Week 15 - Oregon City - April 10 - April 16, 2023

It's been a busy week but there are not a lot of photos.  Maybe it was just a "busy work" week.

Went to the chiropractor twice in an attempt to get rid of the piercing pain that enters my right shoulder.  I think there is improvement but just incase, I have two more appointments for next week.  If there is no wonderful manifestation of healing, I will just wait for "time to heal all.".

We went shopping at Red White and Blue and got Dad some newer pants.  I've got all my clothes for the cruise already folded and poised on the table in our room.....backpack at the ready!

There were two perfect days - perfect in that it was sunny and no rain.  One day I sprayed 4 or five containers of Roundup on massive clusters of bedstraw.  The second day, along with my handy Japanese curved blade, I worked on the north side of Sector V removing bedstraw.  Look how beautiful this slope is - no bedstraw can be seen.'

And, on Saturday, I found this sad, little, dead fawn....just lying along the fence line....dead.  Surprisingly nothing has tried to eat it - where are the coyotes or possums or racoon or rats?  Checked again on Sunday - no diners had arrived yet.

  

For Activity Day this time around, Travis came and taught the kids about knives - styles, use, safety, "blood circles"....everything kids want to know about knives.  It was a great success.  In general, most of the kids ended up making swords.  Abby, however, drew a mushroom on her stick and was carving away.  I got paint sticks from all the paint stores in Oregon City, enough for each kid to have two.

Jude and Ruby have plenty of room to incorporate their "blood circles".

We got a big bag of frozen apricots from Gleaners which we put in the freezer.  We decided to thaw the apricots and make jam.  I'm always surprised that 7 cups of sugan and about three pounds of fruit only makes about six pint jars of jam.

We sold the big Yamaha keyboard for $150.  The smaller one we sold for $50 the previous week.  Now I have put the knee scooter on Facebook Marketplace.

Ray's birthday is today, Sunday; he's 78....hard to believe.  We went to dinner at Redland Cafe and calculate that we have continuously spent 56 birthdays together.

Nice cakes for Dad and Ann

We all gave him a chainsaw sharpener!!!!  I can hardly wait for him to use it!

 Week 14 - Oregon City - April 3 to April 9, 2023

Spring is coming very slowly to Oregon - so slow that family members are searching for mental health ideas.  The only idea that works is less rain and more sun.  The Trilliums, however,  know that spring is coming....and I am unable to click and drag the photo I want.

One day this week we took Abby to Mountain view Cemetery with as as we did a phot for Find A Grave.  She is thinking of entering a contest to celebrate Oregon City and its history.  We thought she might be inspired with something she saw at the cemetery - like graves of Oregon pioneers that settled in Oregon City.

Tuesday was the big day to get wilderness permits for summer hikes.  Jessica, Bev, two of Bev's friends, and I were on recreation.gov before 7am and were ready to register for permits.  We got them!  Bev got Pamelia Lake for August 8-11, Bev and two friends got Obsidian for Aug 21-25, and I got Obsidian for Aug 23 - Sept 1.  Now we just have to prepare for summer hikes!!!

On April 4th a momentous event.  Trump was indicted for 34 counts of criminal activity for attempting to influence an election....hiding hush money payments from the electorate.  We can only hope he is found guilty and will have to suffer some kind of unpleasant consequence.  There are three other investigations into activities going on:  Election Tampering in Georgia, Classified documents in Florida, insurrection on January 6.  I feel sick to my stomach even as I write about the man.

I spent two afternoons during the week walking the two trails - the first circuit is one mile, and the second is also a mile.  As I walked I carefully marked the trail on my lidar map with a pencil.  It was harder to do than I thought.  The first circuit is in red, the second in green, and the creeks in blue.  I need to redo the map with better pens and maybe enlarge it too.  It isn't too impressive to look at, but I am happy with my efforts.

Easter Egg hunts were fast and furious on Saturday.  I gathered up my stuffies of bunnies and, this year, some beavers too.

Easter Dinner was at Travis'.  Dave and Penny Lundgreen came too and Anita Meninick who I am helping with her Family History came too.

 Week 13 - Oregon City - March 27 - April2, 2023

SPRING BREAK!!!!  The weather forecast for the week showed two days of no rain -  on those days outdoor activities were planned.

On Wednesday, the Scotts, Louthans, RKGrays, and WWGrays went to the Zoo.  The last time I was there was during a Christmas vacation when we went to ZOO Lights.  I remember it being so cold and I was miserable. Previous to that I went to the zoo as a chaperone with school and remember driving into the parking lot and being unable to count how many school buses there were....because the number was uncountable.  I had pretty much decided to take a Zoo visit off my list, and yet here I was again at the Zoo on a very good weather day.  We took MAX to the zoo which is a really easy way to get there.  The grandchildren love riding the train.

Think about it - perfect weather and spring break..... a bizillion other Oregonians with their kids and innumerable strollers were doing the same thing (just like at Disneyland) - trying to keep up with the kids, trying not to lose any kids, and trying to get up close enough to the animals to actually see them.  There were two highlights for me.  The first was a closeup view of a River Otter swimming and spiral-spinning right in front of me.  It was swimming exactly how I imagined I swam when I was a kid.  Maybe I'll change my spirit animal from a rabbit to a river otter.  The other was a big display of bats at feeding time.  Amazing - better than a documentary.  All kinds of fruits were hanging on strings from the ceiling, and bats were clinging to the string and gnawing on the fruit.  Some were clinging to a ceiling screen with their hind feet and walking upside down.  There was a big fat bully bat who was chasing other bats away from his favorite spot.  It was a great exhibit, but I won't chose a bat as my spirit animal.

Here is proof no one wandered away.

Afterwards we went to Pioneer Square (because we always end up there) and to the food court and ate DELCIOUS Raising Kanes chicken fingers along with those blended fruity drinks with gelatin blobs in the bottom.  Very yummy.  And best of all we didn't have to think about dinner when we got home.

On Thursday - - no, ,,, wait for the big news of the day TRUMP WAS INDICTED!!!!!!!!!

Okay, back to the real world.  Abby and Ruby had chosen Geocaching for their Christmas presents - today was the day.  I wanted to go to the Bonnie Lure State Recreational Area.  I'd read about it in an article called....maybe "recreation gems in Oregon you don't know about".  Well, it is a gem and it is close, but the area was burned somewhat in the fires a couple years ago and it wasn't very gem...able.  Of course it was cloudy and nothing was green or growing or blooming - our woods are more lovely.  This place is at the confluence of Eagle Creek and the Clackamas, but the currents were raging and nobody could possibly swim there - fish yes, but not kids.  And....to make things less good, we could not find the two geocaches there.  I wrote to the owner of the two caches that they need to re-do their hides.  

Here is Abby climbing up a little ridge looking for a red flag that was supposed to mark the cache.

Lunch at the confluence of Eagle Creek and the Clackamas (actually just a short spur of the river.

I love GRCs (guard rail caches).

General Conference was this weekend.  There was a different feel about it, it seems to me.  There was a lot of talks about improving your own personality - like having poise and not being contentious.  We had a great breakfast at Jessica's - bacon, crepes with toppings, and two different kinds of breakfast casseroles.  After breakfast the adults sprawled on the couches and watched conference  while the kids did - whatever they do upstairs.

To top off a great week was the gymnastics meet in Denver - the finals for the National Championship in a couple weeks.  Oregon State has to take first or second place to go to finals.

SNIFF...............DOUBLE SNIFF............SOBBING........................