It Was A Dark and Stormy Night . . .

The fog enveloped everything in sight. Only the sound of the ocean could be heard beyond the beckoning wind. She walked closer. Soon she would disapear . . . . .

A-hem

Mr. Beachy stopped by today to tell me to get on the schtick and get back to blogging! This has been a busy month and there's lots to write about. Right now I'm sitting in a very warm room in a house that looks like I'm still moving in. There's chaos everywhere, but it's too hot to do anything except sweat.

My three children were in town to visit this past week. The time went so fast! But we did get a chance to spend two nights at the Coast. Kaliedoscope had reserved a great room with a loft and a balcony looking out over the beach in Newport. The weather was in constant flux and a blanket fog kept rolling around with one morning that was clear and sunny. Besides loving the fact that all three of my girls and one little grandson were with me, I loved walking along the beach. Blue loved running. There are so many soft colors. The sand takes on many patterns. Little creatures scurry along the rim of the waves. The sky is huge when the sun was out, and mysterious when the fog covered everything. The wind was chilly but felt good to me. The sand was warm.

And here I'll have to close because I'm too weary to write more. My mind and heart are full to the brim and, yes, Mr. Beachy, I'll try to write all about the visit soon as I can. Thanks for stopping by!

Monday Morning Blog

OK, I know it's been a while. I am exerting great discipline in sitting down and writing this morning. Waylon has been sitting in a ray of sunlight for 45 minutes without moving and that just seems so lucious. I'd like to do that, too. It seems I've been caught in some cyberspace trance where all I want to do when the computer is on is follow various news items or catch up with other people's blogs. My friends are returning from Israel and Zambia so that will cut down on time spent reading their blogs.

Yesterday I traveled to St. Paul, Oregon and found more roses than my yard can hold! That cuts down the internet search for roses. It's not really rose buying time in Portland. Most of the nurseries have only the left over tattered roses no one wanted. But I am ready to plant roses and wanted to find a couple that I'd cared for at St. Boniface. In my stack of old rose catalogs I found a long forgotten one from "Heirloom Roses" and discovered it is located just 40 minutes from here! Since this is the Pauline Year for Catholics, I decided a trip to St. Paul, Oregon would be an appropriate adventure. The Heirloom Rose Garden rivals any rose garden I've seen so far....and that is saying a lot for someone from The City of Roses. Even the map of their garden layout is 25 pages long! (No pictures - just mapping out where each rose is located) They have a greenhouse full of rose starts and I picked out 9 to take home. Ballerina and Sally Holmes and Play Girl were three of the starts I'd been looking for. The others are variations on old single roses that I hadn't seen before. One is Kew Rambler and another is called Summer Wine. I picked out one called Mavourneen just because of the name and can't find that rose's description anywhere. But you know it's got to be good with a name like that. They gave me a "mystery rose", too, so I'll have a couple surprises next summer.

Blue and I drove up to Ridgefield one day. I was feeling sick but too restless to stay home in bed. We were the only ones at the Refuge. Got to see the American Bittern I saw on my very first trip there. Maybe it was the same. They are such a funny looking bird. I'll try to post a picture if I can find one. Also got to watch a bald eagle fishing. He was great. Usually I see immature eagles which still have brown plumage and don't look so regal. This one had his whites and definitely ruled.

Then we saw our coyote! He was almost invisible. Crouched down in the middle of a recently mowed field, he looked just like one of the clumps of hay. We stopped the car and watched him for an hour or more. At first I thought he must be a young coyote waiting for his mom to come back from a hunting trip. Every minute or so he'd pick up his head from the ground and look around. He got up once and stretched, then turned a circle and lay down again just like any old dog. Finally I spotted another coyote moving along the fence line. Our coyote jumped up and chased that one off so far and fast it was amazing. Then he proudly sauntered back to his watch spot, so satisfied - an accomplished guadian of his territory.

My next blog will be entitled "Ghost Stories". SIE and I have been playing camping. Lately it's involved scary stories around the campfire. Stay tuned!

Bits and Pieces

Today was the kind of melt-in-your-chair type day that made me feel slower mentally than a slug. It's the kind of day that you just want to hop in and out of the shower all day long. Our only outside activity was walking across the street in the early AM to look at a rummage sale, then to move our car to the shady side of the street, then to water the plants in the evening. A friend stopped over with her two dogs, so I guess we were outside then for a few minutes.

