Record snow in Eugene!

Day two of being snowed in! Total of about 11 inches, which is said to be a record for Eugene. It all fell in less than 24 hours, beginning in the evening and continuing until near noon yesterday.

Some of us (yours truly included) had to get out in it. I went out once early morning to take garbage and recycling, had to wade through 8" of virgin snow. That part was easy. The hard part, which I hadn't thought of, was that there was also 8" of snow on top of the lids to those two big containers. I had to brush a good bit of snow off before I could get them open. Barehanded.

Then, I hiked through more virgin snow to my car where I used a brush and long-handled squeegee to get all the snow off the car, except for the top. I went out again later and removed the next 2-3" that had piled up in the interim. Also went out to my garden spot, which has a frost-gard 'tent' over the entire bed. Inside the tent are 6 baby romaine seedlings I planted last week. Over those are two layers of frost-gard kind of crumpled right over them, held up by supports. I had my doubts that these babies survived the cold, so I brushed all the snow off the tent, peeked inside and voila! those little seedlings looked happy as can be.

Looking the other way -- ruts of a big truck that brought two very nice men from our landscaping company who shoveled all the walkways and some of the handicap areas, sprinkled them with de-icer. A couple of folks have driven over it, though why anybody is out in this mess I'll never know. Our power has been on the entire time, but much of the town is apparently without power, lots of trees down, etc. And while the city/county have snow plows, it's not like what a town in some area that gets lots of snow would have. The bus system did not operate all day yesterday but I understand they are on limited 'Sunday' schedules today. Fortunately, I have enough food that I don't really need to go out, and I don't plan on moving that car until all this is g-o-n-e! I don't do ice and snow.

Tis the Season!

Holiday joy to all! However you choose to celebrate the season, may it bring you happiness.

Yes, I'm still here, alive and kicking. Busy with my rekindled mania for genealogy. Getting fat and lazy. Just celebrated my 76th birthday with some lovely cheeses, sourdough bread, and a drinkable (can't afford really good) red wine. Life could be worse.

YUM, to the nth degree

My morning (and a good bit of yesterday) was devoted to this. Fresh blackberry cake with cream cheese frosting. TO DIE FOR!!

Fresh, local organic berries from the farmer's market. Local cultured cream cheese from Nancy's (of yogurt fame), which is located here in Eugene. I could have eaten the entire container of that cream cheese, it was so good. I didn't even know they made cream cheese, but now that I do, I expect to find uses for it.

Cake was a little dense, but more likely operator-trouble than recipe trouble. This recipe was from Stella Parks, aka BraveTart, who I follow slavishly on Twitter.

The messy top cannot be blamed on her. I had leftover blackberry puree and wanted to drizzle it nicely over the top. Turned out to be splotchy, not nice, so I swirled it to try and cover up some of the mess.

I made this with the thought of taking it to a resident's meeting this afternoon, but it was so small I opted to just share it with a couple of friends who would appreciate it, and the people in the office, who are always appreciative. Mostly, I just wanted to make it and taste it. Well worth the effort.

The red/orange sun that isn't

Cameras are weird. My eyes saw this as a bright and deep red/orange and yet even with several tries the camera saw it as white. The deep red is much more dramatic and interesting, but.... what can you do? Other than long for the control I used to have with my film cameras.

However. While it may be less colorful, I think the photo probably illustrates the smoky skies that show themselves every evening when the sun is setting, blocking out the sun's rays like clouds while turning the sun itself into a pretty cool color (photo not withstanding). White or red/orange, taking an actual photo of the sun like this as an actual round star is ordinarily not possible. The sheer brilliance of this light doesn't allow it.

Fortunately, we don't have big fires nearby this year, yet, although there are something like 16 'large' fires burning across the state. Last summer our air was almost unbreathable (in the dangerous category) and while we had fires in northern Oregon, weather phenomena was bringing the smoke from a huge fire in southern Oregon, near Brookings, up here into the valley. I haven't seen any reports one way or the other, but I'm guessing a lot of this smoke is also being blown from the south -- from the huge fires near Redding and just north of Napa Valley around Clearlake.

Note: A day later, a video on Twitter from NWS that shows exactly how the smoke is traveling up the I-5 corridor and into Canada.

