What I Did Today

Today I:

* paid the utility bills
* cut out fabric for a doll quilt
* made a pumpkin nut bread
* saw that the weather forecast for the next two weeks is for 70-80 degrees every day
* did two loads of laundry
* started a list of what I want to do this weekend
* knit a pair of pink mittens
* began knitting a pair of baby bumblebee socks
* mopped the kitchen floor and did some other maintenance housework
* watered my flowers and herbs
* put stale bread out for the birds and filled their bird bath
* thought about getting out the Fall decorations, but decided to wait
* swept the front porch
* ironed John's work shirts for next week
* made an appointment with a heating contractor about installing a new furnace
* picked up books, DVD movies, and books on CD at the public library
* looked at possible new curtains for the bedrooms
* ate leftover pizza for dinner
* began reading Charles Todd's A Duty to the Dead
* said a prayer for all those affected by 9/11/01

Summer's End

No! Sob! I'm not ready! Yesterday evening I realized it was getting dark much earlier. A few leaves are turning color. It's cooler in the mornings. I can still keep the screened, sliding glass door next to my desk open and listen to the wind rustling in the leaves and the birds singing, but how much longer will it be before it's too cold and the leaves and the birds are gone? Last night, just before I fell asleep, I heard a flock of geese honking as they began their long trip south.

I'm going to go eat another fresh peach, knowing that soon there soon will be no more, and muse over summer's end.

Oregon State Fair

John and I went to the fair yesterday with our son, Owen, and daughter-in-law, Sarah. We left at 8am and picked them up in Eugene at 9am, arriving in Salem shortly after the fair opened for the day. The weather was perfect; warm, but not too warm, with an overcast sky.

We headed straight to the animal barns. First, came the sheep! One of my favorite breeds is the Navajo-Churro. Their wool is gorgeous and comes in marvelous colors and if I had this breed I would take up spinning and weaving.

The second breed I like are the Shetland sheep. These are the sheep I would probably get if I moved back to the country and we had sheep again. They are small and could be managed much more easily than larger breeds. They also have lovely wool and I could again see myself learning how to spin and using the yarn to knit.


At the end of the sheep barn, there was a large stall with people crowded around. We went over to see what was there and found a sow with her piglets!


Next came the chickens!

Here are Sarah, Owen, and John entering the building.

I'm not especially fond of the strange looking, fluffy, poodle-looking like chickens, but it was lovely to see examples of the breeds we used to have--Barred Rock and Rhode Island Red. I'll admit I became enamored of the small and delicate old English breeds. The building wasn't conducive to photography, but I did get this one photo.


We also saw Toulouse geese like the ones we had. There were also some Welsh Harlequin ducks. I had forgotten how beautiful they were.

I did manage to get a photo of John with a rooster which belongs to his co-worker, Lee. The rooster's name is Stella. I don't know why.


After thoroughly washing our hands at one of the many hand-washing stations set up outside the barns, we looked for something to eat for lunch. We ended up with barbecued ribs, coleslaw, and beans. After washing our hands again we found the Americraft Center.

There was a lot of competition in the baked goods divisions, but it was disappointing to see so few canned fruits, vegetables, and jams. I had looked forward to seeing the knitted entries, but there were surprisingly very few. I could only find three pairs of socks. There were several small lace shawls and they appeared not to have been blocked. There were many, many quilts. Quite a few were hung high up on the walls making them difficult to see.

There was one area, however, where quilts were hung up so that viewers could see them close up and here is where I took many photographs.

Blackberry Pie

It's not the most beautiful pie in the world, I know. When my four boys were growing up, my goal was to make pies faster than they could eat them. They didn't care what they looked like, only that they tasted good. And they did.

Why I Don't Go to the Movies

When someone asks me what's the last movie I saw at a theater, I have to answer that I don't remember. It's just too long ago. I think it might have been one of the 007 movies--one with Sean Connery--but I'm not certain. In any case, it's been many, many years. When I'm asked why I don't go to movies I give conventional, generally acceptable answers like:

1. It's too expensive
2. The closest movie theater to where I live is a 50 mile round-trip drive
3. There are no movies at the theater I really want to see that badly.
4. There always seems to be some jerk who won't stop commenting, a crying kid, and/or a ringing cell phone or some other distraction which ruins the movie for me
5. The snacks are too expensive
6. The air conditioning is too cold and I don't want to wear a sweater in the summer
7. The sound is too loud
8. The best seats (half way back, in the middle) are always filled before I get there
9. I can't put the movie on pause if I need to leave to use the restroom
10. The person sitting next to me always wants the armrest and/or someone very tall sits right in front of me so I have to lean over to see the screen.

Well, those are the reasons I give. But the truth is I am just so easily distracted by the big screen that I forget to pay attention to the plot. If it's a period piece I'm looking at hairstyles and clothing. If someone is wearing a handknit sweater that's all I'll pay attention to. (See Knitting in the Movies for a list of DVD movies which include knitting.) I'm looking at architectural details and listening to accents or choices of words. I look at how the movie was made-- colors, lights and shadows, point of view, depth of field, props, and angles of shots. In short, I'm paying attention to everything except the story.

No, if it's a movie I really do want to see I'll wait for it to come out on DVD. The smaller television screen isn't as distracting and I can watch it as many times as I wish and at some point I'll pay attention to the movie itself instead of all the details. That works for me.

Thunderstorm Warning!

