Minneapolis

This is a window from the Lutheran church between my hotel and the convention center.  I didn't want to interrupt a service and gawk at the building, so I dodged up this tower and sat and listened to the music out of sight--and took a pic of a fantastic window.  I am telling you, if they had built churches in Seattle like the ones I saw in Minneapolis, we wouldn't all have the reputation of being such agnostic heathens and humanists.  I would go to church anyday in these stunning buildings!

Window detail

Personal pet peeve.  You tear down a building and put something else up... what do you do the the highly skilled stonemasonry work from the building?  Put it on the ground, in a teeny area, outside the new building.  These were designed to be high on top of a building, not below navel gazing level.  Similar to laying Michelangelo's David on the ground... the perspective would be all off.  Stepping off soap box...
I guess this is better than them being in the landfill or a private garden out of view.

Historic photo of the park superintendent's office, Loring Park

Lovingly restored!  There was a sign that it is now used for the dressing area for performers/concerts in the park.

I loved this picket fence-like siding detail.  You can see that it was on the original structure, too.

Minneapolis-St.Paul

I am finally putting up pics from the museum conference I went to over a month ago. We ended up at many museums (duh) and it reminded me that I don't go to museums enough!  Besides being exhausted exhausted by the end of each day, it was also a fantastic town.

This was the biggest damn flag... inside a mall connected to skywalks throughout the city. Even when the weather gets (HOT!) and (COLD!) those residents can keep moving through Minneapolis on these elevated walkways.  

At the Walker Art Center (www.walkerart.org )... this was a 2-D art installation of a dolphin that talked with you by keyboard. You typed, he answered on a screen.  He'd also swim and look cute.  Excellent engaging art!

Again at the Walker, a room of dripping gooey changing color things.   It was very visceral. Definitely an experience, not a necessarily a good photo op.

This painting was huge. And it was actually a photo of a model town and I was fascinated by the detail- and that its model perfection was somehow  realistic.  (James Casebere)

We won an architect

We won an architect at my son's school fundraiser auction for $100.  Such a deal!! I am really trying to pare down my needs... I don't want to overwhelm someone with a list three pages long.  Keep in mind, I don't want to change the house, I feel there are 106 year old patterns of use, patterns of living that were put in place for a reason.  I want to respect those patterns...since what is life but one big continuum?  Historically, I also am keen on that this house was designed as a working farmhouse... every room was placed for a very specific reason, whether I know the reason or not.
I would like my fridge moved in my kitchen, however. I know the reason it is not there... kitchens in 1906 did not have double wide, tall, stainless steel with water dispenser cooling units... they put it in the mudroom in the because it fit fifty years later. And some windows on the exterior have been moved... and all have lost their two over two single hung windows in favor of vinyl sliders. But I can't dwell on that sad bit of info.

Not my house. Just showing you that the original window style looks alot better than sliders.

My house. Hmmm. What project was I tackling? It was probably the gutters and installing that rain barrel. That is the ladder I drove over with the truck.  Lesson: Always put your tools away.

13 years old.

You are in a car, an enclosed space, with another person.  You know how those are the times you have conversations that are more in depth than the average garden variety?  More personal? Today that person was my son, Wilder.  We ended up in the car for 4 hours while taking my mom to the airport.  On the way home I was thinking about him, getting a little wistful, and I said,  "Sometimes I wonder what you will be like when you are an adult. What you will be doing, who you are."
Wilder: "Yeah, I wonder too. I wonder what my hair will be like."

Chicks, Garages, Paint

1. I walked by the baby chicks at the feed store and no lie.... the three alone Rhode Island Red chicks in the top cage all looked at me.  If you know chickens at all... they tend to scatter and freak out (the sky is falling!) rather than quietly stand close to the edge of a cage watching people.  That should have been my warning to walk on... instead it is why I now have three chicks at home in the chick enclosure.  They are very unchickenlike in their bold, peck me, run-me-over tactics when I am going to feed them.  They are still small-  I don't think that bodes well for when they are big.  I tend to like the big, fat, slow, friendly chickens... the austalorps, wyandottes and especially the orpingtons.
2. I ordered my flipping garage doors! Yay! Three of them! For a whopping $2500!
3. Deciding paint for the house.  I think it was a rush paint job the former owners did 4 years ago, because it is looking pretty sad.  Will show you possible colors in another post. 
4. Did I tell you I got a job? Very part-time, in a nursery.  LOVE IT.  Give them most of my paycheck back when I buy plants.
5. This week Rose turned 17, and last week Wilder 13.  I am not sure when it happened I can no longer sling them over an arm and burp them, but it seems to have happened quick.  

