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October 27, 2006

IT'S FRIDAY, MY FAVORITE DAY!!

I spent last weekend working around the place. We did get the boat out of the water on Friday. That was a relief to get it on dry land, but it became another project since it was so dirty. I got it cleaned up and since I had the hose out and was pretty dirty by that time, I decided to clean the car too. Both needed it badly. I had forgotten about the way the bottom paint on the boat smudges off when you get it wet, and I managed to get my favorite old sweatshirt thoroughly stained with streaks of a nice shade of "bottom-paint blue". I was so upset, but I got out the paint thinner and stain remover and managed to make it look like new again. I have had this sweatshirt forever and it is like an old comfortable friend so I really didn't want to lose it. I was so happy when I pulled it out of the wash and it looked almost like new again. I also managed to get the outside house and deck windows washed while we had a break in the weather.

I love this time of year with the brilliant colors of the leaves and the sounds of the geese making their flight southwards for the winter. Sometimes I wish I could join them. We spotted a herd of elk out on the island on Sunday but they were pretty much hunkered down in the tall grass trying to avoid the guns going off aiming at the duck and geese. It sounded like a war broke out! However, even with the bird hunters around, the elk have managed to stick around all week and it has been fun watching them. Last night just before dark, they worked their way down to our end of the island and we got this picture. Too dark to really see much, but it's neat to get a real close look at them.

We had to go into Portland on Monday to engineer another preseason Blazer game, the last home game before the regular season begins. The setup is getting much easier with each game, but starting in another week when the official season begins, we get to start all over again as television will be involved and there will be more hookups to consider. I like the Blazer team this year, they are a young group and there is certainly a lot of talent. Since we are not sitting courtside and we got moved up to the second level, I have a bird's eye view of them this year, so I have been bringing a pair of binoculars along to see who is who.

We returned home on Tuesday just in time for me to grab a quick lunch and then head for a Park Committee work party to clean up the shrubs and beds at City Hall. We did a lot of pruning and weeding before we got hit with a super downpour. We did make a nice dent in the project, but I think we will need to schedule another work party to get the job done.

We have been busy entertaining this week too. We saw that the Kahrs' were home from their month-long trip on Sunday, so we invited them up for dinner that night. Then we had the Hakala's over on Wednesday as a thank you for helping us with getting the steamboat out of the water for the winter. They're all good friends and it's nice to be able to entertain them at home.

Thursday, our garden club took a nice tour to the Tillamook Forest Center. Quoting from their website: Located at the heart of the Tillamook State Forest (which is about 22 miles east of Tillamook), the region's newest interpretive and educational center showcases the legacy of the historic Tillamook Burn and the public spirit behind a monumental reforestation effort that left a permanent imprint on Oregon history while also shaping sustainable forest management today. Over 240,000 acres were burned in a series of four major fires (1933, 1939, 1945 and 1951) over eighteen years. After the fire's devastation, loggers began salvage operations to remove the snags on the fire-scarred land and then diverse groups (contract crews, school children groups and prison inmates) began to plant 72 million seedlings that created a new even-aged single species Douglas-fir forest. I can remember as a young child riding to the beach through the "Tillamook Burn" and Dave can remember helping with the planting of the new seedlings when he was in Boy Scouts.

It's back into town this afternoon as Dave has to announce the drag races for the last time this season and I have to meet with the folks at my mother's assisted living place for her quarterly evaluation. We hope to be back home Sunday afternoon.

Not much in the way of pictures this week. We had some opportunities to take some more, but you've seen them all before...me cleaning the boat and weeding at City Hall, things like that. Maybe next week, I'll do something different and you'll get more pictures!