OHhhKAy...

It's not tomorrow. That would have been Friday but here it the continuation of "More later". I have just been rather busy. But tomorrow, one might expect a spoiler free Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix movie reveiw, oh yes they might!
I drove out to lovely, lovely hood river and picked cherries. I picked rather less cherries than I had planned because; one, it was in the 90's and therefore very hot and two, picking cherries is hard work. It involves a precipitously tall latter with one skinny little leg to balance the ladder portion of the whole contraption. Tripods are, in fact, the most stable set of legs one can have, and therefore, this is a very effective way to build a ladder. However, it looks more precarious than one would wish it to. You must ascend this ladder with a harness bearing a kidney beanish shaped bucket, a picker bucket. This harness and bucket set up leaves your hands free to climb ungangly ladders and pick persnickety cherries.

YES! cherries are persnickety. You see if you want the cherries to last, to not rot, mold or anything, the stem must remain on the cherry. A ripe cherry will happily disengage it's stem, but the stem will not so happy disengage the tree limb you are attempting to rend it from. Cherries grow in bunches with their stems firmly attached to the tree. So when attempting to remove a cherry or three and their stems, it is more like than not, the cherries will fall to the ground and you will have nothing. SO apparently, you rip the WHOLE bunch off the tree limb, there is a node from which all the stems protrude that will detach from the tree limb with care, leaving you a nice bunch of cherries you can then carefully remove stem by stem.
You do all this while not letting tree limbs snap at you or away from you and not falling out of the tree.
I got to 8 lbs. and had quite enough thank you. True, they are 1.50 a lb, but they are also 1 1/2 hours away up a tree in 90 degree heat where they are more than happy to stay, thank you very much. So I think maybe the 2$ a pound you can find them for at markets or some such, is more than reasonable.
It is very fine jam however. And a tasty fruit snack too.

Oh so cherries, yes, and adventure. I might do it again, if it was with other people and not 90 degrees out.
So then I went for a hike. It took a bit of hunting to find the trailhead I was hoping to tackle, but find it i did. By then it was 5 pm and peeerrfect weather for hiking. I loved it. I had the trail more or less to myself, unlike the conditions on the Multnomah Falls trail down the road which was swamped with people. I saw waterfalls and plants and pikas and it was just marvelous. I <3 the nature.

Then Thursday , the marvelous Lady J and I went out to Savuie island for more berries. We need more berries? We'll not any more I think... well, I donno, can you ever have too many berries in season? This is a serious thought problem folks. So we picked berries, raspberries, marionberries and blueberries. bushels. ok maybe just flats. A lot. ok?!

And then I made more jam. I now have a larder of jam and a freezer half full of berries. I am a bear. Grrr. I am hording them away for winter.

Then I got a new vacuum. All I have to say is, thank the vacuum gods for that. Uh, or our jobs. Whichever, the old vacuum was a lemon. Eureka Altimas look like a good deal, BUT THEY AREN'T. I am now the proud owner of a Bissel Lift-Off Revolution Pet. That is a long worded way of saying the Bissel version of the Dyson Animal for fraction of the cost. It's wonderful o have a clean floor again. it practically looks like we had the rugs cleaned.

End of story.

More later

I had fun today, it was a wonderful 4th of July and I will write more tomorrow, as I am having more adventures and will have more to say! For now, I suggest peaking at Photographia for a whole mess of new photos from today.

Out and About

I may be busy at work installing a large exhibit of plastinated bodies from Germany, but I have tried to get a whole lot done outside of work before the exhibit actually opens. Once it's open, my evenings are sort of gone 3 days of the week and it's going to be crazy busy AT work. I needed to sort of squeeze a lot of summer into the last couple weeks.
And I have managed a pretty good job.


The garden is in stasis, i need a second soaker hose, a little more garden soil and a bit more mulch and it's all watering and waiting and enjoying. A little pruning here, a few cuttings for the house there (roses are lovely right now! As is the cow parsnip, delphinium, columbine and the various yellow and orange daisy-like flowers from last year). Most of the seeds are up and happy and it looks like a miniature field out back right now.


The porch is shady and cool and fits two chairs nicely, sitting with coffee and a crossword in the am, a beer and a book in the pm, life is good!
I fixed up my bike in preparation for my summer of riding to work. I don't ride my bike to work much. The downtown traffic is unfriendly and stressful for biking at rush hour, which is when I am off work. And much of the year, it's also dark at that time. Going TO work is great, coming back, no fun. Since I work till 7 or 9 all week, it means I can come home when the streets are practically empty and it's nice and shady and cool. Much less stressful. Anyway, I got a street tire for the front wheel( the back wheel already has one. It's a mountain bike and the tires usually have thick tread, which slows you down on pavement and asphalt, you need little traction.) and a basket too. That way I can carry stuff! (Dur, but not on my back in the summer heat, yuk.) It rides so nice, I spiffied it up.


We've BBQed a few times. Last night a bunch of my co-workers came over and ran the Starlight Run, which is much fun and part of the June Festival of Roses events. The run begins and ends a block from my apt. They were a running science demo, it was great. They carried flasks of hot water with glo sticks and food coloring in them, and in the other hand, they carried...dry ice. Now the cool (pardon the pun) part of this demo is that as they ran, the carbon dioxide the dry ice was giving off was equivalent to the amount a car does in the 3.1 miles of the race! They had signs on their back explaining this and finishing with "One more reason to run!" It was excellent. And my co-workers were awesome, but one of our volunteers actualy ran as the Tram. That was elaborate! My favorite however was Waldo )of Where's Waldo fame)..and his sidekick, Rainbow Bright. There are always fun costumes in the Starlight Run and all I have to do is be home to watch it.


We capped the evening off with yummy BBQ, beer, potato salad and other goodies and great conversation. Much fun was had by all and it was a good way to kick off the summer and BW.


Matt and I have been...(hold your breath....) going OUT! Like, going for walks to...PLACES! We have been to both the Zoo and the Chinease Gardens in the last week or so. It was great. I am not a big big fan of zoos but it's still exciting to see a peacock, bald eagle, or mountain lion. It's sad when the bear is pacing. (Pacing is part of something that happens to animals in captivity when the go a little crazy from confinement, not enough space, and boredom.) We didn't get to see everything and the butterfly pavilion place wasn't open yet so maybe we will go back. We got a discount for taking the MAX in.


Today we went to the Chinese Gardens. It was so lovely. We had tea in the teahouse, relaxed and enjoyed the view. Nice day today.
Back to work tomorrow.

Next we may get up to the Japanese gardens or the Hoyt Arboretum.


I took pics at the zoo and of the race but the camera i used at the zoo was my little digital and I am afraid there were no good shots. And my big camera was too slow for the runners, the shutter just wouldn't snap fast enough so no good pics of that either. Maybe next time!