Fields of flowers

The Queen Anne's lace has been very prevalent this year, probably because it's been so dry. I have been admiring fields of them where they have been planted as cover crops and a couple vacant fields that happen to have no trespassing signs (damn).  I tried to figure out whom I could ask for permission to photograph in the fields, and I even called a few businesses.  

I was not able to get permission (blah blah liability blah blahity blah).

AND THEN! I found a public space with a small flower field.  

Independence Day

We hosted a BBQ yesterday - good food and better company - made me happy.  

But I found a lot of contentment later that day, after the BBQ, watching fireworks with Carus.  Adam didn't want to go and Robert stayed home to keep an eye on Leia who does not like the booms at all.  

Near dusk, we went down to the school. It has a very large field; actually it is more like five very large fields together.  The town's firefighters block off half of it and put on a fireworks show for the town for free -- they do accept donations.  I have no idea how much ordinance they have but they do put on a good show for about 30 minutes.

The streets surrounding the school have cars and trucks parked along them, extending blocks and blocks away. Those closest to the field have people arranged in chairs around them or sitting in the truck's beds.  The houses nearby have their families and their friends arranged on blankets and chairs in their yards, porches, and decks, and in driveways.  These are big fireworks that can be seen for miles, and heard even further.  

The fields of the school start getting visitors around mid day with those wanting to stake out their spots early and continue to fill as the sun sets.  They have a sound system set up with music playing -- a mixture of pop, country, and rock -- and surrounding those speakers are dancers, toddlers and young kids in the charge of older siblings with the occasional adult shaking it up with those half their size.  All are dancing in that way where it doesn't even matter if your rhythm matches the music, all the joy is just in the moving.  

Blankets and chairs are spread out in groups, and there is lively conversation and laughter everywhere.  There are also dancers, one or two, spread throughout the groups here and there.  There is a long line for the one port-a-potty. (The other two are blocked off. I don't think it was done on purpose, just sort of happened).  There doesn't seem to be any negative feelings - no complaints about bugs (because mosquitoes had a smorgasbord to choose from), no complaints about the long privy line, and very minimal childish whines of "when will it start?" There was a line for a food cart with firefighters dishing out refreshments.  I didn't go closer so I don't know what exactly what was available.  The line was long enough for it to appear popular though. 

As the sun started to dip behind the mountains, the excitement built.  The buzz of conversation took on an electrical charge, each person feeding off the other's anticipation.

On the portion of the field that was blocked off, firefighters had been hard at work setting up the cakes of display fireworks and arranging their safety equipment -- just in case.  (One year there was an incident where one bundle tipped over and shot the mortar off along the ground. No injuries or fires, but a reminder of how dangerous explosives can be.)  Their hook and ladder fire truck was next to the field with the ladder suspended and a large flag hanging from the bucket. The flag barely waved, there wasn't much wind.  It wasn't a very hot day - warm, with a light breeze that was dying as the sun went to bed and the humidity was rising.  

Finally, the sun went down, shortly after the predicted start time of 9:30 p.m. and as the Star Spangled Banner started to play over the speakers, the fireworks began, both coming to a crescendo together.

The show continued for about 30 minutes with a lot of the usual suspects and a few pyrotechnic displays I haven't seen before, with the lights of each glitter and flare illuminating the smoke trails of the ones before it, which was lovely itself.

At the end of the show, Carus and I packed up the blankets we brought to sit on and cover with (prior years got a lot cooler than this year) and joined the crowd slowly exiting the field to walk the 5 or 6 blocks back to where I parked the car, and headed home.

(The video below is a teeny bit of the fireworks at the beginning of the show. If you can't get it to play, click here to view it on Instagram. )

Summer evening

Yesterday evening, we took the dogs to the dog park.  We haven't gone in a while since it's been hot and it wouldn't be good to have Leia running as hard as she runs when at the park.  From the moment we get there she is ready to chase her ball - and nothing else.

After she fetched about 20 times we walked over to the kid park and let them play a bit.  I had my camera with me and wandered off a bit to take pictures of the Queen Anne's lace (my favorite wildflowers).

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I also found some weed that went to seed.  Fluffy, fluffy seeds.  They looked lovely in the evening light.



And heard a red-tailed hawk calling.  S/he flew almost directly over my head. From the series of pictures I got it almost looks like s/he grabbed something out of the air with it's right talon...?

Hey look, I have a blog.

Did you know that radishes can have flowers?  

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I didn't.  

We had a hot week (80s) and quite a few of my remaining radishes went to flower... or bolted... whatever that's called.  

Lookie. Radish flowers.

Instead of pulling them, like I probably should, I'm letting them go.  I don't need the space (yet) and I'm curious. 

I'll call it doing science. 

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Dogwood tree flowers.  Because of these flowers, particularly the pink versions, dogwoods are my favorite trees.  They're pretty in the fall too.

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Fuzzy flowers.  They are going to go in the front flower bed if I ever get around to planting them.  And instead of those cacti that look fuzzy but are sharp and pointing and hurt when you pet them, this flower is actually soft.  

