Another Summer Trip to Boston

Since we've moved away from Boston, somehow we seem to find some reason for a summer trip back - in 2005 and 2007, and now this year - despite the fact that the summer humidity in Boston was one of the reasons we left!  This year the excuse was the wedding of our friends Tara & Jason. The trip got off to a good start when we both managed to sleep on the red-eye flight. That didn't preclude us from taking a long nap once we arrived at our host Becky & Gordon's place, though.



Tara & Jason's Wedding

The first wedding events were the bachelor/bachelorette parties on Thursday night, the day we arrived. The guys met outside of Fenway Park and started out at the evening's Red Sox game. We soon discovered a strange property of this group of 8 bachelor party participants: other than the groom, no one knew any of the other participants! "That was just in case I needed to send you on a mission," quipped Jason (Reservoir Dogs). After the game we proceeded to the Middle East in Central Square for some food and overly loud live music. Several of us had taken red-eye flights that day, so by shortly after 11pm we were starting to fade. We said our goodbyes until the wedding on Saturday.

(photo courtesy of Penny)

The bachelorette party, on the other hand, started with manicures/pedicures, then dinner, a wine bar, and karaoke. Corinne and I had prearranged to meet at midnight on the platform of the Central Square T stop (how romantic), so she actually had to leave the party a little early; I was done early and had 45 minutes to kill. During that time I saw the best and worst of Central Square. First, I witnessed an actual fight - or at least the end of one. Immediately following that, I stumbled into a mob of people on the sidewalk, watching the Celtics come back from a 20 point deficit to win game 4 of the NBA Finals. There really is nothing quite like watching a Boston team play in Boston, whether it be live or televised.

The wedding was held on Saturday at the Artists for Humanity Epicenter. In typical Boston fashion, the weather was hot and humid. Becky was gracious enough to give us a ride to the T so that we would at least start the evening dry. Unfortunately some scheduled maintenance and unscheduled fires on the tracks caused a large section of the Red Line to be closed. The MBTA was using buses to ferry people around the work, but the buses were predictably slow and overcrowded. Worried that we wouldn't make it in time, we opted to take a cab. (Thank you, Boston, for reminding us of some of the reasons we left!)

The ceremony and reception were held in the same building, with interesting and colorful local art decorating the walls. Corinne and Tara originally met when they were both living at WILG at MIT, so the reception was a good opportunity to see lots of fellow alums.



At one point during the cocktail hour between the ceremony and the reception I noticed a Budget moving truck out one of the windows; the back of the truck was filled with plates of salad, with the caterer dressing each one. However they got it done, it was great. I do wish I had gotten a photo of that truck, though.

Cake topper, Lego-style

(photo courtesy of Jed)

Last fall Jason and Tara moved from Seattle to Denmark when Jason received an offer to work for LEGO in Billund. As such, Lego Mini-figs played a prominent role on wedding day, used for both the wedding cake topper and each of the place card holders for the attendees. Corinne and I were given an Engineer and a Chef, which we very much appreciated. ;)

The next time we'll see the happy couple will be our scheduled trip to Denmark in July, just days after they have returned from their honeymoon!

Becky, Gordon and Lily

Mike & Lily in the Park

When we weren't involved in wedding activities, we spent a good portion of the rest of the time with our hosts Becky, Gordon, and their 1.5 year old daughter Lily.  We took walks around the neighborhood, which also happens to be close to our old neighborhood.  We walked to a local community park/garden where a group of new moms meets for "play-time", and had lunch at The Neighborhood Restaurant (that's the name).  And we also made sure to make time for Christina's Ice Cream.  We also had some fabulous home-cooked meals, thanks to our hosts!  There are some additional photos and stories on their blog, The Lilypad.