Yesterday was also hot and I took a really long nap, then drove over to Reed College so Blue could have an off-leash run. Reed College is the beautiful kind of college that makes college life seem romantic and idyllic. The buildings are brick and would probably be ivy covered if ivy wasn't an invasive species here. We are a no tolerance state in that regard. There are rolling green lawns and old, old trees with concrete benches under them. Dr. Egeria was here a few weeks ago for a conference - that's how I came to visit this place for the first time. She stayed in one of the dorms and they even had a firplace in her room. That's like High Church but in educational terms.

Blue and I went over there armed with a campus map. We found the "canyon trail" and went around the long 1/2 of the lake. It was a nicely kept trail, but I kept getting spider webs in my face so it might not be well traveled. There were ducks and ducklings and so many crows that it could have been a scene out of The Birds. I have never watched crows play in water before. They were quite comical dive bombing into the water or landing on fallen logs then diving in, crowing with wild abandon. I guess even crows like to cool off on these super hot days. Blue almost caught a couple squirels. There was a father and his two little daughters on the path across the lake so we weren't totally alone. But it was an eerie place to walk - seemed like the kind of place to dump a body. I also kept hoping not to see a coyote. From a car I love to watch them; on foot I really don't want to get close. This part of campus definitely was wild enough to have coyotes and more critters that aren't exactly urbanites. There was a bench with a college couple sleeping on it and at one turn someone had set up a folding table with a lamp and long extension cord leading back to a dorm window. If you have enough bug repellent, I guess this would be a wonderful study spot.

Bits and Pieces was an early 60s song by The Dave Clark Five,I think - an English pop group rival to the Beatles.

And now, my friendlies, I'm melting! I'm melting. m e l t..i n g g g................

Stand Back Steven Speilberg

It took a lot longer to download this video than it did to take it. It might take all of 30 seconds to view it. Make sure your audio is on. Miss Ingu is striking out into new realms of art. I hope it works!

Lucky Is Home

Just an update to let everyone know that the dog we found last week is home and happy. It was a Saturday all-consumed with finding the dog's owner. Kaliedoscope Girl and I had posted a few notices about a lost dog on-line. People would call and tell me their dog's name and I would try to call her but she never responded. It seemed like she like being called Lucky - at least that name got her attention.

So Saturday morning..... I cleaned the carpet in the little room and reassured all involved that he fireworks were over for another year. Then I folded up the back seat of the Jeep and loaded in Blue and the stray dog. Blue took her usual front seat. Captain Bogg aka Lucky needed a collar and a boost up to get into the back of the Jeep. She must be a well traveled dog because she got herself comfortable and because she is big, could watch out the window with ease.

First stop was Dove-Lewis Animal Clinic in the NW where they said they would do a free micro-chip scan. They were so very nice that I would recommend them to anyone looking for emergency pet care or for a donation destination. There was no chip to be found, but one of the clerks called several places checking to see if this dog was theirs.

Then we drove to the Washington County Animal Shelter. Portland is made up of 3 different counties. I never heard of that before moving here. I thought cities made up counties. We had to find the shelter closest to where we found the dog, hoping that that was the shelter her family would check first. And it was a l o n g drive out to the Hillsboro/Beaverton area. It reminded me of driving out Rt 125 in Cincinnati with all the businesses and car dealerships lining the road. Oh! But wait! There is a Goodwill. Must remember to stop there on the way home.

We arrived at the shelter and I took the dog in....leaving Blue with a deserted look on her face....as if CB and I were going to Graeters without her. I was filling out papers when one of the clerks came up and asked me if I was the one who had posted the lost dog photos on Craig's List. I was. Her owners had just been there and flipped through their file of lost dog notices and they were 100% sure that this was their dog. They were so excited that they took my phone number but didn't leave any info about themselves! OH NO. The shelter thought I should leave the dog there and then when these people called just tell them where she was. The only problem was that the shelter was closing until Monday in just a couple hours and who knew if I could get home in time to receive and return a phone message and if the people were close enough to pick her up in time.