Where have I been?

Where have I been? Obviously not posting on this blog.  It is spring, the garden is calling, or more loudly, the weeds are growing.  I also got a part-time job, the kids are doing kid stuff which means growing up and making dorky dumb decisions (like "If I say I don't have homework and don't do it -- it will disappear" or "when driving if I back into a rock -- I should go faster to get off it quicker." These are all necessary mistakes to make on their way to growing up but jeez-louweezie they are guaranteed to keep my grey hair growing in lush and fast.  It also seems like high school is one big marijuana festival, I am so naive I thought it was a few kids, like when I was in school-- the 'stoners.' Nope, there is a serious pot problem out there, the football team gets high before practice.  The 4.0 students do it during school.  Do you have that in your schools?  I was shocked when I learned all this.  I knew it was bad when a police car pulled over a school bus.  For pot.   

Good thing Rose never looks at my website...this is her getting a color in her hair to fix a color experiment she and a friend tried.   The experiment did not work, hence the professional intervention.

Chickens and Cats and a Mouse

While I was in Minneapolis for a week the kids dad stayed at the farm and "took care" of things.  He cleaned up a pile of wood next to the compost heap and saw a mouse run from the woodpile into the chicken house. 
On my return in the evening, I was noticing that our new cat "Margaret" (called alternately Margie, Madge, Marjorie and Large Marge courtesy Peewee Herman) was looking a little wild in the eye so I offered her the choice to go outside. She took it.
Our other cat Bella was already outside.  When I opened the door a couple hours later, there sat Marjorie on the front stoop, Amanda dog by her side.  They both sauntered in.
Bella was nowhere to be seen. I went back an hour later and called. And another hour later...Bella always comes in, but not this night.
I wondered where she was, figured it may be her wild night and went to bed.  When I got the paper in the morn I expected to see a cat right at the door... but Bella was not to be seen. I was getting worried.  I did regular morning stuff --took Wilder to school, stopped for tea, scones, and drove back home.  As I got out of my car I noticed the chickens had not been let out of their house by Wilder that morning and they sounded pissed.  Usually when they are cranky birds I talk to them and they calm right down.  But they were in a state and as I walked around the house to let them out they were really lecturing me. 
I unlocked the door and lifted the flap... and out shot a small black cat, Bella.  She had just spent 14 hours in a coop with five birds.  I hope she got that mouse!

Pic: A Welsummer and a Golden Laced Wyandotte on my porch surveying the insect population.

Rose told me when she was locking the chickens up tonight, Bella, Marge, and Amanda went with her--but Bella stayed far away from the door.

Leaving

I am heading out to Minneapolis for a week for a conference.  This is for my museum skillset -- the American Association of Museums-- and a gal friend was supposed to speak at it.  I thought it would be good to see how my new brain would do, since this was easy as punch information pre-stroke.  I am curious how my brain processes things now.
The hard part is leaving the kids and farm.  You cannot believe the to-do list I have. The kids dad will be staying here, and now that Rose is a driver (did I mention she got her license??) it should be easier.  Still moms will be moms and I am fretting about Wilder feeding his guinea pigs, Rose locking the chickens up at night... the garden being watered... on and on and on.
Once I get on that plane it will all be a non-issue!  But right now I am Type A 'ing.

Horse Fencing. Again.

When will the fencing saga end? Probably not as long as I have horses to contain.  The Red Brand fencing I put in last summer is magnificent.  Neighbors dogs cannot have access to the horses, bunnies can't even get in.  I haven't seen the deer hop it either, to graze with the horses.  The clincher is that I need to have an electric hot tape running the perimeter.  "The grass is greener"... and my horses are leaners.  So I spent way too long electrifying another section.  I know the fence works because I wasn't being careful, zapped myself, screamed, the horses both jumped (I am not usually a screamer), and then I swore that my finger was permanently damaged. It wasn't, I am fine, if a little over-dramatic... but this is not the electric fence of my youth! 