Christina's Ice Cream

Brunch and Mini-Shower

On Sunday morning, Becky and Gordon hosted brunch at their place for the old MIT Aero/Astro group. Little did we know that they actually had a mini baby shower planned! Sara made a beautiful ABC cake, while Becky bought supplies to make personalized onesies.  Each couple used markers, stencils and their imagination to make Rocket the most stylin' baby on the block. We got some of everything: nature (ladybugs and flowers), science (rockets and pi), and sports (the NY Yankees - like we'll ever let her wear THAT one...)



With so many kids running around all day - Jaydon, Abigail, Lily, Caroline - we started to get a taste of what it will be like to have our own.

Making onesies

Judy & Jaydon making onesies

Shawn writing Pi

Finished onesies

Jaydon driving while "texting"

ABC cake

Cutting the beautiful cake

Jaydon and Abigail, awaiting cake

Traveling Pregnant

Corinne was 5 months pregnant for this trip, solidly in the second trimester. She was still small enough that she could wear a non-maternity dress to the wedding; she just added a shawl over the top to hide the places where it didn't quite fit the way it did before. But she still looked great!



The combination of the flight, more walking than usual, and the hot and humid weather did create some discomfort, though, in the form of swelling of the feet and ankles. At each doctor's appointment, the gynecologist would ask her if she had any swelling; after this trip, the answer would have to change from "no" to "yes". I guess we should look into those compression socks before our Denmark trip in July.



Our flight back to Portland left Monday night, and unfortunately we spent most of Monday preoccupied by some distressing news we received from Leif. But that is a story for another post.



- Mike (& Corinne)

Mr. or Ms. Rocket?

We finally know Rocket's gender, but it sure took a while to find out.

Since we didn't have an amniocentesis, an ultrasound done somewhere between 16 and 20 weeks into the pregnancy was our first opportunity to determine the gender. So we scheduled our next doctor appointment for about 18 weeks, and we collected votes from our family on which they thought it would be. The results of the voting were: 8 for boy, 5 for girl, and 1 for inconclusive (i.e. can't tell from the ultrasound). Everyone was anxious to find out, including us! As my Mom put it, are we having a Rock or a Rockette? (I'm not sure what that says about her opinion of boys...)

The day of the appointment arrived, but somehow there was some confusion in the office records about when our due date was. As a result, they had not planned to do an ultrasound that day and were not setup for it. After we got the records straightened out we scheduled a followup appointment for 2.5 weeks later. On the morning of that appointment, the doctor's office called to say that the doctor had been called in to emergency surgery and wouldn't be finished in time to see us. So we rescheduled for the next available time, which delayed us another 4 days.

Face and arm

Finally, on the third try we were successful. The doctor proclaimed to us that we were having... a girl. She also said that if she was wrong, she should find a new profession; she was that sure. (Hence the "girlie parts" label on the photo below.)

"Girlie parts"

I was fairly neutral on the gender issue, but Corinne had a preference for a girl. Hooray! While I doubt we'll actually officially name her Rocket, the codename stays. And on the name front... we had agreed ahead of time that we wouldn't discuss names until we knew the gender. (We didn't want to do any "throw-away work".) So now I guess it's time to start thinking about that.

Head and neck (side)

We have to admit to being a little disappointed in the ultrasounds. After seeing the ultrasounds from our OHSU visit, we were totally spoiled by the "big city" hospital and its fancy equipment - complete with a CD burner for digital copies of the images. The small town hospital in Hood River definitely has some benefits, but the latest and greatest equipment isn't one of them.

- Mike (& Corinne)

Coyote Pup

This weekend Corinne was sitting outside talking on the phone when she saw this walk out of the forest:


A coyote pup! Apparently it didn't see her initially, or maybe it hadn't learned yet that humans are something to be avoided. I was still inside, so Corinne did what she could to get my attention while not scaring away our visitor. Eventually I got the message and managed to get a few photos through the window before heading outside. By the time I made it to that side of the house, he had returned to the woods. We briefly walked along the edge of the woods, trying to catch another glimpse, but we gave up in fairly short order. Our chances of re-finding him were slim to none, and nobody wants to accidentally get between a mother and her offspring.

