Lavender Festival

Some pictures from our trip to the lavender festival in Helvetia, OR. I think this is the 4th year we have gone and it always is so cool to see a giant field of lavender. Once you get closer though, you can hear a strange buzzing sound that emanates from the bushes. Every bush seems to be humming.

They are filled with bees! Tons an tons of bees are in every bush. Popping from one flower to the next with utter indifference to our presence. It is unnerving at first but then you realize that they truly don't care that you're there.

Between the chickens scratching around for snacks and the smell of lavender saturating the air, the two of us had a memorable time as usual, though next year there will be three ;)

Pictures from the garden

The garden is going full force right now and we have been enjoying peas, zucchini, lettuce and broccoli over the last month or so. Tomatoes and green beans are next. Even a couple of onions too!

Marilynn is sick of Zucchini already and the plants haven't even hit their stride yet. If anyone has any good Zucchini recipes, let me know!! I have done a lot of different things with it but I sure there is a lot more that can be done.

The first garden picture is from 1 month and a day ago and the other picture is from today.

We also canned some pickles from the Farmer's market today. They made four jars of dill pickles!! Yumm. We'll see how they turn out as this is our first attempt :)

Frittata lovin'

Gayle has asked for this recipe so I will share it gladly. I make this on a Sunday so that M and I have something to take for lunches during the week. Everything in it is from the Farmer's Market except for the eggs.

I have just been using seasonal ingredients for the filling and right now leeks and potatoes are abundant and go well together.

Dice the potatoes and brown them like you would make hash browns or skillet potatoes. After they are browned, add three diced leeks and two diced cloves of garlic. Cook until the leeks and potatoes are soft. Salt and pepper to taste.

Put the cooked mixture into a bowl and add 10 eggs. Mix well and then add a 1/2 cup cheese. Heat an oiled cast iron pan until smoking and then add egg/potato/leek/cheese mixture. Turn down the heat and cook for 10 minutes or so on the stove until the egg mixture starts to set up slightly. Meanwhile, turn the broiler in the oven on high.

After the egg mixture has set up some, cover the top with cheese and put on a lower rack under the broiler and cook until cheese is browned and frittata has set up firm.

Turn out onto a plate when done and enjoy!

MMMMM! So good!

Meat, eggs, and rhubarb

Another Saturday and another trip to the Farmer's Market. It is so cool to see peoples selections expanding as the weather warms and the days lengthen.

These are amazing meats from a butcher called Chop. He makes these various pates which look and taste incredible.

A beautiful carton of farm fresh eggs. They had blue eggs, green, brown and white. The variety of colors blew me away.

The rhubarb is growing again and there is plenty to be had at nearly every booth at the market.

Crusty breads from the Pearl Bakery. Each one is a yeasty soft pillow of goodness, wrapped into a crusty exterior. A perfect companion for a goat cheese spread and wilted greens.

It's a boy!

Well, we got our first ultrasound today and neither of us were prepared for what we saw. WOW... there really is a baby there and it's moving around all over the place. You know there is a baby but when you actually see him, it's amazing. He was so active and.... well, active. We are going to have our hands full.

They pointed out the anatomy that showed it was a boy but as you can see from the pictures, it is a little difficult to tell what is what :)

Portland Farmer's Market

What a cold start to a nice day. It was 38 degrees this morning as we browsed the first offerings of Spring from our local farms. Marilynn was wearing a scarf and I was woefully under dressed in just a fleece! We are so ready for warmer weather.

Making up the spreads were radishes and leeks, potatoes, mushrooms, chard, tomatoes!!, parsnips, carrots, lettuce, vegetable starts and lots more. We strolled through the market sipping coffee, munching on a fig and anise panini from the Pearl Bakery and this is what we saw...

Hedgehog mushrooms

Wild greens

Hydroponic tomatoes... wierd to see at this time of year.

The J.O.B.

Well, things are progressing at work. We have reached the fourth floor of the tower and are connecting it into the seven floors for the "sidecar" as we go. They have formed up the "sidecar" which is a lower separate area, that is tied into the tower. It was poured first and now the

tower is taking shape and being joined to it.

It is amazing to see a building rise by a floor every week or so!! Each floor in the tower takes about 300 yards or more of concrete and thousands of pounds of rebar. When the slab is poured, three days later, they tension hundreds of special cables that were poured into the concrete to create a much stronger building without as many columns as a normal building. In the picture below, the steel at the top of the "sidecar" is going to house our mechanical room for that half of the building.

We have completed the bulk of our work thorough the third floor of the sidecar and still have four more floors left to go there and 30 more to go in the tower! Here below, is a picture of a typical floor being prepped for concrete.

