt reservations and train reservations are best made early. The state parks opens reservations nine months and two weeks before the date. That is the time to reserve to ensure availability, especially in the summer months. We reserved our motels about two months prior.

We also planned to have our bikes tuned up a week or two before we left and the week before we refined our packing lists. All total, we spent probably about five hours planning.

The Route:
The Willamette Valley Scenic Bikeway has very detailed maps with mileage, cue sheets and water, restrooms, camping and wi-fi marked. We followed the route faithfully.

The route to Champoeg took a lot of research. We ended up combining a route suggestion (through Oregon City) on a forum and Google's bike directions (which are in beta.) There was also a brief flirtation with a route that included the Canby Ferry. All in all, we ended up getting there just fine. Patricia had ridden to Champoeg before. She took the 99W route to Newberg, which was not very pleasant (many, many cars.)

Training:
We both belong to Edge Performance Fitness. We workout several times a week there, Matt usually attending 4-6 classes, and Patricia attending 1-3 classes, although lately it's just been one. Patricia also stepped up her bike commute to work (30 minutes each way) as we got closer to trip. She also walks in the morning for 30 minutes 5-6 days per week.

Our plan for training was as follows:
January: Patricia to ride one day per week to work. Both to do a long ride of one hour twice during the month.
February: Patricia to ride one day per week to work. Both to do a long ride of two hours twice during the month.
March: Patricia to ride two days per week to work. Both to do a long ride of three hours twice during the month. We also planned a two night stay at Stub State Park, to do two or three long rides.
April-June: Patricia to ride three days per week to work. Both to do a long ride of four hours twice during the month.

What we actually did:
We only did two long rides together, either because the weather was awful or we couldn't coordinate our schedules. We did no long rides in January, Patricia did two long rides in February, we did a long ride together in March (not the two to three we had planned for Stub State Park,) Patricia did two long rides in April, four in May and none in June. She was more successful at sticking to her official "ride to work" schedule. Matt did a few long rides in April-June.

So training was pretty minimal, something Patricia was incredibly worried about before we left, but turned out to be fine once we were on the trip.

The weather was awful during the spring, incredibly rainy and cold through mid-June. This interfered with our training as we are not so gung-ho to ride when it is 38 degrees and pouring. Lesson learned: plan bike trip at the end of the summer so the long ride days are more pleasant.

Approximate daily mileage:
We tended to ride around 35 miles per day, with our biggest day being 44. We kept track of mileage on Patricia's circa-2005 Garmin Forerunner GPS unit, although we sometimes shut it off when deviating from the path (a la the Wheatland Ferry)

We were both sore the entire trip, but the days we stretched in the evenings benefited us greatly the next day. Despite this fact, we spend more evenings not stretching than stretching. Patricia felt like it took about a week after returning for her "sit bones" not to feel sore. Overall, the mileage was quite doable, taking 3-4 hours of riding (and 4-5 hours of actual time spent) per day.

What we brought:
Our plan was to only pack two days worth of bike things to wear, with the idea that we would do laundry each night after the first night in Champoeg, which had no laundry facilities. We also brought the equivalent of two "civilian" outfits. This plan worked well, although we would have done well to bring a roll of quarters for the laundry. Most hotels don't have change. Matt packed his sleep sack, for the first night at Champoeg, and Patricia would have done well with one too. We both brought small amounts of toiletries, our swimsuits and we each had a travel towel. We each chose one book for a read aloud (Patricia: Pride and Prejudice. Matt: Order of the Stick Volume 1: Dungeon Crawling Fools.) We brought two card games: Guillotine & Fluxx, although the only time we played them was on the train back home. Patricia brought a personal reading book, Anne of Green Gables. We also each had two tubes, three locks between us, a cable, a simple bike maintenance kit, a hand pump (this was joined by a CO2 charger and cartridges during the trip) water bottles (those were joined by daily purchase of PowerAid or GatorAid) helmets and mirrors.

All of these things fit in two roomy panniers and two bike buckets. We neglected to test ride with the panniers and the bike buckets on the racks. The panniers would not clip to Matt's thicker bike rack so Patricia ended up hauling Matt's heavier panniers while Matt got Patricia's comparably light bike buckets. Matt repaid Patricia by riding lead, so Patricia could draft off of him.

Where we stayed:
Champoeg State Park Yurt
Travelodge Salem
Quality Inn Albany
Travelodge Halsey
Courtesy Inn Eugene

All of our accommodations were clean, comfortable and affordable and none blinked twice when we rolled our bikes into the room. We can recommend them without reservation, though be warned that they are not fancy.

What we ate:
For the most part we ate at restaurants when we came to a town. Dinner the first night was packaged salad with hard boiled eggs brought from home. Our biggest problem was forgetting to pack breakfast for the next morning, although in hindsight we should have stopped at the Butteville Store before we left the Champoeg area. We always had snacks with us. In the beginning snacks consisted of nuts and dried fruit and chocolate chips. Nearer the end some good junk food crept in, like Cheetos. We always had nuts of some kind and chocolate of some kind. As far as I was concerned, chocolate was required on this trip. Dessert was a big deal too. I feel like we failed at eating ice cream. There should have been more ice cream consumed.
What we did for entertainment:
While riding we looked at scenery, played 20 questions (Matt thought "Catwoman" was a good choice, Patricia disagreed, Patricia stumped Matt with "cabbage") We also just rode. Patricia thought she would get bored and end up reciting all her memorized poems to herself, but the riding itself was entertaining enough.

We agreed before we left that we would not watch TV and spent a lot of our free time reading from our read aloud books. Sometimes we would go for a walk, and one day we went to a movie. Patricia visited the Kitchen Garden at Champoeg and we both toured Thompson's Mill. It was a pretty low-key relaxing trip.