A minute or so later we heard the distinctive howl of a coyote. I like to think that the pup returned to the den, and that the sound we heard was Mom saying: "You did WHAT??"

We have a bit of a love/hate relationship with our coyotes. We love to listen to their yelps, which we typically hear in the early evening or as we are getting into bed. They are also great hunters, and anything that eats voles and gophers is a good thing. Unfortunately, one of its other targets is domestic cats like ours. In the end, we think they do much more good than harm. It's also pretty hard to dislike a baby animal of any sort.

- Mike (& Corinne)

Re-scalping Completed

In addition to the tree seedlings we planted in our meadow this year, we also had some maintenance to do on the 200 we planted last year (of which ~130 survived). The grasses grow back each year, so spring is the time to re-scalp the area around young seedlings. Since grass competes with the young trees for water and nutrients, eliminating the competition should improve the survival rate. After about 2 years in the ground, the trees have generated an extensive enough root system that the benefit of this maintenance no longer outweighs the work involved.

The re-scalping went fairly quickly, taking only a few hours. Here we are, happy that we've completed all work in the meadow until next year.

- Mike (& Corinne)

Countdown to Rocket: T minus 20 weeks

By popular demand, here are the first of Corinne's "belly shots". I had originally intended to take a photo per week, but you know how life gets.

May 15th
(T minus 22 weeks)

May 29th
(T minus 20 weeks)

We can now feel Rocket moving around, too! The doctor has asked us at each of our appointments if Corinne was able to feel any movement, but up until Memorial Day weekend she hadn't felt anything. Then on Monday night we were sitting on the couch when Corinne thought she could feel something moving. From what we've heard, typically the woman can feel movement long before it is noticeable from the outside, so I wasn't expecting to be able to feel anything. But when I put my hand on her stomach, lo and behold I felt something move!

We're halfway through the countdown, and all systems are go.

- Mike (& Corinne)

We Have Arrived

Trout Lake now has everything that we could ask for.

When we first bought our place in Trout Lake, there were several important pieces that were missing. First, no high-speed internet. But after only a few months Embarq expanded their DSL offering into our area. We now have a 5Mbps connection.

The other major missing piece, though, was NPR. OPB (Oregon Public Broadcasting) is probably second only to WBUR in Boston for the quality of their programming. However, the Trout Lake valley couldn't get a clear signal from any of their broadcast towers. Spending as much time in Boston as we did, it was difficult to not have the option of waking up to Morning Edition. Recently, however, OPB discovered that the antenna on one of their local towers had been broken. After they fixed the antenna, the signal is now clear! Hallelujah!

- Mike (& Corinne)

Going Batty

On a recent weekend, we celebrated the coming of late-spring/early-summer by taking out the charcoal grill and cooking one of our favorite summer meals: marinated flank steak and grilled asparagus. The weather was unseasonably warm - in the 90s, unusual for May - and so we had the windows and doors open for much of the day.

On Saturday night after dinner, Corinne and I sat down to watch a movie before bed. About 20 minutes in to The Simpsons Movie, I thought I heard some unusual sounds coming from somewhere behind me. I paused the movie, turned around and discovered something flying back and forth in our Great Room. After a dozen or more laps, it settled down to perch in the rafter.

Sometime during the day, a bat had flown in to the house.

Each spring after the irrigation ditches are turned on, we anxiously await the coming of the bats to help rid the yard of bugs (particularly mosquitos). The bat house mounted on our garage seems to be occupied from July through September, but this is the earliest we've seen a bat - not to mention the first time we've had one get inside.

