Whiskers

This is Madeline Tosh Lace yarn in the new for Fall 2012 colorway called Whiskers.

I didn’t buy because I’m “mad for tosh” or because its new.  I bought it because its called “Whiskers” and I am going to knit a really pretty scarf called “Rill”  by Miriam Felton  in honor of Dexter.

The Rill Scarf has a Chevron Lace panel running up the side, I am going to put in a Cat’s Paw lace panel instead.  When I (finally) wrap it around my neck, I will think of my furry friend with fondness and cuddle up to its warmth.

Thanks to all my friends who have listened, empathized and understood my pain this week.

Special thanks to those that understand our pets are not just a pet, but like wee fur-butted children with all the accompanying joy and sorrow. I deeply appreciate it.

a very sad day

We lost our youngest, and seemingly healthy cat this morning, He may have had a form of cat appendicitis, but the vet’s did not have a diagnoses.

He went from fine to dead in one 24 hour period and he was in a lot of pain. It hurt my heart to hear him cry out and other than giving him another dose of the pain med the vet’s sent home with us, there was nothing we could do to make it better. I’ve spent the better part of today crying. and Chris put him in the back yard, not far from Scooter.

I have never lost two pets in less than one year before and this is truly hard to bear. RIP Dexter, you were so loved, and while you were here, you were a happy boy who loved his home and family.

We miss you terribly.

Killer Burger

(as always, click to biggify)
This is a seriously good burger place. Jeff claims his car cannot drive by it without stopping.  We take a good long walk first before we go there, and Jeff has decided we need to try most of the menu.

Everything except the Peanut Butter and Pickle Burger and the Marine, which is billed as “Hot, don’t try this one!” so, we won’t. ETA: I’ve tried the Peanut Butter and Pickle one and it is pretty good, it is more of a Thai Peanut Sauce flavor.

If you are in the Sellwood neighborhood go try it yourselves, its on 13th just before you hit the end of Sellwood and the industrial section. If you remember, its where “Hash” used to be.

I recommend the Black Molly.  Jeff recommends the Blue Cheese one.

Their fries are everything a fry should be, perfectly golden and crisp on the outside, hot mealy potato on the inside.

Every burger comes with fries and bacon. I like that.

Walk Around West Moreland Park

Boy, did we get a beautiful day! Perfect for snapping pix, and I did go a bit wild, snapping over 30 pix before we were done with our walk.

There are all these little bridges crossing the creek that comes of the shallow lake at the end, birds, ducks and geese are everywhere.  We even saw a Anna’s Hummingbird making its funny noise and doing its dive bombing technique for us.

West Moreland Park is one of those places you whiz by on 99E to and from Portland and you see the edge of it and keep saying to yourself, “I need to take a walk there.” And you say it to yourself for approx 2 or 3 years before you finally Just Do It.

And then when you get there you repeatedly say to yourself, “this is lovely, why didn’t I come here sooner?”

The park has lovely walkways all around, and hosts what is probably the worlds only casting pond in a city park.  Some Portland business man that wanted to practice his (fishing) casting and not have to drive too far from the city had it put in.  It also hosts those little dragon boat races.  Its things like casting ponds in city parks and outdoor municipal elevators that I like about living here.

Here you can see the edges of the casting platforms that are spaced evenly around the pond, presumably so each person can cast without getting tangled up with another persons.

Misty Morn

Well, our beautiful Indian Summer Fall is gone and now we are back to our regularly scheduled Oregon weather.

Rain, Gray, drizzle, pouring rain, gray, mist, sideways blowing rain, and more gray.  The other morning the church lawn across the street offered a nice misty photo opportunity with the mist, and the black birds and the light.

Then today I sat at the table eating my very yummy White Bean and Garlic + Sausage soup and staring out into the back yard watching the drizzle come down.  And watching the drizzle steadily beat down my lovely potted King Tut Grass and the Purple Fountain Grass, soon its summer splendor will pass into a sodden, droopy mess.  So I thought of this Haiku:

A drizzle falls slowly

while plants die

and a cat watches

Troll Houses ATC’s

as always, click to biggify 

Just a short post, I wanted to share my Sept ATC’s (Artist Trading Cards) this month, because I’m quite pleased with how these turned out.

I’ve been making ATC’s for over four years now, and I’m always surprised what we all come up with for each month’s theme.
How everyone interprets that, what media they use, its always a nice surprise to receive in them mail.

Troll Houses are something I would never have tried out on my own, which is why belonging to a group like this is a good thing, it stretches one’s artistic skills.

My ATC group is on Ravelry as ATC Swap, feel free to look us up and join in the fun.

There is also an active International group on Yahoo Groups too.

Sauvie Island

The most beautiful walk so far, Jeff and I went to Sauvie Island and walked along the sandy beaches of the Columbia River for a few miles.

It was a gorgeous day, we drove to the end of the line, and parked and walked, and walked and walked out towards the Lighthouse along Warrior Point.

Just behind me is one of the many barges we watched go by, this one was carrying grain.  I waved at a couple of boats and barges just to see if anyone was watching, was waved back at twice.

Isn’t this fun?  just under the water are these shelves, which extend a way and then drop off…the water in this river is dredged to keep it around 45 feet deep for the commercial traffic, like the barges that come thru from Portland to Astoria on a continual basis.