Spring break for the kids

We took a staycation to big ol' Seattle and acted like tourists for a couple days. Wilder brought a friend along and poor teenage Rose just had me. Funny thing... they had more fun at the small neighborhood park playing lavamonster and getting unseasonably wet in the international fountain at Seattle Center (I don't even know if it is still called that! My 70's roots are showing). We all had fun, I got enormously exhausted. Stayed in a perfect Seattle funky (historic!) hotel next to Seattle Center that was as quiet as my Poulsbo home. Actually quieter during frog season at my house. The Marqueen. If you are looking for cheap and funky... we had a kitchen, reading nook, and four people fit in our room great. We ate well, drove (fast) down the hills of Seattle (poor suspension!), talked to homeless people, went to uberexpensive EMP, took the monorail from Seattle Center to downtown.... some standard tourist stuff, some maybe not so much.

That is my son with the umbrella... prepared to enter the water spray. I can tell them "Don't get wet" but those words just disappear in the wind when they get near the challenge of a fountain.

Wall of Death. Have one in your city? One of the hidden gems under a bridge in Seattle. We also tracked down a troll squeezing a VW bug under a different bridge.
Kerry Park on Queen Anne hill is always a great place for a photo. Hopefully yours will not be a kinda dark, missing a flash photo.
Wow. Seattle traffic. It was insane. I freaked the kids out and said I was going to roll down my window and start asking people where they were from since there was so many more cars. (I didn't.)

Garage doors

Pics: This is the post in the best condition with the foam dug out. I have three garage doors, two which don't open. I got bids to replace them and one bidder noted "it doesn't appear anything is holding this whole wall up." Upon looking closer it appears someone had patched WITH FOAM major structural pieces and then painted it to match. Only when you poked it was it apparent there was nothing of substance, the paint was the toughest thing there.
So yesterday new handyman Erik came over and fixed them. He is a local, and me trying to find another local person for repairs since Javier is all the way in Seattle and always booked solid.
All the support posts holding the three garage doors were rotten and missing except one. I did not take a pic of the most dramatic because my camera went dead, but take this image times three and you get the picture. Erik said my building was being held up by the 70's steel rails from the garage doors. At least they were still making solid stuff in the 70's otherwise my garage would be slumping. I talked to him about converting the third garage into a studio but it not looking like a "former garage door closed off to make a room." To do that would not be a quick job and take some more concrete and structural work so I put that off. I still have a bathroom to fix.
More garage images here...

Change of focus - Mom's House

My mother bought a house 11 years ago so she would have someplace to call her own when she visited her grandkids. I know she would add "and her daughter" but I am a realist, and when her grandkids came on the scene they were quite the attention hogs. As it should be.
She is here about 3 months out of the year so liked having her little house. At about 900 square feet and built like a tank it is a solid, if petite, place. She is gearing up to sell it this spring and I recommended Javier to do painting before she got here from Michigan so she was not asphyxiated by fumes. I told him what she told me - which was the ceilings need painting. I unlocked the door, gave him some paint, and drove to Lowe's for more paint. When I returned he had me follow him around. "It looks like a little hole for a mouse back here... (behind her fridge) want me to patch that?" "I pulled off some of this where the hole was and there was a whole 18" paper hornet nest (in her shower)." Do you want me to paint over the green paint around the doors (incomplete paint job)" " Do you want me to attach her baseboards and sink the nailheads and paint?"
So a ceiling paint job turned into a Javier fixit couple of days. God bless that man. Did I tell you he charges me $150 a day? If he brings his cousin I pay $300. And a day is as long as it takes the job to be done?
Did I tell you I pay my plumber $150 an hour?

Plan of Attack - farmhouse

So say I had $10,000. And with it I could do any house project I wanted. (Which I guess is not that much considering what I am working on --it could disappear fast.)
Some options are to:
1. Paint the whole house and replace some siding (who is burrowing in my siding? Do I really want to know?)
2. Replace my three garage doors (two of which are broken) and the painted FOAM filled support beams-- part of the previous owners Walmart crafty repairs. God I love them for the humor aspect when I am not cranky about their workmanship. Foil. Foam. Empty paper towel rolls. Why buy it when you have perfectly good repair materials laying about the house, preferably from the garbage or burn pile?
3. Foundation work. Add support to the basement and stabilize the south wall which has a bit of a tilt. Should my house move like I live on the train tracks when youth are running rampant on the main floor? Granted they are boys, but still.
4. Move my fridge to the kitchen. Yeah, a novel concept... it is currently in the mud room. This job involves electricians, and they never come cheap.
5. Build out a two level studio/guest house into the loft and main floor of the garage. This might be a weeeee bit more than $10K. BUT it could be an income generator down the road.
6. Build a porch. I have always wanted a porch to sit on and narrate the neighborhood goings on. My house would be cuter with one, too.
7. Something else that I can't remember now.