Corinne ran upstairs (and closed the door) to call her father for advice, while I consulted the oracle of Google for some tips on how to handle it. Most of the suggestions we found involved cajoling or convincing the bat into a box; unfortunately, our bat was perched on a beam 20'+ in the air, so that wasn't an option. (The height is also the reason that it's difficult to clean the cobwebs.) With no other ideas at hand, we decided on a "let's hope he does the right thing" strategy: we would open a door in the Great Room, open several windows and remove the screens, and go to sleep. Our hope was that sometime overnight, the bat would find his way out one of the open windows. We turned off all lights in the house to avoid attracting bugs, and just hoped that no additional wildlife would find their way inside during the night. No one wants to wake up to find a coyote sleeping on the couch.

Come Sunday morning, lo and behold, the bat was gone. We didn't have any bugs in the house (or no more than usual, anyway), so perhaps he cleaned up on his way out.

- Mike (& Corinne)

126/201 = 63%, + 400 more

Last year's trees emerge
from the snow - March 31

It's been a while since our last forestry update. Part of the reason is that the trees we planted last spring have been under snow for the last 5 months! Now that the snow has finally melted, we were able to take another inventory of how our seedlings are doing. The last update was almost exactly a year ago. (Wow, it was really a year ago?) We planted 201 in March of last year, and by late April we were down to 199/201.

Well, 1 year later our quick count pegged the survivors at 126. That's a 63% survival rate.

At first glance, that sounds really bad: more than a third of the trees we planted last year didn't survive. But this isn't like gardening or landscaping. After we had scalped the grass and plopped the trees into the ground, we just walked away and didn't see them again for a year. There was absolutely no wildlife protection, irrigation, or any other niceties. These little 2 year old seedlings had to make it all on their own. The biggest seedling dangers in our area are deer (trampling), gophers (eating), and competition from weeds and grass (starving). Since the majority of our tree deaths left no evidence behind other than bare patches of dirt, the obvious conclusion is that gophers were our biggest killer.

Still, 63% actually isn't that bad. We've talked to some people in the area who lost 80% of their trees in the first year. 63% survival sounds pretty good compared with 20%.

200 was just the beginning, though. In November we applied for and received a cost-share grant through the USDA Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP). The grant covers various practices on our property, including thinning and pruning some of our existing stands, but the majority of the cost-share money is associated with planting out the remaining 12 acres of our meadow in Ponderosa Pine and Douglas Fir. The schedule that we agreed to has us planting 3600 trees (300/acre) over the next 4 years. Yes, that's a lot of trees.

Last fall we had ordered 400 trees from our local conservation district but were forced to keep them on ice while we waited for the long winter to finally end. Since the planting is now under a contract, we also were careful to follow the guidelines for each practice, particularly the 2ft radius specified for the hand scalped area around each tree. Last year our scalps were much smaller and we only planted 200, so the work went much faster and we were finished in only 2 weekends. This year, it's been over a month of weeknights and weekends, and it's only this week that we've finally finished the new plantings. Okay, so we didn't work in the field every night or all day every weekend, but it sure seemed like it. And yes, Corinne and Rocket were out there every time. Years from now we can say that Rocket helped (or perhaps hindered?) planting that section of forest.

We think about this planting as a long-term investment; it will likely be 40 years or more before these trees could be harvested. Most people have an IRA or 401k, but how many people have a FOREST? In exchange for some hard labor now, hopefully we'll have a lot of wood to sell in the future. (Anybody have wheat or ore to trade?)

This whole valley used to be a forest, so occasionally we think about the poor pioneer who cut down this section of the forest so that he could farm and feed his family. We're undoing all of his hard work! It's a cycle of life thing.

- Mike (& Corinne)

Giant Window Replaced

One of the giant windows in our Great Room lost its seal sometime last fall. Since then, it has gradually started to fog up. We tried to schedule a replacement back in October, but the glass company we called never called us back to schedule an appointment. Once the snow started to dump, we had no choice but to wait until the spring thaw.

