Oneonta Falls/Gorge

It was raining the other day, so why not play in the water when you're going to get wet anyway? Adam and Anne joined us for a hike up to one of the Columbia Gorge's lesser known falls. All the pictures of shivering people are here!

Onions

I think I made a mistake with the onions. Probably I should have planted them deeper? Most of the growing globes are right at the surface of the soil, some even setting on top of the soil. Some of these more shallow shallots tip over and their tops die back, so I harvested some of them. Red, yellow, and white, all still a bit too small but plenty tasty after they went into the frying pan with a piece of steak (beef not from our farm unfortunately). As a nice side dish were the two squashes in the picture, thick sliced and sauteed in butter.

"Yummm-Meeee" reported Gretel after chowing down on seconds.

Gretel Gets her Greens

We're starting to get overrun with fresh greens. Our one little row of lettuce is keeping us all set with fresh salads daily. (Good thing those other 6 rows I planted never grew!) In this picture is also the last of the spinach for the summer. It grew some huge leaves (on the left in the picture) before it started to bolt. With the weather being warm like it is, even my little 2" high spinach seedlings are bolting, so we'll wait until later in August to try to replant for a cool weather fall harvest.

Flugtag!

I took time off from weeding between the tomato plants to stop by downtown for the Red Bull Flugtag. It's a cool enough event, but did 80,000 people really have to show up? Seriously, they were NOT even giving out free Redbull!!! You can click here to see the official event pictures, which are better than mine.

Smith Rock

We took a short overnight trip to Smith Rock this week to do some climbing. What a beautiful place hidden away in the desert, and what great climbing too! Fingers and knees got a bit scraped up, but otherwise everyone was safe and happy. And since it was too hot to climb in the sun, we all avoided sunburns by climbing in the shade. Here's like 35 more pictures or so.....

Big Cow

Here she is, one of the world's biggest cows, hanging out at the Tillamook County Fair. Apparently a growth hormone disorder allowed her to grow this big. Ironically, because of her hormone disorder she doesn't produce milk, and being a Brown Swiss dairy cow, she doesn't produce meat either. But she does eat a lot, and she's 74 inches high at the shoulder!

This week's fashion roundup

These chickens' otherwise lovely day in the sun was spoiled by poor choices at the hat rack. Blond chickens have more fun, but come on ladies, that headgear is so 1980s....

I could start a whole essay about whether chickens are pets or livestock. And whether being livestock precludes an animal from simultaneously being a pet. Regardless, these chickens look ridiculous and serve no practical purpose, other than looking silly, which is of course impractical. For comparison, check out my chickens. They're nice looking birds that are working hard. Working hard getting meaty and tasty that is!

French's Dome

Why are these guys staring up through the trees? Click here to see the web album documenting the 2 pitch climb of French's Dome we did, featuring exciting pictures of the climb, the exciting lunch on top, and the exciting rappel. As you can tell, we thought it was a pretty exciting endeavor.

Get out the vote

I know everyone is supposed to vote, and every vote should get counted. But hasn't Obama won Oregon already? Even without an election, we already know which way the 33rd state is voting. Even the chickens have Obama Fever!

(editor: this post was drafted before Obama said he'd be willing to open up more offshore oil drilling. Even a chicken knows that we should emphasize development of alternate energy technologies rather than resort to more oil drilling!)

City Farms

By now everyone knows that Portland leads the nation in two things: number of breweries per capita and (nearly as important) number of chickens per capita. After all, each household is allowed 3 hens, and lots of people utilize this allowance. But the city also allows one "small" farm animal per yard as well. I hadn't yet seen any small farm animals around, until we finally did find this pig living in NE with a handful of chickens, some squash plants, and a bunch of rows of sweet corn. Mmmmm, pork and chicken and squash and corn....