A Trip to Wisconsin and Restful Saturday

Whew! It is GOOD to be home. I just came back last night from a trip to Wisconsin for Kettle Foods! We were there for five days to run a very complicated experiment that took months of preparation. Lots of eyes have focused on the results and the pressure was on! I'm happy to report that everything went very well with only a few nail-biting moments. I still have to crunch numbers and write reports, but the hard part is done and we were all pleased with ourselves on Friday.

Here's the management team at the Prime Quarter restaurant in Janesville where you pick out and cook your own steak and texas toast on a large community grill in the middle of the restaurant. It was lots of fun and Larry and I both enjoyed our filets.

Potatoes!!! Lots of potatoes!!!

Larry, me, and Carolyn outside of the Wisconsin plant just about to leave for the airport.

After five days in a strange town, sleeping in a strange bed, eating strange food, and a two-hour time change, it was SOOO good to get home. When I woke up this morning, I was amazed at the transformation my little yellow house has gone through in only five days. Spring has finally found my little town and as I drank tea (my first in a week) and wandered around, everything struck me as idyllic and absolutely beautiful.
This is the view of my neighbor's front yard from my porch. Along the whole street, more plants are starting to bloom, following the daffodil's decline. Tulips, bluebells, dogwood and magnolia trees are all going crazy. The air smells like damp soil and green grass. I can hear the stream foaming in the back and bird song. Starlings, ducks, robins, and scrubjays all announce the new day. Wake up! Wake up!

The flowers on my birch tree in front are loosing their petals and when the warm wind blows, they float across my yard like snow....

A robin is making a nest in my neighbor's arbor...

The blueberry bush I bought at Gardenpalooza, already growing leaves and waiting to be planted.

My new raised beds! I hope to make more progress on my garden this week before another pending trip to Beloit....

Say hello to #6 and #12, happy to be let out of their coop...

Grass is one of their favorites and I was careful not to spray round-up too close...

this mornings hidden treasure...

My yard may look like it's nothing but patchy grass and weeds at first, but upon closer inspection, one can find surprises hiding amongst the dandylions.
This....

and this....

and, well, of course this....

I feel renewed and rested. My house is beautiful even in it's rough state. I'm going to make into an absolute paradise. That is my promise to myself.

A Trip to Corvallis

Several weekends ago, I drove down to Corvallis to help Adrienne and Paul start getting the baby's room ready. The plan was to go through stuff and decide what should stay and what should go, determine where the furniture was going to be and organize the room in preparation for a little one. Well, I should know by now that visits to Corvallis never go quite as planned; Adrienne's life is full of the unexpected lately and people that are in close proximity usually get swept up in the excitement. It is for this reason that I enjoy visiting the Lulay's. I know there will be good food, lots of laughs, and a break from my usual routine. This trip included a stop at the OSU Beef Barn on Campus Way for a little one-on-one cow time!

Fist, a quick photo of Chris' latest in a long line of joke t-shirts. I found this one particularly clever...

Spring has sprung here in Oregon (finally!) and this is what welcomed me to the Lulay residence as I pulled in the driveway.

Oops! An upskirt shot...how embarrassing....

Momma cows grazing next to the house...

Our heroine, the intrepid Grad Student trying to extract an ovary corpus luteum!

She felt very sorry for herself...


Our next victim waiting in the runway with slight apprehension...

TAXES ARE KICKING MY ASS!!!

.....and I KNOW I'm not the only one. But, I'm sure my Ireland vacation money is going towards important things like National Security and that big fence on the Mexico border (if the wound wasn't so fresh, I would be laughing ironically right now).

Ugh...

Weekend at the Beach

Well, these pictures are long overdue. This is the trip Bill and I took to the Oregon Coast on the long President's Day weekend. It was gorgeous, warm, and sunny- the perfect antidote to the freezing temperatures we'd been having at home.

Here is Bill enjoying the surf...


Some of the local fauna..

My New Chickens!

After moving into my new place, I was really excited to have such a nice yard to work with. The very first idea I had after seeing the yard was that I could have chickens! So, after talking to my two "enablers" (Adrienne and Jan), I had a source for chickens and a coop to house them in, both for bargain prices. I picked up the chickens after their feed trial at OSU was over and dropped them off at Jan's house until I was ready. Last week, Adrienne and Paul brought the coop over and one afternoon after work, I put the fence up and finished the surround all by myself! It's not the fanciest coop I've ever seen, but it's sturdy and I was very proud of my efforts. This morning, Jan and Neil came over with three chickens chosen out of the bunch I picked up and we turned them loose in their new home.

Here is a photo of the whole shebang, what do you think?

Within minutes, the hens were digging in the soil, eating pillbugs, fresh grass, and weeds...

access to the nest boxes, full of fresh straw...

and by one in the afternoon, I had my very first egg!!!

Mommom

A letter she wrote to me a long time ago:

November 17, 1982

Dear Rebecca Rose,
Happy Birthday Darling. One year old today. One year since Grandad called the San Pedro Hospital and we learned we had a granddaughter. Grandad had said that we were going to have a girl baby and I dreamed about you long before you arrived.
How happy we were that day. I was so excited I could hardly get dressed. I worked at the Hospital so some of my friends had already seen you in the Nursery. I rushed up to the 5th floor and went straight to the Nursery window and there you were- a tiny little baby with a perfectly shaped head. I went to see your Mommy who was sitting up having breakfast and I took some gifts to her and your Rebecca doll for you. I had to leave to get back to work and there in the corridor was your Daddy with a big bunch of red roses and a big grin on his face. He knew you were going to be a little daughter, what he didn't know was how beautiful you were going to be.
What a lot of joy there was. Mommy and Daddy took you home. They were building extra rooms on the house so that you could have a room of your own when you got bigger. All your Grandmas and Great Grandma and Uncles and Aunts came to see you, they all brought gifts and were so happy that you were born.
During this year you have grown six teeth, you love the kittens Daddy brought home, they live outside and when you are in your play pen they join you there and you are very gentle with them. "Kitty" soon became your word and you would squeal with joy when a cat appeared.
You love rough games with Daddy and you and he play your own games when he takes care of you when Mommy goes to school.
You crawl very fast and when you are in your walker in the yard you go so fast Grandad calls it your "scurrier".
You like Amy and Anne Medina. They and their mom Anita have helped you grow, they play with you and cherish you.
Your favorite thing is a Snoopy dog that has a music box inside and he is your baby. He has grown very grubby this past year but he is your precious Baby and you won't go to sleep without him.
You are Grandad's and my favourite thing, so Happy Birthday again treasure.
Love,
Grandma and Grandad.

Ok, ok, I know...

I had no idea that so many people checked into my blog. I always thought of my site as a kind of optional addition to Mom's. However, this weekend, I was informed that some individuals are affronted at my lack of posting lately. This is due to several (really good) reasons on my end.

1. Packing, moving, then unpacking.
2. Loss of a loved one.
3. No internet at the new house until yesterday.
4. Home improvement and state-wide collection of new furniture.
5. Total disinterest in doing anything computer-related.

However, now that my life has started to slow down to normal and now that my new house has the internet, of course I have lots to share. A break in the actual reporting does usually coincide with too many activities taking place to type them all out, so take heart, there is lots to come. I have pictures of my new digs and furniture to share, so stay tuned!