Well, spring is here and our window is fixed! It took them 2.5 hours to get the old window out, and I snapped this one while they were still working - and starting to get a little frustrated. (The cracks in the glass were a result of their removal efforts, not existing damage.)



When they were finally finished with the installation, it was suddenly very apparent how dirty the rest of our windows were. Dang.

- Mike (& Corinne)

Maternity Clothes & Coyote Chase!

Corinne is now in the middle of her second trimester with Rocket, and as I mentioned last time clothes have started to become a problem. While it is easy to buy a wetsuit, snowboarding clothes or biking gear in Hood River, finding a place to buy maternity clothes is virtually impossible. Donna and her friend Pam came down to visit recently, bringing with them stacks of maternity clothing options for Corinne to try on. After about an hour-long fashion show, Corinne had selected a dozen or so outfits - including some pants, which have traditionally been difficult items - to fill out her closets for the next few months. Hurray!

The weather was lovely that weekend, and Max spent a good portion of time outside. On Saturday late afternoon, Max was outside and we were all in the Great Room when Corinne noticed an animal outside, fairly close to the house. Her first assumption was that it was a deer, but upon second look she realized what it was and yelled "Coyote!". He was walking from north to south towards the house when he seemed to see something along the side of the house and changed his pace to intercept it. Before Corinne had yelled "where's Max?" I was already opening the front door, getting ready to run outside and grab a scalping tool from the front steps. As I opened the door, I saw Max come racing around the corner on the same side of the house and head straight in the front door!

Corinne continued to watch the coyote from inside; once Max had made it inside, apparently the coyote retraced his steps along the side of the house, sniffing the ground as he went, then eventually head off into the woods to the east. The whole event happened so quickly that we didn't get any photos.

We can't be sure, but we're fairly convinced that the coyote was chasing Max. I guess we have a pretty good idea how he got up that tree now. We kept Max inside for the next few days, just to be on the safe side.

- Mike (& Corinne)

Codename: Rocket

Yes, that's right. Corinne is "with child", "in a family way", has "a bun in the oven", and any other pregnancy-related euphemism you can think of. She is due somewhere between October 14-16, though we've heard that first pregnancies can go as much as 10 days longer. We've had two ultrasounds and a number of blood tests (well, I guess technically Corinne has), both at her local doctor and at OHSU in Portland, and everything has come back completely normal. Given the results of all of the other tests, we opted to skip the amniocentesis, since the risk associated with the test is much higher than the likelihood of discovering any problems. So we don't yet know the gender.

Hold on a sec. Rocket?

Here's the story. Before we had told even our families, we had our first ultrasound back in early March, which was at about 10 weeks. The fetus at that point didn't have a whole lot of shape, but when we looked at the three photos they gave us to take home, Corinne thought they looked like a tadpole, a peanut, and a rocket (below, traveling from right to left).



Since most of the miscarriage risk had passed by this point, we decided to share the news with our families. Of course, we couldn't just tell them outright; we had to have a little fun with it. So we sent them an email and asked them to checkout the photos of our newest member at ilvedson.com/puppy. Just about everyone fell for it, and we enjoyed their responses. My brother Drew, in particular, was very excited. We shared with him Corinne's first impressions of those first ultrasounds, and he in turn generated some alternatives:

 


We of course didn't know the gender of the baby yet, and we weren't even close to thinking about names. But you have to call it something, right? I don't recall which of us suggested Rocket, but we both immediately liked it; it's gender-neutral, wasn't too cutesy, and just seemed to fit. And so, Codename: Rocket was born (so to speak).

(As a side note, the two ultrasounds above - the real ones, I mean - are only separated by 17 days, yet they are remarkably different. Amazing, huh?)

So far we've been pretty lucky; Corinne has had no "morning sickness" other than a requirement that she have something to eat in the morning before engaging in any serious activity, and in fact we haven't changed our diets much at all. We have made several minor culinary adjustments, though: we cook our eggs and meats a little more than we used to; we've both stopped drinking soda; Corinne's weekend lattes are now vanilla steamers; and soft cheeses and cold cuts have been given the boot. (We've never been big alcohol drinkers, so that isn't really a change.) I'm hoping that Rocket will enjoy spicy foods, since Thai and Mexican foods have frequently been on the menu.

