Sunday Sunday

Slept late, for once.

Logan and John went to get new tile saw blade. Returned from saw-rental-place with a new saw, now we have two to return to them.

Logan and I walked down to the road to pick black berries, found foot access to the creek, and came back with a small basket of berries.

Logan and John mixed up mud for the bathroom floor tile and started setting tiles in place.

Logan and I picked a few of our tomatoes.


Today's haul.

Logan and John mudded and placed a few more tiles.

I sliced tomatoes for dehydrating.

It's almost 6, John's not done, and Logan's still going strong. When does the weekend start?

Thursday's Hike

We had five mom's and children for lunch before our hike on Thursday. Um, let me rephrase. Five moms and children got together to eat at Munchies before leaving to go hike. The other three moms took off for the trail head while Andrea and I were still sorting out bathroom stops and car seat transferring. We were carpooling the rest of the twenty-odd miles. And the drive out was pretty. Huge rock walls, twisting road, one deer looking at us (two chipmunks on the drive back too!) and the river down below every so often. So we got to the trail head, and no one else from our group was there.

Being kind, concerned and caring people, we concluded that they had ditched us, and would either catch up, or would hike at wherever they had ended up. So we herded our ducks, err, children along the path and happily looked at trees and rocks and what wildlife couldn't escape before we passed it. We actually saw some this time aside from bugs too.


Giant Pacific Salamander

We hiked along a ¾ mile fir trail, mostly up and down hill, but not too difficult hills. We looked at Red Huckleberry bushes (Logan sampled them), Salall, Oregon Grape, ferns, and a lot of rocks and fir cones. Aidan's collecting fir cones these days, which is kind of fun actually. There are quite a few varieties of shapes and sizes. This is all part of my homeschool/unschooling effort with Logan - she's identifying plants pretty well and so am I. Oh, and we also saw a beautiful black and yellow millipede on a bridge, who was moving a lot more then the salamander. (I'm calling the salamander "Flash". She might have moved her tail a little between our trip in to the falls and our trip back out past her. I think she was a little cold!)


The Falls.

Logan and Aidan waded, and climbed and threw rocks in to the water. It was a little chilly since it's been cool and rainy here this week. I hope we can go back to this one again when it's warm and I feel like wading. It would be a great place for a picnic, and since it was listed as a "difficult" trail in the guide, and was a long drive to the trail head, I figure that it probably wouldn't be too crowded.


Logan, looking at Flash on our return trip.

On our drive out we passed another waterfall just sitting there, falling, by the side of the road. Once we were close enough to town for my cell phone to work we got a message from the other moms, saying they'd made a wrong turn and found themselves back in Roseburg instead of down south east where we were. Oops. We'll try to convoy next week. Lunch with everyone was a lot of fun. Logan and I left home around 11, and didn't get home again until after 7, with her asleep for the night. It was a good day.


Waterfall at the edge of the road.

Logan and John's work on sunday


And still overflowing with energy.

Sharing:

Logan, reading me the "constructions" on her can of gold fish soup:

"Put glasses on gold fish when you read them."

"I cut my finger off so I can't eat very well" (John cut his finger, not off, Sunday night, so finger cutting has been a recent conversation topic.)

"Go to Saturday market, get fish, stir them up."


Don't ask me, I just live here. But I thought it was entertaining.

I took a ton of pictures at the coast Sunday, a few of which I'll stick up eventually. Today is Logan's last ballet class for this "term" then we have a week or two of just Saturday classes, then we start Mini Musicians and the new Ballet term in mid September.

A-painting we will go

Painting Logan's Room


Working Hard


or hardly working?

Yes, I turned it over. John liked it like that. He wanted it titled "Bat Girl Paints the Dome" or something similar.


What did you say?


Don't paint my what, Papa?


Smugness.

John says he asked "what are you doing logan?" as he found her painting her face. Her answer was "helping papa."

Tuesday Dance Class

We're still trying to get the paint out of Logan's hair from Sunday. And I've got some more painting pictures, but I'm not posting them today. Logan and I have dance classes this afternoon, with lunch and errands before, and probably some grocery shopping after. And a visit to Zoe and Jasmine, who are the dogs of Joana and Steve, and are staying home with a visiting dog sitter while their humans are out having fun. So we'll play with the dogs, and pick some tomatoes, and pick up a dehydrator while we're there.
Logan and I both have dance classes on Tuesday, for a few more weeks. Then there's a short break, and when the next term starts, we'll add in mini musicians again, and our dance classes will be on different days.


