Beautiful light on Eagle Creek Trail

This section is covered in now dormant mosses.  Most of the year it is green and dripping.

Salmon spawning and dead

Elizabeth Gilbert and Creativity

Elizabeth's most famous book is "Eat, Pray, Love".  She also wrote "The Signature of All Things", which I think is terrific.  Recently she published "Big Magic, Creative Living Beyond Fear".  I am reading it now and loving it.

Here is a wonderful Ted talk she gave several years ago.

The oven from hell

I've posted about our Fisher Paykel oven and its problems before.  Our intrepid and very good service man worked diligently to diagnose its problems.

It had intermittent problems all through August and September.   Most of the time it wouldn't heat and I would end up trekking my food across the street to use the neighbor's oven.  It was so bad this week I fantasized about taking a sledge hammer to it.  Oh, how satisfying that would be!  Smash, smash, SMASH!!  I also considered an exorcism because it seems possessed by demons.

On Thursday Steve, the serviceman, worked on it again and found ANOTHER manufacturing defect.  This is its third manufacturing defect.  The first time it was wired incorrectly.  The second time it was a connection that wasn't properly crimped.  This time it was a wire that wasn't very well attached.  The loose wire was causing intermittent failures.

I won't trust that it is fixed until at least a month goes by without a failure.   I talk to it and threaten it with the sledge hammer (yes, it is driving me crazy).  It better behave because it is fall and I have lots of things I want to make in the oven.

New roof for our house

We got a new roof on our house this week.  We had a great crew but still, it is a lot of noise to endure.  And I couldn't believe how hard they worked!  If you are looking for a roofer, we recommend them, Tom Leach Roofing.

Here they are setting up

 The chute for the old shingles from the roof to the truck

Removing the old shingles

Putting down the underlayment

Shingle delivery with conveyor belt to the peak

Hauling the 6.5 tons of shingles from the conveyor belt to their roof location

 Alberto scaring me because he is hanging over the edge

They were very considerate of our plants.

The mad tile lady across the street

My neighbor across the street is obsessed with tile.  Her husband says don't stand still too long around her.... you might get tiled.  Her obsession has paid off and she is really good at tiling.

Her latest project is the laundry area in her basement.  This part is pretty fun.  I really like it.

Here it is in context.

She painted the water pipes green to look like flower stems.

The knob for the water supply inspired the flower.

Fancy house for sale nearby

We walk by this house on the way to Portland Nursery.  It's a stunner.  It is, however, on a busy street surrounded by much more ordinary homes and small businesses.  Here is the listing.  The history of the house is here.

Neighborhood walk

We like how many place we can walk  from where we live.... I can even walk to where I get my bodywork done.  Here are a few photos I took along the way.


Tunnel of light.

Free library...  there are lots of these in the areas where we walk.

 Nice porch columns.

This house makes me feel like I fell into the 1950's in a charming way.

I usually stop and swing a little.  It's so hard to resist a nice swing.