Throughout the first trimester it seemed Corinne had lost all of her energy; we'd come home at night and she would inevitably fall asleep on the couch after dinner. As it turns out, this is fairly normal, and in fact has mostly passed now that we're in the second trimester. Her growing belly has made it more difficult to dress for work in the morning, though, and she has been forced to go clothes shopping (not one of her favorite activities). Thankfully her mom, bless her soul, has volunteered to go shopping for her and bring her the selections that she only has to try on and say yes/no. Anything rejected would be returned to the store, and anything kept would be reimbursed. As a result she now has a reasonable set of clothes that hopefully will last through the summer.

When my Aunt Anita visited in late March, she brought with her a gift that we particularly like. Several years ago my mom (her sister) gave her a craft book with patterns and instructions for making Sock Monsters. As the name suggests, they are similar to sock monkeys but quirkier. I received a sock monster that Christmas, and Corinne got one the following year. On her latest visit, she brought one for Rocket as well. They are the only stuffed animals that I will allow on the bed.

Since we're mostly still in the "denial" phase and haven't really started thinking about daycare, baby shower, furniture and other baby stuff, preparing the house, etc., I'll end this post now.

- Mike (& Corinne + Rocket)

Snow on the Spring Flowers

Looks like I may have spoken too soon about the arrival of spring - we got more snow!

It didn't stick for more than a few hours, but nonetheless it was there. Once the sun came out it melted quickly, so we only had a short window to capture the moment photographically. The snow vaporized into steam, which can be seen in the background of the garlic photo below.

 

- Mike (& Corinne)

Pouring Concrete, Burning Ditches

Spring is here again (finally!), so it is once again time to prepare for the growing season. This weekend was irrigation ditch cleaning, where everyone that has shares in a given ditch (theoretically) comes out to help clean out the rocks, weeds, trees, and beaver dams that have accumulated in the ditch since the previous year; see last year's irrigation cleaning post for more details.

We're on 2 different irrigation ditches, one at each end of our property. Last year I was elected to the board of directors of one of those ditch companies; my theory is that I'm relatively young, I attend all of the meetings, and seem to have warm blood flowing through me. Well, apparently I still do; I am now on the board of BOTH of the ditch companies. I think it's pretty important to get the next generation of residents involved in the operation of the ditches, since eventually it will be our responsibility to see that they continue to provide what the local farms and home gardeners need.

This year's ditch work day involved more than just cleaning. The headgate of one ditch needed some repairs, including pouring some new concrete to shore up a retaining wall. While most people worked on cleaning the rest of the ditch and Corinne stayed home to work in the field (more on that later), I was assigned to help the rest of the engineer-types to work on the repairs. (I suspect that is another reason that I was a popular choice for board membership - despite the fact that I know nothing about civil engineering!) Before we could successfully pour concrete, though, we had to figure out how to block the flow of water. Thank goodness for the workers of Trout Lake Farm, without whose labor we would have been much more tired - that's a lot of sand bags!

Once the water was blocked, the concrete truck rolled in through a field and along a rocky ditch, which was a sight to behold by itself. I wish I had snapped some photos of the actual concrete pour, but we were so focused on getting the concrete where we wanted it that I missed it. Hopefully with these repairs the headgate will last another 10 years without needing any major repairs.

On the day following the official ditch cleaning, we noticed our neighbors Harry and Judy out burning our lateral. A lateral ditch is used to transport water from the main ditch to 1 or more individual landowners; maintenance of a lateral is the responsibility of the landowners served. Since we share a lateral with our neighbors, we also share the responsibility of maintaining that ditch. A fair amount of dried grass - typically canary grass - surrounds and accumulates in the ditch, and the easiest way to clear the ditch is to do a controlled burn of the dried material. Corinne used to talk about her Dad burning ditches back in Montana, but I had no idea what she was talking about (there aren't a lot of irrigation ditches in NJ, as you can imagine.)

