Get the latest photos and ramblings from Corinne, Mike, and Anders living in the Columbia River Gorge.
Anders hasn't started school yet (he's only two), but he does have his first school photo!
Another year, another trip to the pumpkin patch for Halloween. At two, Anders was able to better appreciate what was happening than during his first pumpkin patch visit. He spent most of his time running through the fields as fast as he could. (Amazingly enough, he only fell a few times.)
Our friends Simon and Lindsey hosted a pumpkin carving dinner party a few weeks before Halloween. It was a creative group, so the results were fairly impressive.
Each week throughout the summer, Trout Lake has a Saturday Market. Held in the Grange building, the market features local crafts, baked goods (homemade cinnamon rolls with huckleberries!), and over the past few years the selection of locally grown fruits and vegetables has grown as well. We have tried to go to every market we can, and Anders enjoys the trip as well.
On this particular weekend, when we arrived in downtown the streets were packed with cars. We quickly realized that it was the weekend of the annual Trout Lake Rummage Sale. The proceeds from the sale benefit the Trout Lake Community Foundation who sponsors scholarships for local graduates. They raise an incredible amount of money from the event, on the order of $15,000! So after our walk through the market we continued on over to the rummage sale area.
We wandered around for a bit, but once Anders found the toy section he was pretty much permanently planted there playing with the array of used (and abused) toys on display. One of the toys that he discovered was a "vintage" Fisher Price circus train set. Many of you will probably recognize this train set; both Corinne and I had it when we were kids. He really digs trains and spent a good portion of his time at the toy section playing with these particular pieces. This particular set was missing the engine, so we had decided that we wouldn't buy it. But when we announced to Anders that we were going to leave, he scrambled to pick up all of the train cars and try to carry them away with him. How can you say no to that?
Corinne was less excited about the other item that he picked up and wouldn't put down: a half broken, white Matchbox van with red and blue flames and monster truck wheels. Oh well. The whole pile plus a few books only cost us $1 anyway. We'll just find the engine on eBay - for a lot more than $1, I'm sure.
Insitu holds several company-wide social events each year, and this summer's picnic was held in the community park in Bingen. The event is catered by a local restaurant, and there is an entire section of the park filled with activities for kids: a baby-sitting area (complete with staff), several inflatable bounce-houses, and a face painting station. We opted to keep Anders with us during the party; he was perfectly happy just wandering around the park.
Once he saw the bounce-house, though, it was a different story. Anders had been in one of these just a few weeks earlier at the Trout Lake Fair, so he knew what it was. But this time the house was bigger; it included stairs and a slide inside. And there was a larger flow of older kids cycling through the house. Apparently neither of those were enough of a deterrent, so Anders got in line and made his way into the house. Since he has a generally cautious approach to new experiences, he didn't move very quickly through the house. He was moving, but it was an order of magnitude slower than most of the other kids around him. We were a little concerned that someone might just run over him (not intentionally, of course) when an older boy who was in the house came up to him and started helping him along the path. He held his hand, guided him around turns, and even helped him all the way up the stairs that led to the slide in the middle. It was at this point that Anders decided that he didn't want to go down that slide and began to scream. Corinne stuck her head in and pulled Anders out, and he calmed down when he saw us. We thanked the boy who had helped him along. We got his first name - Nathan - but neglected to find out his last name so that we could relay thanks and appreciation to his parents.
Anders didn't get his face painted, but another member of our party did.
Anders recently attended the 3rd birthday party for Ethan. The party was actually held outside in a local park - Toll Bridge Park in Parkdale, OR. We're considering stealing that idea since it makes cleanup (both before and after) a whole lot easier!
Anders hasn't had soda before. In fact, he hasn't really even had juice that much since we've tried to steer him towards water and milk instead. But we figured that a birthday party seemed like the right place for him to "live it up". I figured that he probably wouldn't like the Izze Sodas that Corinne and I were drinking; as a kid I remember disliking anything that had any sort of carbonation in it. But apparently it isn't genetic.
Well, we have finally gotten another family member to move to the Gorge! After following the Insitu job postings over the last several years, Donna is now the Executive Assistant for Insitu's VP of Sales and Marketing. It all happened pretty fast, too. She noticed the posting on a Tuesday and submitted her resume; HR responded on Wednesday and scheduled an on-site interview for Thursday. By the middle of the following week, she had her accepted offer in hand and would start just two weeks later.
With a total count now at three, we may have retaken the lead on "largest family representation" at Insitu. We held that same count from 2004 to early 2007 when Leif was still at Insitu as well, but we dropped to two when he left to pursue his artistic dreams. (Of course now we don't represent the almost 10% of the company that we did when we first started.)
Donna is staying in our guest room until she can find a place of her own, which is just fine with us and more than fine for Anders. He now has a full-time, live-in grandma! It actually works out great for us to have another person around the house to help out with Anders.
