We Had a Visitor!

This being our first week home for a while we both had projects that we wanted to work on. Barb's project was the hillside in front of the house. When we built our house the excavtor had to add fill at the front, it was about 6' of fill, mostly rock and quite steep. The only thing that would grow there is weeds and it has been bugging her for years. We finally came up with an idea so away she went! She started out by making it as smooth as possible and laying down some fabric to prevent the weeds from growing. She then bought some juniper bushes. These are supposed to be low growing, wide spreading bushes which would spread across the hillside. She finished the bottom by adding a border of blocks. 

So far, it looks great! Next up is to plant a couple more junipers and find some rock to spread over the fabric.

She has also been fighting to grow some grass around the edge of the concrete of the gazebo for over a year. This year, she is trying sod to see if it will grow. She put down 3 rolls of sod, a $15 (+ $45 for the garden weasel) experiment. We shall see if it takes.

For my part, I spent my time in the new garage finally building the deer blind that has been on my list for several months but other things were a higher priority. Starting out with a pile of lumber, I began with the base. I wanted to put it on a base that I could move with my tractor so I put pallet fork pockets in it. 

Then I started building the actual structure. It is an octagonal design for maximum visibility. About half done at this point.

We had two exciting events this week. The first was a visitor! 

It came while we were sitting on the couch early one morning and I looked out and there was a baby fawn walking up to the house. It had to have been born within the hour as it could barely walk. 

It would take a few steps on wobbly legs and lay down for 5 minutes, get up, walk a few feet and lay down again. Momma was nowhere in sight. 

For over an hour, it repeated this. Then it went into the dog pen are and tried to get into the woods only to hit the edge of the fence. Its mom was probably up there, and it was trying to get into the woods. It finally gave up and laid down again. 

I walked out to see if I could push it in the right direction, but it just tried to act invisible. Instead, I took down some of the fence and then we went to town for a while.  When we came back, it was gone. 

The other excitement we had was finally getting out fishing! We loaded up the boat and headed 40 minutes south to Angostura Reservoir. 

What a beautiful day, light wind, sunny and mid 80's. Being our first outing, we had to keep track of our fish count to see who was going to dominate our annual fishing contest. I started out with a nice little crappie, which I dangled in front of Barb to taunt her. 

I followed this up with another crappie and then a small walleye. Within the first hour, I was up 3-0! When she finally caught her first fish, it was the smallest catfish known to man. And to top it all off, she got poked by one of its spines stung her and drew blood! 

Next up was a nice 19" walleye which now resides in our fridge awaiting the frying pan tonight. 

Barb finally got into it, catching a few fish, mostly crappie, but I kept up and maybe outpaced her the rest of the day making me the big winner for the day! 

I finished the day with what a really nice. This thing was fighting like crazy, it was for sure the biggest walleye I had caught in quite a while! When I finally got it close to the boat and Barb netted it, I saw it was not a walleye at all, but a freshwater drum which are at the bottom of our list of edible fish, so it went back into the lake. 

What a fun day though!

We topped off the week by going out to our favorite rib place, some of you may recognize/remember this place from when we took our group of RV friends out there last September. 

I will leave you with this picture of Maisie. We continue to get pictures of her almost daily. 

That was our week in a nutshell. The perfect mix of work and play. We have more planned for next week. Finish up the hillside, finish up the deer blind and hopefully some more fun!

Big News!

We left Corvallis and headed towards our destination for the day; Sweet Home, Oregon. Another "I could live here" place. A small town, but big enough to have a McDonald's, Dairy Queen and other fine amenities. It looks like a great town to raise a family. We were there to see Eric and Amy from Foster Lake Frenchie's. This is the breeder that we got our precious Zoey from almost 6 years ago and have stopped to see them several times since then. 

This year was a little more special than the previous times however as they just had a litter of puppies! Born on the 24th of May, they had been posting pictures of this litter online since their birth. As a matter of fact, we have been following this litter since momma (Ivory) was bred to a stud in New Hampshire several months ago.

As many of you know, Frenchie's are a somewhat high maintenance breed often requiring c-sections for births. This was the case this time as well. Ivory gave birth to 4 adorable pups; 1 girl and 3 boys. Eric and Amy are super cautious when it comes to their pups. We had to remove our shoes and wash up before we even got into the house. Even then we were not allowed to touch them, they are only a week old, eyes not open yet and weigh just over 1 pound.