Mouse hat from Grandma Wilma, dress from Auntie Cheryl.

First Logan gets to stretch and warm up, and practice basic ballet mixed with games and sometimes some toys for an hour. Then I get to do a combination of ballet and modern dance, with warm up and cool down and a lot of concentration since I've never done anything like this before for an hour and a half. I'm the beginning-most person in my class, but by no means the oldest. The oldest is Vencil (sp?) who is in his seventies, and has done ballet for eight years now. We're loosing him to Florida in another couple of months (and he'll be living halfway near Cheryl's work!) to be closer to an equestrian center. The dance is more portable than the horse events.


Dancing Kata

For the fall term Logan's class will get to end with a performance on the Holiday Market Stage, which will probably be dancing as flowers or something equally simplified. I checked the flier for my class and we don't end up performing though. Phew.

Painting

Today John worked a half day, or less, at work, and spent time painting inside the dome. The pros have been and gone painting the majority of it "sunburst" which is a very slightly warm white. John has now painted the kitchen a pretty cantaloupe (inside of a cantaloupe) color. The library a cinnamon-ey brown. And the loft wall a purple. Plus more sunburst on the places that the pros didn't do.




This is showing fairly accurate for the loft wall color on my screen. But above the loft wall looks much darker in the picture than in real life. The color I can see in the pic is more like the kitchen or library color. I thought it was a neat effect though.

Today was Logan's final swimming class. She and James both got little certificates saying they had participated in level 2, and should enroll for level 2 for their next class. Didn't pass. Although it doesn't make a scrap of difference to them. They had fun, and both are doing a lot more in the water then when they started it.

I got email that Hurricane Charley turned and went across Florida lower than what it was forecast to do. So my family and friends are okay, so far as I know. And word from Wilma is that the evacuation was a farce, as usual. You'd think that somewhere that could be washed away by really bad wind and rain would be able to deal with getting people moved away from the path of destruction, but that never seems to happen in Florida. And on the whole path of destruction theme, I'm wondering how voting will go this year, and whether it will be an improvement over the farce of bush's non-election in 2000.

There's hurricane's in Florida...

"...and Texas needs rain" Or at least that's how the song goes. I haven't checked on Texas. But Florida's definitely lined up to get hit by Hurricane Charley. Whoo Hoo. I hope folks aren't too tossed around by the wind and rain and flooding. Most of my Florida experience with Hurricanes was a lot of fun clouds, wind and rain. I never had to deal with the really nasty side of them. Here's to hoping that not too many folks have to do that this time either. Florida's sun coast, the western side of the state, is due to get well blown and rained on sometime tomorrow or the next day, unless the storm turns. I've already heard from family and friends that they'll check in as power and phone lines allow them to, so I'm not calling. No news is good news.

I don't have any pictures of Florida weather on the computer. Or even know which storage space the boxes of them are stored in right now. But I've got one that shows the wind at the Oregon Pacific Coast last summery when Cheryl was visiting. So that'll have to do. Enjoy the wind Florida folks, and I hope you and your homes all come through okay.


Cheryl, Logan and John a the coast, summer 2003.

Posting For Ruzz:

I took this set of pictures yesterday, mostly trying to catch the drops of water in the air. I was thinking of Ruzz and the kind of pictures he can take and wondering whether I could get anything that good. I didn't. But Ruzz was having a bad day yesterday, so I decided I'd post the pictures anyway, and he can see what I managed. And the Logan pictures will make checking Aunties and Grandmas happy.

Logan has today and tomorrow left for swimming class, and then classes are done for the summer. Then we just try to keep going to the pool to keep cool, during our heat wave. I keep reminding myself that summer is relatively brief here, and it will be nicely cool again fairly soon. But on the days it's 90 to 100 inside the "cabin", that's tough.


coordinating arms and legs and even face in the water sometimes.


back floating


kicked herself right out of the picture


Jumping in to the pool, faster than I could click the shutter!

And here's hoping that Ruzz, (and whoever else actually reads here) has a good day today. We'll be trying not to burn or melt in the heat, and then going to the county fair to see animals and eat some greasy fair food.

Susan Creek Falls

So here are a few pictures from Thursday's hike. No kids today, just water. I need to check with moms and see if I can post pics of kids beside Logan and Aidan. Amy? Eva? Melissa? Do you mind if your child's face, or your own appears on my blog? Do any of you read here? No, probably not. Maybe I can remember to email you today, because I did get cute kid pictures too.