How much did it cost?
We already had bikes, panniers/buckets, bike gear, locks etc. so there was no new cost there. We each paid about $100.00 to have our bikes tuned up before we left. North Portland Bike Works did a great job. We counted that as routine maintenance, and not part of the trip expenses.

The trip itself--motels, food, entertainment, train reservations--cost us a total of approximately $600 for two people for six days. That's about $50.00 per day per person.

Could I do this?
We say yes. It's not a lot of daily mileage with an easy to follow route. It's also inexpensive and fun. If you do ride the Willamette Scenic Bikeway, tell us about your trip in the comments.

To read about our bike trip from the beginning, start by clicking here.

Back in no time at all.

2011-06-29T19:22:00.000-07:00

We found our accommodations, the Courtesy Inn, delightful. Our small room had fabulous 50's wood paneling and was clean, quiet and tucked away in a corner. It even had this charming informative plaque by the door.

The Courtesy Inn is very close to the train station and it has the Matt and Patricia seal of approval.

We got to the train station very early, so we could scope things out and eat at the Morning Glory Cafe, which was within a stone's throw of the station.

I ate like the locals and had a tofu-stuffed potato pancake with roasted vegetables, tofu sour cream and whole wheat bread with a pat of organic butter. The whole concoction was delicious, but honestly, the butter stole the show.

Matt had a coconut soup from the lunch special list which he also enjoyed.

As the station informed us, we were 123 miles from Portland and only 610 miles from San Francisco. If we rode for 18 more days at our current pace, we would arrive in San Francisco. As it was, we took the train back to Portland.

Train travel being awesome, you can buy a "bike ticket" and for $5.00, you can hang your bike in the baggage car. It's best to buy your bike ticket early, as there are a limited number of bike hangers, and they go quickly.

My bike being hung.

And our gear stuffed above our seats.

On the train!

The train trip retraced our bike trip, but in a much more timely fashion. We left Eugene at 9:00, and by 9:45 we were in...

Albany. It was two biking days between Albany and Eugene.

To pass the time we played Guillotine and Fluxx.

By 10:23 we were in...

Salem! It took three biking days to get from Salem to Eugene.

Our next stop:

We had five biking days between Oregon City and Eugene, yet only two hours and five minutes had passed on the train. Such a marvel, this modern travel technology.

Soon after that, Matt stood because we were back in Portland!

At 11:32 we were approaching the train station.

Outside our window, the complex where our friends Jan and E'an used to live.

We deboarded the train, retrieved our bikes from the baggage car, and rode the 4 miles home. Three hours after we left Eugene, six days after we left Portland, we posed in front of our front door for the final picture of the trip memorializing our approximate 180 miles ridden.

It was a good trip!

To see the photographic record of our trip Matt posted on Facebook go here:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150240061488137.315910.633443136&l=2392c1b7c6
Don't worry, it's public, you don't have to be a member of Facebook to see it.

Brownsville to Eugene

2011-06-28T19:19:00.000-07:00

After our delicious free breakfast we headed out for Eugene, hoping to avoid rain. It rained fairly hard all night, but had stopped raining by the time we left around 9:00. We found instead mist. There was also a pretty big hill outside of Brownsville which I chose to walk up. "There's no shame in walkin'," I always say. Near the top of the hill we stopped for water/Gatorade and a man driving by rolled down his window and cheerfully informed us that once we reached the top of the hill, it was a long downward slope to look forward to. Indeed there was, and it was full of pretty scenery such as this.

Coburg Road was nearly at the end of the trail, so we stopped to commemorate one of the last WV Bike Trail signs we would see.

There were a goodly number of cemeteries on the route. This was the only one we stopped at.

Nice and old.

I was interested in the mowing pattern. A walkway had been mowed, and half of the gravestones, but not the other half. I'm not sure why.

Continuing on, we ran into another biking couple, Matt and Erin from Colorado. They had begun in Tillamook and were headed to Eugene and then up over the mountains. After chatting a bit, we bid them good riding and stopped at the official end of the Willamette Valley Scenic Bikeway: Armitage County Park.

Matt taking one last trail picture.

Where we took our "finished with the trail!" picture.

Then we packed up, got back on the bikes and rode another five miles to Eugene.

Where we ran into our friends Matt and Erin again.

We checked into our motel, happy to have ridden the last 33 miles of the trip.

After showering, we found the best meal we ate on the trip and one of the best meals we had eaten in a long time. I had a Cobb-type salad with hazelnut crusted chicken that was amazing and Matt had a burger he couldn't stop exclaiming over.

Should you want to partake, visit the Sixth Street Grill. It's a bar, with interesting drink specials, but also incredibly good food.

Brownsville

2011-06-27T19:18:00.000-07:00

Brownsville is a small town best known for being the place the movie Stand By Me was filmed. We ate a good meal at the Brownsville Saloon before riding to our motel.

We stayed at the Halsey Travelodge, which was a bit longer ride down a much busier highway than I would have wanted. But once we got there, it was perfect. We were one of only about 4 rooms rented, there was a pool and hot tub, which was wonderful. There was also a restaurant where we had dessert and we got a free breakfast in the morning.

But first, our daily mileage photo. 34 good miles on our last day with sunshine.

When riding on a hot and sweaty day, the hands turn black from the handlebar grips.

A stop at Thompson's Mills

2011-06-27T19:17:00.000-07:00

We planned to stop at Thompson's Mills because it is a State Heritage Site and because it had a bathroom. However, events transpired about a quarter mile away from the site, which required a stop there for sure.

As reported earlier, my tire needed a lot of air in the morning when stopped to use the Bike n' Hike's pump. I found that a little odd as normally a once-per-week inflation keeps me rolling steadily and it had only been a few days. Indeed, just past Shedd I noticed a bit of wobbling and soon after that the tire deflated with a whoosh. We walked the last quarter mile to Thompson's Mills where I happily unwrapped my brand-new CO2 charger.

