Monday, August 27, 2007

Vacations are the most, well almost the most fun of all. And tomorrow this writer will board the UAL plane with wife Donna and by the end of the day, we should be settled down nicely in the PIG room at brother Harold & Donna's home.

Why the pig room? Well, it so happens to be the spare bedroom, and it is covered with pigs of all sorts, pig lamps, pig fans, big pigs, little pigs, pigs that talk, you name it, it is the pig room, and depending on which way the wind is blowing that day, it might even spell of pigs.

Pigs don't smell bad, its just our imagination that the smell is bad. To the farmer, the smell of pigs might be MONEY, as in $$$$$$$ for his vacation fund, or to pay the bills, or put food on his table. Pigs are fairly intelligent creatures, until you try and get them to go where you want them, and then they can be the dumbest things in the whole wide world.

Somehow hate to leave, as my tomatao crop is just getting ripe, but there will be some left for us by the time we get back. Will keep this real short tonight, want to catch the news and then off to bed for a early wake up. So, cherrio!

Howard

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Wow! Pride commeth before the fall or some such quotation. I thought that I'd show you my mug, or at least what it looked like a year ago, when Donna and I were visiting Julie and family in Kansas. This was around Fathers day and we went out to the town where Eisenhouer was born, and took a train ride up the tracks 10-15 miles or so. My my memory fails me so I can't tell you the name of the town.....

Well back to that quote, I thought since this was a photograph skaned to my computer, I would use the large picture, and it took almost twice as long to download it. Thats what I get for wanting to show off my mug.

Speaking of mugs. I've found that one of the best souvenirs one can get is a coffee mug. I got one of this particular train, and so now when I use it to drink my coffee in the morning, it reminds me of a very nice train ride. I did this also on our 51st wedding anniversary, my mug is from the lighthouse at Cape Mears. You can see that lighthouse if you go back to my blog around May 6th or 7th. I see that I haven't always put the date on the top of my blog, but I will now, if nothing more so I'll know when I posted it to the blog.

A beautiful summer/fall day here today, cloudy in the a.m. got up to 72 by noon, and hit 80 around 5:00, that is a very nice day. God does do that for us every now and then. I think I showed you some pictures way back of raspberries hanging from the vines at Laura's place. I got busy yesterday afternoon and finished it today, of trimming out the old canes. Laura was wondering tonight how I knew which ones to take out, and about all I could tell her, was take out the ones that bore fruit this year, the new canes will give us fruit next year.

We were talking about it at the dinner table tonight, and Donna was wondering if the old ones wouldn't produce fruit on them next year too. HMmmmmmm I don't know. and its too late to find out, as the old ones are all laying flat ready to be chewed up by my lawnmower tomorrow.

If there are any gardeners out there, let me know if its okay to leave the old canes standing for two or three years. Its my bedtime, so am closing off. See two new emails have come on while I've been typing, so will have to see who is calling me.

Cherrio for the present.

Howard

This is a nice picture, but certainly now where I wanted it to be......hmmmmm you blog experts. what am I doing wrong.

Tuesday, August 21st, 2007, I think

Oh, I know its Tuesday, but somehow the dates just don't always seem right.... Wanted to experiment yesterday by putting several photos in certain places, and I came up with a blank, as the photo never appeared on my blog. So will try again, NOW.

Well, what I wanted to do worked fairly well, but lets see if I can move it around, might not as I told the machine I wanted it on the left.

Oh, by the way, this a group of us seniors when we visited Frontier Missions last week, On the left is Ted, then Leonard, Theo, MaryLou, Louise, Edith, Johns sister, Genevieve & Odessa and now, lets insert a picture from our 51st Wedding anniversary trip to the Oregon Coast. Maybe a sunset picture from the deck.

Well, it doesn't want to move for me yet, so will try again.

In the old days, my Microsoft works came with an instruction manual, and whenever I got stuck I went to the manual. Now you have to go to the Help and pull up the section thats giving you a problem, if your lucky enough to find it. oh well, will go back to the Model T and start all over.

