Odds and Ends 2

The month of June ended with a much needed visit with a college friend who finally joined us back on this side of the country again.  I had been meaning to drive up and visit her in Washington at her new home, but... just hadn't had the time or money.  So, when it all fell together and Charles said it would be a great idea, the boys and I drove up to Washington on an early-ish Monday morning and stayed through LATE Wednesday night.

It was such a joy to see Jamie and the family again!  Here are all our kids roasting marshmallows at the special treat of a campfire on our last afternoon there.  Aren't they all just adorable?

And though Jamie won't love me for it, I had to get her in here as well.  She stuck with me even when there was no earthly reason to remain my friend, may the Lord truly bless her for that!  And see, we both have little red-heads that steal the show!

Then almost as soon as we got back from the Washington trip and got our laundry finished, we made an impromptu trip to our house in Southern Oregon to tear off the old roof so it would be ready for the new one (red metal) on Tuesday, the 5th of July.

So, off we went on Saturday night at 11:30 pm, pulling it at 5 am and getting a bit of sleep before we got on the roof.  Charles and I did the main tear-off (he did a ton of work while I went to the local hardware store for wasp and bee spray) and Nathanael got to help on the back side.

 While we worked on the east side of the roof, the boys hauled off the shakes and paper to the big burn-pile, and they mowed the waist-high grass around the house.  Nathanael did the first rough pass and then Mikael finished off, cleaning it up.

 Did I mention that it was Southern Oregon and July?  For those who may not know, that translates as HOT!  Especially since our definition of hot at home is somewhere near 80 degrees and we were in the mid-90's!  And hot summer weather calls for nice cold watermelon.  What you can't see in this picture is what the guys are sitting on - it's a chunk of old cedar log with the top side cut off to make a table (or in this case, bench) of sorts.  Ever since I can remember as a kid, that's where we ate watermelon in the summer heat at Grandma and Grandpa's house - this summer is no exception!

Yes, we did tie ourselves off (to the suburban parked in the front yard) and Nathanael worked on the section that was over the back porch, allowing for greater safety and confidence.

And of course Mikael had to get on the roof once too, so here is the tear-off crew at the completion of the job!

But once the job was done, then we had a chance to play a bit.  We had a barbecue at my father's house where we also made homemade icecream (which turned out to be very salty and given to the to dog because our canister rusted through at a bottom seem) with the boys (Justin, Sydney, and Nathanael) cranking last since they were the strong young men.

Since we had not been originally planning on heading south for the 4th of July, I had already made two large desserts to take to the 4th of July party after church on Sunday.  Well, they came in handy for when the icecream was a flop - it was All American Dream Cake - Yummy!

After arriving back home here in Sandy, we were pretty busy, but not as stuff you can really take pictures of.  We switched cell-phone providers, home-phone providers, internet providers, got sick and then well, and sorted through all our paperwork piles, filer drawers and book shelves to clean out the clutter and make room for the necessary things and school books.

Now it's time for a little bit of this! 
(if only it will stop raining!)

Odds and Ends

Just a quick run-through of some of what has occupied our time during late spring and early summer:

 Finishing school - kind of (we school through the summer)

in our pajamas!

Enjoying the sunshine and some watermelon! 

We all went on a Creation Encounters field trip in the Columbia Gorge

with a bunch of friends from church and our old homeschool group.

We hunted for quartzite along a cut-bank and found tons of it (by the way, the nearest quartzite source is in the Rockies - I wonder how it got here?!)

We saw where lava had flowed around standing trees, and as it burned and cooled it left the imprint of the coalified wood.

And we found deposits of petrified and coalified wood together in lava flows.

It was pretty cool!

Then, that same day, we hiked the Tom McCall trail (yes, we hiked it last year too) with friends!

And were blessed with some beautiful weather and amazing views.  That's Mt. Adams away in the distance, north across the Columbia into Washington.

And then, of course, there's Mt. Hood.  It's such a beautiful mountain!  I love the birds in the foreground, and though I'd love to say they were picturesque eagles, they're not - just plain old buzzards!

Then we needed some rest, so... some of us read,

Some of us get into our music,

did I mention that some of us read?
(in his Costa Rican hammock chair that he purchased with his own money) 

Some of us kill moles (with a shotgun),

and some of us wander in the yard, enjoying the beauty

and taking pictures of the flowers.

And after some rest, we needed some recreation, so off to Faraday Lake we went, 

to do a bit of fishing (in the sprinkling rain).

That gets us up to the end of June!

Garden

Gardening in the Pacific Northwest is always an adventure!  This is actually an early year for planting, and we weren't even creating the first rows until May 14th!  That is so much later than my Southern Oregon roots are used to!

 This is what the garden looked like after Charles did a ton of tilling in the main in-ground garden area.

 We started with the beans on the north end of the garden - the soil is dryer there and they will get tall, so they like that north end.

 Yes, we do raised rows with these benefits:

     good drainage

     elevated soil temperatures

     easy weed control

     not as far down to the produce and weeds!

The raised beds have many of the same benefits as raised rows, but they are much harder to work or till up each spring.  We, thankfully, have this little OLD front-tine tiller which Charles fixed this spring and that helps a bunch.

And now... the peas are just beginning to flower, the cabbage is starting to look like cabbage (not just weeds), we've harvested two crops of radishes, on crop of spinach, and are continuing to harvest lettuce.  The second crop of lettuce is about to go in and the beets are growing well this year.  Now that the carrots are thinned, they're really putting on some size.

The dill will probably need thinned again, it's over shadowing the walla walla onions too much, and the peppers are producing beautiful green fruit.  The strawberries have produced approximately 5 pints or more of yummy berries already.  The summer squash is just beginning to take off and grow and look like it will take over the garden like is always does!  The cucumbers are just beginning to climb their fences (it will make picking easier and they will get better sun and air circulation making them happier and healthier).

 And the beans are growing so fast that I can't keep up with weaving them into their proper places on their climbing fences.  These and the cucumbers are my most cherished garden plant - we eat tons (almost literally) of their produce each year.  They are the bulk of all my canning, so these babies get the most care and concern.

 The tomatoes seem to be thriving in their raised planter near the garage (which reflects the heat throughout the day - hoping to get enough TU's (temperature units) to these guys to get ripe tomatoes this year.  I never knew one could struggle so much just to get ripe tomatoes!

This is the newest addition to our gardening this year - a separate corn patch.  We got permission to use part of the area across the road from our house (which used to be gardened about 25 years ago).  It took a TON of work - Charles and Nathanael did all the tilling and raking and removal of the tough sod layer.  And if you'll notice the nice freshly weeded rows on this side - the guys did that yesterday afternoon.  We have planted short day (early, sweet, fresh eating) corn in the south half of each row.  We planted long day (hope-it-matures-in-time, heavier yields, versatile fruits) corn in the north half of each row.  There is one volunteer squash plant out in the middle, plus some volunteer tomatoes that won't have enough sun to produce.  We did raised rows with the corn as well.

And that's part of what we've been doing this spring and summer!