The Garden: A Recap

I think it's time to close the book on my first garden. Let's discuss the report card shall we?

Point 1: I'm a gardener, not animal control.

Yes, those deer were pesky, but unless I plan to spend the night in the garden with a shotgun by my side, I can't really do anything about them. So, I decide to take the deer out of the equation.

Grade: C. I figure we all start out in the middle of the scale right?

Point 2: Harvests like this one:

This is what I gathered just the other day, after I have been ignoring the garden completely for the past month. I dock myself a few letter grades because I didn't get any green beans, sweet peas and only about 8 strawberries.

Grade: B-

Point 3: The habanero plant.

This took awhile to get going, but these are the hottest peppers on the face of the planet. Because B ate one and I almost dialed 911, I give myself an extra letter grade.

Final grade: A-

I'll be back in 2010 for my sophomore year with an electric fence. I predict bountiful bounty.

Fall Foliage

It's officially Autumn here in the Great Northwest so Dacia and I decided to take a drive south of Portland on Friday to see a little fall foliage.  New England, you've got nothin' on us!

Ski Training, Day 1

Welcome to our gym-- the Cooper Spur trail up to the Tilly Jane Cabin on the northeast side of Mt. Hood. B and I took advantage of a clear blue September day to stretch out our ski legs and take in some views.

Ski season is coming folks. You best be gettin' yourself to the gym.

Bambi, you win.

I give up.

I turned off Stafford Rd. today into the lane up to the garden and had to stop short.  Three deer, just chillin' in the driveway, munching on some early apples from the apple trees.  They didn't move, just kept munching away.  I didn't want to freak out the neighbors so I didn't honk but instead stuck my head out the window and yelled a few choice words at them.  They looked at me and then, almost as an afterthought, sauntered away.  Yep, that's right, they sauntered.

I parked and went to check out the damage and oh. my. god.  My garden is a disaster zone.  Every leaf on every plant is gone.  I have four-foot tall okra plants that are just stems and okra, no leaves. I have six green bean plants with a green bean here or there, no leaves.  I have habanero pepper, jalapeno pepper and bell pepper plants all with peppers on them and guess what?  No leaves.  Even the cucumber is being eaten alive.  Arrrggghhhh.  It is such a dismal, depressing sight, I didn't even have the heart to take a photo.

So, Bambi and the twins, I give up.  You win.  I picked most of the remaining veggies today so you are now free to do with it what you will.  I even took down part of my "fence" so you won't have to trample it anymore.  

But, don't get too comfortable.  Next year, you are in for a treat.  Did someone say electric fence?

The Cyclist's Republic of Portland

During the month of September, Portland's BTA (Bicycle Transportation Alliance) organizes the Bike Commute Challenge, a friendly competition between businesses to see who can bike to work more.

The BCC is only 5 days old, but here are some amazing stats:

Number of miles biked:  158,017

Number of calories burned:  7,742,869

Pounds of CO2 saved:  154,857

So far, I've ridden two days to work, totaling 16 miles, burning 784 calories and saving 15 pounds of CO2.

Big ups to Portland!  Saving the world, one bike trip at a time.

B's Bloggy Blog

Have you visited B's website lately?  Oh, you haven't?  Well, do it.  Right now.  

Because he has taken some gorgeous shots lately.

www.bryanhoybook.com

The Official End of Summer

Last weekend, we celebrated the "official end of summer"-- our annual raft trip with the Incredi-Lodges on the Deschutes River out of Maupin.

We brought some new kids to the group this year, Ryan and Dacia, and also had plenty of fun with the usual crowd-- Geoff, Julia, Katie, Emily, Kendra, Darci, Kathryn and Steve.  Here's our trip by the numbers:

Days on the river:  3

Rafts:  1

Rafters over the course of the weekend: 14

Brats consumed:  a bunch

Beers consumed:  a whole lot

Games of Blongo played: 4?

Times Julia floated through the Elevator rapid:  about 30

Number of rafters we lost from the boat:  only 2!

Times we rafted through Oak Springs rapid:  6

People we saw wearing socks, on the river, with their sandals:  1 (which is probably one too many)

B hopped out on one of the trips down and got these great shots of us going through Oak Springs:

The Crew:  Ryan, Katie, Julia, Emily, me, Dacia, Darci & Geoff, our fearless leader.

Raft babes!  Katie, Dacia, me, Kendra & Julia on Day 3.

So, summer is on it's way out, but September is just getting fired up.  Were you aware that September is the greatest month in the world?  It is perfection.  Warm days, cool nights, Husker football.  Ahh, yes, September, how we love thee.

Three Years

We love the Oregon coast.

And the Oregon coast loves us.  B shot a wedding in Yachats on Saturday night so after spending the day at Silver Falls teaching 24 teenage girls how to camp, I met him there for some fun on Sunday.  Oh my heck, do I love the coast.

Farewell Tour Stop #11

Craig and Bridget are moving to New Zealand.  And, if that wasn't cool enough, they are in the middle of a cross country road trip of epic proportions before they leave.  Stop #11:  Portland.

Now I know that NZ is going to sweet and all and they will love it and probably not want to come home, but I'm holding onto a little shred of hope that someday, they will come back.  When they do, B and I want to them to come back to Portland.  Permanently.  So, we decided to take advantage of their stop here to make a little plug for just how great Portland could be.  Here goes nothing.