I brought along a hand bike pump, but I've used a hand pump to inflate a tire before and it takes a long time. The CO2 charger was quite exiting. With a quick squeeze the tire was inflated in seconds.

The bike repaired, we took in the historical information about the mill.

The displays about grain production and the mills' lifetime were informative and interesting. For instance, at one point there was a town (named Boston) right next to the Mill. When the railroad went through Shedd's Station, the place where I noticed my tire losing air, the town around the mill was abandoned and many buildings were moved to Shedd.

Our historical thirst quenched, we continued on to Brownsville.

Leaving Albany

2011-06-27T19:16:00.000-07:00

On the way out of town, which included going through town--at this point we had only been on the outskirts--Matt hooted at this sign and had me take a picture of it. Albany is a nice town with a theater company performing Oliver Twist. We also stopped at the Bike n' Hike and pumped up our tires. Mine was quite low. I also bought a CO2 charger, in case of flat tire disaster. Could this be foreshadowing? Read on.

The route from Albany to Brownsville had fields aplenty, but we rode past a lot of houses too. It was interesting to me that there would be miles of fields and then, in the middle of seemingly nowhere would be eight to ten houses in a row before we reverted to fields again.

Another look at the Willamette from the route.

A handy sign informed me this field was radish seed. As I find radishes gone to see incredibly pretty and I also have some in my yard, I took a picture.

Now and again we would see beehives in the clover fields. This was a particularly large operation.

On the road to Albany

2011-06-26T19:13:00.000-07:00

Outside of Salem we had rolling hills, to Matt's delight and my annoyance. He found the flat farmland of the previous day bor-ring while I enjoyed the many different crops we saw. I found the constant up and down more of an annoyance than entertaining, but then I had my fill of rolling hills while riding my bike in Western Massachusetts.

Partway up one such rolling hill, Matt came to an abrupt stop. He was switching gears and the grip shifter on the big gear side came off. We attempted to fix it, failed and resolved to ride eight more miles (with him in the granny gear) to Independence/Monmouth to see if there was a bike shop open. However! Matt then unpacked his entire gear to get his sunglasses out and while I was waiting for that unpack and pack experience to end I somehow managed to fix the shifter! Yay me! I'm glad it didn't break again, because I think that was a lightning strikes sort of a situation.

More farmland. After the initial rolling hill section, we were back to flat farmland.

A stop at Johnston Street.

One of the "fun" things about the trip was riding for a seemingly long time and then seeing a sign that said that where you came from was not really that far away. At least by car 13 miles isn't that far.

We stopped for more sunscreen at Talbot (more a crossroads than a town) and I observed that people hadn't stayed long at the Talbot Community Church. Services started at 11:00, we were there at 12:30 and there was no one about.

This is the first field of peppermint I saw on the trip. The Willamette Valley is known for peppermint production, but we saw a lot more hops in production than peppermint.

Outside of Jefferson, we were to take Scravel Hill Road, our big climb of the day. Before we even got to the interchange we saw signs that there would be a detour. The detour was quite well marked, and if I had carefully looked at the website before we left, I would have known about it ahead of time, as there is a link on the Willamette Valley Scenic Bikeway website describing the scope of the work and the suggested detour. The good news is that we avoided our big climb of the day by taking the detour.

We ended up on Kamph Road, after heading through the Murder Creek interchange. Here you can find out how Murder Creek got its name. You can see the very vivid bike detour signs that guided us on our way.

At the intersection of Kamph and Scravel Hill Road a motorcyclist stopped to chat. He had come from Brownsville, leaving after church and was having a good time riding about. We told him we were headed to Albany today and would be in Brownsville tomorrow.

Also, at this intersection--I believe we were adding more sunscreen to our bodies and that's why we were there so long--a car pulled up and a young man got out, holding some sort of device. I immediately suspected them of geocaching and I was proved correct when he shouted to his companion that he had found it.

Arriving in Albany, we had to wait a bit to check into our room at the Quality Inn. They were nice enough to let us park our bikes in the meeting room while we waited and there was a computer in the lobby so Matt could check his Facebook and retrieve his many "Happy Birthday" wishes, as today was his birthday. We checked the movie times of the theater near us and walked to the theater to celebrate by watching X-Men: First Class which we both enjoyed.

Walking back, we stopped at Sweetwater's Family Restaurant which is one of my favorite types of establishments. I call them "old people restaurants" and the criteria includes: a full menu of Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner offerings encompassing all the "normal" American food such as grilled cheese, ham and cheese 3-egg omelet, Chef's Salad etc. If you are lucky, they will still have listed a "diet plate" consisting of a hamburger patty, a side of cottage cheese and a cup of fruit. A good portion of the menu should be given over to the "senior menu." It was in this place. "I can't order most of the stuff on here," Matt complained, "because it's all senior menu." The food is usually not fabulous, consisting of unfancy bread, iceberg lettuce salads with a few carrot shavings, entrees that come with sides of vegetables that have been sitting in the steam tray for hours. But if you choose wisely, (grilled cheese and fries) it tastes delicious and is pretty darn cheap too. They also always have a rotating pie case and when pie is ordered, cut generous slices. In my opinion, the best menu choice is the soup, salad and slice of pie meal. This is what I partook of. The beef vegetable (another classic of such restaurants) was salty and more broth than anything, the salad came with ranch on the salad, not ranch on the side as I had requested, but the pie was a delicious peanut butter chocolate concoction with more calories in the whipped cream than the salad and soup combined. I suspect the main demographic for such restaurants has an average age of about 75 by now, and with the passing of their patrons, these restaurants will slowly shutter. That's why I take advantage of them in the here and now. That and the pie.

The restaurants also tend to have out-of-this-decade decor that warms the cockles of my heart, such as these chairs.

Matt had the apple stuffed chicken which came with delicious sides as well as the aforementioned limp vegetables in the form of green beans. He ate everything but the green beans.

