04-20-2022 A Sweet April Part 1

At last I am getting back to writing about the beautiful month of April.  What I call “Green Leaf Day” burst in its full backlit glory on exactly April First.  The skies were gorgeous early in the month and Mo and I spent several days mowing, weeding, trimming, hauling, and enjoying the beautiful weather.  

Deb and Mo in the Expo court yard at the Oregon Cheese Festival

We began the month of April with a fabulous visit to the Oregon Cheese Festival in nearby Central Point at the Jackson County Fair Expo.  The event has been cancelled for the last two years because of Covid, and in previous years it seemed that we were either traveling, or caught up in something and too busy to attend. Searching the memory banks, I discovered the last time we attended the festival was in 2012!

This time we went with Daughter Deborah and had a great time. In addition to artisan cheeses from all over Oregon, there were wineries, breweries, and distilleries, offering tastes of their specialties.  It was a lovely, sunny day, and I purchased a ridiculous amount of yummy cheese, but Deborah bought even more than I did.

Then on April 9 the snow came, not just flurries, but real snow that actually stuck and turned everything white.  Since that date, the days have been many variations of cold, wet, rainy, a little bit snowy, blustery, and not conducive to doing much outdoor work.  Mo still manages to keep busy with various repair projects around the place, either in her wood shop or in the RV shed.

This part of Oregon has seen more rain this month that we received throughout January, February, and March.  It is a blessed relief to hope that maybe the hot, dry, scary days of summer will be a bit delayed and maybe, just maybe the fires might not come as early as they have in the last few years.  I am writing this on May 10, and we have yet to spread the gravel we ordered at the first of the month or begin setting up the sprinklers.  Last year at this time I was irrigating daily.

We have no problem entertaining ourselves when it is damp and cold.  I spent time quilting, making some placemats for friends.  My favorite part of quilting is playing with my stash of fabrics, deciding what I want to put together into something useful.

I decided to try a mail order meal program called, “Hello Fresh”, and had great fun cooking.  I cook a lot, but like most cooks I have a style of my own.  My tendency to repeat certain seasonings and flavorings and ways of cooking is no doubt similar to most cooks.  I also get bored sometimes with trying to come up with something for dinner…again. 

With the Hello Fresh program, I chose 3 or 4 meals for a week for not much more than it would have cost me to shop and purchase the ingredients.  It was a kick, and I learned some new cooking techniques and alternative seasonings and sauces.  If nothing else, it got me out of my cooking rut.  I won’t continue much longer, but in the mean time, so far, Mo has enjoyed every one of the meals we have chosen.

I let myself get lost in puzzles again, wondering how I spent 75 years of my life without getting addicted to this simple, but engrossing pastime. 

Just before Easter, I got a call from Daughter Deanna, who lives in northern Washington State.  She and husband, Keith, needed to drive south for a quick overnight to pick up some equipment for her company in Central Point.  It was a quick trip, without much time for visiting, but we managed to get all of us together for a delightful afternoon at the local Applebee’s.  Daughter Melody drove south from Eugene for the get-together.  It was the first time in a long time that I have had all three daughters together.  Even for only a few hours, over margueritas and a good meal, it was a special time for me.

The next day the deck chairs that we had ordered from Home Depot arrived.  They turned out beautifully, but thank goodness Mo was around to manage all those screws and bolts.  What a project!!  We are happy to have nice, sturdy, comfortable chairs to share with guests when we dine on the deck in the future.

With the dreary weather I wasn’t inspired much to bring in all the Easter décor, but once I did I was glad I had done it.  All those bunnies and the cute pastel stuff can make even a dreary day seem like spring.

Easter was simple, with our friends Maryruth and Gerald joining us with Daughter Deborah,  and Grandson Matthew.  We made a very traditional meal, with a wonderful ham from our local meat specialty shop and the traditional green beans with bacon and scalloped potatoes.  Deborah made a yummy lemon cake that was so good.

Other sweet times for me included my bi-weekly Tuesday morning coffee date with friend Kristin and her adorable daughter Ruby.  It’s kinda nice when a sweet little girl greets me with big hugs and hellos.  I met Kristin through the book club, and while there are many nice ladies there, Kristin has become a true friend, a delight.