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My first client's images all ready to be delivered with my new business cards.  I was so happy they liked them. (Instagram photo taken at like 11:58 pm when I realized I hadn't gotten a photo yet)

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Last day of school.  Picture taken after school because Carus reminded me at bedtime Sunday night that she wanted to bring cookies for last day of school festivities and I ran out to get those cookies in the morning while they were getting ready and got back in time to get them on the bus and nothing else.  Yes, Adam wore his suit to school.  He likes to dress up and it was an excuse to wear it.  This picture was also right before taking him to his first school dance.  The school has done other dances, this one was just the first he was interested in.  Compare them to their first day of school pictures.  Carus still wants to be an artist, and Adam still isn't sure.  It's been suggested he become a teacher or an engineer.  He says maybe and then moves on.  Adam made the honor roll this year.  Carus would have as well (her grades are better than his) but her school doesn't do honor roll (weird?).  

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African daisy in my yard.  Much prettier in person - I'm not great photographing flowers.

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We went to the library and to Forest Grove's Farmers Market this evening.  They didn't have much for produce yet (just some berries).  We had dinner at Pizza Schmizza which has some interesting art on the walls.  I had my camera along because I needed a picture for the day and thought I'd find something interesting "downtown".

So ha, I'm caught up again.

And I'm caught up with my photography business work (i.e. editing pictures and preparing them for clients) and work work is caught up too. I'm feeling pretty cocky right about now. (knock on wood)

And now a shameless plug:

If you haven't already, and are on Facebook, give my page a like - www.facebook.com/portraitsbybecca and also share with your friends and family.  The more love I get on Facebook, the more I'm seen and potential clients become actual clients.  

Fernhill Wetlands

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Since I was up early Saturday morning, all the frost we had was gorgeous, and I got the new lens I had ordered for my camera Friday (a Nikkor 35 mm f/1.8G DX)(did not pay that price) that I wanted to play with, I decided to go out to Fernhill Wetlands.

It was very cold! I think about 19 degrees Fahrenheit.

With my sweater, heavy coat and gloves, my upper half was warm, but my jeans didn't cut it and my legs were so cold by the time I climbed back in the car...2 hours later.  I was rewarded with some great photos that I'm very happy with.

When I got home I noticed I lost my lens cap (seriously, brand new lens and I lose the lens cap GAH!) so Sunday Robert went back out with me to look for it.  We didn't find it.

This first image here is from Sunday, which was also frosty but not as cold out.  It was later in the day so the fog had already burned off and some of the ice had melted. on the path (which made things muddy).

The ducks amuse me so much.  I could spend hours watching them swim in circles and wiggle their tails in the air while they dive for food. And when they're out of the water and they waddle around; very cute.

Now, the images I got Saturday.  I love my new lens, I love these images.

Ducks and geese in the fog.

Do you know what these are?

Fuzzy bars

Frozen path

I think this is a crane.

Frosty Queen Anne's Lace

Unknown plant

Waddling away

Gaggle of Geese

Forest Grove Chalk Art Festival

Each year a local art gallery, Valley Art, hosts the chalk art festival. Last year was our first year attending (see).  Downtown Forest Grove gets blocked off and all the sidewalk squares are up for rent.  With your reserving fee you also get a box of artists chalk.  None of the big chunky little kid sidewalk chalk, although that stuff would be good to have if you need a lot of one color.  The art lasts for at least a month, if not more, depending on how much rain we get.  Some of the darker colors, or thicker colors will last through lots of rain.

Each year the chalk art festival coincides with the corn roast.  I'm thinking they do that on purpose so they are blocking off streets less often. I think next year we'll do more stuff there, we just walked through as we were leaving today.  Elmo was at the corn roast, but he wandered around the chalk art saying hi to all the little kids, and we got to meet him!!

Me, our friend, and Elmo.


Carus, her friend, and Elmo.


Anyhoo.  Unlike last year when it was cool and rainy, this year was warm and sunny!  The day started out nice and cool, but it didn't take long for the sun to pop out and really start to bake us.  I have a little bit of a sun burn to prove it!

Carus chose a sketch out of my sketch book and that is what we did.
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Gramma Barb came out to draw with us.  Here she is with her finished moon.


Things we MUST remember next year:

• Canopy/large umbrella.  Rain or shine, this would come in handy!
• Knee pads or gardening pads.  This year I brought towels to kneel on thinking they would work good enough - they helped but they were not good enough.  My knees are so sore.
• A chalk blending method other than our hands and fingers.  Carus gave herself a couple little blisters on her fingers rubbing on the concrete, and my palms are sore.
• Small broom to remove the dirt and leaves from the square before we start.  I kept getting splinters from bark mulch debris.  Annoying. 

Gramma and Carus took a break after we'd been there about 45 minutes or so and went around taking pictures.  Of course we did not get a shot of every square, but you can see what I did get here or just watch the slideshow below.

And then I got a week behind...

It started out as just "slacking" for the weekend because I didn't want to turn my computer on.  I was pouting about my mini vacation being up too soon.  And then I put it off until I finished a task, or chore, or or or...

And now it's been a full week since I've posted.

I've stayed caught up with my 366s though, so that's the important thing.  At least to me.

