Four Part Harmony

This weekend was one of good and bad.
First, to quickly dispense with the bad…
Our hard drive died on us again, and I spent much of Saturday dealing with that mess.
We’re back up and running though, so I think that’s all that needs to be said about that.

I did manage to get out twice to play music, both Friday and Saturday.
Nicki managed to get a pretty good quantity of tomatoes into jars and frozen on Saturday. Aren’t they a beautiful sight?

Sunday was the really fun day that made the weekend though.
Gabe and Maya invited us along on a wine tasting excursion down the valley.
We drove down Sunday morning (along with some other friends), and met Gabe’s mom and dad and a friend of theirs for a great brunch at the Eola Hills Winery.

After brunch we went outside and met Ken, our limo driver for the day (I always wanted to say that). Yeah, we were riding the back roads of Polk and Yamhill County in style. Nicki said she hadn’t ridden in a limousine before, and I couldn’t really remember if I had or not (I’m guessing not then).

There were ten of us total, and we had a blast driving around. We of course made a few stops along the way and sampled some great wines. The grapes were heavy on the vines everywhere we went, and it sounded like the harvest should be happening soon.

Maya took this really nice picture of Nicki and I at the second stop.

Our last stop of the day was at a brand new, up and coming winery located in Amity, Oregon. I had to take this picture just because I get the feeling it’s not every day a limo rolls through downtown Amity.
We met the couple who had started the winery, and they gave us a nice tour of their place.
They walked us through their entire production process and answered a lot of our questions, as we tasted a selection of their wines.
They even gave us a barrel tasting of a couple of their 2005 wines, which was highly enjoyable.

We were much later getting back to Portland than we had anticipated, and we were feeling bad for Tricia who had watched Anna for us all day.
Still, we got back home and Anna was as happy as could be…I think she had a lot of fun with Tricia, and by all accounts she was on her best behavior.

All in all a really fun day.
Monday morning came a bit too soon but it has a way of doing that anyway…

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Our first egg!

Honestly I was starting to think the day was never going to come. I thought we’d gotten stuck with some freeloading chickens, the kind that just peck and scratch around the yard, poop everywhere, and destroy your garden.
But today when Anna and I went out to the coop, there it was in all its glory. A tiny little egg, all nestled into the straw in the nest box, right where it’s supposed to be.
Have you ever seen such a beautiful sight?
Well, it certainly is big excitement around here.

Here’s another shot. It was still even a bit warm to the touch. Not much sense of scale in these photos I’m realizing, but it’s a pretty small egg, probably 2 inches long max, but perfectly egg-shaped.

But the real question is, who’s egg was it?

If I had to wager a guess, I’d say Kim-chee. She’s got the reddest comb and wattles and has been doing some weird posturing things with her wings the past few days. Lately, I’ve been thinking that if anyone was going to lay an egg soon, it would be Kim-chee.

Rosie is also seeming like she could lay any day. She is a bit skinnier than the other two, as a result of her being a bit more docile, and therefore seemingly at the bottom of what little pecking order there is. If I find a worm or a bug and throw it to the girls she almost never gets it, so I have to get her away from the other two and give little treats like that to her on the sly.

Sol is the largest of the three now, but I think definitely the slowest to mature. She is just starting to show some red color in her wattles and comb. I’m guessing it will still be a while before we see any eggs from her, but of course this is all wild speculation.

Just to round out the post, here’s a couple other photos. Another recent veggie harvest.

Another ongoing project…our sourdough starter. We’ve made some good bread a few times, and also have discovered a great recipe for sourdough pancakes…I actually made some for Anna and me this morning….delicious.

So long for now.

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Whew, well we’re back from the big weekend up in Trout Lake. The “Last Chance Barn Dance”, as it was being billed, was tons of fun. I think we’re still decompressing a bit from all the late nights, early mornings, hot summer afternoons in the shade, and great music. It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it.

Anna had fun, despite the fact that she came down with a runny nose the first day. We weren’t sure if it was a cold or allergy, or if it was just that last set of molars coming in, but it made it tough for her to sleep very well. Still, ever the trooper, she managed to have quite a good time. This is her next to the pasture where the horses were. The frog hat was courtesy of our generous friend Mo, who seemed to have a bottomless basket of helpful things, and was always willing to share.

Here’s Anna trying her hand at Papa’s mandolin…

And here’s Anna and me doing some drumming.

An old friend, and former Boone’s Ferry housemate Dave was back in town. Here’s Dave and Anna getting a little pre-show boogie in up in the barn.

Another constant source of hilarity for the weekend were the things people were picking up at the big yard sale that was going on in town. Folks were wandering around in all manner of crazy hats, bathrobes, etc. This little number that Nicki was sporting is called the “Snug-Suit”. A bargain at any price, I’m sure you’ll agree. She later added a nice hat to the ensemble.

The lineup of musicians reads like a who’s who of great Portland musicians. It also reads like your average month’s schedule at the Laurelthirst, but you won’t catch me complainin’.
We didn’t really take too many pictures up in the barn where the music was going on, and the ones we did take mostly didn’t turn out that great.
Both Saturday and Sunday the bands played until well after 2 or 3 am, and I know that all of these pictures were taken before 10 or so.
Still, here’s a small collection of photos of the bands…

Jackstraw. Portland’s premiere bluegrass band. We don’t get out to see these guys as much as we used to, so it’s been great to see them a couple times this summer. They played the first set of the weekend, and it seemed to end too soon.

Lewi Longmire Band. Lewi (center) was the guy that put the whole weekend together. He’s a guitar wizard and also writes some excellent songs. This set too seemed to end really quickly. Anna had to get to bed about midway through, so Nicki took her to bed and I got to stay up for the night. I also stopped taking pictures about this time.

Bingo (guitar on the left of this photo) led the next band, and the Freak Mountain Ramblers played the last set of the night. Eventually, I slept.

Sunday evening. Billy Kennedy and Paul Brainard. Billy’s a great local guitarist and song writer, and Paul is the pedal steel player around town. Paul was playing with everybody all weekend long, and it’s no mystery why.

Little Sue and Lynn Conover. A couple of Portland songwriters that occasionally play together as a duo. It had probably been a few years since I’d seen them play together. Great vocal harmonies. Anna made it about halfway through their set and then went to sleep in the sling.

I missed a photo of James Low and his band, but they were great also. Thought maybe he had a new band, but I guess I hadn’t seen him play with a full band in a while.

Michael Hurley. Michael played a great, pretty rockin’ set. Dave Reisch played the bass and sang the high harmony parts.
At the end of his set, Michael introduced the band he’s been on tour with, The Places, and they did a tune together…A fishermen’s song about an island off the coast of Maine. Then they did “So lonesome I could cry”. Then me and Anna went to bed, because my back and the soles of my feet were about to give way.
The night was clear and the music carried nicely. We laid down and listened for a while as we drifted off.

Monday morning went by in a blink, with a lot of folks kinda slow to get out of the tent. Everyone kind of took their time getting packed up, cooking breakfast, wandering around to each others campsites, telling stories, saying goodbyes etc. We had hoped to get up the road to the big huckleberry fields, but it wasn’t in the cards. It was naptime (for Anna), and so we figured it best to get on the road. She was out pretty quickly once we got going (so was Nicki), and we had a pretty quiet trip home.

Whew, maybe this weekend we’ll stick around the house and take it easy.

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