The entire month of April was filled with the fragrance of our huge, old lilac bush.  I have no idea how old it is, and I am sure that it has never received any irrigation or much care over the decades.  I have started attempting to trim the suckers from the base each year.  The long, chilly spring was good for the flowers.  The lilacs lasted for weeks, the tulips opened, and stayed fresh and full without blowing out from the heat as they normally do. 

The grass grew fast enough I had to try to find time to mow in between rains at least once a week and Mo managed to mow the pasture a few times as well.  I am grateful for the cool, moist rains, but I am also very ready for some sunshine and warmth.  The gardens are waiting, the gravel needs spreading and the sprinklers need work!

November: It is Over

Current Location: Klamath Falls Oregon, at 40 degrees F with snow coming tomorrow.

Berries on the madrones in our yard at Grants Pass

For me, May and October are the very best months.  I can never decide which I love best.  Springtime promise or the brilliance of gorgeous October days.  It is the same with February and November, on the opposite side of the spectrum.  Which do I like least.  Both months require an artist’s eye to see something other than gloom.  My friend Jeanne, back in Vermont, calls it “Stick Season”, an apt description. 

Dirt piles from the new septic evaluation, all now approved and ready to install

For now, though, it is November.  After the wettest October on record for Grants Pass, we are heading into winter.  The last of the leaves on the east side of the Cascades have fallen, while the color is just past peak on the west side.  We cross back and forth between these two worlds in about 2 hours, coming and going between our homes. 

When I say it is over, of course, part of what I refer to is “the election”.  Yeah that one.  Only time will tell if the dire predictions of one half of the country come to pass or the rosy promises of a bright future surprise the other half of the country. And that is all I am going to say about that here. 

The other thing that is over, the very good thing, is that the Rocky Point house sale is final.  Closing went without a hitch, on the day it was supposed to, papers all signed, and money in the bank.  Neat as a pin.

Mo planted this maple at Rocky Point in 2002

Mo and I went there one last time, to pick up the random garbage cans, and load up the cleaning supplies and vacuum cleaner.  I walked around the place, looking at the little trees we planted over the years that are now matured, remembering the sunny summer days we spent together working in the yard, bowling Bocci with the kids on the sloping lawn, cooking hot dogs on pitchforks at the edge of the forest over a campfire.

We planted this Japanese maple in 2010 when it was barely a whip

I didn’t feel the least bit sad, even though I took some time to give myself space to grieve a bit.  It wasn’t necessary.  Amazing memories, and yet no sadness or regret slipped into the joy that at last it was over.  Done.  Now the new owners can plow that snow and blow that roof and drive 40 minutes each way to the grocery store. 

I haven’t had the time to keep up on blogs lately, reading a few that I love, rarely commenting.  Until this past year, Mo and I traveled almost half the time, managing to get the rig out every single month for a few days or a week or a month, sometimes three.  This past year that has slipped, and I do miss our travels.  Mo said yesterday, “Well, we have a choice.  We can have a home or we can do all that other stuff that we enjoy.  Eventually we will do both again, but not right now.  Make your choice”. 

Mo planted this beech in 2004.  It took almost 4 years for it to get above the rock.

So I thought about it.  I spent a few moments thinking about how it would be to dump the idea of the house and simply keep living here at the apartments into old age, going to Grants Pass and the acre and the cottage, where the MoHo lives as a second home.  But the bottom line is that neither of us have any desire to be “full-timers”.  We want our home to return to when the road gets tiresome.  And we are old enough that an exit strategy would have to be in place, and that exit strategy would include a home somewhere.  Grants Pass is our exit strategy, our home for our last decade or so of life.  For the few moments I tried to imagine letting go of life to come on the cottage acre and building a home there, replacing it with world cruises or full time RV life, I only felt rootless. Not freedom.  Choices, it is always about choices.  It was fun to consider the options and fun to reaffirm that our choice is the best one for the life we want to live.