Now, let's get this party started.

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Technically this was the last day of the Reverb Broads, but I wasn't inspired to do the prompt then and I'm not inspired to do it now so I'll pass.  It's due to return in December and I'll decide then if I want to do it.

Had to make a trip to Home Depot. Again.  We walked from one end of HD to the other several times, always remembering something else we needed that "convienently" was on the other side of the store.  Here we were attempting to find a new flag pole for our flag without having to buy a full new set of flag pole, flag, and mounting bracket since our mount and flag were still in good shape - just the pole broke.  The copper pipe would have worked beautifully except that it was kind of heavy and very expensive.  We ended up settling on a wood broom handle replacement thing....that was too big for the mount.


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Robert is making progress on the reshaping of the yard project.  He is leveling it out at different levels since our yard is on a hill and then the big pile he and Leia are standing on will go away and his shop will be built.  We are also discussing adding more grass, some other plants, and maybe a stone path.  Not sure if this all will get completed this summer or if our funds will run out before our oomph does. We'll see!

Actually, the pile is on it's way out.  Robert has a coworker that came over and picked up 1/3 of the pile already and will take the rest too.

(This pic was taken with my phone.)


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Garden update!

These are the pickling cucumbers. YUM!  There are so many little bitty baby cucumbers all over those vines. I better start researching pickling recipes.  I have some other cucumbers - bush cucumber - that weren't doing great.  They got some powdery mildew because it's been so rainy (surprise surprise) and I almost lost one.  The mildew started to show up on these cucumbers as well as the squash and zucchini so I went to the store to get fungicidal soap.  I couldn't find fungicidal soup, but I found this Ortho organic fungicide and 95% of the mildew was cleared up with one application.  All the affected plants have bounced back and I've done another application to get rid of a few of the remaining spots.



Pea tee pees!


Pea pod!


Bitty tomato!


Itty zucchini!  (See some of the white spots on the leaf in the bottom right corner and stem bottom middle - that's powdery mildew. It was worse on the underside of the leaves.)


Baby squash!


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After another trip to HD to return to the too big wooden handle, we found a metal pole with a little plastic rake on the end.  Robert just removed the rake and voila - new flag pole. Just in time for the 4th of July.


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Happy 4th of July!

We hosted our 3rd annual 4.O.J. BBQ with some of the usual suspects in attendance.  Here is Carus and her friend S.  We adore S and her parents.  We really need to work on getting together more often than the 3ish times of year we have managed.



The spread.  Well, most of it.  The potato salad was getting mixed up - soon to be put in the black bowl, and the chicken were on the grill getting all yummy.


Some of the main gang.  We had a few show up later, but for some reason I didn't get pictures of them.  I focused more on maning the grill and hanging out than taking pics.


Getting my grill on! I make some really good BBQ chicken.  The secret is... don't over cook them! For legs and thighs 30 minutes in the oven at 375 degrees and then sauce them and finish on the grill.  I use propane and keep the heat about 400 degrees.  (You can do them completely on the grill or completely in the oven too.)  Pull them off when they are no longer pink and let them sit 10 minutes (or are just barely pink and then put them in an off but still warm oven for 10 minutes).  Don't overcook the chicken!  Actually, don't over cook any meat or food. Trust me.
(This pic was taken with my phone and edited with Instagram.)

Instead of putting on our own show this year, we went and watched the Forest Grove firework show put on by the fire department.  It was great!  We had a few straggling sparklers left over from last year that we let the kids do, because it's not 4th of July without sparklers.  They didn't want to stay lit though.  Next year I'll have to get some fresh ones.



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Carus and I - okay mostly me - have been chicken sitting for our friends/neighbors (frieghbors? Neighbends?) while they vacay and have fun.  Chickens are so amusing.  I pulled this one out for a little pet which she wasn't too excited about, but she dealt with it.

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The other two chickens the next day.  I've brought down some scrap foods for them to snack on and they weren't able to break open the cherry tomatoes so I gave them a hand and had to encourage them to give them a try.


While walking down the hill to check on the chickens Carus was messing with her shadow.  It looks like she has a hand growing out of the back of her head.  It made us crack up.


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My first harvest!  A handful of green beans.  I was expecting peas first, or that bitty zucchini that's been growing for 2 weeks, but nope.  The green beans rallied after a recent fertilization with steer poo and are growing like mad.  Steer poo is good poo!

The weekend 366s

Friday evening playing with Leia

Getting ready to . . . .


. . . catch the ball!

Saturday we went to the local annual renaissance fair, Faire in the Grove.  Loads of fun, we always enjoy it and always learn something new.

There are many merchants with all sorts of handmade goods, and there are many activities to watch to learn how things were done, and even a few that you can participate in.  They also had a little class that allowed you to take a small fencing course to see if you like it (which if you do, you can then sign up for a class with the people putting it on).


I let the kids take the class on Italian rapier.  The whole time, I wanted to yell out, "I am Inigo Montoya. You killed my father, prepare to die!"  I didn't.


Leia playing with the neighbor dog.


Here is a slideshow of the rest of the photos I got from the Faire in the Grove.