First on the list, make sure they eat some really great food.  First stop, Pine State Biscuits.

Next, make sure they know how good the beer is.  Beer always tastes better when drank while sitting on the beach front patio of the Pelican Pub.

After that, show them how great the ocean can be.  This one is tricky because they are coming from the warm waters of Jacksonville, FL where one can frolic in the waves sans wet suit.  We decided overlook this tiny detail and took them to Pacific City and Cape Kiwanda where the cliffs, dunes and waves are spectacular. 

Now Craig is interested in the going to school to learn wine making/grape growing so on Monday, I toured them around some of the best Willamette Valley wineries.  And we can't forget Bridget, the budding chef, so we did some berry picking for her too.  

Tuesday was all about showing off downtown so we hit the shops with a couple of little rest breaks for beers and sushi.  Then, to culminate the whole trip, B cooked us up a feast.  Just wanted them to know what family get-togethers in P-town would be like:  in one word, delicious.

They still have about a month left on their road trip and haven't been to New York yet (where the super fun Scott and Brook await), but I'm hoping we made an impression.  (At least the weather cooperated-- I think they think it's sunny here!  Shhh, I won't tell if you won't.) 

So, farewell Craig and Bridget.  You have no idea the fun times ahead of you.  Can't wait to visit you down under, we love you!

When Omaha comes to town

The Omaha Royals came to town a couple of weeks ago to play the Portland Beavers, our Triple A minor league baseball team.  Kristina got her hands on some tickets her office had stashed away so I joined she and Douglas for an evening at the ball park.

The tickets were probably the best I've ever had at any sporting event ever.  Right behind the plate, all the free hot dogs and chips we could eat and we even had our own waiter guy.  Oh boy, do rich people have a good thing going at PGE Park.

We felt it was our duty, as probably the only Nebraskans in the park, to cheer for Omaha.  And cheer we did.  Very loudly.  From the front row.  See those two people to the right of Douglas? They were none too pleased with our antics.  

You can't handle my weekend.

Friday:

Work.

Head downtown for the Twilight Criterium.  Bike racing at its best.  A 1/2 mile course through the North Park blocks with a beer garden for the spectators in the middle.  Racers have 60 minutes to ride as many laps as possible.  In the following photos, they are flying by us at an average speed of 30 mph.  In the professional group, they were clocking 55 second laps. Awesome.

Follow the crit with sushi and ice cream with friends.

Saturday:

"Work."  Head out to Champoeg State Park to teach some folks the ins and outs of camping as part of the Let's Go Camping program.  Lead the freshman campers in through tent set-up, Leave No Trace and a guided hike.

Head back to Portland.

Scoot downtown to join B, Joseph and LeeAnna and watch the Portland Timbers win over the Charleston Battery, 3-1. 

Sunday:

Alarm goes off at 4:00am.

"Work."  Arrive downtown at 5:30am to man the bike tech tent for the Bridge Pedal.  18,000 Portlanders take to the streets to bike over the city's bridges.

Pump tires, sell helmets, spread REI cheer until 1pm.  Wish you were with your friends when they were photographed for the front page of the Oregonian.

Unload the U-Haul van back at the store.

Arrive home around 4:30pm.

Take a big, fat nap.  

Monday:  

Take a day off.  Thank goodness.

Nice Little Sunday

B and I hightailed it up the Angel's Rest trail in the gorge on Sunday night to get these amazing shots.  We came down in the dark, two little head lamps bobbing in the woods.  We sure do some ridiculous stuff in the name of photography.

Portland Warming, Part 2

So, here it is.  My last post wasn't exactly accurate.  Never trust the weather man.  

Here are last week's weather stats:

All-time record high temp set:  107 degrees on Wed. July 29th.  

Record high temps set:  3.  106 on Tues.  107 on Wed.  103 on Thurs.

Days in a row above 100 degrees:  4.  By the way, another record.

Days in a row above 90 degrees:  11.  Another record.

Days in July above 90 degrees:  14.  Another record.  Are you seeing a pattern here?

For those of you who live in places like, I don't know, Phoenix or Houston or Nebraska even, this doesn't seem to out of the ordinary.  In fact, this might seem downright balmy in the middle of the summer.  But for P-town, this is weird.  And extremely unbearable.  Unless you have a fairly new home, people in these parts don't have air-conditioning.  The best most folks do is a window unit, but even those can't keep up with 107.  I even went to work early on Tuesday so I could spend some more time in air conditioned 72 degrees of REI Tualatin.  

The heat wave seems to be over for now, thank goodness.  But, I do have to admit, it felt just like summer.  Actual, real, like-I-remember-as-a-kid summer.  And gosh, did that feel good.

Portland Warming

10-Day Forecast High / Low (°F) Precip. % Today Jul 28 Sunny 103°/72° 0 % Wed  Jul 29 Sunny 101°/69° 0 % Thu  Jul 30 Sunny 98°/65° 0 % Fri  Jul 31 Sunny 91°/65° 0 % Sat  Aug 01 Mostly Sunny 90°/66° 10 % Sun  Aug 02 Partly Cloudy 88°/64° 10 % Mon  Aug 03 Partly Cloudy 86°/63° 0 % Tue  Aug 04 Sunny 85°/63° 0 % Wed  Aug 05 Sunny 84°/62° 0 % Thu  Aug 06 Sunny 84°/60° 0 % Last Updated Jul 28 10:07 a.m. PT