I joined Harry and Judy and spent the next few hours walking up the ditch, using a butane lighter to ignite the grasses, then monitoring the fire and periodically spraying water from a backpack sprayer to control the spread. Ah, country life. Next year we're going to consider buying a propane torch to help the process along.

- Mike (& Corinne)

Stereotypical Cat Incident

Max has had lots of opportunities to spend time outside recently, but it's only in the last week or so that the weather has been warm and dry enough for him to want to spend any significant time there. This past Saturday it was 75+F. We let him outside in the morning, and he spent the rest of the day practically "drunk" with sunshine. Several times we tried to entice him inside, but he was perfectly happy where he was.

As the sun sank below the horizon, we called for Max but saw or heard no sign of him. Finally at about 9pm, I went outside to call for him again and this time heard a faint response. I walked around, continuing to call and listen for his response, trying to locate its source. After less than a minute of this I could tell that the sound was coming from the stand of trees to the west of the house. As I walked closer, the sound seemed to get stronger but seemed to be coming from above until finally the sound was directly above me.

Yes, that's right: Max was stuck up a tree.

Max wasn't up just any tree, either; he had climbed a Grand Fir, a coniferous tree with relatively small branch spacing and dense needles. By this point it was completely dark outside, so Corinne pulled the car over and shined the headlights on the tree to help find him. The branches were so dense that it was difficult to see more than a few feet up the tree. After several minutes of searching we caught sight of him about 15 feet up the tree, wrapped around the trunk.

After using our neighbor Jack's orchard ladder last fall, we bought our own 12' model, and it seemed that this would be its first use. We grabbed the ladder from the shop and got it as close to the tree as we could. From the top of the ladder I could see Max a few feet above me, but I couldn't get close enough to him to help him down. I talked him down several feet but then he just wouldn't go any further and I still wasn't close enough.

At this point we got out one of our pruning saws and pruned the lowest row of branches so that we could move the ladder in closer. Max really must not have liked this - and I can't blame him - because he had started to froth at the mouth, and his whining had turned into more of a whimper. But now I was at eye level with him at the top of the ladder, and while he was clearly scared, he was still responsive to me and I managed to talk him out onto a branch so that I could grab him, put him on my shoulder, and walk down the ladder. Once off of the ladder, he jumped off my shoulder and ran into the house.

He didn't seem too worse for wear after his ordeal, but he was very restless that night, pacing from room to room, never settling very long in one spot. The worst part, though is that his fur now was speckled with sap from the tree. He would try to clean himself as cats do - using his tongue - but he would make a terrible face and shake his head every time he did. Over the next day or so he managed to clean himself up pretty well, and we would find small clumps of hair scattered around the house where he had pulled out some of the sappy fur. When we let him outside the following day, he spent the entire time sitting on the stoop right outside the door. Since then he has gradually returned to normal outdoor behavior.

We're still curious as to what prompted him to climb up that tree. Did he hear something (real or imagined) that spooked him? Was he chased by a local dog or coyote? I guess we'll probably never know.

- Mike (& Corinne)

Aunt Anita's Visit

Quite a lot has happened around here in the last month or so, despite a lack of evidence on this blog. But that will be remedied in the coming weeks... you'll just have to wait a little longer for that.

One big event recently was a visit from my Aunt Anita. She had a business trip to Spokane, and managed to squeeze in a weekend trip to visit us beforehand! On Saturday we showed her around Portland and took her out for brunch at Besaw's, a great little casual restaurant that is quickly becoming our Portland brunch favorite. After lunch we drove her down the Gorge back to our place, taking a brief detour along the Historic Columbia River Highway and a few stops for waterfalls. She'd been up since 4am traveling, so we retired early.