The pump house is finished, except for the final paint which will come after the house it built, and that sweet little building is filled with some serious high tech water management equipment.  We have the main well, which pumps raw water into our first 1700 gallon cistern installed last year.  A pump in that cistern sends water up to the first big pressure tank by way of a simple sediment filter, then that pressure tank sends water into the softening system.  From there, the softened water enters the reverse osmosis unit, with two big membranes that purify the product water to less than 3ppm of anything.  The R.O uses 4 gallons of water to produce 2.5 gallons of pure final product, which is then sent to the second 1700 gallon cistern.  From that cistern, another pump sends the water back to the second pressure tank which then sends that pure, sweet, fabulous water into the house. The waste water product exits the system into a gravity flow drain area which will subirrigate the fenceline shrubs which seem to be tolerant of the salt content.  Amazing system. 

Next year, when I start irrigating with this water, I will have to pay attention to the input and output of all parts of the system so I know just how long I can run whatever drip sprinklers we set up.  Some plants that we have don’t mind the salt, so I can use the raw water for them, but others that I took to Grants Pass had leaves turning brown and crispy, so those plants will get good water when all is said and done. 

I took a bath in that water, and oh my…what a treat.  No scum on the tub, silky baby soft hair, and no iron to stain the clothes.  I have said it before and will say it again.  There is nothing quite as wonderful as really good water, no matter the price.  If in the future, for any reason, we have trouble with the well and have to drill deeper, we already have the system in place to purify whatever water we get.  It is a big deal.

In late October, the “sand pears” were ready for canning.  Hard as little rocks, these pears don’t ever seem to ripen, and when they fall off the tree, they are still very hard.  I learned that they are called “canning pears” and once peeled and cooked they give of a heady perfume in the kitchen, and instead of getting all soft and mushy they stay slightly firm and are incredibly delicious. 

We spent a week or so each time at the Cottage, with Mo still working on her wood shop, and I started the big annual project of raking leaves.  I would rake a few hours each day and then retreat to the kitchen table to do some more quilting, and finally finally at last I finished my One Block Wonder kaleidoscope quilt.  This quilt was made from only one fabric, cut into a gazillion triangles sewed together into mirrored images creating the kaleidoscope effect.  It was more challenging that I expected, and about 3/4 of the way through I decided that I really didn’t like it.  I have learned that is a common response for me, however, and now that it is finished, I love it.  The fabric was one I bought years ago, and is one of my favorites.  I will put the top away and wait to quilt it until maybe the aforementioned month of February, when a burst of garden color will be much needed.

The grass just starting to green up after one rain

The grass after a couple of weeks of rain

One thing about living on the west side of Oregon that natives understand is lawn grass.  It is said that you can tell a true Oregonian by how brown their lawns are in the summer.  I spend a lot of time and energy making sure that my little patch of “real” lawn grass at the cottage is nice and green, especially appreciated when the temperatures are over 100 degrees and the rest of the acre is a fried crispy brown. 

The most amazing transformation happens when the rains start.  This year, instead of waiting until November, our rains started up in October, and literally, in a matter of days, the thin, crispy, brown stuff that you would swear was completely dead started greening up.  Our acre went from hard and crunchy to green and lush in less than a week.  A truly amazing thing to experience.  One of the minor joys of living on the west side.  It will stay green all winter, but Mo won’t have to mow until spring because the cool temperatures keep things in check.

Mo and I worked together, loading leaves into the little trailer and making trips to the composting area of the county landfill.  We learned after a couple of years in Grants Pass that this was a much better solution than trying to wait for the few burn days.  The piles were incredibly huge, made some awful smoke, and required days of standing around with a rake and pitchfork to make sure nothing got away from us.  The cost is more, but at least it benefits the environment more than all that smoke.

OFF TO THE COAST!!

Finally, finally at last, tomorrow we are ready to hook up the Tracker and point the MoHo toward the west.  It may be November, it may be raining, but who cares, we are heading for the Coast.  We haven’t been to Harris Beach all year, and are looking forward to a few days doing nothing but hanging out, walking the beach, hiking the trails, and eating fish and chips.  It has been much much much too long!