Back at the hotel we got ready for a soak in the hot tub, but first posed with our mileage today: 44 miles.

Leaving Salem

2011-06-26T19:11:00.000-07:00

Before we left Salem we stopped at a Safeway for some snacks, having depleted them yesterday on our "no other food" day. Then we stopped by the capitol for some commemorative pictures.

It rapidly became apparent that I should have purchased one of those flexible camera tripods for this trip. We had an elaborate Macgyver setup involving a bike bucket, a U-lock, and two paperback books. This was our first attempt:

We rejected that photo as too far away and moved the whole operation closer for this:

Matt requested this pose:

He then spotted this statuary and immediately had me stand in front of the back half of the word "frontier."

And I had him do the same.

Road to Salem, Salem and what we did when we got there.

2011-06-25T19:09:00.000-07:00

What do you see on the Willamette Valley Scenic Bikeway? A lot of crops. Here, Matt rides past hops, which we saw a ton of in this area. Interestingly, the website for the bikeway mentions that produce farm stands spring up along the route. We saw a few before we got to Champoeg, but none at all along the route. This was unfortunate, as we were very hungry at this point.

Hungry or not, we made it to Salem. All my years of bike commuting served me well as we transitioned from quiet side roads to main traffic thoroughfares. The next morning I noticed the Salem directions continued on the Salem to Albany cue sheet. I think we would have taken a less congested path if I had realized they were there and followed them.

Here we stop for a picture of the back side of the capitol building.

We checked into our motel (Travelodge Salem) and got directions to the nearest laundromat. We planned to do laundry every night after the first night in Champoeg. With the laundry in the machine, Matt walked across the street to a taco/burrito stand.

He chatted with the woman cooking and brought back what was to me the best burrito in the world. I was hungry!

After consuming that treasure, I walked next door to the Plaid Pantry and bought us an ice cream sandwich and a Butterfinger.

My favorite part about ice cream sandwiches: the sticky cookie residue left on your fingers when you are done eating! While our laundry was churning, we sat in the shade of the store and read our read-aloud books. My choice: Pride and Prejudice. Matt's choice: Order of the Stick Dungeon Crawlin' Fools.

Laundry completed, Matt took a dip in the pool.

But first, a picture commemorating our 34 miles today.

Our fabulous motel.

Matt's slowly committing to the water.

And he's in! And he's up on the wall!

And he's out!

He reports that the water was cold, but felt good.

After reading a bit of our books, I feel asleep and Matt went looking for food. He found instead the World Beat festival where he was enchanted by the belly dancers.

To see the photographic record of our trip Matt posted on Facebook go here:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150240061488137.315910.633443136&l=2392c1b7c6
Don't worry, it's public, you don't have to be a member of Facebook to see it.

Wheatland Ferry & Willamette Mission

2011-06-25T19:05:00.000-07:00

We took a short detour to ride across the Willamette on a ferry. The Wheatland Ferry costs nothing for bikes to cross. Before this ride, I hadn't realized there were ferries on the Willamette River. In fact, this was not the only ferry we could have taken. The Albany to Brownsville leg crosses very close to a ferry and there is also the Canby Ferry, which was one of the routes I was considering to Champoeg. This was, however, the only ferry we took.

The Wheatland Ferry has a website.

Matt is ready to cross.

As are the cars.

It was a very quick crossing, and we immediately turned and rode back to the other side.

After our ferry jaunt, we rode on to the Willamette Mission State Park. The thing about State Parks that is not noticeable at all when in a car, but incredibly annoying while on bikes, is that most of them are set back at least a mile, perhaps two, from the entrance. We rode and rode and rode. I was hoping for some sort of food stand, as we had no breakfast or lunch, and were subsisting on snacks at this point.

Alas, we found bathrooms and drinking fountains but no food sources. On the east coast there would have been someone serving up fried food of every strip. Score one for east coat parks. So instead of eating, we took care of the needs we could take care of, mounted up and rode on. On our way out we saw this bird, and a helpful sign informed us that this was either Mr. or Mrs. Osprey.

We're on the Willamette Senic Bikeway

2011-06-25T19:04:00.000-07:00

The first signs were right outside the park. We didn't see them on our way in because we took the back road bike trail from Butteville. The signs were placed at junctions throughout the route.

Getting ready to attempt a self-portrait of the first two signs, the Champoeg sign and ourselves:

Not quite, but good.

Here's how this bike trip will unfold: we ride. Every thirty minutes we stop and drink water or Poweraid. We ride. We stop for a bit and eat. We ride some more. Sometimes we stopped and ate standing up. Sometimes we sat down to eat, as outside this church near St. Paul. At this point, we're about 4 miles in.

Right before this picture was taken, one of the supports for the front bike basket had scraped across my calf as I was moving my bike. It was my--and the only--big injury of the trip.

Champoeg Kitchen Garden

2011-06-25T19:03:00.000-07:00

I couldn't leave without having a look at the kitchen garden. Matt watched the bikes while I explored.

There are herbs and flowers near the entrance.

A shady hop arbor makes a good gateway.

The plants are all ones that were likely to have grown in the 1860s, including cardoon, seen below.

A fabulous bean trellis. Many of the plants I was familiar with, as in these beans or the cardoon above, but the varieties were unusual. Like Bloody Butcher Corn. The visitor center sells seeds saved from the garden and I'm kicking myself that I didn't purchase some packets.

Matt is feeling better, although not great, but looks ready the part of the biker.

But first, some pictures of the bat and bluebird houses.

Early morning at Champoeg

2011-06-25T19:01:00.000-07:00

After a rough/good* night of sleep, I woke before Matt, and went for a walk. I found this trail.

