New bright sheet for my bed

I bought some batik quilt backing fabric; it is 108 inches wide.  I hemmed the top and bottom and Voila! a sheet for my bed.

This is the fabric swatch.  It really looks like this.  I love it.

Here it is on the bed.

Be careful what you wish for

Our oven died AGAIN.  Just five days after it was repaired.  I used it one time in the interval to make peach and blueberry cobbler.  A few days later, it wouldn't heat when I wanted to make lasagne.  The only power we have is the light bulb.  After an hour, it will raise the temperature a few degrees.

John says I finally  have the Easy Bake oven I wanted when I was a kid (it was powered by a light bulb).  I wanted an Easy Bake oven soooooo bad.  But the farm didn't have public electricity.  Instead, we had a wind charger and  a generator for when the wind did not blow.  Everything electric had to be rewired to work.  My dad refused to work on an Easy Bake oven.  So I couldn't have one.

This oven problem is a difficult one because it is intermittent.  Sometimes you can get it to heat and that is what happened when the repair guy came.  It worked.  He told us to get it to fail and call in the daytime, leaving it until he arrived.  He came again yesterday and saw its failure.  Now we are waiting a week for the part.  He thinks the circuit board was damaged by the death of the convection element.

Sigh....  I just want a simple oven that WORKS.

Working on the last wall of the garage

John is working on the last and ickiest wall of the garage.  He did  three sides last year.

First he had to rebuild the rotted corner.

Now he is working on repairing and replacing siding.  The quarters are tight.

Short hike on Triple Falls trail

We went for a hike, hoping to get further than we did.  My knee started complaining and we turned around after about half a mile.  What a drag.  I take knee pain seriously because I know my knees can be slow to heal.

Still, it was nice to be out although it was very dry.  It made me wince to look and it made John afraid that just one spark could start a huge fire.

There is John, just to the right of the waterfall.  He is very small...

When I was ten

When I was ten, the family farm had a very bad year.  We didn't have any money.  We spent the winter with my grandparents, who lived in Phillips, Nebraska.  We went because my parents could find work there.  All six of us lived for several months in their mobile home.  My grandparents had the back bedroom, my brother and I shared the pass through bedroom and my parents slept on the fold up sofa.

My grandmother taught school and it was a big secret that she smoked.  She thought she would be fired if they knew she smoked.  My grandparents and my parents all were heavy smokers so the air must have been bad with all of us packed in there for the winter.

I ran across these photos which are very much like that trailer.

This is like the pass through bedroom that my brother and I shared...

I remember my grandmother had a Hudson.  She drove it to school every day even though it was only a few blocks.  She threw hot water on the windshield to remove the ice.  It seemed easier to walk the short distance.  But that was the fifties mentality.... drive everywhere.

Her car looked like this one.

This is a little scary...

This is a pressure cooker that exploded.

Boing boing source

Nic Clark harmonica

I love this young guy's harmonica


 

Quilt update

My quilt is close to done.  It needs binding and such.  The narrower strips are not confined to the squares they are part of, but instead, sometimes overlap adjoining squares.

Cleome headshot

My neighbor Charlie took this photo of my cleome.  It's difficult to get a good cleome photo.  Kudos to Charlie.

One Two Punch

Not only are we having more 90 degree days for the weekend but it is chokingly smoky.  Being outdoors sucks.  And on a 90 degree day, we have all our doors and windows closed.   I've never seen it like this here before (in 20 years).

Yesterday

source

The smoke is from Washington fires and is being funneled down the Columbia Gorge by the wind.  It's supposed to get better today.

It was much worse in the Columbia Gorge.  That is where we hike but it doesn't look too inviting.

source

How big?

That is how big a grizzly paw is

Gardening outfit of yesteryear

This is me wearing my romper and cooley hat working in the garden about 30 years ago.  I think I was planting corn.  I don't know why this style of dress hasn't caught on.  

Our oven died AGAIN

Our oven died again.  We've had it about four and a half years.  It has had two manufacturing defects (see this post for its history); this time it had a dead element.  We were fortunate to get Steve to diagnose and repair it again this time.  He is so very good at his job and so responsible.  He was about to go on vacation when I got in touch with him but before he went, he ordered the part he thought it would be.  He came with the part and he was right about what had failed.  So, he gets points for being responsible, smart, and experienced.

Anyway, it's now fixed.  I didn't use it yesterday since it was 96 and we barely wanted to eat let alone use the oven.  We had to wait 10 days for Steve to get back from vacation.  We could have used another tech sooner but we chose to wait for Steve.

Steve says the part that failed, the heating unit on the convection fan, is the most common element failure on this oven.  That heating element comes on to help preheat the oven for all the functions we use.

It's going to be cool for a few days and now I can make blueberry muffins and roasted vegetables and peach/blueberry cobbler.  The foods of summer.

August garden

 Still lovin those cleomes....

Most people in Portland don't water their lawns and the lawns go dormant in the summer.  But this year, with the drought, the dormancy is very long and the grass is scary dry.  The city has warned people not to mow their lawns during the heat of the day because of fire danger.  There have already been multiple fires sparked by lawnmowers.  But why anyone would mow a dormant lawn is beyond me.

Hollywood Farmers Market

We like to go to the farmers market, both the Hollywood one and the downtown Wednesday and Saturday Markets.  We go about once a week to one or the other of them.  Today it was Hollywood and, to my delight, Steve Cheseborough was playing there.  I love his music.

Eagle Creek Hike to High Bridge

We hiked at Eagle Creek today.  We went last week as well, leaving the house by 7 am-ish and getting started before the summer hordes.  We went as far as High Bridge.  I met a woman who recognized me from THIS blog.  That was cool.  She is quite a hiker and went to Twister Falls today.  You can see her blog post and photos here.

It was very very dry...scary dry.

Here we are meeting AnnMarie, who reads my blog.

Can't get enough cleomes

The bees and I agree on this.... can't get enough cleomes.

Like everything else, they are suffering with the heat.  Click to see last year's cleomes.