Oregon City, Oregon - Week 38- September 21 - September 27, 2020

Where to Start???  

We've begun to cut and split all of the logs and limbs that we have collected from Goodin Acres and The Manor.  It's a pain to do but - good exercise - and the wood has to be disposed of either in our furnace or in a burn pile.

Burn season in Clackamas Co. is supposed to start next week on October 1st.  We have some concern that the season may be delayed (gasp...or even canceled) because of the recent fires.

But, we are ready!!  For the past three months I have been cutting filbert trushes (tree + bush) and pulling the limbs up to the hay field.

Note the filbert trushes in the next two photos

In this photo, there are some filbert trushes to the right that need to be removed.

 

In anticipation of the burn season, I have staged a bizillion bundles of branches ready for incineration.

Home school is doing well.  The best thing about it is that when Logan leaves...he gives me a hug.

In this photo Abby and Jude are eating their sherbet that we made last week --demonstrating how a solid can dissolve in a liquid and how a liquid can change into a solid.

Jude and Abby and Ruby also learned how heat can evaporate and turn grapes into raisins.  Next week I'm going to get m&ms and peanuts and have them make their own trail mix.

Logan and Clara had an experiment  where they had to use thermometers to note how the freezing point of water is lowered when salt is added.  The best part was when frost formed on the outside of the cup.

Reading with Jude and Abby is fun....and requires no preparation.

There is a new Brunch place in OC - called The Hive Social.  It is on the corner of Washington and Seventh St.  The location is "doomed"......over the last twenty years, every business located there fails.  But Bev and Jessica - for purposes of their blog (the sisters who ate everything) decided we must go and give their menu a try.  It was really nice...It's across the street from Yvonne's, where we went for my birthday so their will be some competition between the two restaurants for the same customers.  I got a veggie bowl which was very tasty, but I should have added on  an egg.  The others got really yummy food too.

It was decided by the Deciders that we would have a Brunner Rd Festival, to make up for the fair, the Hood River Harvest Festival, Mt Angel Octoberfest......everything that was canceled because of C____19.  Our assignment was to make Doughboys, and we actually got the original recipe from Great Grandma Burk who was Jodi Ganir's grandmother.  We practiced once and realized that a change or two had to be made.  They were good, but, maybe, too dry and hard.

By the night of the big fair, the proper corrections had been made, and the doughboys were soft, thick, chewy, and more sugary.

Many good friends and more than enough really good food....

Harvest time came to The Manor on Saturday when WWHC came to pick the pumpkins.  The final count may have been close to fifty of the orange fruits.

I did a walk around the woods Sunday morning to see what I could see.

Maybe next week there will be a photo of a big burn pile!

Oregon  City Oregon Week 37 - September 14 - September 20. 2020

This week was definitely better that last week - smoke and weather wise.

This was Tuesday

This is Wednesday

And, still, on Thursday it was smokey....but not as much.  And then, Thursday night, just as the weather forecast had predicted, at midnight, a rainstorm came along with massive lightning and thunder!!!!!  It was the biggest and loudest and brightest storm I have ever experienced.  Massive blasts of lights came in multiple bursts across a broad expanse of the sky. And there was rolling thunder - like I've read about in books which mention the gods bowling in heaven.  This thunder would start in the north and rumble all the way around me toward the south.  When dawn came we could see real clouds in the sky rather than the blanket of smoke.  And by noon...this is what we could see to the south.  It was absolutely beautiful, and what a relief to be able to breathe deeply again!!!

Unfortunately, the heavy rain caused massive runoff over the raingutters.....and unfortunately, the drain in the stairwell at the new basement door malfunctioned (maybe too many leaves and dirt in the area?????....... our bad for sure)  Upon venturing into the pool table room, in sock feet, I waded through several pools of water - the deepest about an inch deep.  Not deep, really, but deep enough to get the bottoms of all the boxes under the pool table soaked.  I've known for months that I need to organize the area, but now it is a necessity.

The evil drain which has had the debris moved to the side

School began this week.  We have our part on Tu and Th at The Manor. 

I have Ruby at 10:00 for Science and Social Studies.

Dad and I do reading with Abby and Jude at noon 

At 1:00 there is second grade Science with Abby and Jude

At 2:00  is fourth grade science  with Logan (also known as Ellis) and Clara (CJ)

Here I am with Ruby talking about how different objects (matter) feel.  She is guessing what the items in the bag are.

Here Ruby is learning that heat can change a slice of bread into toast and that hot toast will melt butter from a solid to a liquid

We learned about the American flag..and other social studies stuff

CJ and Ellis are eager learners

We did a Venn diagram to practice comparing and contrasting the physical properties of matter

Toys on the right and things made of fabric on the left.

Ellis knew about Venn Diagrams, but....I.... I didn't have a clue.  So at dinner on Friday night with Warren and Whitney, I learned.  You know the old saying, "You learn more when you teach it".

Ever since we returned from our trip to Mesa, Ariz, I have wanted to try Taco Tuesday here in Oregon. We have seen this little restaurant in Mulino--whenever we go south to go camping--and decided to try it out with WWHC

Logan's tenth birthday was celebrated at Sunday dinner.  Warren made a Hobbit House

After the "cake event" Holland came over to me and asked me (I'm pretty sure Warren coached her) to take her outside to the swing.  I said, "sure, let's go"  And as we were starting to walk away, Camille came up to Holland with a box full of fingernail polish bottles, and the swing and I were quickly forgotten.