It doesn't take long to get to the grave. The Friends of Historic Champoeg has an informative essay about Kitty Newell, which I recommend you read. I find focusing on what isn't taught in History as interesting as what is. When I visited Fort Vancouver a few years ago, the guides discussed the fur trappers' Native American wives. I was aghast. White trappers and soldiers had married native women? How was this even possible, given the state of White/Native American relations? And why had I never heard about this before? The Kitty Newell essay gives insight into this window of time.

Spring flowers in the sun.

Big old holey snag.

A glimpse of the Willamette. One of many we would have on this trip.

Back at the yurt, I noticed how dishevelled everything had managed to become in just a few short hours.

Matt slept on, while I read the last of the paper and started on Anne of Green Gables, my individual book for the trip.

*It seems that I am the high maintenance sleeper in the relationship. My plan was to not bring sleeping bags or pillows as we would only behttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif using them at Champoeg. I figured we could just sleep in multiple layers and/or turn up the heat in the Yurt. Matt brought his sleep sack because he likes clean sheets, but I thought I would be fine. It turns out that my minimum requirements for sleeping are 1) something pillow-like and 2) something to cover me. So going to bed in my jacket and yoga pants with my elbow as a pillow didn't work. I kept waking up. Also, I was very cold, despite the heater. Midway through the night Matt gave me his jeans and sweatshirt, shoved a bunch of t-shirts in a bag for a pillow and put the sleep sack over me. I immediately fell into a delightful sleep and Matt earned many boyfriend points.
To see the photographic record of our trip Matt posted on Facebook go here:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150240061488137.315910.633443136&l=2392c1b7c6
Don't worry, it's public, you don't have to be a member of Facebook to see it.

And we're off again!

2011-06-24T19:00:00.000-07:00

After our delicious panini's from LoveCup (just in case you needed one more glance) we set off toward Champoeg.

In Oregon City we climbed a very large hill. Early on I was distracted because the cross streets seemed to be following the list of the US Presidents in order, but the road turned after Jackson and the presidents went away and then there was nothing left to do but keep climbing. We stopped at the top for this portrait. I should take a moment to say that Matt is actually ill at the time of this photo. He came down with a bug on Wednesday and was being a trouper, biking to Champoeg while still sick.

I should also tell you that we got to go down the other side of that large hill, which was quite fun. Then the road flattened out and we saw various farming operations.

Once we reached Butteville, we rode the bike path to Champoeg.

We checked into our Yurt, took a picture showing we did 37 miles and rode off of two maps today. Matt then collapsed into slumber on the couch for two hours.

While he did that, I ate dinner of big salad with hard boiled eggs while I caught up on the newspaper. Big Salad is my new favorite "camping" meal. I buy a package of salad mix for each person, boil up enough hard boiled eggs (three for me, one for Matt) et voila! Dinner with no dishes excepting the fork.

Being that it was so close to the solstice, it was still incredibly light at 9:00 pm.

And we're off!

2011-06-24T18:58:00.000-07:00

Matt and I have been planning and training for a bike tour across the Willamette Valley Scenic Bikeway since last June. And today, we leave! Our goal today: ride to Champoeg State Heritage Area, where we will stay in a yurt.

We rode through North Portland, SE Portland and through Sellwood into Milwaukie where we encountered our first bit of trouble. Matt's chain snapped. We walked back two miles to the bike shop in Sellwood to get it repaired.

Matt discovered that, on flat surfaces, making his bike into a coaster bike was a bit quicker than walking.

New chain!

The best part was that while the chain was being repaired, I walked to LoveCup and bought us paninis. We bicycled to a nearby school and ate them. They were delicious.

Kenton Street Fair

2011-05-28T06:26:00.000-07:00

Matt points to the sign pointing the way to the Kenton Street Fair. But first! Some library books to return.

There were Irish Dancers.

And one of my favorite things: looking for hidden treasure in the hay bale.

Matt poses with a goat (who is much less enthused than Matt)

A New Orleans Style band marches down the street.

My favorite of the t-shirts.

In front of Mackin Auto Body were the cars. Having just watched a lot of Fast & Furious movies, we enjoyed looking at the hydraulics on these cars, as well as the fancy detailing.

The owners were all chatting amongst themselves.

We sat in the Milgard Window store and listened to a singer.

It's a head-in-a-hole picture opportunity!

We look good as Paul Bunyan.

Many people were dressed as Paul Bunyan.

I pose next to some fancy cars. As I was posing next to the MG, a guy said to his girlfriend, "yep, it's a cute car, but they break down all the time." The T-bird was my dream car as a teenager, thanks to the movie American Graffiti.

Next to every car was the car owner, sitting in a chair, perhaps chatting with the car owner next to him.

We also enjoyed the Yarn Car.

Survey

2011-05-16T08:16:00.000-07:00

Today, Matt and I were tracked by a governmental agency. You can see how we felt about it.

We participated in the Oregon Travel and Activity Survey, which involved recording our travel throughout the day. We had to record what time we left the house, where we went (including addresses) what we did there and when we left. It was fun, though rather labor intensive. We both thought that even though it was a pain, it would have been fun to do it for an entire week.

We sent off our booklets and will receive a $25.00 gift card for our participation. It turns out we were one of 17,000 households randomly selected to represent 1,500,000 Oregon Households! I'm glad I represented with the bike and the walking today.

Anniversary the ninth.

2011-04-30T06:48:00.000-07:00

We celebrate our anniversary the week before Mother's Day, usually in early May. Mother's Day was early this year, so our celebration happened in late April. We had dinner at Burgerville and took in a movie (Source Code) at the St. John's Twin Cinema. It was a lovely night.

Shakespeare's Cymbeline

2011-04-23T06:48:00.000-07:00

It is time for another quality production at the Northwest Classical Theatre Company. Don Adler directed Cymbeline, a Shakespeare play that when I read it, I found it lacking in a lot of elements, cliched in many acts and laughable in others, although this production made everything a-okay!
Before the show begins, Matt poses on stage. Behind him is a mural telling the story of Cymbeline.

