The Story of Timmy - August 9, 2012

I've mentioned the neighbor's cat, Timmy, before, but I haven't related his story.

A number of years ago, when our neighbor, Bill, lived south of town, he had an orange cat named Timmy.  One day Timmy failed to return home, and Bill assumed he had met an untimely end, perhaps at the hands of a predator.  Four years later, Bill got a phone call from a local vet.  He said, "We have your cat."  "I don't have a cat," said Bill.  The vet told him someone had found a cat, turned it in to the vet, and he had checked the chip in the cat and found Bill's name.  So Timmy was returned to his original owner.  No one knows where Timmy was during those four years.  He may have found a new home, or he may have been out on the loose.

During those four years, Bill had married and moved to the house next door to ours.  Now they have a dog and a new cat, a Siamese named Obie.  Apparently, Timmy doesn't like the dog or the cat, and doesn't much care for the new wife either.  So he refuses to go in the house except to eat.  When we moved into our house, he was spending most of his time in the front arborvitae hedge.  We eventually made friends with Timmy, and he seems to consider us his family.  Whenever one of us is outside, he is right there to keep us company.

Now that the front hedge is gone, Timmy has found some new places to sleep.  When it's cold he sleeps in the arborvitae hedge in the backyard.  We've just planted a couple of new trees near the house, and he seems to like them, especially now that we've put down nice soft mulch.

I recently put straw mulch in the vegetable garden, and he finds this to be comfortable as well.

But Timmy's all time favorite place to sleep is on 'his' chair on the deck in the shade.  He's really figured out how to get comfortable there.

Timmy almost never comes in the house, except for an occasional mad dash if we happen to leave the door open.  But as soon as he's inside, he quickly realizes his error and dashes out again.  He's pretty much left the birds alone, except for going after the occasional juvenile junco on the ground.  His primary prey is bees and other insects, which he eats if he catches them.

What's amazing is that Timmy doesn't seem to mind that we disappear for four months.  When we arrived home in April he was still here.  He probably wondered why no one had come out to refill his water dish, but otherwise everything was back to normal.

As far as we're concerned this is the best kind of pet to have.  Someone else feeds him and takes care of his medical needs.  We get all the love.

Cracked Pots - July 24, 2012

Every year there's a really fun event at McMenamins Edgefield in Troutdale.  It's called Cracked Pots.  It's a show and sale of art created entirely from recycled materials.  Yesterday we went to Edgefield and spent the night in order to be there for today's show.

Edgefield opened in 1911 as the county poor farm.  It continued as such until the 1940s, when it transitioned to a nursing home.  It closed in 1982 and fell into disrepair until the 1990s when the McMenamin brothers restored it and opened it as a pub and restaurant, then later a hotel.  The decor is the same in all their hotels, including the Old St. Francis School in Bend, where we stayed recently.  Edgefield is much larger than the school, however.  Here are a few photos of the facilities.

David spent some time on the side porch.

This is the beautiful outdoor soaking pool.

The McMenamins trademark decor is lots of painted surfaces, some quite surprising.

 

The art show was on the grounds surrounding the lodge.  Here is a sample of what was there. 

 

 We bought a piece of garden art for the front yard. 

Ashland - July 4, 2012

We made our annual family trip to Ashland to see some plays and eat lots of good food.  As it happens, the time we chose included the Fourth of July.  This is a big deal in Ashland.  The main streets are closed all day for the parade and lots of other activities.  The newspaper said 20,000 people were expected.

Here's a look down the main street just before the parade started.

There were several antique cars.  These were our favorites.  The first one is a 1913 Cartercar.

Here's the Macaroni Noodle Band.  Macaroni's is a restaurant.

The Boy Scouts were up to no good with two catapults slinging water balloons.

And finally, my favorite entry, from my favorite store.  The Websters is a fabulous yarn store.  They knitted a patchwork cover for their car.

It was a fun day, the weather was perfect, and we even managed to squeeze in two plays that day.