The best thing about this last week....the huge rain storm which "chased away" the cloud of smoke!

Week 36 of "Fire and Smoke" - Oregon City - Week 36 - September 7 to September 13, 2020

This was a pretty awful week.  It all started on Monday afternoon.  I was in the woods spraying a batch of herbicide on ivy when, suddenly, a very strong wind started blowing.  Leaves were blowing off trees, branches were swaying on the trees - it was weird.  I climbed out of the woods and into the hay field to see the eastern sky full of dust.  Well, I thought it was dust, but it was SMOKE.  Inside the house, I said to Dad, "what is happening".  He's says its a strange meteorological event and that high winds were predicted for several days.  Right - and big winds means branches fall on power lines, which fall on dry grass and fires start.  And, don't forget chains dragged by a trailer can start a fire too.  A big fire started in Molalla at a logging yard where piles and piles of stacked logs burned.

Another big fire started up the Clackamas and is called (gulp) the Riverside fire - that is the very place where we had camped just last week.  Maps show that the origin of the fire was across the river and down river from where we camped, but we are all expecting the worst - since fires do jump rivers and do go upstream.  There was also a big fire on the Santiam River ...near Detroit Lake - where we camped in June.  The little town of Detroit burned completely.  The map seems to show that the campground where we stayed was not burned

Beverly had several cottonwood trees and branches fall around her house.  We spent Tuesday and Wednesday at her place picking up all the debris and stacking it all in big "potential burn piles".  Jessica also had "millions" of doug fir branches and tips of branches fall in her yard.  I think we gathered up five trailer loads of branches and placed them in her burn pile.

This was our sky on Tuesday







At one point Ann posted this.


This is the sky on Wednesday



We went to the cemetery and photographed a grave - sky was really yellow



This is Thursday



Friday



Saturday



Sunday morning



Sunday afternoon - air quality is better!



Evacuations - we all had an app that connected us to the Clackamas County Emergency Network.  Areas were green (get ready) or yellow (be set...to evacuate) or red (go...evacuate now).  When Oregon City turned yellow, some family members wanted to leave.

Warren and Whitney were the first to go - they headed to Bend where they planned to stay with the Wadsworths, and surprisingly had little difficulty getting out of the Metro area.  It was mostly because they headed towards Estacada (no one wanted to go to Estacada because of the fire) and then turned north in order to get on Hwy 26.  However by the time they got to their destination, the air quality index had increased to a level higher than in Oregon City.  They stayed only one night and returned on Friday.

Jessica and Bev left for Bend on Thursday too.  Jessica found the situation in Bend to be no better than in Oregon City and came back on Saturday.  She did have fun going to food places in Bend.  Bev went on to Sunriver where she and another family had already made plans to rent a house and party for the weekend.  She came back on Monday.

Travis and Malcolm, surprisingly, did not evacuate.  Malcolm got all of his stuff together, prepared his little trailer for a trip but then never left.  Travis drove to Brunner Manor to pick up his trailer, but it took him two hours to get here.  The traffic was gridlocked, and it was almost impossible to drive anywhere.  By the time they got back home they knew it'd be hard to get out of town and they'd heard that air quality conditions were worsening in other areas.  So they stayed and worked on their remodel.

One thing Malcolm did was to set up a sprinkler on our roof - to keep flying embers from igniting the shingles.  I'm glad we didn't need to use it.

Dad and I stayed, figuring we'd protect the three forts on Brunner Rd.  We really didn't feel there was any danger from actual fires.  A funny thing happened the first night.  I'd been listening to a movie about space travel to Mars.  I'd folded up the laptop and put it on the floor by my bed.  Sometime in the night the audio from the movie came on, and I could hear pounding (which I took to be pounding on our front door) and loud voices calling out (which I interpreted as a loudspeaker broadcasting from somewhere on the road) - all of which were on the movie.  I woke with a start assuming fire trucks were on our road and the pound on the door was to alert us to evacuate.  Too make it worse...

Dad had already been awakened and thought I was being very inconsiderate and was watching the movie under the covers and not using my ear buds.  We had a good laugh about the whole thing.

It wasn't too bad.....except we didn't want to go outside.  There was so much smoke and most times, it smelled like someone was burning garbage.  Honestly, it was harder on me to be trapped inside the house because of the smoke that to be "quarantined" because of Covid 19.  At least with Covid, I can go outside the house (and breathe fresh air whenever I want).

To keep myself busy I completely rearranged the contents of one bookcase in the bedroom and threw a ton of stuff out.  And.......I cleaned up/reorganized/the fruit room.  Well ---it was a mess, but also we are starting to make grape juice and needed a place to put the new juice.



Here is our first batch of juice - as good as ever.



Dad does a good job of harvesting the grapes





Next week begins Home School for Jess and Bev's kids.  I have second grade science for Abby and Jude and 4th grade science for Logan and Clara.  Also Kindergarten Social Studies and Science for Ruby.  We've set up a "classroom" in our living room.  I must admit I'm a little nervous about beginning because I've never done this kind of teaching....my students and I...we'll just figure it out as we go along.



Here they are - - enjoying the last days of summer vacation  - -well, not Copeland.



Miscellaneous photo of Copeland