"O, for a horse with wings" cries Imogen, impatient to see her Posthumus.

Because we've developed this relationship with the Northwest Classical Theater Company, it's fun to try and figure out how they are going to bring to life certain scenes. For instance, in this play, a character gets his head cut off--don't worry, he deserves it--and there is some dialogue where one character holds up the head and brandishes it about while discussing how he came to cut off the head. A theater of more means has more ability to hold up heads and brandish them about. They could, for instance, have a head made of silicon and hold it up. Or, the audience could be sitting far enough away that they could make a passable imitation of the head and no one would notice. But in this theater, when there is not really a "backstage" and the actors are never farther than eight feet from some part of the audience, how in the world would they brandish about a head?

I can tell you that they successfully did "cut off" a head and brandish it about and it was one of the funniest parts of the play. They also managed to consolidate an entire very bizarre scene where Jupiter (you know, the god) was to visit a sleeping Posthumus. Instead, they substituted Johnny Cash singing U2s song "One" while visions appeared on stage. With apologies to Shakespeare, it worked much better. Of course, the Bard didn't have access to Cash, Bono or the Edge, and was at a disadvantage. Overall, this was a delightful production and I'm happy that we discovered this company.

In this production Nathan Gale and David Burnett were funny in multiple roles, mainly that of Arviragus and Guiderius. I hope we see them again in future productions. Melissa Whitney was outstanding (as usual) as Imogen. The male "NWCTC members trio" of Butch Flowers, Tom Walton and Grant Turner brought great life to their roles of Pisanio, Posthumus and Iachimo. Rhianna Walton, though no Doll Tearsheet, was an excellent one-eyed soothsayer. Matt and I have run into Matthew Dieckman a few times over the past few months, as much as you can run into someone you recognize from a play. His Cloten was sufficiently "rotten" and I the image of his head being lofted about onstage will probably be a highlight of my theater memories for years to come.

After the play, we stayed for cupcakes and sang "Happy Birthday" to Shakespeare, who turned 422 that weekend.

Cymbeline closes May 15, and your next opportunity to take in this fabulous company is October 14, when they begin their 2011-2012 season with King John. I know where I will be going for my birthday this year.

Satellite Location

2011-04-09T18:27:00.000-07:00

Last year I planted potatoes in Emilia's yard as a combo effort to get rid of all the overgrown grass and weeds. But this year Emilia's yard has a rain garden and an asparagus mound and where were my potatoes to grow?

Enter Stephanie North. I roomed with Stephanie North (she's one of those people who I just say both names all the time) during a summer in the 90s in Amherst, Massachusetts and we ran into each other a year ago. She had just bought a house in Cully and so we have been doing yard things in both of our yards. She mentioned that she wanted to get rid of the grass on the south side of her house and to put in berries, but the grass task seemed overwhelming. I told her about the easy (though long) way to get ride of grass that also gives delicious potatoes. We agreed to plant potatoes in her yard.

Here, we have made mounds and trenches.

A closer look at the trenches where the potatoes will be planted, along with the actual seed potatoes.

Another long view. We plant the potatoes in the trenches, then as the vines grow we will hill up the dirt around the vines, so what was trench will be come hill and what was hill will become trench. The grass will naturally get broken up as part of the hilling process and at the end of the season we will unbury the mounds to get the potatoes, which will leave us with (hopefully) a good crop of potatoes and a side yard free of grass.

That side yard can be planted with clover over the winter while it waits for spring and its new berry crops.

Bike Ride to The Grotto

2011-04-08T07:13:00.000-07:00

Matt and I rode to the grotto, killing two birds with one stone. We visited a Portland landmark I had not yet seen and we also got a good bike ride in. It was a sunny day (still cold, though) and that made both "birds" more enjoyable.

The fact that this statue is illuminated is pretty cool, given that there is a huge rock face directly behind it and a lot of massive trees on the top of the rock face. There is some careful pruning at work here.

I feel that this sign fails in it's job to inform and suggest because it assumes that people will know which stone is the alter stone. There were a few good candidates, but it wasn't obvious to me. I'm guessing that people who could correctly identify the alter stone probably know not to climb on it.

We bought the tokens for the elevator to the top level.

I find this sign to be more effective. Perhaps the "alter stone" sign could be amended with something like (the big one in the middle) to make it more clear.
It turns out that we could have just jumped the gate. We wouldn't, of course, but we could have.

Matt looking up the rock face, while waiting for the elevator.

This was probably the fanciest elevator I've been on in a long time. It talked to us, too.

Looking down from the top.

There were a few trilliums in bloom.

Matt was excited by the Polish shrine as he has Polish ancestors.

There is a fabulous labyrinth which we both walked and enjoyed. On a hot day, walking the labyrinth would be a good activity, as the trees and shade probably make for a cool, quiet retreat.

View over Portland

Best use of the word "perturbed" ever!

There are Douglas Fir trees everywhere in the Grotto. However, this is the only one to get the sign.

Back from the top, a picture of the place where they hold services.

On the way home, we stopped for lemonade, which was a very good deal, 50 cents for that huge cup of lemonade.

Our attempts to look holy. Matt is very good, I can't hold a holy expression for long.

Walnut Tree

2011-04-01T18:26:00.000-07:00

There is a massive walnut tree in the neighbor's yard. On the one hand, I love it because it is a beautiful tree and the squirrel activity in the autumn keeps the cats entertained. On the other hand, it is a very large tree and it is one of the many contributors to the "structures that block the sunlight, thus reducing garden yields" problem.

So imagine my surprise today when I came home from work and discovered that the tree had been expertly and massively trimmed. (Pruned? I'm not sure of the word here.)
There used to be a massive limb encroaching on the lilac in Emilia's yard. Now the lilac is free to grow and bloom again.
I can't tell you how exciting this is!