One of Anders's favorite things to do lately is "make blocks," which is to build something out of his Mega-Bloks. He isn't using modern building practices yet, but three out of four times the construction stays intact - that is, until the "elves" dismantle it overnight and put it back into the bin.
Other than my 12 years in Boston and 1 year in Seattle, I've always lived in the country with plenty of opportunity to observe wildlife. In all that time, I had only heard a deer vocalize once. I was floating on a Yellowstone slough and heard a deer on the bank give an airy snort as we passed by.
Have you ever heard a deer scream? I have. Twice. This year.
Scream #1:
About a month ago, I woke up at 4:30 am to a screaming/bleating noise outside followed by a rustling, whirring noise. I immediately thought of the fawns we had frequently seen around the house over the past couple months - a set of twins and a singleton - and of our abundant coyote population. I was wide awake with my heart beating fast, so I got up to investigate. The sky was just starting to brighten with the rising sun. To the east, there was a fawn laying in the grass. To the north, a fawn standing alone. No doe. I watched for a while not knowing what happened to the doe and wondering where the coyotes were. I was fearful that there may have been several coyotes working together, with one or more luring the doe away while others waited for an opportunity to attack the unprotected fawns. After watching for a bit, the doe came running back to the eastern fawn. I never saw a doe reunite with the fawn to the north and they all eventually disappeared, leaving me with more questions than answers. My speculation is that a coyote approached a fawn, it screamed, and then the doe chased it away. I was hopeful the fawns were okay. About a week later, we saw a doe with twins and so apparently, the deer won. But what actually happened, I guess we'll never know.
Scream #2:
Last week, we were eating dinner when we heard coyotes howl. It's unusual to hear them howl in daylight so I got up to see what was going on, particularly in light of the earlier incident. Just then, a fawn went racing past the house crying, while a coyote followed on its heels! The fawn sounded somewhat like a goat crossed with a crow (due to the periodic nature of the bleating). I then saw another coyote in the distance; I sent Mike out to chase the second one away, but it was gone by the time he got there. The second fawn then went running by the house, but it wasn't being chased. About 5 minutes later, I saw the doe walking in the direction of the chase (presumably following a scent?). 20 minutes after that, I heard the coyotes howl again. This time I wasn't very hopeful. That coyote was right behind that little fawn. Mike decided to go out looking for any "evidence" of what had happened. He walked out into the woods in the direction of the chance and spent about 15 minutes looking and listening, but came back without much additional info. The incident ruined my whole evening and Anders was quite upset as well. I don't think he saw anything but responded to our reactions, associating danger with the coyote howling.
A couple of days later, I saw a doe but no fawns. Was this the same doe? I should have paid more attention to them all so I can tell them apart. Using the binoculars, I could see that this doe has a scar above her left front leg and is definitely a mother. Finally, four days later, I saw this same doe with twin fawns. They had survived the incident! I really thought that one was a goner.
The day after I experienced the Scream #2 incident, on my drive to town I passed a deer that had just been hit. It was laying in the road, head up, breathing but legs busted. (There were people stopped and presumably taking care of the situation.)
This is just too much of the ugly side of nature. It reminded me of something our landlord had said to us when we first moved to the Gorge: "Living in the country is all about death!". I don't prescribe to that perspective, but it's not an untruth. Time to go back to Boston? Not yet, but please, no more screaming.
Earlier this year, Corinne heard an interview on NPR with musician Trombone Shorty and has been infatuated ever since. His music is a unique fusion of jazz, funk, and rock with a lot of horn. Upon checking out his website, she discovered that he was going to be in Eugene, OR on the Thursday before the 4th of July weekend. We managed to twist Grandma's arm and convinced her to spend an extended holiday weekend with us so we could get away overnight for the concert. Our first overnight together without Anders! So we rounded up a few friends and off we went.
Our friends Kris and Amy both have their pilot's license and decided to fly from Hood River to Eugene rather than drive, so Corinne hitched a ride.
Gooseberries from a friend's garden, transformed into a delicious rustic tart. Yum.
This is what happens when Anders wakes up from his nap before Mom has finished baking for the potluck.
(This is another 'archival' post from summer 2010.)
Our friend Catherine celebrated her 30th birthday recently. At the party, there was a cardboard 'stage' and a box of miscellaneous costume accessories: hats, mustaches, etc. Fun!
During a recent walk, Corinne brought our her Digital SLR (the "fancy" camera) and took some artsy shots of spring's arrival.
Anders is a book-hound. He wants to read books all of the time, sometimes a little too often for Mom and Dad, in fact. So we figured that he would go absolutely crazy at the library.
But for some reason, on his first visit to our local library he spent the majority of his time climbing on the furniture, looking at the computer, and playing with the toys in the kids section. Go figure.
