April 2013 - State of the Garden

I've been gardening an unexpected amount this year.  Today alone I planted an innumerable quantity of beans.  I thought three packs would just be about right.  Turns out about HALF of one pack was probably enough for my yard.  I found places to put them, don't you worry!  Gonna be so sick of beans by the end of the summer.  Now it just needs to rain rain rain rain rain.

Camellias bloom all spring.  And they are annoying to clean up after.

This is her "oh my God!" face.  Right now she's looking at Priss.  Behaving like a nut.

Priss

'

Doing

What

Priss

Does.

Tail in the shot....tail.  Tail in the shot.  TAIL IN THE SHOT!

Daisies often get mixed in with grass seeds here so that many people have small white flowers in their yards on purpose. I only have one patch of them, so we'll consider it a happy accident.

New guy that's been hanging around.

Bleeding hearts.

Overachievers.

What garden is complete without a couple of lazy damn cats?

Snowy ageing madness.

For my 27th birthday, to prove I'm not old as hell, I decided I wanted to go cross country skiing.  Yes!  That seems great.  Except I had no idea whether or not it would be difficult, how much skill would be involved, if an instructor was required, etc., so we decided to grab snowshoes instead.  Snowshoeing happens to be the easiest winter sport in terms of "getting into it".  It is, however, not easy.  Imagine plowing through 4 1/2 miles of snowy trail your first time on wacky aluminum platforms.

Why snowshoeing, when downhill skiing is so much more exciting?  Nothing puts me in a good mood like boring, repetitive, physically difficult tasks.  Take my job, for example.  Scanning hundreds of items and sorting them into heavy bags that need to be moved.  Heaven.  Running.  Swimming. Hiking. Extremely satisfying.  I wish I could turn myself into a robot.

In addition, things like downhill skiing and snowboarding usually require passes to a ski-type resort, while this and xc skiing usually can be done just about any old place where snow exists.  In our case we chose to snowshoe around semi-scenic Trillium Lake.  That is to say, its more scenic in the summer.

Doesn't sound appealing?  Live vicariously through these pictures then.

Admittedly, this is the very first time since we've moved to Oregon that I've had anything to do with "The Mountain" (which most of you may know is Mt. Hood and associated mountainous snow zone.)  This has a lot to do with vehicular access, and since we recently got this new Subaru, we thought we could handle it!  I thought I was well-acquainted with snow since I grew up in Western PA, where winter snowfalls can be plentiful.  I just had no idea.

Snow Plows?  F that, Government Camp has BULLDOZERS.  Incidentally, in the middle of the night, we awoke to the sound of Armageddon, which was just all the snow from the entire hotel sliding off the roof into the parking lot.  I was like uh, is Mt. Hood suddenly erupting? I was sure that my time had come.

On the road, we were about an hour from needing tire chains, which would have happened if we didn't haul ass off the mountain at 3:30, right before sunset.

 

My husband and I are big fans of getting gear as cheaply as you can.  Next Adventure is a place here in Portland which allows you to trade in your used gear and clothing, and additionally buy second-hand gear for a fraction of the price of new things.  Here is my goofy purple vintage Columbia adult snowsuit  which functioned at 100% and didn't cost more than 20 dollars.

Right at the beginning.  An easy downhill start, a bitch at the end of the 3.5 hours because it feels like it's going straight up.

\

About halfway through.  It's not as cold as it looks, only about 28 degrees.  When you've waited for Pat Transit's 54C in the middle of winter on a windy hill, you can pretty much camp at the North Pole and be fine.

Trillium Lake.  I'm told in the summer, it looks like this:

What to drink when you're done?  

"Love" isn't my favorite flavor, but I gambled and lost.

Products I recommend?

Definitely any Keen brand hiking boot you can get your hands on.

Injinji individual-toed socks, prevents toe chafe-age.

Neff facemasks and additionally their "daily" hats.

These. Forever.

Lessons Learned?

-Camelbacks and other water bladders operate on the principle that if you're thirsty enough, you'll drink water that tastes like a shower curtain and like it.

-The hiking boots priced over a hundred dollars are worth it if you have knee problems.

-4 1/2 miles is a lot of snowshoeing for a beginner.

I don't want to know how this is going to feel tomorrow.  Let's not talk about it.

Spotlight on something weird: Portland Ketchup

It's been almost two years since I've moved here to Portland.  I feel that in the past I've done a fairly poor job at highlighting the region, which is one of the main reasons I write:  for the people at home that have either never been here, or have no time to come and visit.

So this year, I think I'm going to try highlighting things about Portland (and other parts of the West Coast) which are favorites of mine.  And I plan to travel.  I'd love to do Vancouver, B.C. and Southern California this year.