All good things must come to an end.

2011-03-27T18:26:00.000-07:00

Even when it's cold and pouring, it's still time to get up, pack, clean the cabin and load the car. That's Matt's elbow peeking out of the sleeping bag.

Triwizard Tournament

2011-03-26T18:25:00.000-07:00

On our first camping trip, I brought along the card games Uno, O'No 99 and Boomo. That weekend, we had several of what we termed "TriWizard Tournaments" after the event described in the book Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Since that point, whenever we have gone camping (or camping in a cabin) we usually bring along games and hold a TriWizard Tournament. This despite the fact that we are not Wizards, there are only two of us and we play card games rather than run through mazes and swim through lakes or pave the way for the return of He Who Must Not Be Named etc. In our TriWizard Tournament we play one game of each card game and the person who wins takes that game. On Friday night, in our first TriWizard tournament I was soundly defeated and we didn't finish the series. I accepted Matt's challenge on Saturday and the results were:

Matt won: We Didn't Playtest This at All, Monty Python Flux, Flux and Pirate Flux.
I won: Guillotine and Gloom.
This makes Matt the winner of two straight days of the Stub State Park March 2011 TriWizard Tournament.

Bike Ride

2011-03-25T18:19:00.000-07:00

Our purpose for staying at Stub was to get a few training rides in for our planned bike tour that will happen this June. Due to weather and our general vacation mindset, we got one good ride in.

First we biked up the hill from the Mountain Cabin Village.

We rode on the Banks/Vernonia rail trail. Stub is in the middle of the trail and we took off for Vernonia. However, we eventually discovered we were actually headed toward Banks. I was surprised we made this mistake, because Stub has a lot of signs. I checked on the way back and there is no sign indicating which way is Banks and which way is Vernonia.

Being that it was a trail and that there weren't many people about, I took the opportunity to take a lot of photos by bike.

After we made it out of the "woods" we rode through farm land. Matt stopped to "kill a layer" and I documented the weather.

Matt killing his layer.

We made it to Banks. It was a slight downhill grade the entire way, so it went by very quickly.

We had lunch at a cafe and while eating, it began to pour, so we braced ourselves for a cold and rainy ride back. While waiting for our lunch, I noticed that one of the fliers advertised well water testing by the Washington County Extension Service. In my previous job, I helped coordinate that effort, revising and printing the fliers.

On the ride back, happily, the sun came out after the first 10 minutes of rain and it was time for Matt to kill a layer once again.

We're back in the park.

More photo by bike collage.

We found an amphibian and Matt helpfully moved him off the trail.

The ride from Stub to Banks took one hour, the ride back took two. The last 10 minutes of the ride were particularly grueling as Stub's elevation changes rapidly from the entrance to the Mountain Village cabins. I wasn't sure I was going to make it back up the hill without walking the bike, but my 21 gears came in handy.

The long journey to our spring break destination.

2011-03-25T18:16:00.000-07:00

After careful consideration we have decided to "spring break" at LL Stub Stewart State Park. We will be spending two nights and hope to do some biking. It doesn't take very long to get to Stub from our house, (46 minutes according to the Google map) so to make it more of a vacation, we took the country roads after dropping off the kitties at my Aunt's house.

Due to the hectic nature of packing three cats for transport (Sentinel and Antares, plus we were cat sitting Squeak, my Aunt's cat) I forgot to take a picture when we left. So when we missed a turn, I took the opportunity to take a picture in front of this grange where we turned around.

It turned out to be the Kinton Grange, which is a very close spelling to the Kenton neighborhood where we live.

We stopped in Forest Grove for lunch at a Thai Restaurant.

And then we went to the McMenamins Grand Lodge Soaking Pool, which was lovely.

It had a different feel than the Kennedy School Soaking Pool, being less crowded. They also offer a "frequent soaker" discount at Grand Lodge, something that is not available at Kennedy School.

Matt outside of Grand Lodge.

I drove the last bit while Matt navigated and took pictures of the countryside.

We had a rain/sun thing going on all day.

And Matt needed to take a picture of the driver.

We arrived at Stub to find our cabin was the exact same one we had last time.

We took a walk and found the new disk golf course. We played imaginary disc golf.

I had a really good over-and-over throw.

The park is still being constructed and so there are stumps everywhere.

The hilltop parking area makes for nice views when it isn't raining.

Pest Control Formula HOS Pome News Winter 2011

2011-03-25T07:06:00.000-07:00

I've had this in my physical inbox for awhile because I wasn't sure what to do with it. I want to use it in the future, but didn't know where to put it. Then, VOILA! the answer came to me. I'll just type it in here and come back later to retrieve it when I need it.

Pest Control Formula
Mai Schreiber, HOS Member

Mai got this formula from a Seventh Day Adventist family who had used it for two generations. Mai has had extremely clean fruit in her ancient orchard that had been neglected for some years.

1 cup apple cider vinegar
1 cup sugar
1 banana peel, chopped
1/2 gallon water
Also add chopped, withered, or even partly rotten apples

Mix all ingredients. Divide into half gallon milk jugs or other containers to hang in fruit trees. Mixture should be about three inches or more deep in bottom of container. Leave cap off so insects can enter. Insects are attracted by the odor of the mixture.

Hang containers in orchard (3 in a standard tree) on other branches in early March. Check regularly an replace when filled with insects. Dump on weeds--vinegar will help kill weeds.

Clean or replace containers filled with new mixture. Keep containers in trees all summer and fall until leaves fall off.

Calm Coat Closet

2011-03-23T09:04:00.000-07:00

Behind this door used to be a whirlwind of chaos: guitar sitting on the ground, gym bag and game bag thrown haphazardly, DDR (Dance, Dance Revolution) pad on top of everything.

