Fun Stats & Giveaway Announcement :-)

In a month I will celebrate a year of blogging - I started my Blogger account before that, but I remember blogging seriously in September of 2010 with a photo record of our camping trip to Kahneeta, an Indian reservation resort in the high desert of Oregon.

This is my 170th post.
35,765 Pageviews since I began.
I've had visitors from 89 countries on planet Earth. (I don't know how many from outer space) :-)

I have 149 "Members" but I call them "Friends". :-)

When I have 150 Friends, I will have a "Giveaway".  I'll post a photo of it when I announce it. :-)

My all-time most popular post was when I gave instructions on how to make my "Scandinavian Crochet Heart Ornament".  That page has been visited 361 times.

But what I did not know, was how many fellow bloggers and visitors to my blog that I would call real friends.  And that, my dear people, has been the "pot of gold" at the end of the rainbow.

Kate from A Garden Bell, Pammy Sue from Scotty's Place, Lucy from InTheSky, Suz from Suz Place, Jane from Jane's Journal, Clicky Needles, Koralee from Bluebird Notes, Emma from Silver Pebble, Shanti from Wires & Yarns, Helen Phillips, Melissa from Random Thoughts.. , Meredith from Mereknits, Dorothy from Hooks and Grannies, Robin from MyNestofYarnandButtons, Ursula from Apricot Corner, Saskia from Crafty Valley, Erica from Erica's Hook and Yarn, Rachael from Clever Cheshire Cats, Laura Jane from Needles, Pins and Baking Tins, Sam from Not Your Grams Afghan, Baxters Rest, Nicole from Nicole and the Bee, Vicki from Turkey Feathers, Happy Elastic, Anne at Copperbeechcrafts, FarmChick from It's a Small Town Life, Manda from Manda's Challenges and so many more! Many of my regular commenters don't have blogs but I recognize them and think of them as friends.

I especially want to say *T*H*A*N*K* * *Y*O*U*!*!*!* to those fellow bloggers who have added my blog URL to their list of favorites.  It means a lot to me.

Dinner at Chez Nene & More

I volunteered at the Visitor Center at Multnomah Falls last Thursday and I got one more flower done on my Japanese Flower shawl.  A nice visitor named "Anne with an E" was admiring the shawl and I said she could try it on, so I snapped a photo.  Lots more work on this piece to do!

I snapped these pots of magenta geraniums on our back deck.. hubby is so proud as he wintered them over on our basement landing near the multi-windowed door.

This Sunday we're going to the Friends of Multnomah Falls Volunteer Picnic and it was my idea that we'd have a contest for the best decorated picnic basket.  So, hubby got my wonderful basket down off the top of a cabinet in my office and rubbed it with mineral oil as it was a bit dry.  This basket is handmade here in Oregon using Myrtlewood which  only grows in Oregon!!  Barber's Baskets

Today we watched our youngest grandson while our DIL Kristi took the 3 year old to an open house at the school he'll be attending in the fall.  Caleb enjoyed trying out my new little vintage stool.

In a blink of an eye he'd gotten out all the toys from the box and was goofing around jumping on Grandpa... Buddy the dog stays out of the fray on my lap.

When his parents returned to collect him we visited on the deck and Grandpa was filling up the pond which was low and of course the boys had to take turns helping him with the hose. :-)  The dog is fascinated with our 3 goldfish.

Below is the VW bus that our son bought for his wife to drive.  The little family is thrilled with it.

Is there anything cuter than a Pansy?

This afternoon we were invited over to my little sister's house for dinner and to see their oldest son who was home for a visit.  He lives in Virginia now.  My sister served up the most wonderful meal!  She also invited our daughter and her family to join us since they are moving to Ohio it might be a long time until she sees her cousin.  What a gourmet cook my sister has become!  Below is her Chicken Provencal.

Barbecued Marinated Flank Steaks.

Green Beans with Bacon

Salad Caprese with fresh basil grown in her garden.

And for dessert a wonderful chocolate chip chocolate cake with chocolate frosting!  Here is Shane making a wish and blowing out his candles.  These are my sister's 3 kids, Kevin, Shane & Whitney!

Nene (Denise) made grilled cheese sandwiches for the girls who are very picky.. and they were told if they did not eat them they would get no cake.  Paige was not going for this.. until Grandma said.. do you want chocolate cake?  Yes!  Well, to get cake you have to eat 1/4 of the sandwich.  After which she ate the entire thing! Success!  Paige asked like 10 times when we were having cake.. so here is a photo of her with the prize.