These fires don't have quite the emotional impact for me personally that the Napa/Sonoma fires had last fall, but I couldn't begin to count the times I've driven to/from the Bay Area from Oregon since 1996, and Redding is usually a pit stop. First city of any size, first one out of the mountains. Time for gas and/or food. And my last trip to Sonoma, in April, took me through the Clearlake area that is now burning. Alas.

When will it be our turn again? Hard to say. We've had a couple already, early in the season, and there will undoubtedly be more.

An escape to the coast

So this morning I felt a real need to escape TV, Twitter and the entire shitstorm in DC today. Whatever side of the argument you prefer, I think we can all agree it's a shitstorm. After a very small amount of consideration I decided upon Newport, north west of here. Not the closest place to find a beach or a coastal town, but the one I felt a need to drive to. After a couple of hours on the road, I arrived here. Not shabby. I took a path down to the beach, removed my shoes and started walking north to just past where that building on the beach is, where I'd head back up the cliff. The sand was so hot I ended up putting the shoes back on, which was surprising. But if felt good.

I found the restaurant I wanted, though the fish & chips were little more than average. And the serving was huge so I'm still stuffed. It felt good to be on a beach again, free and happy.

Rather than head back the way I came -- through Corvallis -- I opted to drive south to the little town of Waldport, where I lived for awhile, and cut inland from there. En route I passed so many beaches I explored so often during those days, finally gave in to one in Seal Beach, just a tad north of Waldport. I finally got my feet on a beach again! Nice, wet beach that's easy to walk upon.

Looking north back towards Newport. Lovely day on the water. Nice breeze, warm sunshine. The tide was very calm -- perhaps ebbing, perhaps neap, perhaps beginning to edge back to shore, but calm and peaceful and easy to walk in the waves without fear of being swamped. Just gentle waves washing my ankles. Lovely.

I walked south for awhile, hated to turn back but I was still a good distance from home. That headland in the distance is Cape Perpetua, which is just south of Yachats, which is just south of Waldport.

The Alsea River bridge in Waldport. Once at low tide I walked through this area and under that bridge around and up the river a good bit before I could find a place to get out. My first and only exploration of mud flats. It was sucky and stinky and it was raining, as I recall. And I was happy as I could be. I had just moved there.

From here, I followed the river on and off for a long while inland to the burg of Alsea. I'd consulted a map before leaving Newport and had found a 'shortcut' from Alsea over to Monroe that would save me from returning to Corvallis. I know it's unlikely, but if you ever find yourself looking for that road, suffice it to say that there is zero sinage telling where it is from the highway. After a few U-turns and consulting the map again, I finally decided that there was only one option, sign or not. A couple of miles in there was a tiny sign pointing to a road that branched off to the left. I almost missed it, even looking for such a turn.

This was an interesting road, though beautiful. Kept getting narrower. Finally a 'rough road' sign and then not much further a 'one lane road with turnouts' sign. Well, OK. I love to explore and it's not like mid-winter when such exploration might not be such a good idea. For the most part the road was wide enough for cars to pass, though I saw few of them. Largely wound through forested land, with arches of trees overhead in dappled sunlight. Quite lovely. I passed a sign to Alsea Falls Recreation Area or something like that, but nothing that specified 'Alsea Falls'. Turns out, that's where the falls are. I was getting itchy to reach home, so I didn't stop. But I'd already decided that Alsea Falls was a place I was going to explore soon, since in all my years here I've never done it. Now I know where it is and how to get there.

As promised, the road traveled through the burg of Alpine and to Hwy 99 at Monroe, where I came home through some vineyard and winery areas. About a 6.5 hour day, all in all. But worth every mile of it. I've promised myself to do a lot more of this kind of thing. I find myself in serious need of mental health days right now.

It's been so long since I've done something like this alone that I'd forgotten how much I enjoy it. Company is great, but there's something to be said about being alone, with good music and plenty of time to think.  Free to go where I want, do what I want, stop when I want, come home when I want. Take off on BLM roads when I want and see where they go.

Another beautiful sunset

Another beautiful sunset last night, and the night before. I waited a tad too long to decide to take this, because there had been light rays spearing up from the sun. But sunsets don't wait for people to decide to get their cameras. Every moment is fleeting.