It all worked out. I arrived home to two messages from the grateful owners and called them back in time. And here is what they told me. The dog is 11 years old and lives in a little country town about 10 miles from the shelter. She was frightened during the lightening storm on Wednesday night and had run "over the hill". When she didn't come back they started looking and calling and posting signs. Several people called to say they had seen her running. It turns out that a lot of the neighbors in that town had helped raise this dog and her sister. The summer she was born, the mother dog got into some elk meat left out by a neighbor and was poisoned. She left 9 puppies that had to be hand fed and even tube fed until they were strong enough to suck. The vet showed them how and because the couple worked, neighbors took turns feeding the pups every couple hours. The vet helped them find homes for 7 of the puppies and they kept the 2 sisters. The people told me that the sister dog had been beside herself without this dog. So our over-night guest was reunited and called by her real given name - "Sissy". There's more - Guess what the sister dog's name is....."Lucky".

In The Early Morning Rain

What could be better? I'm sitting on the porch on a Saturday morning with a cup of coffee and a small piece of left-over pineapple bundt cake. There is a misty rain left over from last night. Much cooler than last week at this time. A-h-h-h!

This past week Kaliedoscope, SIE, and Miss Ingu ventured to the Pacific Coast for a couple days. We had a little room near Cannon Beach (that is the beach Fireling and Bikerboy visited last year). That is also the beach you may have read about in the journey of Lewis and Clark. They were camping for the winter about 3 miles north and decided to investigate a report of a beached whale. They weren't going to take Sacagawea with them. After all her help along the trip, she threw a fit and swore not to help them anymore if they didn't take her. I love to think we were standing where she did.

The 1st evening there, we flew a kite that SIE and I had made several weeks ago. He was able to get it up right away. So exciting because I've never really been able to fly a kite more than 4 or 5 feet in the air. Later we measured the string and we had let it out 154 feet!

We walked over toward Haystack Rock. That's a huge rock sticking up out of the ocean. It is covered in birds nesting - mostly sea gulls. But I got to see my 1st puffin! This was a Puffin Watch Week and they had counted 53 puffins.

When the tide goes out the area around Haystack Rock is called a Marine Garden. There are tide pools full of seaweed and all kinds of sea life and the rocks that are usually underwater are coverred in barnacles, shell fish, and anemones. It happened that Thursday morning was the lowest tide in a really long time. Someone said it was the lowest since 1907, but I don't really know if that's true. It was at -2.0. SIE and I got up early and we were able to walk out on the ocean sand almost 1/2 way around the main rock. Plus we saw lots of really tall rocks that had been hidden underwater. We saw hundred of large purple and orange starfish clinging to the walls. They were big - I guess about a foot across and they have a pattern of small white bumps on them that look like a spiderweb has been carefully spread over each one. We also saw some bright green tentacled things that looked like rubber bath toys. I'll have to look them up to see what they were.

One day we drove up through Ecola Park ("E-cula" is the native word for "whale"). We got to see 3 elk grazing really close to the road. They were big. They were a soft chocolate brown with black-brown head and neck; one of them had velvety antlers growing.

The place we were staying had an indoor pool. One morning SIE and his mom went swimming for 3 straight hours. I don't think he would have left the pool except that we promised him breakfast at a place called "Pig and Pancakes". K-girl had packed a book titled "If You Give a Pig a Pancake" so it seemed like a perfect place to eat.

As we returned home the highway takes us over the Coast Range through stands of tall fir trees and then along orchards and farmland on rolling hills toward Portland. About 30 miles from home a large border collie was weaving in and out of traffic. K-girl pulled over to the curb and openned the door. The dog jumped in without any coaxing. Poor thing must have been running and searching for his her people. She was covered in dirt and had thorny twigs matted in her long fur. Right away SIE named her "Captain Bogg" and we started calling her "Lucky". She is staying with me for a couple nights while we try to find her owners. Last night the fireworks went on for hours here and the animals were shaking they were so scared. Blue and Waylon spent the night on my bed and the stray dog slept on the floor next to us with her head under the bed as far as she could get it. I woke up this morning to find out that Lucky had properly christened the carpet in the little front room. Yuck and gag! There goes a little more purgatory off my karma.

All in all a beautiful week and lovely cool morning.

Cry Out With Joy To The Lord, All The Earth

That's the first line of psalm 100. It crosses my mind every morning and it really makes me happy to think of all of creation praising the Lord in its own way. Even when it's hot, like it has been here for the last couple days. HOT! So hot that I can only do a little bit of stuff before I want to lie down and take a nap. Blue and Waylon apparently feel the same way. Right now Blue is asleep under my desk and Waylon is outside sleeping under a bush.

It's been so hot that poor Hammy collapsed on the floor of her cage and I thought she'd breathed her last...but she's OK today. I don't know what I'd do if she died; she's such a sweet little hamster.