There is a high possibility of thunderstorms this afternoon. I know this means we may lose electric service and so I am doing my baking and cooking now. I'm making a macaroni salad for dinner, cooking some rice for the left-over stir fry to put in John's lunch tomorrow, a potato salad to eat with sub sandwiches, and a blackberry crisp. As I began this morning I found I was out of milk, brown sugar, salad macaroni, and potatoes so I will need to go to the store when it opens at 8 am.

I plan to spend the rest of the day knitting and reading.

Blazing Heat

I don't generally write about the weather because, really, what is there to say? Well, today it's--- It is really hot! It was 104 degrees yesterday and the forecast is for 105 degrees today and it is really hot! And it's not cooling down at night either. It's 6 am now and it's 71 degrees outside. I have to rely on it's cooling down at night to cool down the house, but when it doesn't cool down at night it just doesn't work.

And did I tell you it's really hot?

The Best Part of Summer

The best part of summer is coming up. It's the time of blackberries, corn-on-the-cob, tomatoes and cucumbers from the garden. Every flower is in glorious bloom. The birds are singing their hearts out. Dawn and twilight are the most beautiful. And mid-day, when the sun shines down on us all, bright and warm. At night I stand outside where there are no outdoor lights and I see stars going on forever. I hear the children laughing and talking on the swings and slides and playing baseball and tag at the school playground a few blocks away. The bees are buzzing, the little wild rabbits hide under the snowball bush, and the birds splash in the bird bath.

Summer is truly here. Life is good.

Trip to Oregon Coast

John and I went to the Oregon Coast today, traveling to Waldport and down the Coast Highway through Yachats and Florence before heading home again. It was sunny with a cold wind so we didn't spend very much time on the beach, but we did take a lot of photographs. The weather was perfect, there weren't many people, and we had a wonderful time.

Backyard Flowers

Little Birthday Cupcakes

Yesterday John and I went to see his father who is a nursing home as he gains strength to go back home. It was his 89th birthday and we brought him some mini-cupcakes made by the local Cupcake Cafe. We didn't stay long as he was very tired and wanted to sleep.

Some Quotes

These are from Hannah Coulter: A Novel by Wendell Berry.

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Love is a great room with a lot of doors, where we are invited to knock and come in. Though it contains all the world, the sun, moon and stars, it is so small as to be also in our hearts. It is in the hearts of those who choose to come in. Some do not come in. Some may stay out forever. Some come in together and leave separately. Some come in and stay until they die, and after.

Life without expectations was still life, and life was still good. The light that had lighted us into this world was lighting us through it. We loved each other and lived right on. We sat down to the food we had grown and ate it and praised it and were thankful for it. We suffered the thoughts of the nights and at dawn woke up and went back to work. The world that had so often had disappointed us and made us sorrowful sometimes made up happy by surprise.

Anytime an eighteen year old boy tells you not to worry, you had better worry.

After each one of our children went away to the university, there always came a time when we would feel the distance opening to them, pulling them away. It was like sitting snug in the house, and a door is opened somewhere, and suddenly you feel a draft.

To be the mother of a grown up child means that you don't have a child anymore and that is sad. When the grown up child leaves home, that is sadder. Maybe if you had enough children you could get used to those departures but I never did. I felt them like amputations. Something I needed was missing. Sometimes, even now, when I come into the house and it sounds empty before I think I will wonder, "Where are they?

Driving Down Peoria Road

I work at Oregon State University and I always drive to Corvallis by way of Peoria Road. The road follows the Willamette River which means it curves a lot but then, that makes it fun to drive even if one is driving a navy blue SUV with automatic and not a little red sports car with a stick shift.

I drive by Mennonite farms with their neat gardens, clotheslines, orchards and houses with wide front porches, a blueberry farm with row after row of bushes full of berries, and then through the little unincorporated town of Peoria itself with its beautiful old church and its notorious speed trap. Yes, I remember to slow down.

I see flashes of the river as I drive and hawks hovering above grass seed fields on my right hunting for garter snakes and, on my left, others over the river looking for fish. Sometimes I'll see a blue heron and once in a while, a fox or a deer. I drive by the boat landing which is crowded with cars at this time of year. There is usually very little traffic. No tractors, no one tailgating me because I wouldn't go faster than the speed limit and no one dawdling, making it necessary for me to watch their driving instead of the scenery.

And even better, the drive will be almost exactly the same when I drive back home late this afternoon.

Rain

It's raining again. I fall asleep to the sound of rain on the roof, waking in the middle of the night when it pours and pounds in the gutters, hear it splatter against the windows when I wake, look through the raindrops at the little wet birds eating seeds from the feeder in the snowball bush, feel it hit my head when I look out to see if the apple tree is in bloom yet.

I am reminded of the taxonomy of rain Alice Hoffman mentioned in her book, The Probable Future: fish rain, rose rain, daffodil rain, glorious rain, red clover rain, boot polish rain, swamp rain, and the fearsome stone rain. Today's rain is somewhere in between a rose rain and a stone rain. It's not the hard, harsh almost pellets of ice we get in the winter, but it's also not a soft, misty spring rain either.

Quilt Show

I've spent the last two days at our church's seventh annual quilt show. I helped set up to display the quilts, worked a bit in the kitchen, spent time with old friends and made some new ones, and talked about quilts, raising children and chickens, gardens, recipes, and the state of the world. I ate homemade vegetable soup with homemade rolls and homemade pie with coffee. I took photos of the quilts and talked to those who made them or inherited them. I am inspired now to begin quilting again. I'd stopped when I began library school and haven't quilted in almost three years. I put a quilt in the frame a couple of months ago, but became distracted with knitting.