On Sunday we took her for a tour through our forest and along the river. There was still plenty of snow on the ground in the shadier spots - up to 2 feet - despite the relatively warm weather. After the property tour, we walked down to the neighbors to pick up some eggs, visiting with the chickens and donkeys while we were there.

 

That evening our friends Amy and Andrew decided to take a scenic drive up our way with their kids Claire and Ethan, stopping in for a visit. We all enjoyed a meal of pork burros, a recipe that is the first strong contender for favorite recipe of 2008.

Monday morning it was back to the airport so Anita could head off to Spokane. Come back soon, and next time bring the rest of the family, too!

- Mike (& Corinne)

Leif, the Artist

Since Leif left Insitu a little over a year ago, he's been concentrating on his painting. His short-term goal was to have a gallery showing somewhere in the area, and he recently achieved that goal. For the month of March, the Solo Gallery in Hood River showed a series of portraits he's done in oil on canvas. His opening was very well received and well attended, and he had a great write-up in the local arts/culture/social magazine, Rediviva. Time will tell if he can turn his skills into a living, but he's clearly having a good time in the process. It was great to see the reactions of all of the family and friends who were seeing Leif's work for the first time. Not only are his paintings enormous, but so is his talent.

You can see some of the works on Leif's website. His site also includes a time-lapse video of each work, assembled from individual photos taken while the works were in progress. Look at the bottom of each page for the link to these videos.

 

In addition to his painting, Leif also has a budding DJ business, Suspended in Sound. On the same night as his gallery opening, he also was DJ at a party down the street from his show. Leif really knows how to get a room moving; now if he could only do it a little bit less loud (I guess that means we're getting old.)

- Mike (& Corinne)

Max, the Hunter

Since we've moved to Trout Lake, we've been slowly transitioning our cat Max from being indoor-only to giving him some time outdoors. Initially we would only let him out for short periods, and we would follow and monitor him while he was outside. Later as all three of us got more comfortable, we began to let him outside on his own; we would just leave the front door cracked so that he could push it open when he was ready to come inside. We still limit his outside escapades to daytime; we're still not comfortable letting him out at night with all of the coyotes we hear (and occasionally see).

Max makes it fairly clear to us when he wants to go outside. He'll wait by the front door and meow whenever he sees us; sometimes he'll even lead us to the door. He's been good about coming back inside before it gets too dark outside, but several times recently he's managed to get outside at night. One night he snuck out a window in the bathroom which was left opened after being cleaned. On another night he managed to shoot past us as we came in the front door. Corinne and I grabbed flashlights and very slowly chased him around the yard, trying not to make too many fast or startling movements while at the same time trying to keep up with his moves. You can't really appreciate the expression "herding cats" until you've tried it.

Why does he want to go outside so much? That became clear recently: hunting. We knew he could hunt; when we lived in Husum Max caught 5 voles in the house. We were proud of him for catching them, but a bit distressed that there WERE voles in the house. I guess he was just waiting for an opportunity.

The first Trout Lake animal he caught outside and brought to us was a bird, probably an Oregon Junko. There was no question that he brought it to us, either; we were sitting in the great room and he just dropped it in the middle of the floor and proceeded to bat it around. Corinne felt bad for the bird, so she told Max that he was only to catch mice from now on.

A week later, Max caught a vole - this time we were upstairs in our bedroom, so he brought it there. The tally so far is up to 5 voles and still only the one bird; I guess he was listening! Thankfully Max has killed all of the animals before bringing them inside, but twice now he has started to shred them on the floor after briefly playing with them. We try to give him a little time to enjoy his kill, but as soon as any blood appears it's time for an airborne burial - hurled into the woods.


Now if he can work himself up to catching gophers, then we'd REALLY be appreciative.

- Mike (& Corinne)