Went over to the park tonight to play game night, and of course the game is BINGO. Should have had my money on the games tonight, for I won 3 of the probably 12 to 15 games we played. After the nice gifts I brought home last time, I declined any of the prizes tonight, and told Bill I was just playing for the fun of it. Which I was. Its mostly all old folks who play the games. The last game of the evening is blackout, and I don't like to play it, but I commented that I remember "blackout" from WW II, and most all there knew what I was talking about. Think there were probably 2, maybe 3 that weren't born yet in the 45's.

Really trimmed the rododendren bush under the kitchen window. Donna said it felt like she was being smothered when she looked out the window, so I whacked and cut, and snipped and it s about as ragged as its ever been, and I need to take off more, but thought I should sleep on it before I cut more off. Also went next door and started trimming out this years canes on the red raspberries of Laura's. Want a good crop again next year, so will get rid of the old vines so all the nutrients will go into the new canes.

I was bushed, pardon the pun, by the time I got done with the trimming. Found a nice chair to sit back on and close my eyes for a few minutes. Turned down a baseball game over at PGE park. Its not much fun going there anymore. No on street parking (city has a 2 hr time limit in that part of town) very few if any parking lots nearby, and I refuse to take the MAX light rail to the ball park, so I stay home.

My friend Bob called to see if I wanted to go, he parks in Fred Meyers parking lot, but I don't feel right about parking there, even if we do most all our grocery shopping at Freddies. Its not right, and there are signs posted around saying so Stadium parking...

Lets add one more picture, some tulips taken at Lisa's place, which is just down the alley from us. I think you know where its going to be. Probably at the top of this Blog. HELP.....

Well, I lost that picture, I was cleaning the keyboard while it was uploading, and I must have pushed the wrong key.... will send what I have to the publisher and call it a good night.

cherrio

Sunday, August 19th, 2007

This is experiment Sunday, I am going to try and manage my pictures that I download, and see if I can get them where I want. Yesterday, I downloaded first the Rhubarb picture, then the tomatao picture on the left and the tree climber on the right. If you notice the language I typed in, it sort of didn't make sense, as I had typed it before downloading the pictures. In viewing my friends Blog, Michael typed a bit, inserted a picture, then some more and another, and I'm going to try and do the same, with a little experimenting. So here goes.

Well, I have given up on that experiment....Downloaded the picture I think like I have in the past, and then it never appeared here..... So, for now I close this.
See that someone is coming in on email. so will check it out

cherrio

Friday, August 17, 2007

Sort of promised you a picture last night, maybe I overdid it by making it a LARGE picture, want to you show you that my tomatoes are almost ripe, and show you a man up a tree, that I watched quite a few hours this morning. Will see where they end up at.

Okay, I can live with that, the tomatoes are almost ready for picking. they were planted on May 15th, supposed to be ripe in 75 days, oops they didn't quite make it, and we have had such nice sunny weather this year. Possibly I didn't fertilize them enough to begin with. We'll have some before long.....

The tree picture was taken this morning, when landlord Pam had two very tall Birch trees taken down across the street from our home. I grabbed my camera and 49 pictures later, the trees were laying on the ground all chunked up. I helped two of my neighbors load some of the limb wood into my wheelbarrow and cart to their patio for future burning in their fireplace.

The trees must have been 75 feet tall or thereabouts, as that house is easily 40 feet tall at the peak. One funny thing, on the last branch to come down on the second tree, a young hawk was in its branches and refused to fly away. Finally after much shaking by the tree faller he finally flew off to look for a new branch.

And of course the pavers and larger stones surround my rhubarb patch. Not sure again why I keep it, as we usually only make one batch of desert from them each year, but I do give some away to neighbors and I do have hopes of more desert yet this year.

See its past bed time, so will keep this close. Remember if you want to respond to these blogs you may do so at howardonna@aol.com and show gpahoward on the subject line. If I don't recoginize your email address you will probably be deleted..... till later

Cherrio

Thursday, August 16, 2007

It is finished..........today marked the end of my paver/sidewalk project. I needed 5 more large border stones to enclose the rhubarb patch, and a 30 gallon galvanized wash tub of gravel to put between the large stones and the flat pavers. It looks pretty good to me, and had I done what I was thinking of earlier, would have taken a photo and shared it with you.