Harder to take photos now because I got my curtains installed yesterday and now I don't have the unfettered view of the window. Had to get close to it, and was afraid that either the camera would focus on the rain splatters on the window, or catch my reflection in the window. Thankfully, it chose to focus where I wanted it.

Killer sunset!

You're probably going to get tired of sunset photos. Especially now that I've discovered that the camera will focus just fine through the glass, as long as I'm not too close to it. This one was right after an unexpected spring rain and was spectacular.

And then the battery died, which is probably just as well because the camera was not focusing so well for distance as the light lessened. The show went on for quite awhile longer.

Sunsets from the window

Sunsets around here are getting better! Last couple of nights I've just sat on my sofa and watched, rather mesmerized. Much better standing at the window, of course, because naturally the view is more expansive. So much more above and to the sides. But, my camera gets too confused trying to focus beyond either the screen, on the left, or the rain-spattered glass, on the right. So I stay at a distance. Definitely time for a new camera.

I did try just through the screen, as the scene progressed. Definitely a lot of whirring going on as it finally figured out it needed to focus on the trees, or something other than the screen. Any closer, however, and I suspect the screen would win. Beautiful anyway, tho not great photography!

The art of making a bed when the cat won't get off it!

When I moved, I made the bed up with 'summer weight' cotton sheets. I don't love them but would have lived with them, but I'd forgotten to put the mattress pad on and I kept feeling that I needed to do that. Or, maybe it was just an excuse to put the flannels back on, who knows!

The cat stayed on the bed through the entire process, moving as I needed to spread the sheets out. I knew she loved these soft, cotton-flannel sheets, but I don't think I knew how much she loves them until today. All of these photos are blurry, because she kept rolling over and over and nuzzling that soft flannel. She never sleeps on the sheets, but when I get up in the morning I tend to turn the covers back and expose where I'd been sleeping. We humans do sweat while we sleep, even if it's not obvious, and I like to let everything dry out for awhile in the mornings. And this is where the cat comes in, because she loves to sleep on that turned-back flannel sheet, atop two layers of puffy wool comforter.

There may come time when I need to switch to cooler sheets, but for now, Kat and I are both happy.

Moves and half-siblings

So -- all in all, it's been a pretty interesting week. Especially when you consider that day to day life around here is generally totally uninteresting.

First -- I moved. Already chronicled. Made quick work of it. Worth every back ache and ounce of fatigue it caused, too. I love the new place. Inside, it looks just like the other one, except for different color carpeting. Furniture is all in the same place, etc. Even the cat seemed to feel at  home when I brought her onto the premises after everything was moved. It smelled different, to a cat's sensitive nose, but it looked familiar. She had to sniff out every inch of the carpet and cabinets and whatever didn't hold her scent, but settled down quite quickly to the idea that this was home.

For me, it was more about quiet, and temperature. Even though this unit faces west, it's still cooler than the one that faced east. I think that's largely due to the westerly breeze that's almost always out there, as well as the fact that the sun doesn't hit my windows until around 4pm and then it's gone in a couple of hours and then the cool breeze cools it down quickly again. The breezes escaped the east-facing unit. I could see the leaves moving on the trees, but somehow none of it ever came in the windows. The sun always hit those windows early, too, and for several hours. All in all. A good move.

The other interesting thing is that I discovered that I have a half-brother I never knew existed. Only through the wonders of DNA and the internet! To make a long story short, my father apparently sowed some wild oats while he was in Taiwan in 1952, hence the half-brother. I don't have DNA testing, but some first cousins do have and this man's son submitted his own DNA on the off chance he'd find a match. He knew my father's name, but with a common name like John Smith, he had little chance of finding the right person.

And he's definitely found the right person. He sent a photo of his father (my half-brother) and the resemblance to my father is uncannily eerie. There's no doubt in my mind, certainly, even without the DNA evidence matching offspring of my father's brother. The whole family lives in the US now, and has for a long time. I'm not going to post photos because I want to be careful of their privacy. It's been pretty cool to know that I have a Taiwanese half-brother. I was a little shocked when I first read the 'comment' posted on my FamilySearch webpage. He said he didn't know how else to contact me.

So there's that. Correspondence at a minor standstill right now because the young man is in the USAF stationed in Australia and doesn't have much time to write during the week. But he will, I'm sure. There's lots more for both of us to discover.