mid century madness

If you've been following K's blogs, you'll see that she's really loving the mid-century modern pieces. M and L like them, too. Here's a piece J & L just picked up at a garage sale. J & L were at the garage sale, and I met them there, so that L and I could go look at some fabric. J wondered if I thought this would be a good thing. One look at the clean mid-century lines, the hardware (alone, worth more than what they were asking, easily!), and the dovetailed drawers convinced me. "If you don't buy it, I will." said I. The hesitation was the top of the piece--really dried out, with water marks--not a pretty sight. But I knew Grandpa could probably work his magic. We took it right over to him, and in a week, had it back, looking this beautiful. The best part? The asking price was $22 or best offer. J offered them $20 for the dresser and a little school chair that would be perfect with my antique desk. (I'll be working on that soon--pictures to follow.) The next best part? J & L have another year left in a small apartment, so til then, I get to store this beauty in my front hall.

Durkee, Oregon

For many, many years, my family would travel to Walla Walla, Washington, where my parents' families were from. We could travel through eastern Oregon, up to near Pendleton, where we would cut off on the Indian reservation to go to Walla Walla. Just before Baker City, we would go past Lime, Oregon, which was a big factory, and this little community of Durkee. I was always charmed by the little church we could see off in the distance. When I was little, it was painted pink, then a little later, in my teenage years, a mustard color. On the trip to Portland, I asked K if we could stop for a closer look. We tried to stop on the way, but missed it--"I thought there were TWO exits...". We stopped on the way back, where the church is now painted a sand color.

I have to honestly say that Durkee looked a lot better from far away. There's hardly any information available for Durkee. Wickipedia says its "an unincorprated community in Oregon. It has a post office..." but doesn't even list population. There were a couple of trailer homes and one bigger home, and the post office, and a restaurant nearby, the Long Redneck Cafe, but we never saw it.

It was little on the sad side.

Portland, Oregon

We just returned from Portland, Oregon, home of cool things--excepting the weather this week. According to the news, Portland gets about 14 days of 90+degree weather a year, and we just happened to hit three of those days. It was great to spend three days with JAM, though. This picture above shows a cedar branch in an art park--the photo was taken by J.
Another cool thing in Portland. This happens to be a tile in the bathroom at The Chart House.

I don't love shopping, but if there's a Crate and Barrel anywhere close, I'm there. Honestly, where else can you find a dish brush THAT cool?

Friday morning found us in Boring, Oregon, for berry picking. I had been thinking that raspberries in Oregon were so plentiful, they would just jump off the bushes into your bucket. Not so. We had to do some searching, but they were there if you looked hard. The blueberries were another story. We picked 4 pounds in 15 minutes.

12 pounds of raspberries, 4 pounds of blueberries--all at $1 per pound!

This is a really big raspberry!

And a hugemongous blueberry!

Saturday morning found us downtown, for a bike ride along the river.

Then we hit the farmer's market.

Time for a mini-cookie break!

It's jam making time. M didn't have a potato masher, and we wanted the jam chunky, so we improvised, using a zip lock bag and gently squeezing.

Exact measurements are important!

One of my favorite pictures!
Here we are, at the Chart House for dinner, with a natural looking picture.

The view was spectacular!

After dinner, we visited an art park. There are several installations of "natural" art, none of which we took pictures of, but I do like this picture of K, M, and J.

What are we all looking at?This.

After fireworks, we celebrated with a cool red, white and blue dessert--vanilla bean ice cream topped with fresh raspberries and blueberries--and some granola. A celebration in every bite!We had a great time!

July 1 Garden

Here is my favorite gardening pal checking for strawberries (or berry-berries, as she calls them)--she looks left...
she looks right...

a little closer to see if we've missed anything...

she's very good to check under the foilage.

Sadly, she ate her last berry-berry for a few weeks on Monday. In the month of June, we would check, and she would eat 4 or 5 every day. Every time I would pop one into her mouth, she would say, "ummmmmmmm....!" She's so appreciative!

Here is a Celebrity tomato, with loads right behind. The Super-Fantastic is fantastic, the Amish Paste, Health Kick, and Victoria Grape tomatoes are all looking good.

My new raspberry bramble has four bushes. Only one will give us a few berries this year, but wait til next year!

Here are my beans. There are lots of them! (Sunflowers are in the background)

The bean plants are LOADED with blossoms. Yum!

Red grapes are promising a good harvest come September!

Here's an overall shot of the garden, with my pal helping me check things out.

She's busy--back and forth, back and forth!

The garlic has scapes on it--you can take the scape (the top) and peel away the white outside, and saute or roast the inside. I used some the other night in my pizza sauce.

We moved the compost pile to a more accessable place, too. I think it likes it.

Here we have green onions, Walla Walla Sweet onion, and leeks. This is the first time I've ever tried leeks.

If you look closely down towards the bottom of the pepper plant, you'll see one of four peppers growing.

A tiny cucumber...

A little zucchini...

The zucchini overall is kind of going crazy.

Here's K's beets. They should be ready next week. We'll try roasting them.

My flower pot overfloweth.

This is my new white peach tree, with ONE peach on it. Unfortunately, we learned too late that you should NEVER prune a peach tree, except for branches that cross. Hence, the new peach tree. The old one bit the dust.

The roses can hardly contain themselves.

Need I say more?

The zinnia are coming along nicely. I took these pictures last night, the first zinnia popped open this morning.

The lavendar is...lavendar. Really, it smells terrific.

Here's my little pal, taking a break. You just missed us sharing an otter pop.

The most beautiful flower in the garden!

Here's the first of two new additions to the front gardens. A lovely, lightweight sandstone rock to grace the garden closest to the house. This one weighs in at 194 pounds. I love the coloring and the stripes.

His big brother (two views here), out in the garden nearer the street, weighs in at 1040 pounds. You should have seen the two guys trying to wrestle this bad boy off the truck! The garden itself needs a little overhauling. We had two guys that needed jobs yank out the junipers, for starters. That was not a fun job.

That's it for now. I hope you've enjoyed the tour of my garden. I'll show you more on August 1.