It is started.........last night, we had church choir practice, and started practicing Christmas music for this coming season. It seems awful early, but when you only practice twice a month, it will soon be time to perform. Fortunately this year we are doing a cantata that we did several years ago and the songs are familiar to most of us. Believe it is "A Song Unending"or maybe its "Story of Christmas". Gosh, that was 24 hours ago, and I've not that good a memory anymore.

It is sad..........I am reading a book from the library, titled "The Underground Railroad", the story of negros escaping the slavery, and going underground so to speak into Canada and the Northern United States. What I am reading however makes one want to weep at the conditions that many of them lived under. Probably what surprised me was that of the millions of black men and women, probably only 20 percent came to America, the majority went to South American countries. Most of our famous American leaders around the days of the Revolution from England were slave owners. I doubt that I will finish the book before its due back at the library, but I'll keep at it as long as I can. This will be book number 59 since Thanksgiving that I have read.

It was fun.........Last Monday we made plum jam, well, I picked the plums, sliced and diced them, and Donna did the actual cooking and putting into jars. Sunday night, I took one of the jars to my neighbor Elisa as they have company from New Jersey. One of the company is a 5 year old boy named Max. As I was leaving her patio where they were enjoying a late dinner, I remarked that I was going to go play my Harmonica. Sarah, Max's mother remarked that Max plays the harmonica too, but wasn't sure where he had it in the house.

One thing I enjoy doing is buying the Weekender Hohner harmonica and then giving them away. The one I play is the easiest of all the harmonicas I have ever owned, to play, and altho its made in China for Hohner (a German company) I like it. I came home to play, and thought that I think the boy needs a BIG harmonica. So to my car I went and found a brand new one never played before and took it to him. He opened the box and to his surprise found this BIG harmonica (it has two full octaves) and exclaimed "its a BIG LONG ONE". That made my day and I told him that his new harmonica has all the same songs in it that mine does, he just has to learn to play it and find them.

Its been enjoyable...........Tonight I opened the blogs of Michael and Delynn and also Jeanie Selix both families are across the ocean in Germany and North Africa. What fun to see where they have been and what they are doing. Want to see for yourself, try www.madaboutweil.blogspot.com and then www.selixfamily.blogspot.com will get you both of them. I highly recommend it.

It was a surprise...........The newspaper mentioned the other day a amusement park back in the thirty's called Lotus Isle.... I had never heard of it, so went to google and here is another website that may blow you away....look it up at www.pdxhistory.com/html/lotus_isle.html I can hardly believe the size that it must have been, and its all gone now except a few memories and a few old rotting pilings in the river near where it was.

Its time..........Its nearing 10:00 and I want to catch the news....so sad about the miners trapped in the mine in Utah, and the near tragedy as more earth quakes almost trapped their rescuers. So, I leave with "May God shine upon your lives, and may you see Him in those around you"

Cherrio

Saturday, August 11, 2007

Wow!, computers are so smart, I accidentally hit the tab instead of carriage return or Enter key and this thing was ready to publish. Want to put in a picture of the completed sidewalk as originally planned.

This is just off the back porch, which we are really enjoying, guess I should load a picture of it into this blog one of these times. In the picture above, just down the path to the left, are about 5 or 6 rhubarb plants, that somehow, (guess its the Iowa farmer in me that says I can make something grow that's edible) needs to be enlosed with stone brickwork or some large stones, so while the original project is done, the next phase is to enclose the rhubarb and rebuild some nice stone stairs to the upper level of the back yard.

Oh, you didn't know we had two levels, yes we do, maybe three if you count the level down to Laura's back yard. Guess we need some pictures of it on this blog too. Anyway, I've started on this new stone stairway up to the tomato patch. (Hope you don't think we live on 5 acres, its just a 50 x 100 foot lot with a house and garage taking up most of the space.

Today was a down day for me, started out walking my mile this morning, and my energy level was zero, so I got as far as the Columbia Park swimming pool, turned around and came home. Kept my activities at a minimum. Think I burned out with the many projects that I'm working on. Will see what tomorrow brings.

For now though, I am closing, Love you all, or at least most of you..... say no one has won that last prize, better get your emails moving...