Mom called me while I was walking (I was wondering if the cell phone would have reception out there) and asked for a nice picture of me, or my face, so Jeff obliged her.  Actually he took all the pix with his camera, so I have none of him this time.

Did I mention what a beautiful day it was?  The only mar on the landscape was the piles of trash around each of the porta-potties lining the road along the beach access.  We stopped and paid $7.00 for a parking permit and than Jeff wondered what they did with that money, since they clearly don’t provide any trash cans.

On the drive back out, we wondered at how we’d made it thru our childhoods without corn mazes or pumpkin patches,  which, clearly, some farms on the island are gearing up for.  Its big business out there, and a big draw, which is good for the local economy.  We continued on past the bridge and drove around the other side of the island just because we hadn’t seen it before.

It was a nice day for a walk on the beach and a drive around the island.  If you are local and haven’t been there, I say, give it a go.  I hear the Corn Maze is pretty Amazing!

A Walk in the Parks

Today Jeff and I took our walk in three different Oregon City Parks.  Above is a photo for an area of  Hillendale Park that goes over the creek.

http://www.orcity.org/sites/default/files/Parks_map.pdf  After receiving a copy of the Oregon City Trail News, with this map of all the parks and a  list showing which ones had walking paths, we ended up going to three of them.  Hillendale Park is huge, and it took us a while to find because there are no signs and the map doesn’t show the turn off road, but that was half the fun, driving around looking for it.

We parked and walked all the way to the far side, where we could see buildings and a street.  Curious, we walked out to the street to see where we were, which was the back side of the Red Soils Industrial Complex.  We walked back into the park and past the the creek and over a second bridge back to the car.

We walked around Singer Park first and met a boy riding his bike with a Red Flyer Wagon attached, he had cans rattling around the back and stopped to throw more in as he rode around the park.  The park is interesting in that it only has a couple of looped walking paths and a Frisbee golf area, and that is it.  It doesn’t even have an official parking area, we made do with a dusty spot at the top.

The trails go through some nice forest-y areas and end up in the cul-de-sac of a neighborhood.  Several of the homes had back yards that open up into the park, which might or might not be nice, depending on what your opinion of sharing your backyard with a park is.  When we looped back down to the bottom, we saw the boy again, this time in the creek, fishing out a can.  We thanked him for helping the environment, and he was quite pleased.

After walking around Singer and Hillendale Parks, we went to lunch at Bugatti’s, which was good as usual.  Then we stopped at Park Place Park for one more walk.  We had to walk off the pizza!

We discovered a section that goes way back behind a row of houses that is lined with nice, juicy ripe blackberries and thus, took our dessert along the way.  I doubt it is really a trail, but we walked along it as far as we could before dead-ending in brambles and bushes, on our return we saw two white-tailed deer.

I am not sure who was more startled, us or them.  I think they were after the apple trees, or perhaps they wanted some blackberries too?  They bounded a little ways into the forest and then stopped and watched us.  We watched them back, deer in the middle of the afternoon, how beautiful.  It made a nice end to our walks in the parks.

The Promontory Walk

Last week Jeff and I parked at the old Armory on John Adams Ave, for you local folks, and walked up the bluff on a long ago closed road that goes up to Promontory Avenue. 

This cross marks Promontory Ave, its been there a long time.  Don’t know the story behind it.  We continued walking the the bluff trail a little ways, just to see where it goes, but it clearly went on far longer than we were prepared to go, so we turned around and said we’d save it for another day.  Curiously, the bluff trail cuts thru some peoples yards, and it feels a bit strange walking those bits.   I guess you’d have to be prepared to see people walking thru your yard all the time if you lived there.

It was very pretty, and pretty steep, our calf muscles really felt this walk!

Jeff is a great companion to take a walk with, he studied geology in college and he is always sharing his vast storehouse of naturalist knowledge with me.  He also know birds, plants and trees pretty darn well too.

On this walk, he pointed out the many old volcanic activities, we saw lots of basalt and lava in various forms.  Here are some basalt columns, that have broken off the bluff and fallen over on their side.

The whole forest is covered with large boulders which are in turn covered with ivy and moss and it all looks very LOTR (Lord of the Rings) like in there. I swear, I saw something moving!

I huffed and puffed my way to the top, and over the broken off bits of road, all the while wondering when I’m going to start (physically) showing any effects of all these walks.

Yes, this is the road!

At the same time, I am enjoying the deep leafy green shade, and am assured of an awesome view at the top.

Is it worth it? Yes, unquestionably, Yes!
and then, we have to walk back down.

Cornflakes Chicken

Growing up, we had a tradition that for our birthday we could pick one favorite meal from home and one to eat out. Cornflakes Chicken was my most requested Birthday Meal, I never got tired of it.

While my meal out often varied, especially as I got older, I wanted to try new things. However, when you’re at home, there is a striking tendency to stick with tradition.

Chris had never had Cornflakes Chicken before (poor thing) and after he tried it, agreed with me that it was yummy.

So, Mom, I lift the proverbial glass in your general direction…’Sláinte!’
(pronounced ‘slawn-cha’, meaning Health! A common toast in Ireland, the equivalent to ‘Cheers’)

Excuse me, I’ve got me some chicken to eat.

PS: here is pretty much how I make it, in case you want to try it. http://www.food.com/recipe/oven-fried-chicken-with-corn-flakes-43162