Week 43 - Oregon City, Oregon - October 24- October 30, 2022

We had Activity Day again this week and started on the drawings of their families.  The plan is to do the drawing, color them, put into a frame, wrap them up, and give them to their parents for a Christmas present.  the kids are enthusiastic about the project.  Here they are in the first phases of drawing.

On every day this week, except on Tuesday, the rain fell endlessly.  I did a lot of cleaning and organizing in the basement.  i got all of my backpacking stuff put away but still need to finish organizing the food.  On the beautiful sunny day, Ray worked on the burn pile and got a massive fire going.  By Saturday the was hardly anything left.

On the sunny Tuesday, I took the ATV into the woods and brought up a bunch of branches and bis and pieces and threw them on to the fire.  there was still some sunny hours left so I went to the Far West Slope and pulled up a chunk of the big log that Ray had cut into pieces.  Here's the log in Far West Slope just on the other sde of Log Creek.

This photo is of West Slope just at the tree line where the steep cliff begins.

Malcolm helped up sand down the area by the back basement door.  Now the door is able to open.  I need to get some paint and paint the bare wood.

Trunk or Treat was Saturday night.  It started at 6:00 ish so it was still light enough to see pretty well.

Here are the kids.

This is Eric

Warren had a fog machine set up in the back of his car.  It created a nice effect.

 Week 42 - Oregon City, Oregon - October 17 - October 23, 2022

This was a week of sickness and turmoil.  First I got a UTI which is uncomfortable in iteslf.  Then I took an antibiotic for it and had a reaction to the medication.  I got terrible cramping in my feet - felt like my feet were in a press and being squeezed from al sides.  Checked on line for side effects, and the side effects mentioned all sorts of problems with mucles and tendons  and ruptures.......called Ryan and he said to quit.  Those nasty symptoms went away and so did the UTI symptoms, so the meds must have killed off some of the bacteria.

Then went to my ophthalmologist who said I need to wait another month to make sure my 'numbers' stay stabile.  Then, most likely, I'll be scheduled to surgery in January....or sometime.  The doctor gave me a sticker to put on to one on my lenses shich changes the symptoms a bit....for the better...b=ut a bit for the worse. Sigh

I did finish painting the shed!!!!!

On Friday I started a Cursive Class for grandchildren - six showed up...Clara, Ruby, Logan, Abby, Gretchen, and Eric.  We had fun!!  Went over how to do a, c, d, and g.  Clara has started a Cursive Club on Facebook Messenger and says I will be a member as soon as....whatever.  I'm glad she's having enough fun to make a club out of it.  So far Eric has written me, and I responded

We bought a new door for the south basement entrance.  Unfortunately when measurements were taken, they were a quarter of an inch off.....too big.  Poor Val and Dad.  They spent the whole day doing whatever they had to do to make the door fit.  Finally ended up having to sand off part of the top of door and part of the shelf above the door.  The door is installed nog and fully closes....but can not open up completely.  More sanding has to be done.

Warren helped too.....holding the sander over one's head is very tiring.

to end up the week, I got a nasty cold!  My head feels as thought there is a balloon inside it which is being inflated.  Taking pills.

 Week 41 - Oregon City, Oregon - October 10 - 16, 2022

Finally, finally, this week I began to paint toe shed where we keep the Kubota and the Gravely mower.  Travis and others built the shed years ago - maybe Travis was 17 and taking a construction class at the high school.  He built it...yes...but we had to replace to roof last year because it was sagging and the exterior was never painted.  No, not exactly, one side was painted and the south side was left as natural plywood.

The south side was really hard to do because the surface was so weathered and dry that the white primer was just sucked into the wood.

come Saturday, I'd had it with just just using a ladder.  My legs couldn't stand it anymore.  So, with Val's held, we borrowed Dixie Jones scaffolding.  It was so much easier to paint - not easy to get up to the platforms, however.

I finished the south side with one coat of brown and then signed our names to the west side.

What else did we do this week.  

Watched the last of the January 6th Select committee's meeting.  Such an awful man was/is donald j trump.   I can only hope he can't/won't run in 2024.

Also had the first meeting with the Activity Day children.  We made a long list of the activities we want to do.

 Week 40 - Oregon City Oregon - October 3-9, 2022

This has been an uneventful week - which is kind of nice.

On Saturday, at the church, we had a Ward Emergency Preparedness Activity.  We were asked to do a display on "Emergency Hacks".                                                                                    

We did these sort of things

Milk jug lantern                                                                                                                            Use AAA batteries instead of AA batteries in your flashlight.                                                      Use two clay garden pots to make a heater with 2 candles as a heat source                              Make candles from Crisco, vegetable oil, and olive 

                                                                                                

How to make and use wicks

We showed other things, but the above were new to us.  There were about 40 people at the event.  Hardly enough to make the effort worthwhile, but you can't have everything.

On Friday I went with Katharine Wilson and a bunch of others to a production by the Boing and Damascus Theater Company.  It was actually pretty good.

I did a lot of "last of the season spraying" in the woods - looking for ivy and holly and blackberries, and stinging nettles.  I have one more batch to do.  I'm not sure if my efforts are effective because it is so late in the season, but leaves are green and the weather is warm.  I'm looking forward to spring to see the results of all my spraying.

I am diligently bringing up buckets of trash from the dump in Log Creek - between West slope and far West Slope.  Dad even fund some treasures.

I fill up buckets with glass and metal bits and then put into the trash bins.

Abby ate dinner with us - the trout from alder flat.  Se said she actually liked it.

Week 39 - September 26 - October 2, 2022

It was nice to be home.  Spent most of the week cleaning up and recovering

I worked in the woods cleaning out the creek bed between West slope and Far West Slope.  It is pretty steep and kind of difficult.

I sawed up the left over stump of the tree that fell right by the creek.  It was pretty awful.

Warren dug up three rhododendrons and gave them to us.  I planted them in Sector 1.

I drove to alder Flat and walked down to the river.  Wanted to see how much damage the forest fire had caused.  It really wasn't supper horrible.  The trail is in very good shape.  Of course the trees are burned.  But not all of the trees.  A very few have green tops.

The four bridges have burned so you have to walk through the swampy areas.

Believe it or not...the campground area where we set up the tent was untouched by the fire.  amazing.  Here it is with Indian burial rock in the foreground.

Here's the campsite that Dolores always takes.

The area where the kids like to play - both directions.

There was a lot of tree litter on the ground.  And, by the river, the willow bushes had grown really tall and bushy.  guess there are no deer of elk eating the leaves.

The little pool and the area around the pool had been filled up a bit by sand and rocks.

I fished by the big boulder and brought home 6 eight inchers.  also let go as many - ones that were too little or who had only been slightly hooked.  It was a satisfying outing - a favorite place had not been burned to the ground and decimated.  We can go there and camp in the future.

We went to Holland's soccer game.  It is so fun to watch the four year olds - they really have very little idea of what they are doing.  but it is good exercise, and they are learning the basics of the game.

We canned all of the grape juice over the weekend.  It was a terrible grape juice season.  We only did five batchers (last year we did twenty-five) and made 24 quarts of juice.  The weather was the cause - very wet and rainy in the spring and hot and dry all summer.