While the Southwest drowns in massive Rain storms and mammoth snow storms bury mountains from the Sierras to Utah’s Uintah Range …..where all have beeen IN a drought for 7 years, the pitiful little Portland area continues to dry out and warm up. Some Ski resorts are still closed…..no snow at lower slopes and although there’s enough humidity to let heavy fog continue (fog usually finishes around here in late November), days are getting more and more sunny, temps getting into the fifties and now, summer is beginning to look very dry. The lands east of the Cascade Mountains depend heavily on the snow runoff for farming water, and in SE Oregon, reservoirs are not looking good. Although there’s a mountain of evidence that Global Warming is bringing these weather changes to our planet, our current Administration keeps repeating their successful mantra about EVERYTHING they tell you……(the philosophy has worked for the war, the EPA, Social Security, etc etc etc…..and that is: “Keep repeating it until they believe it”……) The Mantra for environmental changes is, “There’s NO proof that there is damage being done to the planet yet”………….”We need more study”.
Oh well. The Good side? We both were outside this past weekend and cleaned up flower beds around the house and began to turn soil up in the flower garden, replanted bulbs along the front, and enjoyed feeling “warmth” from the sun, in JANUARY!!!! The dogs had a blast.
Speaking of dogs, Mac went with Mark, Kristin and Paul to the Columbia with their dogs Porter & Quinn for a possible swim. Mac has finally reached his water dog roots. In the old days with Tucker, when you didn’t keep throwing the stick out into the river, he sould squirm, moan, and bark until you would do it. MAC now retrieves continually when sticks are thrown out as far as I can throw, and if you do NOT continue throwing, he just goes back into the river and starts swimming toward the other side (about a half mile away). We made him stop after about 45 minutes NOT because he was tired…..because he was shaking from being cold. Poor Quinn has VERY short hair and was shaking not long after we started. Paul had a camera and I can’t WAIT to see a couple of pics where all three dogs were paddling back to us with ONE stick between them……..some of that was fun. Oh, yes, you recall the nude beach story last fall? Well…..THIS day, not a soul was anywhere and we just did all this at the fishing stretch of beach, so no exciting tales to tell this time, hah hah.
Wedding practice sessions continue quite happily. It’s becoming LESS fun to practice at home and the sound from the electric toy piano we have seems worse everytime I return from the Church after playing the big Steinway. This weeks session brought Rodger and friend Janice from OHSU to hear progress and even father-of-the-bride Baird came along because of something he wanted to do at the Church. That was great….when you “Know” someone is there, it’s great practice for the upcoming real event with 175 guests. Whew. I’m still making some mistakes on a couple of pieces……but I am thrilled when I see that with a little work, I still can play some of the beautiful pieces I was taught in high school. Sad to think nothing new was learned since then, but really, lots of enjoyment has been there along the way playing while friends sang and learning to just enjoy music.
Mark attended a memorial service at the Church for the Mother of Carol Powers. Frank Powers worked with me for years at CF, and I truly still believe he was one of the most dedicated and truly loyal, professional, ethical man in business I ever met. Carol is part of a renowned bell choir, the “Covenant Bell Choir”. They’ve toured Europe, and several places here. Carol’s mother played with them also, so this entire group was there for the service and played an astounding piece of music, “Meditation on Beautiful Savior”. If you ever get a chance, this group is well worth taking time to see. The service was also great for Mark because the regular Church Organist played both the piano and organ. I could see where the complaints of parishioners come from when she played the organ….she absolutely has NO feeling or idea what to do with an Electronic Church Organ. Everything is LOUD and she’s using mostly the Diapason and horn stops…. HOWEVER, on the piano, she was quite astounding, played with expression, and technically perfect. Too bad she just doesn’t use the piano for everything. The service was a real tribute to Carol’s Mom, and it sounds like I missed getting to know someone very interesting. Frank’s thought on her knowledge was expressed at the service, “She’s a biological Google”……..
The Kitchen. When we found out Mark’s getting punished tax wise so badly since he’s not using the deductions we have. Most deductions are going to Rodger since his income is really the breadwinning side of things now, and Mark just did NOT calculate really how much tax liability he’d have. He made a faulty assumption, “IF I’m going to be POOR, I surely won’t have to pay much in taxes.” Wrong. Withdrawals from the IRA for the roof and a couple other things this year, took a solid chunk straight to the government and in our county, they passed that county tax and there’s NO way around that. So. That brought our minds to decide to pursue a home line of credit. Corporate Financial Institutions in this country have things SO rigged toward keeping you in debt, it turns out it’s cheaper for me to borrow money and pay interest, get the writeoff, than it is to stay out of debt. So we’re going to remodel the kitchen. WE first thought a simple re-alignment of existing worn out cabinets wouldn’t be so much…..and the more we walked around and talked, drew up plans, talked, went to a couple of kitchen cabinet places, we’re now thinking more of re-alignment of things, new cabinets and a new stove. It’s been exciting to get worked up in the planning (which will continue for a couple more months probably)… We’ll be using any knowledge from friends we can use. Dave and Deborah Saylor down at the corner are building a new home, so they have first hand experience about making plans………. So keep an eye out for news hopefully by the end of the year about a NEW looking home here.
Ah. that’s just the highlights of the past two weeks…….Tucker continues to plod along, Mac continues to grow even though he’s now on a diet. We visited his breeders Marj and Janice at the Portland Dog Show and they’re not sure he’s going to end up being a show dog (probably to our relief)…but they DID say right off the bat that he’s overweight. So both he and Tuck are now on a diet. So sad to see them still hungry after meals. And although I KNOW Tuck gets along better with less food, it’s hard when he’s so old not just to give him everything he wants. BUT……….on the plus side, he seems to be happy. When we’re in the yard now, he does move around quite a bit, but seems to really be happy sitting in the sun watching Mac run and us work.
Ah. Signs of spring, as we post this message…………………..is there more of them than just feeling warmth of the sun in the yard? Song Sparrows have begun their beautiful calling songs, owls are hooting at night, getting families going so they’ll be ready to feed on baby birds in early summer, daffodils are about 6-8 inches high, camelia buds are about ready to pop, Canadian Geese are flying north, calling out even at night as they pass over the house to Sauvie Island. On the island we heard the gorgeous Cranes calling in a field although we couldn’t see them. Some fields are being plowed for cultivating and planting. Mark even has reviewed our little Fingerling Potato Supply and almost all of them are still in great shape, little shoots starting, so they’ll be planted by March along with lettuce ! ! ! Chives, oregano, and thyme, are sprouting……. The very few starts we began on our berm have almost all survived and are beginning to get buds.
We won’t be committing everything to the yard this year, the kitchen project will require learning and work through the year….. but we’ll things a tile at a time, eh? HAPPY Groundhog Day!
