Dad’s Weekly Report

Dear Family,

We had an enjoyable week. Our good friends, Scott & Ivy DeHart came up from Boise last Saturday. Saturday afternoon after they came we went over to the Portland Chinese garden with them. It is a city block in the middle of downtown Portland that has been made into a Chinese garden. Here is a picture of a water lily that we saw there.

Sunday after church we drove out to the coast, to Beverly Beach, which is a state campground near Newport, OR. It is one of our favorite places to camp. The camp is all filled with large old spruce trees with their buttress roots. It is really a beautiful place and besides they have hot showers. Scott and Ivy brought their new tent trailer. So we had an indoor place to cook and eat and nice comfortable beds.

We spent our time hiking in the woods and exploring the beaches. Monday we drove north and visited a large spruce tree. These trees often start their life growing on a fallen log, a nurse log. As a result their roots grow around the tree and often leave an open space under the tree when the nurse logs rots away. Here is Sandy under the tree. And this picture shows how large this tree really is. We saw a lot of really large old growth trees. On Wednesday we took a 6 mile hike through the woods near Cape Perpetua, and came upon some really large douglas firs, nearly as large as this spruce.

We spent a lot of time near Cape Perpetua, on the beach looking at the ocean. The beach is rocky there and the waves crash and have big splashes. Here is a picture that Sandy took that shows the waves splashing. It is hard to capture the splash with our camera because there is a delay between the time you push the button and the time the picture is taken so you have push early and hope that the splash occurs at the right time.

We visited two light houses, the one at Yaquina Head, we have visited before. The other lighthouse is HecetaLighthouse. Heceta is a Spanish word pronounced “ha-see-ta”. We were able to go into both and see the light and Fresnel lenses. Both.are still working light houses. The Yaquina Head light house lens rotates and Heceta lighthouse lens doesn’t. Both are first order Fresnel lenses. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresnel_lens)

Yaquina Head Lighthouse

Heceta Lighthouse

We came home on Thursday. Unfortunately we came to Portland right at rush hour. The roads were unusually crowded and we tried some side streets to avoid the traffic, however it was a mistake and it took nearly 2 hours to get through Portland to home. We were all pretty tired after that. All in all, it was a great trip and nice to get away and to renew our friendship.

Other news, I finished a banana holder for Brent. I built it out of a piece of square stock that he had made when we was doing blacksmithing with me.

The pumpkins that we are growing for the Giant Pumpkin Contest are getting quite big. We are have some trouble with animal pests in the pumpkin patch however the pumpkins are big enough that the animals are not able to do much damage. Here is a picture of the pumpkin that we are growing for Ruth where we were able to photograph the animal pest. I will have to find some kind of spray to keep them away.

Well that is all the news. Hope that you are doing well.

Love,

John

Dear Family,

Our heat wave broke this week and it has really been nice. We had a couple of weeks in the nineties, including three days above a hundred degrees. That is unusual weather for this country. For the last few days it has been in the sixties and seventies. Much better. On the second 100º day our air conditioner quit working. I went downstairs to check it out and found a half-inch layer of ice covering the cooling coils. So I put the heat pump in heat mode and melted the ice then it worked well again. I talked to the repair guy and he told me that it was probably just a clogged air filter.

Last Saturday, Dennis Duffy, (April’s grandpa), and I went to the Great Oregon Steam-up. This is the third time I have been. I am going to recycle a picture that I took in 2006 here. There was basically the same stuff there so no need to take new pictures. It is a picture of a tractor powered by a steam engine. There were lots of these types of machines as well as a lot of other great stuff. We watched them saw up three logs at the steam powered sawmill. Dennis and I stayed until we saw all we wanted to see. It was great not having Sandy telling me that she couldn’t stand to see one more old engine. We had a great time.

I continue to look for jobs. So far nothing more from the job in Flagstaff, AZ, so that is not looking good. I found a couple of jobs this week in south Portland that I applied for but I won’t hear about them for a couple of weeks at the earliest. Allen is having about the same success as I but we are keeping our spirits up and I am sure that something will come up. I guess that everyone is on vacation in August so it is very slow. Hopefully it will speed up in September.

Friday night, I picked up Mary Chamberlain and Maurice Langford and we went to Washington Park in Portland to a concert. Maurice’s son Brian sings in Portland’s opera and they were having a free concert at the park amphitheater. The singing was great, the music beautiful, but they were singing in Italian. I wish I understood Italian, then I would have enjoyed it better.

Also Friday night, Wes’s neighbor and his wife, Aaron and Katrina, came to stay with us for a couple of nights. They spent Saturday touring around Portland. They are great folks and it was great to visit with them.

I have been spending lots of time doing chores around the house. I rebuilt the box that we take camping that holds our dishes and food preparation stuff, I disassembled and repainted the trays in our kitchen that are in the corner cabinet that is a lazy-susan. I have re-stained and varnished some of the woodwork around windows and doors. I cleaned out the garage and have been going through stuff in the garage to eliminate what we don’t need. Now I need to get another project to take up my spare time. Let me know if you have any suggestions.

Next weekend Scott and Ivy DeHart are coming for a visit. We will go out the coast, to Newport, and camp for a few days. It will be nice to get away. I am looking forward to that.

The blackberries are ripe here now. I went out twice this week and picked a gallon of them at a vacant lot near our house. There is an infinite supply of them around here. On the second time Sandy came with and picked another gallon. We like to have blackberry syrup on pancakes and waffles. So we made lots. This week, I will pick some more to make into jelly to give away for Christmas gifts.

Well that is all the news today. I hope that you are all well. Keep in touch.

Love,

John