Barb was able to hold the girl for a few minutes; it was wrapped in a towel, enough to see how adorable she is.

We visited with Eric and Amy for about an hour before saying our goodbyes and telling them we would be back in 8 weeks to pick up our new puppy! Meet Maisie, the newest addition to our family! 

We have actually been talking about a new pup for over a year, talking about what breed and when was the right time. We will probably always have dogs, they bring so much joy to our lives, but when is the right time to get a new dog? With Daisy, we waited until she passed before thinking about another pup. For us, this was very, very difficult. Even though you know the day is coming, the depression and sadness is real. The other consideration is our age. It seems so weird to say that in our heads we are still in our 40's, but the reality is that if Maisie lives 10 years, we will be well into our 70's when she passes and the older we get, the harder it is to deal with that. There is also the best time to get one based on our lives; based on what we have going on the rest of the year, the timing was right. So, for these reasons and several others, the timing was right. We are so excited!

Once we decided the timing, we started talking to Eric and Amy in early April, it just so happened that they were planning a litter for this summer and were going to take a break for a year. We asked them to put us on their list, and it just so happened, we were the first to ask and were at the top of the list! 

We only wanted a female, so we had to wait and wait, and wait. Finally on May 24th the day arrived.

They named the girl Dolly, she is blue and tan and was the largest in the litter. She would be the bigger one in the pictures above. We took a few days to talk it over to make sure that this is what we wanted to do. But once Barb saw her and held her in her hands, the decision was made.

They continue to send us pictures and updates. She opened her eyes yesterday! Even though she is only a few ounces more than the others, based on the picture below, we should have named her Shamu rather than Maisie!

We can pick her up the end of July, it is going to be a long 8 weeks! After leaving Sweet Home we headed back to the coast where we spent the night at Lagoon Lake National Forest Campground outside of Florence.

Lunch was clam chowder from the Krab Kettle. I thought it was as good or maybe better than Norma's, but Barb thinks Norma's was a little better. We always struggle to get pictures of the 4 of us, but Dakota finally cooperated and we were able to get this one. I think she was maybe just pooped and needed a rest. 

Continuing down the coast we made our way to our favorite campground along the coast. Bastendorf Beach County Park in Coos Bay. This is where Barb spent most of her childhood vacations. She has such fond memories of this area, and it warms my heart seeing the joy in her eyes as she describes her memories to me. She told me stories of playing hide and seek with her brother and all the other kids in the campground, crabbing, clamming and just being a kid. 

Barb and Zoey went for several walks while I hung out with Dakota at the campsite. I think Dakota is looking forward to getting home where there are no stairs and she can just lay on her bed. Zoey, on the other hand, loves her walks and even met a friend!

We recreated a couple of those memories by playing hide and seek ourselves! Not really, but we did go clamming! Twice actually. You have to time low tide and arrive at the clamming area an hour before low tide. 

Once you get to the clamming area, you start looking for clam holes where they extend their necks to the surface. Once you find one, you put your finger in the hole and should feel the neck retract when you touch it. Then you start digging!

Over the next hour or so we poked and dug over two dozen clams, mostly gapers. 

You have a pretty short window before the tide starts coming in again, making it impossible to dig. We then took them back to the campground where we cleaned them. Quite the process. From there, Barb made both clam strips and chowder. The strips were so, so. The chowder was delicious!

After three days, it was time to move on. Three hours later found us in Grants Pass where her dad's brother, Ron and his wife Diana live. We have not seen them since June of 2020, way too long. Both in their 80's, a lot has changed in the past 6 years. No pictures, and it was a short visit, only about an hour but it was great to see them. 

Two hours later we were in Klamath Fall to see what exactly what we had gotten ourselves into volunteering to empty Forrest and Somer's storage unit. 

It looks like we have our hands full and tomorrow is going to be a full day! I wish we had a timelapse recording of us moving everything from the unit into the trailer. While it was a tight fit, it did not take us nearly as long as I thought it would. We were in and out in 3 hours. 

Now we are off for home. No adventures, just drive, eat and sleep for 3 days. Wish us luck!

I wrote the above sentence two days and over 1,200 miles ago. As I said, no adventures, just driving. 496 miles the first day and 786 yesterday. We pulled in our driveway just after 8pm. We are so happy to be home and so thankful to not have had any issues with the trailer the entire trip.