First on the list is this:

Portland Ketchup is a current obsession of mine.  I'm a fan of ketchup for the start, believing that fries are only a vehicle for getting the tomato-y sauce into my mouth in as high a quantity as possible.  Coming from Pittsburgh, maybe ketchup is a good regional identifier in my mind.  If that's so, then I'm sorry Pittsburgh, but Portland Ketchup totally eclipses Heinz in almost every way possible.  Made with all natural (and probably organic?) ingredients(no hfcs), this ketchup is fantastic.  The price isn't too good at $5 for this size bottle, but I've seen worse things to spend your money on in my lifetime.  It is very thick and has a good flavor, with spicy cloves very noticeable but not overpowering in a standard tangy, delicious sauce.  Basically it tastes like ketchup.  But better somehow.  I thought I was crazy until I made my husband try it;  he agreed.  (Not that I was crazy, but that the ketchup is fabulous.)

I first noticed its existence in the cafeteria at OMSI where I volunteer. I put it on a beanburger and was totally impressed.  I'm not sure of the availability of this product outside my region, but if you come to my house you will be greeted with some fries slathered in this golden god of a ketchup.

Read all about it! http://www.portlandiafoods.com/  Notice that if you buy it in a 12-bottle case it only costs $3.50 a bottle.  Additionally you can buy a gallon container for $32.00, which obviously I'm thinking very hard about.

Fall in Oregon...

Half a mile from my house is Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge, home to much wildlife and a great hiking experience.

Things growing on things which are growing on other things which are...you get the idea.

Blue Herons and Egrets are common here.

above the timberline...

One of my lifelong goals has to been to travel to the timberline, where trees will not grow.  Last Saturday, I beat the trees.  

Mt. Hood, up close and personal.

Even more personal....And approximately 7, 000 feet above sea level.

The Timberline Lodge.  Like 7 Springs + 10.

 What's it like up there?  The air is very v e r y thin.  Everything is really quiet because sound doesn't travel very well, and doing anything made me out of breath.

I don't look very happy.  Its more like I probably couldn't breathe.

The walk from the lodge to the timberline is straight up.  Do you want to recreate my experience?  Turn up your air conditioner and get on a stair stepper for about an hour and a half. Breathe into a plastic bag. 90's style clothing optional.

The photo does it no justice.  In the background you can see the high desert beyond the cascades.  The snow in the foreground is down in an enormous trench.

Portland to a Pittsburgher

Here I am in Portland.  I'm still trying to figure out whether I'm a fugitive or a refugee.  Sometimes it feels like one, sometimes the other.  I ran away from everything and everyone I knew...but then again everything here is so nice I feel like maybe I ESCAPED....

New Living Room. New Sneakers.  Had to buy something comfy to walk in.  They're for skateboarding.  Good to know, I guess but its not like running shoes would be any less poser-y since I don't run either.

Its the same country though...what could be different? Many, many things.

It rains here. Shocking, I know.  One should expect these things when moving to a subtropical rainforest.  Its been raining since I arrived.  My Pittsburgh connections tell me that its been raining nonstop for a week there, too.  But I know its not raining like this.  Every hour or two the sky opens up, raining so hard I always expect it to flood.  It certainly would flood if it rained that hard in Pittsburgh.  When it stops raining, the streets are dry within fifteen minutes.  Where does it all go?

My first answer to that question would be "inside trees".  The trees here are so large, even in the city they cover the sidewalk with shade(that is, if it were ever sunny, of course).  I remember walking down bare sidewalks in the Pittsburgh summer praying for a tree.  That will never happen here.  A canopy stretches up and over you nearly everywhere you go.  A layer of moss covers everything.  Trunks, walls, random other things.

Your Typical Oregon Retaining Wall.

The very next thing you might notice upon arrival (if you were painfully, painfully allergic to dairy) is that non-dairy options are everywhere. In fact, options are everywhere. Meat-free.  You can get vegan anything anywhere. There's a vegan-only food cart.  A gluten-free one.  Coconut milk ice cream.  Gluten-free beer!  There are other fun food options such as an Asian soup-bar where you order broth, grab up some raw meat or veggies from a bar and cook yourself a soup right there in the restaurant.  Another place had elk burgers.  A cucumber (instead of a lemon) came in my water at the Lebanese restaurant.

Why so many options?  Because everyone likes to eat, and everyone is so nice.  Happy.  Smiling. Takin' it eeeeasy.  They want to give you things and talk to you.  Someone, perhaps Chuck Palahnuik (but maybe not), said something about this being the "serial killer capital of the world".  It definitely has that serial killer-y feeling.  Maybe its just because I'm not used to it, but people being nice to me always feels wrong.  Also I think there are a lot of serial killers here.

Its the second highest "year round" waterfall in the USA.  Sounds impressive until you see the difference between it and the first one (Yosemite Falls).  Raining SO hard I only could snap 2 pictures at the risk of damaging my camera.

Things to do abound.  A two hour trip yesterday involved going to Multnomah Falls.  This week we are driving to the Oregon Coast.   But I miss each and every one of you.  For real.