SIE is on vacation this week so his mom, Kaliedoscope Girl, and I are heading off to see the coast tomorrow. She just had her birthday - on a day in Portland that was as hot as the day she was born in Chicago. Half the guests were under age 5 and spent the party in the backyard seeing how wet they could get - water balloons, squirt guns, and wading pool provided - plus one crazy Hapapapa who kept egging them on. "Wet" = the only way to keep cool. SIE and I made her a lamb cake and the whipped cream gently rolled down the lamb melting into sliced strawberries. Someone called it a camel cake, I think because a naked lamb looks sort of like a camel, but maybe because only a camel could make it through the heat to a party.

I've been working on one of my projects and I'm not sure if I've already told you all about it. I had a kitchen table made to fit the spot in my kitchen that looks like a dining spot. It's made from reclaimed wood and looks like a "Little House in the Prairie" table. Hapapapa said it looks like a table Jesus would make. I've been wanting to stain it and gotten several opinions from people about how to and how not to go about it. Every idea seemed like a little more expense and too much troulbe driving around to look for supplies. So I finally decided to use my old artist's ingenuity. I had some burnt sienna oil paint, a jar of linseed oil, and a hunk of bees wax already in my art supplies. So last week I mixed the oils together and stained the table soaking in the aroma which reminds me of growing up. My mom used to oil paint and she'd put the brushes in her mouth to make the hairs form a point - artists do that. I always thought of her kisses as a combination of lipstick, coffee, and oil paint. It took a couple days for the table to dry - yes, even in this heat! Then I melted the bees wax (my only expense - a $2.00 enamel stove-top pan from the thrift shop) and started painting it onto the table. The 1st area go too thick, so I got out my hair dryer and was able to smooth the extra wax over to a bare spot. Then with an old cloth and the hair dryer, I was able to finish the table top. I love that the wax was made by bees and not petroleum. For some reason I can't figure out, it is very soothing to me to work the wax into the wood. H-mmm?

Next is to finish recovering the sofa and making curtains and my little house will look good! And before long the chilly, wet days of Portland winter will be upon us.

Baby Soon

I've been hoping to paint a picture of the Beachys for my living room. I have the spot ready and the materials...just not the time. I know it will get done before long. I was thinking it would be a nice surprise for Mr. Beachy and Peaches. They've been such fun to have around. And Mr. Beachy has been great working in the garden. Peaches has been busy caring for the baby. But today she surprised me! She brought me a photo of Soon! It's the first "official" baby portrait of dear baby Soon and I think it's so cute. Almost as cute as Soon herself! Don't you just want to hug her? SIE loves her pointy ears. Thank you, dear Peaches!

So How Do They Do That?

I know dogs can be taught a lot of things - like hunting and drug sniffing and fetch. And I know there are training classes for dogs. And I suppose some dogs just have a propensity toward something or other - like Huskies pulling sleds through snow, or bloodhounds tracking lost kids. But something happened the other day that puzzles me and I would love it if someone knows just how they do this.

SIE was over one afternoon this week. He brought his new bike (see www.jodessa.com/blog/ for pictures) and we decided to ride down to the playground near my house. His two dogs were here so we left the back door open so they and Blue could hang out in the back yard. There's a fence around the yard and I am pretty sure that Blue could jump it, but she hasn't figured that out yet. When I first got her I would put two baby gates on top of each other to try to keep her out of the room where I took care of the babies. She would jump it no matter how high and how little running room she had. But so far at our new house, she hasn't jumped the fence, or dug out, or learned to unlatch the gate.

The playground is two blocks from my house and around the back of a school. Blue and SIE and I have gone on walks through the neighborhood in every direction, but only twice to the playground together. On this day, we were down at the playground for about 20 minutes when here comes Blue with a big smile on her face. She had an expression that looked like this was just a normal occurance. I paniced because I wasn't sure how she got out or where the other dogs might be. We went home right away and there was Hapapapapa and the two dogs starting down the street to find us. He had dropped by and perhaps hadn't fastened the gate tight enough when he walked over to the store. When he returned, his two dogs were resting in the grass next to his truck. Smart Dogs!

So, all turned out well and I have just been pondering ever since. How did Blue know where we were? She's a wonder dog, but this I never suspected. Could she smell our tracks? Could she hear our voices from that far away? Could she understand when we were talking about where we were going? If anyone has an idea, let me know.