Soon (1/2 a year or so), I will be able to get some sweet pictures off the higher floors and give you an idea of what a killer view a 28th or 30th floor on the waterfront has.

Mmmmmm... gravy

Wow, what could be more perfect than biscuits and gravy... maybe quite a few things but for me, not much :)



It was Robyn's 29th Birthday and his wish was for food that he would love. This means anything that is fried, has meat or has lots of meat and fat. Yum. It was a huge success and a short list of food brought include: deep fried Twinkies and pickles, mini corn dogs, pizza, take out Chinese, fried chicken and jojos, cake and ice cream cake!
I brought homemade biscuits and sausage gravy. The biscuits did not turn out like I wanted, but under the gravy, they could have been cardboard and it would have tasted good.


The meat was from Gartner's Meat Market and was their pork sausage. You could use any ground pork sausage you want as long as it tastes good!

The gravy recipe is as follows:

• 1 1/2 lbs pork sausage
• 1 quart whole milk (though you can use 1 % etc)
• 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 3 T butter
• Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning to taste

1) Brown Sausage
2) Remove sausage from pan leaving behind 4 T fat. If there is not enough, add butter to make 4 T
3) Add flour and brown lightly
4) Add milk slowly a whisk into flour roux
5) Add sausage back to milk mixture.
6) Season to taste with Tony's and heat on low until desired thickness is reached.



Notes- You need the fat for the flour to make the roux. No fat in the roux equals a lumpy gravy. A lower fat milk is fine, just not as rich.

Island Dancing

Some of you might remember this night at the Cooper-Otts.

Jane was being very persistent about my dad continuing to dance. Those older ladies can be so tough ;)

I hope we can have many more dances like this with Jane.

Nap time

Marilynn is hard at work making a baby ;) It's just about the end of the first trimester and everything is going great. M feels much better now and has much more energy then a couple of weeks ago.

We are amazed by how much stuff is out there for babies and how much of it is purported to make you life easier. I'm not sure most of the stuff out there is too helpful... Baby wipe warmer?

I am excited to be building a changing table/dresser for us. I'm sure changing diapers will be a treat with this :) But really, once the kid is out of diapers they will have a dresser for clothes and have room to grow into it.

Mrs. Hart is also making some cool things for the baby. She is an incredible knitter and makes everything from a sweater to a stuffed toy. Just an example below. She already has some great stuff put away for the kid.

House Hunting

Day 411-

Be verwy quiet.... We're hunting howses.

Home prices are still falling in Portland, inventory is still increasing, and home owner's are still delusional about the value of their home.

For example... 349,900

Things are looking our way though. It's almost spring and that is one of the classic times when everyone buys and sells. This will at least create more inventory and more options for us.

Another thing that will be going in our favor for the next couple of years, is that all these people who got into a house with an 5 year ARM (Adjustable Rate Mortgage) are having them reset at the end of 5 years. This equals a higher interest rate and a house that they cannot afford and a bargain for us!!

I know that is a shrewd way to look at it.

Here is a house that is more in our price range, but still not exactly what we are looking for. Location is such a sticky point.

We'll let you know when things fall into place and we're going to buy. Keep your fingers crossed for a nice house in a nice location!

Mirabella

This is where I am working right now... down on the South Waterfront building the Mirabella retirement center. The job is just starting for the most part and is going to be one of the biggest construction jobs going on in Portland.

It's a one and a half year job for me, so maybe I can make it through the recession. The construction industry is taking a beating right now and things are very slow for a lot of people.

Well anyways, we are on the second floor of the tower and there are 28 more to go! It is going to be massive with a swimming pool on the first floor, restaurant on the 28th floor and a double decker parking garage with car stacking lifts.

I will keep new photos coming as the building rises.

Snow... again?

Some of you weren't in Portland when we had our huge snow storm. There hasn't been snow like that in as long as I have lived in Portland. I think we topped out at 18 to 20 inches! Today they are talking about more snow... I am done with it. It's time to plant the garden and get spring here. More later on the garden. These pics were taken after freezing rain decide to add to the mix.

Here we go

Well, I have finally made a blog and I am not sure what to do with it... Brandon has one so why not :)
Well to catch you up, Marilynn is 11 weeks pregnant and is due in Late August. We are pretty excited to have a baby on the way and are still trying to figure out how it will effect our lives and how life will be once the baby is in the picture.
We are going to the Alma Birth center, you can look them up online http://www.almamidwifery.com/ and are very excited by what they have to offer. We didn't want to go the usual route through a hospital and this seemed like the perfect place to have the baby.
That's all for now...