Trip to Bend - June 28, 2012

Instead of doing our usual day trip up to Sisters to do some birding we decided to go up in the afternoon and spend the night in Bend.  Then we'd be able to get an early start on our birding in the morning.  We had also talked to Mary Schmidgall about joining us for the birding part, as she was going to be up there anyway on other business. 

We arrived in Bend about 4:30 in the afternoon and checked in to our hotel, at the Old St. Francis School.  It's one of the McMenamin's conversions, which are all over Oregon.  They're always fun and funky.  This one is an old Catholic school dating back to 1936. 

Our room was very nice and spacious.  The walls had been covered with heart pine from an old Jim Beam distillery warehouse in Kentucky. 

One of the interesting features of the hotel is the tiled soaking pool. 

After getting settled in our room, we walked a couple of blocks to the farmer's market, which was small but very nice.  Another short walk took us to the banks of the Deschutes River.  The banks are lined with beautiful homes and parks.

We walked through the downtown area, looking for a place for dinner.  Nothing really jumped out at us, so we returned to the St. Francis and had a wonderful dinner there.  After dinner we set out walking again, this time in the nearby neighborhood.  There were lots of interesting older homes.  We even found a 'Cadishack.'

The next morning we had another great meal at the hotel, then headed for Sisters, where we met Mary.

Our first stop was at Indian Springs campground, where we spotted something moving in a birdhouse up on a tree.  No birds here, just a couple of chipmunks.

 The weather was great and we had a fun day of birding.  Our most exciting find was a chestnut-sided warbler, which we had heard about.  We found it easily and all had great looks at it.  It's really a beautiful little bird.

We had lunch in Sisters at the Depot Deli, then continued birding the area.  About 4:00 we finally decided to call it a day and headed for home. 

Last Rhodie Standing - June 15, 2012

Today we removed the last of the big overgrown rhododendrons in our yard.  This one was in the front yard, the one remaining after we had several others removed.  We had hoped that we might be able to cut it way back and have it sprout, but it was not to be.  It's one of the type that will not regrow from a cut branch.  So David got out our trusty little electric chain saw and cut it down.  We are now totally open to the street, but it seems o.k.  We will eventually plant some tall shrubs out there to fill in the space.

Here's the view from the front walk by the house. The rhododendron was on the far side of the dry stream, about in line with the small hazelnut tree along the fence.

This is the view from the driveway.

The weeding in the front yard is almost finished, just in time for our bark mulch to arrive next week.

Back Deck - June 5, 2012

We've been working to make the back deck a little more private and inviting.  To that end, we've added a row of potted plants behind the table and chairs to make it seem more cozy.

Most of the plants are shrubs, which will eventually go in the ground, probably in the front yard.  For now, they make a nice screen.

The second thing we've done is to add a lattice screen outside the sliding door off the dining room.  It blocks the view of nearby rooftops and looks a lot nicer from the dining room.

The vegetable garden is starting to take off, finally, after some nice warm weather and then a bit of rain.

We've had some snap peas, and the lettuce and spinach are ready to pick. 
We ate our first two strawberries today! 

New Stuff - May 28, 2012

We've been busy working on the front yard.  It's nearly finished, we just need to do a little more weeding and then add the bark mulch.

In the meantime, we've also added a few new things to the house.

After a winter of wood fires, well actually a partial winter, we decided that we'd rather have the convenience of a gas fireplace.  So we had an insert installed.

Unlike the gas fireplace in our last house, this one has a fan, so it's a lot better at heating.  Our last one looked good but was really more for atmosphere.  And our new one will work if the power goes out, so it will be an effective backup heat system.

The other thing we added is a Solatube in the ceiling in the dining room.  After seeing the ones Andrew and Janine put in, we decided that it was a good idea.  It provides a lot of daylight to the kitchen and dining room.

As soon as the front yard is mulched I'll post photos of the front and back gardens.