At the base of the falls

The hike was about a mile. Each way. The walk in was fine, no one got overly tired or whiney (well the kids didn't I don't remember about the moms) until we were almost there. Logan and Aidan can identify ferns, Oregon Grape (eatable but doesn't taste good I've heard) and poisen oak. And we're all working on salal. They were doing well identifing Madrone trees too, until yesterday when I pointed one out to Logan and asked what it was, and she proudly identified it as Maple, and proceided to tell John all about Maple trees making Maple suryp. The information was right, but the tree was wrong. Oops. (Logan wants to see the maple suryp making process, I wonder when we can go to vermont in the spring time.) I haven't started trying to tell the smaller kids which plant is which yet, two aren't at all interested, and the third was busy running most of Thursday.


The rest of it

We got to the falls, and found our way down to the creek. I reminded Logan to take off her overalls before wading in, so they wouldn't get soaked. Seconds later Logan was naked. That's my little nudist. Then we had five mostly naked kids climbing on rocks and splashing in the water. It was colder then the water at the other falls we'd been to, but still fit to wade in. We saw one or two little fish, and some water bugs. I looked in vain for crawfish. I'd love to show one to Logan, much less the adults. I wasn't the only one surprised that they live in Oregon.


As close as I got to the sum of the parts.

Whoops, Lisa and company are here to meet some Jacob Sheep. We're being a show and tell farm today. Time to quit typing.

Look ma, no blog.

Our phone is out for the evening, leaving us home disconnected from the rest of the world. Voice mail still seems to work. And the local company assures us the phone should be restored in two hours. Or maybe twenty-four hours. So there's a delay on having a post up in the morning for mom.

And, while I think I took some fun pictures today, I don't think I managed to bring the camera in from the car to put them on the computer. Swimming and hiking went well. Logan is convinced that stopping off for a slice of chocolate cake is part of the standard hiking routine. Doesn't really seem like a bad routine to me, although I could have skipped the 32 ounce iced tea, which now has me staying up late with no internet.

We had five moms and kids for today's hike. Kid ages ranged from just turned one year old in April to about to turn four years old in September. We only lost one of them, and that was briefly. He evidently has some good forest blending skill since even in a bright red shirt we were able to misplace him in the green and brown forest.

The waterfall was pretty, and the stream, or creek, or whatever it was, was chilly but fun to wade in. Since I don't have any of the pictures that I took of it, I'll leave you with one from the other pretty falls we went to, a few weeks ago. Andrea was sitting on a log looking aesthetic. And I haven't remembered to email her the picture since then. But her email fills up too quickly with pictures anyway. I did warn her I'd post it though, so she could see it.


Andrea at Fall Creek Falls

And, at this rate I'll talk to him before this manages to post, but Happy Seventieth Birthday Daddy! I hope it's a good work day for you. Gifts, cards and so forth are all on hold until I find a moment of spare time, or am not living in a shed. Maybe by christmas.

Thursday's we hike

Logan and Aidan

Two posts in two days. It's a trend. After all, I got email and comments for the last one, so I figured I'd better do it again quick while someone was still checking here.

I'm not trying to turn this in to a photo blog, but it's easier at the moment to post a picture and a few words then to try to find the chance to type very much. Today (Wednesday) was pleasantly cool, although it made swimming a bit chilly. With luck tomorrow will also be cool, so that hiking is nice. We've been going with an assortment of other mom's and kids -- did I post this before? I don't remember.

The best hike was to a small waterfall, with a place to wade in the cool water. Tomorrow is to another falls, but I can't remember much about it. We don't see much in the way of wildlife with two three year olds, and some one or less year olds, but it wears the kids and adults out, and it's fun. Logan and I have swimming first, then probably will eat lunch in the car as we drive out to meet the rest of the hiking group. Whichever assortment of them it is this week. Logan and I missed last week due to a cold, or allergy attack or something. I'm a bit apathetic this week, but it's summer, I'm apathetic about everything.

Off the deep end:

And she wasn't even pushed!

This is Logan in week two of swimming lessons for this summer. We just started week three (class two - she's now moved up to the second level) Tuesday. So far so good. She's enjoying them, plus the parent child swim that happens right after class. We're both wearing sun screen, she's tanning, I'm managing not to burn. So far.