Wednesday, July 30, 2008

It Hasn't Even Been a Week!!!

So, we've been busy (surprise, surprise!) working around the house this week. Friend Catherine, who is teaching in South Korea, wonders why it takes us so long to complete a project when "Bob the Builder" gets things done in a couple of days! She watches with her 20 month old, Liam (going on 6.....) Well, we're just old and slow, I guess. Plus, when Dean builds something, half the time is the planning and thinking, and the other half, building. And, of course, it has to be perfect!
So, this is the before photo of the front of the house. Lovely, temporary (over 2 years.....) front porch. When we got our "stimulus" check, we decided to put it into a front deck.
Working on the stringers. And listening to a book-on-tape.
Almost done - the look of satisfaction!The view from the front deck. The most WONDERFUL place to be on a hot afternoon!And, drum roll, the finished product. We're going to get something colorful to put in the planter. NOT plastic flowers, if you were thinking that.........
The next project is to redo the front walk. We gathered relatively flat shale and cemented it in, but it is not a very good walking surface, we have discovered. Sooooo, it will eventually be a cement walkway. Sometime.

Last Saturday was the not-so-big parade for the Jefferson County Fair, and we took part in it. Jefferson County is really suffering - especially lately. Several companies have either laid off workers or closed completely. The new prison that was supposed to bring new jobs didn't really and opening the medium security part has been postponed because, though they had the money to build it, they didn't have the money to run it. Grrr! So, Jefferson County needed a boost, and a parade may have helped. We were aligned with the Jefferson County Democrats. They even had a couple of donkeys, who were a lot cuter than the rest of us.
We were on the "float" (flat bed trailer that was pretty unstable.......). A real musician, Ross, and I provided music. I just kinda played along - he was the entertainer.Now, if you will pardon the heavy "catch up" post, we go back a few more days to the trip Janet, Dean and I took while Jim was playing golf. We went to Lake Billy Chinook which is formed by the coming together of the Crooked, Deschutes, and Metolius Rivers and a dam. We put in near the Deschutes arm and paddled up the river. This is the bridge, about 2 miles up from our put-in.
The rock walls are amazing. These are some of the rock palisades which give the state park in the area it's name - Cove Palisades. Looking up river - the white styrofoam is some of the garbage we picked up along the way.
Dean and Janet - taking their time and enjoying the scenery.Flowers growing in the rocks.
This is a bunch of debris - maybe caused by the current of the river and the prevailing winds meeting? I heard on NPR that there is a several miles long island of debris in the ocean in the middle of nowhere.
Sorry for all the photos of the river - it was just so scenic!This, however, was not conducive to our pleasant day. The ski boats and jet skis were not particularly nice to us. I think they wanted to see us capsize or something. One guy on a jet ski came right at me, then veered off at the last minute. Another guy went around Dean then came to a stop - and watched his wake cause problems....... Grrrr!
There were 2 people on this jet ski and they were pulling a little kid on one of those donut things. Why do they allow people like this to be parents? Or the parents allow this . OK - off the soapbox and ending this post. Y'all take care of the kidlets.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You guys are so cool. Nice deck. And Uncle Dean, I must say you are looking quite studly (pardon the carpentry pun)in your building action photo (tan, muscular -- forgive me Aunt Sue, just have to tease your hubby). Also, being a library worker, I highly approve of your use of talking books while on the job. We have truck drivers who check those out to listen to on the road--which I must admit did a number on my truck driver stereotype-- which I shouldn't have in the first place because that's my brother's profession.y