Tomato Pie

I have tomato pie baking in the oven and it's ohhhhhhh......soooooo.......good-smelling! Is everyone making their own tomato pies at home with their scads of ripe tomatoes?

Oregon Loves Canada

I heard the sad news that our Canadian friend Tricia is being asked to leave the US for awhile, because she's been here "too much" according to the authorities. Well, pooey on them! We love having Tricia around. Why are our dear Canadian friend being asked to leave, while we seem to have a plethora of weirdos from the Middle East here who absolutely hate this country.

So, I have figured out a way to let Tricia stay here as much as she wants and, in return, provide Oregon with great rewards! Oregon secedes to Canada, becoming its next Province. How many Provinces of Canada are there now? I don't know. We gain a decent health care system and Tricia isn't a "foreigner" anymore.

We can call Oregon in the new Canada: Oregon B.C. We'll all take a trip to Ottawa to check out our new Nation's capital. We'll drink better beer. We'll start loving hockey. I've even designed our new flag:

Long Live Oregon B.C.!

Canning

So my plum tree outside my kitchen window has ripe fruit and I went out picking yesterday morning to do my annual jam test....for some reason I can't seem to make the right consistency of plum jam - it's either too stiff or too runny. This year I am determined to get it right.

I went looking for my boiling water canner, but then remembered what we used it for last winter. It has a pinhole in the bottom (probably from our misuse last winter) and is of no further use to us now.

So I splurged and bought myself a new canner! They're on sale these days, anyway at Fred Meyer's. I canned my first ever six pints of plums off my tree...I just did enough to test out my canner and make sure I was using it correctly. It worked!

We're Done!

Hi everyone - the deck and fence crew finished officially on Monday, but the trash and extra lumber is still outside waiting to be picked up. But the pictures tell the story - they did a great job. It's a much nicer back yard with more privacy for the pool. We love it!

If anybody is looking for a great fence/deck crew, this is the place to find them!

Storms over Portland

The weather has slowed down progress on our backyard project, somewhat. The pool is mostly finished, except for one leak in a hose that existed prior to the changing of the pool liner that will be fixed tomorrow.

The deck is going in now. It is a work of art.

Pool Guys

Since Tricia is so interested in the Pool Guys, I will share with you this little story.

There was a crew leader and two younger men installing the liner. The two younger men didn't have shirts on. One of them had a very dramatic tattoo down his side. I didn't have my glasses on and as I squinted at the artwork down his side, I thought it was a carrot. I said so.

There was a moment of silence and then the guys burst out laughing. "It's a Spear!" the young man protested loudly. The crew leader was laughing the hardest. "These boys are native Americans," he explained, "they get tattoos of warrior images on them."

Halfway Through

This weekend, the workmen are off, but lots has been accomplished in the first week.

The pool has a new liner and is filled again. Although the chemicals haven't been adjusted, the water is swirling and being filtered through the pump.

The deck folks have framed out the steps and garden box that we wanted done.