All alone

The loggers left this one and only tamarack tree standing. I was so afraid they would cut it down, but I guess they really did know what they were doing. It's the only one right by our house and I enjoy watching it turn color in the fall. I had a much nicer pic of this tree taken a few days ago with Cali posing in front, however due to a computer glitch all my pix from October were lost so this will have to do.

Cali's playmate

Klanncy has finally surpassed Cali in height and weight...by quite a bit. He's at least 30 pounds heavier than Cali. They still enjoy wrestling each other, but Cali is out-matched.

Pause for paws

I thought Cali's paws were big, but this bear paw print is HUGE!

Meatless Monday

We still have quite a few potatoes and onions in storage and since it was a meatless day today we decided a potato pancake for dinner would be perfect.

Here are the freshly scrubbed Yukon Gold potatoes rescued from their hiding place in the garage.

Yummy!

Don't try this at home...

Fortunately I was able to pick all the peppers from the garden before the big snow and deep freeze. Hubby suggested I dehydrate the Serrano peppers and then make pepper flakes.

Here are the dehydrated peppers still on the racks.

Into the Cuisinart for a quick blitz. I didn't have much material to work with after the dehydrating process.

Now comes the dumb part and not for the amateur, I lifted off the lid and fine HOT pepper powder filled the kitchen. Can anyone say "pepper spray"? Both Hubby and I were coughing, gagging and tearing up like crazy. This is definitely a task delegated to the outside with plenty of ventilation.

This is why we want to move...

This is my "pet" Stellar's jay. He visits every morning at 8. This picture was taken yesterday.

This picture was taken this morning after over 2 hours of snow removal. We had over 6 inches of wet, gloppy white stuff piled up everywhere. It's only the beginning of October. I can see having this kind of weather next month, but we have basically skipped right over fall and headed into winter. Now maybe all of the people who question our motives for moving will get it.

Final forest thinning

The loggers have been working for weeks now on the final thinning of the forest. They've cut a lot of small trees and are busy putting them in piles. They worked along our property line this week and cut most of what was a nice screen. Oh well. They weren't our trees anyway, but it was nice to have that barrier.

It's very easy to see the house from the forest trail after all their work.

Cali and her snakes

Real snake.

Fake snake.

I prefer this one.

Chippy chase

Cali caught sight of a chipmunk and she chased the poor thing around the spa at least 10 times. I was afraid they were both going to turn into butter. You can spot the chipmunk blur in the lower left of this photo.

A brief second of rest before resuming the race around the spa. It eventually out smarted Cali and ran up a tree.

Um....Whoopsie!

Just when you think nothing of much interest happens in this sleepy town, someone rams their minivan into the doorway next to the Post Office. No human injuries were sustained, but the building's brand new facade looks severely damaged.

(I hope sweet Casey is feeling well soon!).

Disappearing chokecherries

We had been watching this chokecherry tree all summer. The fruit was really getting ripe and then one morning most of the cherries had been stripped off the branches.

Yesterday while watering the garden, I saw this bear ambling down our road headed for the chokecherry tree.

We blamed starlings for eating all the chokecherries, but now I see we have found the real culprit.

Astoria, OR

We stayed at my aunt's coast house which is just south of Astoria. This view of the bridge over the Columbia River was taken from the Maritime Museum. It's a very interesting museum, but we couldn't stay long as Cali was in the truck and it was quite hot.

The Astoria Column is a big attraction for this area. The view from up here is tremendous.

Dennis climbed all 164 steps and released a small wooden airplane from the top. I was surprised that the little plane made it into the trees. I thought it would just crash to the bottom. It was extremely windy up here.

The beach at Ft. Stevens State Park is a great place to run the dog. My aunt told us about an area where you can find intact sand dollars. We collected 10 perfect ones. If we went early in the morning we had the beach to ourselves.

Cali on the beach.

Trip to Oregon

Mt. Hood taken from Panorama Point. It's unusual to get such a clear, cloudless pic of this mountain.

Hubby in front of Mt. Hood. The valley is beautiful and full of pear and apple orchards.

Grandma and granddaughter hanging out in the gazebo. It was 90 degrees.

The ladies in my family. From left, Mom, my aunt Anne, cousin Sherri and Grandma. Also, Gigi on Sherri's lap.

Hubby chatting it up with my Uncle Butch. My aunt's friends are in the back enjoying pizza. They were headed to Maui the next morning. Lucky puppies.

Tomato crop

This year's tomato crop ripened a little earlier than years past. We made jars of tomato sauce, chopped tomatoes and a 3rd batch of roasted tomatoes. That doesn't include the tomatoes that have been eaten fresh or given away. I'm guessing we have processed between 200-300 tomatoes in the past 2 weeks. Fortunately, that is the bulk of the crop. The fruit that is left on the plants are very green and were probably hidden by other foliage. Those will take some time to ripen, but we're ready for them!