My sister's meat marinade:

1 C soy sauce

1 C oil

1 tsp ginger

1 tsp dry mustard

3 cloves garlic

2 Tbsp molasses or brown sugar

Thank you for stopping by for a visit.. time for another Summer weekend!!  Woohoo!

((hugs)), Teresa :-) 

Afternoon Light, Lil' Boys & Indian Basket

The sun was shining golden in the afternoon which made me grab my camera to record some pretty images.  I especially love this one - I stepped out onto our turn-of-the-century farmhouse front door which we rarely use on the the old front porch... I saw these hay bales in the warm sunshine and zoomed in to see what the image would show me... it showed me summer in Oregon.  The land across the country road from us has been leased to Laotian families that grow flowers to sell at farmer's markets in the Portland area.  Such a lovely crop for us to enjoy watching grow!

I actually saw this beam of bright sunlight on our grandfather clock which captured my eye and had me grab my camera.  It is very rare to have sun shine on the clock!

Being the detective that I am, I then saw the late summer sunlight streaming through our beveled glass window we found on craigslist several years ago for a very good price.  

Again, the sun was slanting through the shrubs, this is our walkway up to the porch.  Unfortunately the Pin Oak roots have buckled the brick walkway.. grumble.  See the stones lining the brick walk?  They were brought to Portland as ballast in ships from England years ago, cobblestones which were then used to pave the downtown streets in Portland.  When they dug those streets up to pave them with new materials, those old cobblestones were then sold to brickmasons.  Dayle found the cobblestones for sale in our local newspaper and bought them for this project.  The mason who put in our brick walkway lined it with those stones.  Cool, huh?

And my 4th of July rose keeps blooming! :-)

Yesterday our son invited us for dinner, we actually picked up Popeye's Chicken for us all.  Then our son asked if we'd watch the boys while he and his wife went to look at a Volkswagen bus for sale.  So we spent a few hours with our 2 very VERY active little boys.  What was really funny is one of them climbed up the back of my chair and crawled over my shoulder and slid down the front of me to the floor and said "SLIDE!"  So, then the other one followed suit, then they took turns crawling over my shoulder and sliding down me.. for at least 2 dozen times going "WHEEEE"!  LOL  The photo below is when we were leaving and they tried to climb in our window.  It's fuzzy because they NEVER stop moving!!  Hehe!

And did you happen to notice our youngest baby below?  Remember his glorious sun bleached curls?  WELL... his dad was outside buzzing his own hair and he turned away long enough for Caleb to pick up the shear and cut the middle of his forelock off.. so daddy decided to finish the job.  It broke his mother's heart.. and his grandma and grandpa's too! :-(

Fuzzy shots of wiggly boys.  :-)

 Another of the roses.

And which brings us to today.  We have a woman help with housework once a month and she has helped us tackle projects that we'd put off.  Today she decided that it was time to remove all the flotsam and jetsam that had collected on our armoires in our master bedroom.  We laid a clean sheet across our bed and took all the things down and dust and only put a few things back.  One of the things collecting dust on my wardrobe was this lovely handmade cedar bark basket made by an Indian man in Vancouver BC.  We took the children to the World's Fair there in 1986, and I found this basket in an art gallery there.

This side shows a "Killer Whale" which is an Orca.  Did you know a "killer whale" is not a whale at all, but a member of the dolphin family?

This side depicts another whale, although I'm not exactly sure which kind.. grey whale or humpback?

On either end is a Puffin.  I just adore baskets, I've made several myself.

Well, I hope you've enjoyed your visit.. swimming tomorrow!  What are you doing for fun this week?
((hugs)), Teresa :-)

Diggin' Dog, Twilight Lantern & our 1927 Chevrolet

Ahhh.. summer.  We're having some warm and sunny days.  This is a shot of the pasture on the hillside behind the farmhouse.. I just love the color of the meadow grass and the Daisies sprinkled about.. rather like a painting.

I re-potted a fuchsia yesterday and tidied up the deck a bit and let Buddy, the Cairn Terrier, have some time in the yard.  Unfortunately, his favorite thing is digging down into a mole hole to try to catch a mole.  He's actually caught a few, a mouse and several snakes... he gets them and shakes the daylights out of them.  Not one of his catches have survived.  Oh.. and recently a frog on the edge of the pond.. poor thing.