Cherrio

Friday, August 10th, 2007

They're gone, was talking to my neighbors John and Amber about the chimney swallows and they said, "they're gone". I could hardly believe it. Was hoping I could get some better movies on my digital camera, as the cameraman was pretty wild on a couple of them, didn't know when the camera was on, and when it was off. Wonder if that little orange light had something to do with it, whenever I was shooting at the birds.

Well, the sidewalk is done, that is done with what we had originally intended to do. Cut the last stones this morning and put them in place. Looks nice, will download the pictures and try and put them on the next blog.

I checked out Michael & Delynn's blog tonight, maybe you'd like to visit them too, just go to www.madaboutweil.blogspot.com and visit them in Southwestern Germany. Its so close to France and Switzerland, they can walk there. We will look them up next June when we travel to England and Germany. At least we making plans to do so.

And, my bathroom project over at Sue's is nearly done. Want to put some trim around the toilet tank. Yes, thats right. I had to cut into the wall to put the corner of the tank into it, and now it needs some wood trim. Have a piece of plywood cut, to what I think is the right shape, and Donna will see if it fits tomorrow, and then I experiment. Oh ya, there's a threshold or could call it a transition board needs to be made between the hall and the bathroom floor, which is 3/8th higher than the hall floor. Another challenge, but I'm up to it now.

My body says I'm tire, so will close for tonight. Try and see what's on t-v or read my book and then off to la-la land. So, I say Cherrio

Howard

Monday, August 6, 2007
Greetings, well just in case you think I've "gone to the birds", maybe I have. Lets see if I can download a action photo taken last night of the birds going down my neighbors chimney. Its a action 10 second thing, and may not download.

It doesn't look like that picture downloaded,,,,,will close this and recheck it out.

Howard

Friday, the 3rd of August,

This isn't a great picture, unless you happen to be there beside me to see what is happening. I like to take a walk around the block every night after we have eaten dinner (guess I'm like a dog marking his territory) and I stopped at 8018 n. foss to talk to John and Amber and while we were talking these chimney swifts came swooping down and into the chimney. There must have been 50-75 of them that went into the chimney that night.

Was going back the next night, and I had a phone call from Jim back in Cedar Rapids, a distant cousin of mine, and by the time we had hung up, the darkness had come and the swifts were in the nest. I did get up yesterday morning however to see if I could see them coming out. Don't know if I was too early or too late, for I only saw one go in, and then come back out. This was taken on the 2nd, and I didn't get down to watch them tonight.

I know there is one school or church here in town that they come too every year, but I had never seen this happen in a neighborhood, especially ours. Am wondering now if they have ever used my fireplace chimney for their home.

I mentioned talking to Jim, his great, great, great grandfather and my great. great grandfather were brothers. They were Johann Jacob Schmuckle (1759) and Johann Michael Schmuckle (1764) sons of Johann Michael Schmuckle (1726). We'll be venturing to Iowa later on this month and I hope to have coffee or lunch with Jim, and look over a book his father wrote, using the materials Jim was able to pickup when he was stationed in Germany some years back. I'm also having contact with my grandfathers sisters family,,,,,,,SO, in addition to going to the Stephenson reunion over Labor Day, we're going to do some Schmickling too.

Maybe another year and we can have a Schmickle reunion. Would be nice to have it this year, but time is getting short. The oldest member of the Schmickle's right now is probably Irvin who lives in LaFayette. I used to do chores for him when his family would take a vacation. Their barn had gas lights in them, altho by that time we used electricity. Their house and barn was set up with gas lights, and as I recall they had a cistern like thing they would put clorine or some sort of powder down into the water, and it would put off gas. I've probably got the wrong kind of chemical, and will do doubt blow the barn up, if used by my use.

My bathroom remodel at my daughters is almost done. ptl.... ANd I'm still working on paver stones from back porch to the alley. Got waylayed today, when my wife brought home about 50 zinnias to plant outside our back fence along the sidewalk. Of course the ground wasn't ready, I pulled the weeds yesterday to dry out, and today I worked sand into the soil with my Moe Hoe. Now some of you are wondering what a moe hoe is, so ask me, you probably have my email address, and the first one who asks gets the prize.

Sandra replyed first the other day and she got a hot fudge sundae out of her quick response. So lets hear it. my email howardonna@aol.com

Cherrio

Howard