Four Part Harmony

I’ve probably jinxed us just by writing these words, but it’s been a really nice fall here in Oregon so far. We’ve had a bit of rain, but lately we’ve had a run of clear, sunny, blue sky days and clear cold nights. We’re still pulling in red tomatoes if you can believe that. We’ve been enjoying it lazily, (as lazily as is possible with a 4 month old and a 3 year old) and as such I haven’t had a lot of reason to update the blog. Still, we’ve got a few photos, and I’ll put them up here while I’ve got a chance.

Last week we went out to the Hood River/Parkdale area to go apple picking with Anna’s school. It was a lot of fun. We picked a handful of apples, and ate our share too, but mostly the kids just ran around. The weather was great.

Here’s Anna eating a ‘Winter banana’ variety (it actually did taste a bit like banana). The ‘honeycrisp’ were the big hit. We also picked a few ‘Hidden Rose’, which have a dark purplish-red flesh, and were really sweet…I’ve never seen anything like it.

Nicki and Milo with Mt Adams in the background.

We’ve been getting in some afternoon hikes too. Nicki has designated Monday “hiking day”, to go along with “painting day”, “bread day”, and “soup day” at school. This photo is of the lake down in Reed Canyon, just down the street from our house. Nicki and I used to walk back there quite a bit when we lived at our old house on 32nd Pl.

Today instead of hiking day, Nicki and Anna and a couple of the kids from school went to the park down the street from the school.

Milo enjoyed his first ride in a park swing.

After the busy afternoon at the park, the kids took a (short) nap in the backyard while Nicki got some time in the garden.

Anna and Milo waking up from their nap.

We’ve been working on some inside projects too. This weekend I made our first big batch of sauerkraut in the crock we got from my parents last year. We missed out on the big cabbage harvest of ’07, and never got around to making any. This weekend we called Dawn at the market, and she brought us home two gigantic cabbages (4-5 pounds each). At first I thought we wouldn’t even get all of them to fit in the crock, but by the time I had it all salted and compressed in there, we really only got it about to 1/2 capacity. Still, it should make a large quantity of sauerkraut.

Also, I got my basement “workshop” cleaned up a week or so ago, and I’ve begun to slowly work on my next project(s). More info on that to come. Nicki’s also been sewing quite a bit and Anna’s almost always got a project of some sort going on in the living room. Anna’s projects tend to involve scotch tape and/or stickers and/or cutting or tearing of construction paper. There’s been a bit of a premium on “project time” lately, but it’s been good.

So long for now.