A new addition to the family

Current Location: Rocky Point Oregon sunny, warm, and gorgeous!

How many times can I write an opening sentence for a story? Guess I’ll revert to an old technique I learned in some great Gestalt therapy I had many years ago.  “What are you feeling right this moment?” 

The sun is shining brilliantly into my office window.  I am in a sundress, with bare feet and it is barely May.  Wonderful.  Today I planted a few goodies in the greenhouse, even a couple of tomatoes.  That goes completely against all the rules that say don’t plant a thing in the Klamath Basin until after Memorial Day.  Or at least Mother’s Day. 

I guess I am having a hard time with opening sentences because things are beginning, things are ending.  Some things are basically right in the middle, and my mind is finally settling down after a crazy month of working on the Klamath Falls Painter Street house and dealing with getting her on the market. 

And of course, knowing that a surgery is coming up has been always in the background, creating a deadline, and just bugging me in general.

And now it is basically here.  Mo has the MoHo in the driveway and the Tracker hooked up for the trip to Springfield tomorrow where we will park for free in the hospital lot with electrical hookups.  At least if they aren’t all full.  Otherwise she will be boondocking in the lot until something comes open while I languish in the comfy, air conditioned, fully electrified big fancy hospital.

Should be fun.

I probably wouldn’t have done a blog post at all about any of this if it weren’t for one thing.  We found a dog, and yes, in spite of the business of life, we decided it was time.

Our very smart, very well thought out decision to wait at least until after our fall trip to Ireland just flew out the window when Mo said, “Hey, look at this.  You have to see this little dog” and she showed me an internet photo of “Tilly”, a 2 year old rat terrier/mix at the Klamath Humane Society.  She had a sweet face.  Mo didn’t really want a little dog, so her reasoning was that if I got a little dog for myself, a little lap dog of sorts, I might miss my cat a bit less, and then she could later find a medium sized dog to her liking.  Two dogs?  We already said we wouldn’t get any animals again for a long time.

Animal lovers know how silly it is to say that.  Somehow when there is a vacancy in a home that has had loving animals, it is like water flowing into a low spot.  Something happens and the new family member shows up. 

Tilly has been renamed and she now is “Mattie”.  Eleven pounds of fear and anxiety.  We have taken on a project.  I knew when we found her that it might be like this.  She was so afraid, and what little history we had of her life explained why.  Shuttled from Shafter, California as a stray several months ago, then to Sacramento, to Redding, then to Klamath Falls, she is afraid of most everything at the moment.  Except sitting in my lap.

When we took her to the visiting room, she was fine on my lap, but when she was put down on the floor she ran to a corner and tried to make herself as small as possible.  What in the world happened to her?  We will never know. 

There are many things about her that are encouraging, most of all the fact that she completely loves to be held, to be in my lap.  After a few days, she will now look me in the eye, and loves to have her ears rubbed.  Today she finally ate a bite, drank some water, and thank goodness piddled outside.  She had surgery on Thursday, so that was an excellent milestone.

She is afraid of the outdoors, and when I take her out will anxiously run back to the house if I let her. But each time it gets a little bit better.  She has shown no signs of aggression, except for a tiny growl in PetSmart as we were fitting her harness.  She growled at a big dog passing by.  Shocked the heck out of both of us, and we have yet to hear her bark.

Yeah, the timing may be a little strange, but then again maybe not.  Taking care of a small, needy being is a great way to get outside myself and quit obsessing over stuff. 

Travel?  She loves being in the car, she loves riding in my lap, and she seems to have no issues with separation anxiety.  I think our biggest challenge will be getting her to actually get out of her little bed on her own!  This week will be the first MoHo test with Mo and the little dog, and I have a feeling it will be just fine. 

While you are at it, check out the beautiful quilt on the chair behind me.  Here is a better shot of it.

