some springtime happenings

Spring in Oregon is a beautiful time! we've had some rain, but more sun. Flowers are blooming, roses and poppies are everywhere, the garden is taking off, and everything is green. Here's the life in photos:

our friends Marv and Nancy and Joan and Art all came to visit us, and we crashed their hotel room at Mcminamins, having a lovely but brief visit. 

We stopped by Multnomah falls 

Julia and I have fallen off our morning walk routine, which is bad for my general exercise, but it does give us wonderful lazy mornings, eating breakfast and reading and playing around. I'm hoping to switch to an afternoon walk routine to get back into the habit!

during a playdate, Julia and her friend Aurora climbed into bed and Julia read books to her!

Dave went to alaska for a graduation ceremony of former students, and while he was gone my friend Whitney came to hang out! we dragged out my paper stuff and spend a morning making cards.  

Julia's been 'reading' to her baby a lot.  

lettuce in the window box 

lavender blooming out front

a wild rose bush 

iris, all the ones in the yard so far are this shade of purple. I'm hoping to get some yellow to mix in!

another wild rose

the strawberry bed got netted and has been producing a few berries. more are pinking up!

the adjacent bed has kale, lettuce, carrot, radish, and rhubarb. 

when it is not raining, I sit on the porch with Julia and some blankets and drink my coffee. 

Julia's new favorite game is "go to sleep" which involves dragging her bedding out to the sidewalk and pretending to sleep. 

some friends of ours are moving into town from the country and have been showering julia with gifts as they pack. she's in love with the wagon!

occasionally I care for this little girl, Maya. She's a sweet little thing, but it does remind me how nice it is to have a 3 year old!

princess Julia, ready for a walk. 

foxglove are blooming

Julia's taken on the role of flower inspector and takes her duties seriously. walking to the post office 4 blocks away can take over an hour. 

more flower inspecting and dancing upon

I can't seem to stop starting new seedlings. these are basil and dill and hyssop.  

mint is popping up all over!

I planted this last fall but forgot what it was. something good for tea. hopefully someone will come along who can tell me. 

I'm growing some potatoes in containers. supposed to have less pests that way. 

I've had to boot the chickens back to their pen for the near future while the seedlings grow. They were pretty miffed at me for a few days, but seem fine again. 

we've got a serviceberry that is producing berries, but there's an orange thing covering many of them. i doubt it is good and hopefully someone will come along and tell me how to get rid of it. 

the cherry trees are producing, and the birds have noticed!

the raspberries are getting ready to ripen

the tomato bed is taking off. 

the sage is flowering 

the peas are growing up their trellises

we planted a few sunflowers, and hopefully they will grow huge.  

some blueberries are here!

my sister caroline and her boyfriend Matt came for a night. 

we checked out the evening light on the waterfront

Julia was smitten, of course. good thing that next weekend is joe's graduation so she'll get to see lots of family!

may flowers

We've had some amazing weather here. Sorry Minnesota, but the west has got you beat for early springtime! The month has flew by with few major markers. Dave's school had its annual fundraiser, doing just fine by raising 40,000 for next year's operating costs. (Charter schools in Oregon are funded by the state at 80% and fund raise the remaining 20%.) Everyone at school is pretty happy that it is over until next year! I passed all my EMT finals so now I'm official, at least on paper. I've begun to incorporate into the local team of emts, but I think it will be a bit before I feel really comfortable with everyone. Julia's been her usual awesome self, loving the spring weather which means lots of outdoor play. Her favorite thing to do is pull up grass and flowers, find scraps of wood and build nests. Sometimes she pilfers the real eggs and I find them later in rather artful piles in the lawn.

Our little silkie hen managed to hatch a chick, much to our joy, but then we were devastated on the 2nd day to find the chick dead and the silkie covered in mites. It was a real tragedy that I didn't catch fast enough. We've recovered from the disaster now, and maybe someday we will try hatching another batch of chicks. 

We went to a luau at Dave's college, which has a strong Hawaiian population. On the way, we visited our friends, the Gustafsons! 

lots of frolicking in the sunshine. the boards on the ground are one of Julia's nests. 

I've done a few drills with the local emts. we were practicing low-angle ropes rescues here

For about a week I couldn't figure out why the chickens had all stopped laying. I usually get 4-5 eggs a day, and suddenly I was down to 1 egg a day! Finally I discovered that they had been hiding a secret stash of eggs from me behind a hay bale! There were more than 20 eggs in the cache! Now I'm on the lookout for secret egg stashes, but they've gone back to laying eggs in the coop. who knows why! 

I finally took Julia in for a real haircut! Our daily battles over combing out the snarls were just too much. She was apprehensive about it, but the stylist won her over by giving her "princess pink lips" when we were done. She's commented daily on how she had pink lips ever since. She still gets all worked up when I go to comb her hair, but the snarls are pretty much nonexistent, so hopefully she'll relax soon. 

showing off the hair, the wings and a new dress!!! (thanks Bekah!!)

one day at storyhour, they put up a stage. the kids went nuts over it, putting on the most avaunt garde performance imaginable. 

And here's a new first, Julia went to preschool!!! There's a sweet little preschool that we've been noticing at our friday playgroup. I checked them out for next fall and Miss Amanda the teacher suggested that if we were interested, she would be willing to have Julia as a drop-in for the spring. So last week, we tried it and she LOVED it. Not so much as a tear when I said goodbye and when I came back 3 hours later and stood in the doorway, she made eye contact, smiled a huge smile and then went right back to her project of watering the plants. I think we'll keep on doing it on fridays, since she's so happy and to give me some time to myself once a week!