Week 30 - Oregon City - July 24 -  July 29, 2023

This is going to be an abbreviated post - Monday through Friday - because we leaving for Sutton Lake on Saturday.

Monday morning, Jessica and I took Bev to the Hive Social, in Oregon City, for breakfast.  The food was really good (expensive), but the portions were huge, and I took home my extra food, and Dad and I ate it all day long.  Mine is a chicken sandwich with lots of frys.

Dad and Val are replacing the canopy that was destroyed in the ice store of 2021...just two years ago.  This photo shows the cleaned up area ...ready for construction

Here the concrete blocks are laid out just waiting the the laser thing to line them and and made sure all are at the right height.  Unfortunately the laser thing didn't work, so we're waiting for Val to borrow one - the the work will continue.,,,prob have photos in two weeks.

I did a lot of work in the woods.  sprayed patches of blackberries and maple seedlings.  And took the axe to maple trees and chopped off all of the suckers down on the base of the tree.  I can say, with certainty, that all said maple trees in Sector 2 have been treated with the axe.

Lots of kitten photos.

The kittens seem to like their carriers - at least they don't struggle to get out.   I think they realize that something interesting is going to happen.

Here, Zelensky has fallen asleep in his sling and Jack is sleeping on top of him.

We spent a good deal of time on Friday packing and getting ready to leave for Sutton Lake on Saturday morning.  I went to Costco and Winco to get food for two lunches...packed them into the camper.  Then I thought it would be good to give Jack and Zelensky a chance to become accustomed to the camper.

They were very calm and both fell asleep.

Don't know why Jack was content to sleep in the litter box....

 Week 29 Oregon City/Salmon River - July 17-23, 2023

This week I took Abby and Ruby on their backpacking birthday trip.  After some discussion, we decided to go back to the same place we went last year - the Salmon River....the same campsite where the tree fell on our tent.

No road trip that comes close to Sandy, Oregon can continue without a stop at Joe's Donuts.

With very little trouble we walked the mile and a half to our hidden (and secret) campsite.

A lot of playing occurred at the river's edge - - Abby is the a little mermaid

These may have been two mermaids on their tummies.

One really neat thing we saw was a mother duck and, maybe, 10-12 ducklings.   They were amazing.  The swam easily upstream through the rapids - it almost seemed like they were walking on the water-- and them they'd come to a rest in a small pool behind a rock.

We did two day hikes upstream to see what we could see.  There are two nifty bridges, and the girls love to play under the bridges and go down to the Salmon river.  They did a lot of singing...something about mermaids falling in love.

We checked out some other campsites that look really promising, but I think ours has the best river access while the others have more room.  On this part of the trail I am pretty sure that, when I had some scouts with me, that we were attacked by ground burrowing yellow jackets.

Here's a nice view of the river.

Some super big twin Douglas Firs and twin cousins.

We played games

And ate yummy food

At the end of our second day, we broke camp, hiked out, and found Dairy Queen in Sandy, and had Dairy Queen blizzards and aFrozen Hot Chocolate in the park.

Photos from the woods............a big rotten stump fell over in Sector 4 (right by Magnificent Marge).

I made another wildlife habitat out of it.

And, yet, another stump fell down on Water Pipe Slope - quite near another wildlife habitat.  I'll cut the trunk up in the four foot pieces and use the ATV to pull the pieces up the hill.

We finished refurbishing the front door.  It looks pretty good!  Especially considering that we weren't always sure about what we were doing.  Here's Dad putting the lock and knob on.

We have rescued a rabbit - a Brown Dutch.  We noticed it out in the orchard where is was auditioning to be the next meal for some predator who happened to be coming by.  Dad and Malcolm took pity on her, caught her, and put her in this bin in the basement.

Fortunately, for Nibbles, Malcolm took a bunch of metal shelf racks and made a pen in the orchard, near the chicken, Nibblet.

And, now.  The best kitten photos of the week,,,yes, we have two kitten slings.

Sunday, Pamela and Sloan came to dinner - they will be moving to San Diego soon to be with Brenden who is a Commander of Operations on an aircraft carrier.  We sang to Bev too.

The highlight was the announcement Malcolm and Haley made.  Due in January 2024.

 

Another very good week.

 Week 28 - Oregon City - July 10 - July 16, 2023

Another amazing and busy week.

The hay has been cut, baled, and carried away.

Did a lot of work in the woods - spraying big patches of maple seedlings

Found a new plant - Skunk weed, Navarretia squarrosa....skunk like odor, common

We're finally getting around to repairing the front door.  The oval glass insert has been attached by masking tape for about a year.  Of course, the part of the door that is broken, can not be ordered, so dad went to plastic glue and a wing and a prayer.

Bev and Jessica were both at girls camp this week.  We wanted to take the kids to the beach - ended up only with Jane and Ruby, Holland and Copeland...the others were frolicking at Aqua camp or playing with Eric.

We went to Hug Point which is my favorite beach - only beach...no ice cream or candy or hamburgers, or milkshakes......

Stopped to go to the bathroom at a little shopping strip mall, but there were none for the public, but found a donut shop instead.

Thank goodness for the Dairy Queen on the way home.

Friday night to Saturday, Jane, Holland, and Copeland had their Birthday Camping Trip in Sector 2.

When we bedded down, Copeland decided he wanted to go home.  In the process of taking him home, Whitney traded places with Warren.  For dinner we were going to have the boxed noodle dinners, but my stove malfunctioned in a major way - had to pour almost a gallon of water over the flames on the wooden picnic table.  So, I did the next best thing and went up to the house and cooked the noodles on the stove.  I started the Solo Stove and we roasted marshmallows.  For breakfast the kids only drank hot chocolate.  I accidently deleted a picture of us at the table but have this one of Holland and Jane crossing Rope Bridge during our morning hike.

Now for the good stuff....kitten photos.  We've had them for two weeks.  They are 8 weeks old

We celebrated two birthdays Sunday evening - Bjorn's on July 18 and Bev's on the 24th.

More kitten photos next week.