The amazing women of the Rocky Point quilt guild donate what we call a “huggie” quilt for comfort to anyone in the community who has lost a loved one or is in the hospital at least overnight.  Day surgeries don’t get a quilt.  They surprised me with this very special quilt last week, a bit early, but time to enjoy it a lot before I have to go as well as afterward.  The special story behind this quilt is that each of us made sets of blocks and then put them together after being inspired by a quilt we saw last year at a show.  What a surprise to be on the receiving end of this group effort.

Next on our travel agenda will be a week we have planned at Harris Beach in June.  I plan to be mobile by then and am really looking forward to walking again! Judy will be there volunteering, and has promised another round of her famous New York Chicken!  A week in the MoHo with the little dog at the beach will be a great break from the next round of projects that are on the big transitions list that we have going. 

What Happened to February?

Current Location: Rocky Point Oregon at 35 degrees F and spitting snow mixed in the rain.

February used to be a really tough month for me.  Back in the days of working and living in Northern Idaho, the sun was still low in the sky, the days were still short, the snows deep and tiresome.  I had a tremendous dislike for the month, and when I would call Maryruth, my friend in California, all pissy about whatever, she would say, “Oh, Sue, it’s February.  You will be fine soon”.

Somehow the old paradigm no longer holds.  February can still be long and cold and tiresome, but not this year.  I have no idea what happened to February.  I have daffodils up in the yard, some even with buds on them.  We haven’t shoveled snow even one time this winter.  The tiny skiff that showed up on Christmas lasted for a long breath and was gone. 

Last year we spent February exploring Florida, so that winter doldrums thing never had a chance of finding me. Last winter we had Abby and Jeremy with us as well.  Still trying to adjust to not having them with us.

At the beginning of the month, Mo and I were thinking we only had a short time at home after our January travels to do some house projects before she would be leaving again for Beaverton for a couple of weeks caring for her brother’s dogs while he and his wife vacationed in Hawaii.  We decided to paint Mo’s bedroom.  It is a project that has been on the agenda for a couple of years now, and with all the goings on and traveling that we do, it just never seemed to get top billing.

Took us just two short days to get the job done, but going to town for paint was another day, with some color adjustments here and there before we settled on the pale spring green for the walls.  Mo already had the Cranberry color chosen to match her original watercolor painting gifted by a friend a few years ago.  We enjoyed the project.  Felt good to be doing something around the house again that wasn’t just the everyday kinds of maintenance that a house in the forest always needs.

Immediately after we finished painting, a huge windstorm hit the Klamath Basin and knocked our power out for 19 hours.  We pulled out the oil lamps, heated coffee and food on the wood stove and settled in for the duration.  It was actually kind of nice, although I am glad it didn’t last any longer than it did.  We were within minutes of packing up all our food in the freezer and heading over the mountain to Grants Pass and daughter Deborah’s freezer when everything blinked back on into brilliance.

The rain was needed, but again, it didn’t bring any real snow to our sadly deficient snow pack.  The high winds and saturated soils did create a real mess.  Many trees tipped right out of the wet ground and crashed on the power lines.  The funny thing for us was that we were somehow protected in our little concave draw and the winds went right over us without causing any real trouble on our property.  The worst damage was about 4 miles away where it looked as though a tornado had ripped through.

Another week was spent dealing with complex and tiresome business issues for Mo, with me acting as administrative assistant.  Mo does the hard stuff, but I manage to keep the computers on track.  I even figured out how to create some complex forms that were needed.  That week flew by!  It was almost like working again!!

Another tiresome time thing is an ongoing health issue for me.  Not a big deal, but the surgeon I will be seeing is nearly 200 miles away over the mountain, and as things often go for these kinds of things, we have to make several trips before it will all be resolved.  Tiresome, but I am glad it isn’t anything particularly serious, just irritating.  And did I say Tiresome?  Surgery in April, and recuperation will require no lifting of anything over 5 pounds for something like 90 days.  I haven’t quite figured out how to put a stick of wood on the fire that weighs less than five pounds! 

We enjoyed a day in Medford shopping for Valentine chocolate and having a late afternoon lunch at Olive Garden.  And shopping at the quilt stores, of course.  As I write, I realize that a big part of the past month for me has been finishing a quilt that I saw in Palm Springs when we were there and immediately coveted.  I bought all the fabric and the pattern, and for once actually started on the quilt immediately, while the inspiration was still fresh and the fabric all new and shiny. 