Now there is calm. The guitar is now hanging on a hook, the winter hats have their own hooks, the gym bag and the game bag have their own spaces and the DDR pad is cleverly suspended above it all.

To do this I used two spring-loaded curtain rods. The DDR pad sits on top of the fray, but below the coats.

Peace of mind for $8.00.

Recipe Holder

2011-03-23T09:02:00.000-07:00

BEFORE: I stuck the recipe I needed to reference to the wall with ticky-tack.

AFTER: I installed a magnetic knife holder vertically and now can post the recipes with magnets.

Drying Laundry Indoors

2011-03-23T09:01:00.000-07:00

I like hanging my laundry to dry, but not outside during the three seasons it rains and is cold all the time. So I've purchased these drying racks and have mounted them on the wall. They lay flat when not in use.

But pop out when it's time to hang the laundry.

A full rack will stick out fairly far, but I can still get by.

I've also got an Octopus dryer in the closet for my underwear and socks.

It's handy because the clips are built in. I also think that things will dry more quickly in there because of the heat from the hot water heater. The pipes are insulated, but I can feel a temperature difference.

My goal is to use the dryer to dry my sheets (during the winter only) and let the air air-dry the rest. The dryer is typically the second biggest energy hog after the refrigerator, according to some quick googling. Our washer leaves a fair amount of water in our clothing, despite a second time through the spin cycle, and the dryer is becoming less efficient, even though we keep it clean of excess lint. So air drying is my attempt to save us some energy. I'll report back how the experiment works.

Brother projects

2011-03-22T09:00:00.000-07:00

Chris came over and we accomplished so much:
A compost sifter.

Planting of the contorted quince and three blueberries.

Framework for the Belgian fence. The trees will be planted and then the branches trained to grow along the bamboo supports. I can now just show people this picture to give them a visual rather than ineffectively throwing my hands into a "Y" shape and then an "X" shape.

The rain garden in Ryan and Emilia's yard is officially in operation. Now I just need it to rain so I can see how it does.

Saved from the faulty shoe rack.

2011-03-21T08:58:00.001-07:00

Here is my "before" picture of the unfortunate shoe rack I've been living with for ten (!) years. The large space between the two bars mean that the shoes always fall through. Happily, Linda, Matt's mom gave me an Ikea gift card for Christmas and I purchased a much better option.

The famous Ikea assembly.

A good helper.

More of an onlooker than a helper.

The finished product.

It holds eight pairs of shoes.

If I want to put my laundry basket in the closet, I can't access the bottom drawer easily, but I rarely need the shoes in the bottom drawer.

What could it be?

2011-03-21T08:58:00.000-07:00

A landing pad for a very small helicopter?

Nope, it's for my fancy leather bag.

It's a rain guard!

I had an old shower curtain and I cut it to fit.

Shed! Accessable!

2011-03-21T08:57:00.000-07:00

Chris has delayed coming over for a day due to rain. Although it eventually stopped. What to do? Clean out this shed! This project came about because I needed to find some hooks so I could finish a different project in the house and I couldn't find anything in the shed in this state.

Calm and peace has been restored and I found the hooks I was looking for.

Apple Trees have arrived!

2011-03-19T08:56:00.000-07:00

The Home Orchard Society's spring scion exchange was today, which means that I got to pick up the newly grafted trees I ordered last October! They only had 10, the Lubsk Queen and the Devonshire Quarrenden (I think) were not available. I will have to find replacements for them. I also picked up my order from One Green World at Concentrates (they have a Mobile Plant Pickup that delivers there for only $5.00) If you squint and look at the lower right, you can see my contorted quince and if you squint and look to the left you can see my blueberries: Rubel & Brunswick.

Though I did a lot of research about grafted trees, I did not find out until today that I can't plant the trees until next February. Phooey. Chris is coming over tomorrow to do just that. I'll have to find other things for us to do. Now I have to give them a lot of attention so they actually grow.

Spring View of the Garden

2011-03-19T08:55:00.000-07:00

I like to take establishing shots of the gardens throughout the season. These are handy to refer to when I feel like nothing is really happening. Right now it does seem like nothing is happening because it is still winter, but I will refer back to these once things get going.

Backyard: from the compost corner.
On the right we will soon have fruit tree and bushes.
There are peas planted in one of the raised beds,
and strawberries and asparagus in the other two.

Backyard, from gate entrance.
On the left will be the Belgian fence with the apple trees.
Another view of the peas/strawberries/asparagus beds.

Backyard: from the back corner.
Directly in the foreground is the cherry tree, one of the columnar apples is on the left.

Leo's Yard: from the break in the fence.
The green thing is a collard plant that made it through the winter.

Emilia's Yard: from the back corner.
This shows the rain garden. The milk jugs are marking native plants I planted.

Emilia's Yard: side yard.
This will be trellised squash (hopefully)

Emilia's Yard: from the edge of the side yard.
On the right, that thing that looks like a pile of garbage will be an asparagus bed.

Bloody Poetry

2011-03-05T20:10:00.000-08:00

(poster from: http://www.nwctc.org/bp)

Matt and I attended yet another great performance at the Northwest Classical Theatre Company. The performance of Bloody Poetry featured electric acting, especially by Andy Copeland (playing Percy Bysshe Shelley) and Jamie M. Rea (playing Mary Shelley), with Butch Flowers playing a very funny judgmental interloper. The story itself was not very enjoyable as the Romantic poets Shelley and Byron were, well, assholes and thus not enjoyable to spend time with.

The play did offer a nice insight into the relationship between Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Shelley, as well as Claire Clairemont and Lord Byron. It so happens that the summer the four of them spent on Lake Geneva was the summer Mary Shelley began to write Frankenstein, which also happens to be the March selection for the Kenton Library Book Club.

It was also nice to see Dainichia Noreault, who played Claire Clairemont. We last saw her in a fabulous production of Assassins, where she was a memorable Squeaky Fromme.