Kitties and sun

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

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

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?

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.

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.

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.