I call it “Sea Dreams in the Desert”.  I started with an idea to make it a simple throw, but loved it so much that I decided to continue and make it a full queen sized quilt for my summer bed.  First time doing something called a “pieced border”.  I guess that explains what happened to February.

Mo left for Beaverton mid month, and on the same day my friend Maryruth drove up from California to spend 8 days of girl time with me.  Her husband held down the fort at home, and Maryruth came loaded with her new sewing machine and lots of fabric for a quilt that she wanted to make.  It was her first and she was excited.

Sometimes in the past we have managed girl time, with a trip to a B and B somewhere, or a meet in the middle kind of visit, but this was different.  We had a whole week at home just the two of us and our sewing machines.  It was like a quilt retreat for two that didn’t cost anything.  We went to Medford to the quilt shops, and had a fabulous dinner at McGrath’s Fish House.  Maryruth ordered the mile high mud pie, but missed the “mile high” part, and we burst into incredulous laughter when her dessert arrived.  What fun!

One night at home we cooked up a fabulous Thai Green Curry Chicken with Pad Thai and it was wonderful.  I had never made a green curry from scratch, so that was a first.  All the traditional Thai flavors of lime, tons of cilantro, lemon grass, ginger, garlic, hot pepper, and about a dozen other herbs and spices went into the curry that was so fragrant and perfectly sweet and spicy.  Mo isn’t all that excited about Thai food and Maryruth’s husband isn’t all that excited about spicy, so it was a food cooking adventure for the two of us that probably won’t be repeated till we get together again.

We took another break from sewing and went to breakfast at our local Harriman’s Resort on Sunday morning.  It was cold and windy, but the sun streaming in was gorgeous and the food was fabulous.  Maryruth has a nice little Nissan Hybrid and will NOT drive in snow, so this was an extra special treat.  In a normal winter, she would have been unable to visit during February. 

Maryruth managed to finish her quilt for her mother, and I managed to finish putting the last big border on my quilt on the day that she left.  It will take 9 yards of fabric to back my quilt.  At 12.99 per yard, that was a bit daunting, in addition to the cost of having it quilted.  I certainly wouldn’t attempt something this big on my own.  Found a perfect batik online for 5.99 a yard so problem solved.

With Maryruth gone, I now have five days to myself here at home, hoping to do some of the detailed chores that I don’t do when Mo is around.  Who knows why.  It is nice having alone time to catch up on details, but I will definitely be happy when Mo returns next week.  Managing the fire alone is a full time job.  It seems I am either starting, stoking, taking away ashes, or bringing up another load of wood all day long.  Mo does most of the fire management when she is here and I help out a bit, but I can see now that what I do isn’t nearly enough.  

Today I am dealing with “stuff”.  We have a five year plan, and sometime during the next five years, I will have to move my stuff.  I really need to get it more organized.  I can’t believe how it gets away from me.  I am fairly well organized, but there are places where that breaks down, such as the office drawers.  I also have a couple of drawers for crafting, and of course I have bins of yarn for knitting and many containers of fabric for quilting.  I am not quite sure how this stuff keeps multiplying, maybe it is those trips to the quilt shops.

So today, I decided that I would try to go through the office “stuff”.  Most of it has been in a small set of drawers beneath my desk, but it seems that I never actually get into those drawers for anything.  Scotch tape, scissors, a bazillion pens and pencils, who knows if they work, and a whole lot of other little thingies that I have no clue what to do with except I can’t quite bring myself to throw it all away. 

I started the project, and then in frustration gave up.  Here is the result!  It is packed and ready for the next stop, and someday maybe I’ll get the nerve to try to figure it out one more time, or just throw it all away.  I can hear you laughing from here.

As the evening progresses, the rain/snow/sleet spitting continues.  Predictions of an inch of snow at our elevation for tonight, but I’ll believe it when I see it.  Can you imagine, no snow all winter and it shows up at the end of February?