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February 24, 2006

IT'S FRIDAY, MY FAVORITE DAY!!

It has really been freezing around here and there isn't much going on. Friday, we decided we had been cooped up in the house long enough, so we got in the car and did some exploring around the area. I had been reading a book on the "Nehalem Country" dated about 100 years ago and I wanted to check out some of the locations that the book had mentioned. We started up the Old Mohler Road north of Wheeler. That used to be the main route up the valley but has been replaced with Highway 53. The old section of road we were on ended up as a dead end at somebody's driveway. Then we proceeded to drive around on Tideland Road to see some of the nice houses that are along the river upstream from us. It turned out that those homes are behind a locked gate and in looking for another way in, we ended up in the middle of some farmer's field axle deep in cow poop. Ah, the beauty of living in dairy country! We had always wanted to go check out the Nehalem Falls and campground so next we headed up there. It's about 10 miles up the river from our place. It was locked up for the winter, so we had to park out on the road and walk around the gate. The river is still high and the falls were pretty rough. There was so much water coming through, it looked more like rapids than a falls. Dave wanted to go for a hike and when I balked, he wondered where my sense of adventure was. It was only 30 degrees outside the car, the wind was whipping down the river at about 30 miles an hour and we weren't dressed for hiking. As soon as he stepped out of the car, he decided maybe I was right and that we should stay close to the Jeep. We went a few hundred yards up to the falls, took a picture and ran back for the warmth of the car! We'll go back up there this summer when we can check the place out at our leisure. We ended our adventure driving on the old Miami-Foley Road that took us through an inland loop and brought us into Garibaldi down on Tillamook Bay. We stopped for lunch at Rockaway Beach and then headed for home. It was a nice outing, even though it was cold.

Saturday, Greg, Lara and the youngest grandchildren came down to our place. Jadyn wasn't feeling very well. In fact, she had a bad head cold and we discovered that she had so much pressure inside her ear that she ruptured her eardrum. She woke up Sunday morning with a bloody ear and never did really get herself going. She spent most of Sunday sleeping on the couch, and Lara spent a lot of that time on the phone with the doctor. It was hard to get any medication down her or to even take her temperature; she wasn't in the mood to put anything in her mouth. The kids thought that Jadyn might feel better in her own bed, so they decided to leave a day early. Wouldn't you know it? By the time they left Sunday night, Jadyn was getting back to her old self again. As you can see, Jaysa was feeling much better than her sister and made short work of that bagel. Today however, the tables are turned as Jaysa is down with a cold and Jadyn is feeling just fine! Lara and Greg had planned to go out in the boat and do some crabbing, but the weather was so cold and windy that they really didn't need too much discouraging to keep them on shore. The crabbing hasn't been all that great anyway. There will be plenty of better opportunities later in the spring and summer.

While Greg was down here, he helped Dave cut down the pine tree alongside the church. That's the one I talked about a few weeks ago that had ruined our water line with a root growing through the pipe. As soon as they got that tree on the ground, I sent them across the highway to cut down a grove of trees that had been blocking our view for quite some time. We had the worst luck during fishing season with that bunch of trees. It seemed like every time a fish got hooked by someone, by they time they landed the thing they would have drifted in behind the trees and we would miss all of the excitement. The trees were on a sliver of private property between the highway and the railroad and so the guys were trying to be as discrete as possible. They tried to be nonchalant as they headed down there with chain saws and hacked their way through the underbrush to get to the trees. Unfortunately, right about then, a car on the highway hit a cat. So that blocked traffic as some people got out to help find the injured cat that had run for the bushes right down where the guys were trying to secretly cut the trees! Dave and Greg looked up to see a bunch of people standing by the road looking down toward them. As I said, they were feeling a little paranoid anyway because they were cutting trees on someone else's property. They were about ready to yell at people "What's the matter? Haven't you people seen anyone cut down a tree before?" Only then did they find out about the cat. The "Good Samaritans" found the cat's hiding place in the brush below the road but he was in no mood to be picked up. After one guy tried to get him out of the blackberries, he pulled back a bloody hand and they decided to leave him there. It was probably one of several feral cats that roam the neighborhood and chase my birds, so I wasn't too concerned. Anyway, the trees got cut and we have a much better view from our front room.

I was looking through the telescope the other day and spotted two bald eagles perched on a limb of a tree over on the island. Then a small herd of elk started grazing around the base of the tree so we could see all of them at once in the telescope. That was a pleasant surprise, as I haven't seen the elk all winter. The herd usually stays somewhere else during the winter months; they don't come down by the bay. We haven't seen the eagles for several months either. We have had quite a few waterfowl arrive, plus all the birds migrating through. The scene on the feeding ground outside our kitchen window has had a number of new birds in the past week. Of course, there's always plenty to eat out there and I'm sure the word gets around. Don't get Dave started on how much a month I spend on bird food!

We headed into Portland on Wednesday, as the Blazers are back home to play a few games. We were home for nearly three weeks between trips to town this last time, so we had the usual schedule of errands to run. Yesterday, I got my nails done and went to see my mom. I dropped Dave off at Home Depot on the way and picked him up afterward. He was happier roaming the aisles there than if he'd had to come with me! We will stay in West Linn until Sunday night and then it is back home again.