Above.. he's resting and panting...  below he's going at it again - you can actually see the dirt flying if you look closely. :-)

The photo below cracks me up...  he's WAYYYY down into that hole.

Hubby was a bit displeased that I let him dig a 2 foot trench.. and told me I'm going to have to fill it up.  :-)

I saw the Rose Campion backlit by sunshine from under the tree and tried to capture how they glowed like stained glass.. I'm not sure you can get the idea of how it looked as this photo doesn't quite show, but it was pretty.

It was twilight last night and I wanted to show you how Dayle's father's lantern lights up, while still showing the surroundings in the last light... so pretty at this time of day.

Today hubby and my son pulled our 2 Sunfish sailboats out of the barn for hubby to clean them up for an upcoming camping trip -- and so I was able to get a photo of our 1927 Chevrolet we bought many years ago with the idea of getting it fixed up and running.  It's so cute!

The interior still looks pretty good!

I'd love to have this all fixed up and be able to drive it in the 4th of July parade. :-)

Quite the hood ornament, huh?

I guess I'll go back outside and fill up that hole.. or talk my grandsons into helping me fill it up.  LOL

Hope you all had a great weekend - and a wonderful week ahead.  Welcome, new friends!
((hugs)), Teresa :-)

Granddaughters, Painting, Flowers & Love

It was an early start for hubby and I - we drove 40 minutes to our daughters house to pick our 2 granddaughters up so our daughter could get the house ready for the House Inspector to check the house for the buyer. The photo below is from later in the day when we were here at the farm.  Jenna, the 6 year old, loves to pick flowers.. this is a daisy in her "bouquet".

Below are the girls and grandpa in the Ford dealership waiting room - we had to get my Explorer serviced today.

When we got home the girls wanted to paint with a set we got for them not long ago.  We set it up on the deck.

Paige enjoyed painting.

Jenna is the family artist.

More painting.

I went on a bit of a photographic safari around the deck... here is Dayle's "Bonsai" tree.  I finally convinced him to let it grow out a bit, he'd been pinching ALL new growth off for years and the poor little thing looked like it was ready to give up trying.

My violet Astilbe is blooming out.. I adore that plant.  My "jungle" of bamboo, Hosta, Japanese Painted Fern, Hyndrangea & the poor Calla Lily that has never ever bloomed in 8 years.

Grape-y colored Astilbe.

Below is my Autumn Fern.. I adore it, the new fronds are the color of fall leaves.

Below I peered down into the Stargazer Lily .. see the beginning of the bud in the center?

 More jungle...

Hubby wintered over several of our magenta geraniums.. they're doing very well!

One of my new Fuchsia.

Below is the cute little Japanese Pagoda garden lamp that Dayle rescued out of his parents back garden after his Dad passed away.  Dayle plugged it in recently and it's been lighted each night since.. and guess what?  It's the same lightbulb that has been in it for probably 20 years!

Baby girl and two "flowers".  Honey, you can pick all of those you want. :-)

Jenna is my budding artist and floral designer.

She picked these in the field on the hill behind our house... I identified all the flowers I could... Dandelion, Daisy, Clover, Buttercup, purple Ajuga -- now help me out, what is the little daisy-like one and the tiny purple one to the right of the Dandelion?

This one.. the lavender one, it's very tiny.. do you know it's name?

Or this frilly small daisy?

I love the photo above, I have yellow paint on my hands from working with the girls, and this little bouquet of the flower I don't know the name of... Jenna's hand cradled in mine.

And yes, we had sun today.  After the downpour of yesterday.  Thank heavens.  The sun is on the upper pool of our waterfall and pond.  We have 4 waterfalls and the pond at the bottom.  The sound of the water falling is just so soothing and divine.  It's the best thing we ever did.  Do you see the large chunk of Rose Quartz at the bottom left?  We got that while in the Bad Lands.. near Mount Rushmore.  At the rock shop where we found it they had a rock the size of a washing machine!

We're plumb tuckered out now.  I just looked over and Dayle was snoozing while watching TV.  LOL  I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!  Tomorrow I've got to make more jewelry for the gallery at Vista House.. they called and are all out of sterling silver pine cone necklaces!! :-)

((hugs)), Teresa :-)