A side note: I was doing house research this weekend and found the obit for a 92 year old woman who was born in my house. Makes me sad I found out about her from a news article about her passing. I would have liked to invite her over and visited.

Wacky weather - snow

It has been snowing since last evening. Granted it is very wet, but we do have a one inch blanket making everything white. Strange weather. The frogs went silent about 36 hours before the snow started. Its pretty! Of course, I got the spring garden fever a little early and cleaned out a major flower bed a week ago. Probably all those perennial and bulb starts I uncovered are frozen lumps of green mush now.

Bees

Skep plaque outside the Portland Museum of Art.   Bees/skeps images on architecture and in design were used to show industry/cooperation/teamwork.




 Found this while wandering last weekend. There was no identifying signage visible, but this was from a series of architectural plaques that looked like they came off a masonic hall - probably one that was torn down to make way for a new structure.  They were rough edged, sitting above the grass by a few inches, some it was clear what they were of... (bees, sun and moon) while others were more abstract (lodge emblem). They were alongside the sidewalk in a narrow elevated garden about four feet off the ground.  Context, people, context.  What does this have to do with Portland? With the art museum? What do these images mean? More crucial to the passerby... why are they here?  Sometimes I cannot turnoff my museum public education and outreach training, since I have seen the spark people get from having that knowledge, enthusiasm, sharing.  (Maybe not this skep info per se, I may be the only one that loves such stuff) 
   I did have a point to choosing this picture to post. I took it because I am going to bee training class for 5 months so I can get bees down the road at B.S. Farm.   Maybe then I will have to change the name from Blue Shoe to Bee Sting Farm. 

Getting geared up for college visits

My daughter is a bit of a ham. A smart ham, but a ham nonetheless. Univ. of Portland.

 Cricket at Oregon State. 

 Communing with the coyote sculpture at the Portland Art Museum.

 Our only officially led tour - Portland State University.  Rose was getting sick by this time so we cut out early. This was before she fell out of the chair when we were waiting for the chemistry dept. talk. She was fine, no one was there yet, but we both got the giggles.

Reed College.  Rose's favorite campus on this tour.

We spent the weekend touring Oregon's colleges.  Or more specifically, six on the west side of the state.  I didn't have much more stamina than that... having woke up Saturday morn with one whoppin' cold.  A friend asked :why drive down when you can do all the research online nowadays?  I explained... online will give you the physical details, attendance, location, price, student demographics, main focus and grant monies received.  Visiting will a) a very small, almost too quiet campus in a suburb of Portland (Lewis and Clark) b) everyone walking by you either swearing their heads off (Willamette) or smiling and saying "hi" (University of Portland) c) whether there are impromptu cricket games in the main square or informal study groups in the library on weekends (OSU), and what their libraries are like.   Rose and I were particularly drawn to these buildings... frequently the largest on campus, and a visible sign of what was/could be important to the school.  Rose would wander and check out the chemistry section and I would sit in the cushy chairs and try to breathe normally through my plugged nose.  Oh, and always grab the student produced newspapers.  These quick views we took were not an exhaustive viewing of any one college, but just to get the college hunt juices flowing.  Her cousins went to MIT and Stanford so she maybe is thinking a wee bit out of our price range.  We have a couple other states to visit, and at least a dozen schools.    

Escher inspired knitting

I have always been surrounded by friends who have multiple creative skills.  One is a master knitter and the other a prolific knitter so I have been the recipient of some stellar pieces that you can find on my feet, around my neck and on my hands.   My first meeting with the neurologist he asked if I knitted. Nope. Or played the piano. Nope. Anything that my two hands would have to do together so my left hand use would come back, that my brain would have to work to link the sides together.
After a couple months, I called up my knitter friends.  "I need to start knitting."
Them: "OK."  So we meet up once a week at a coffee shop to knit.
 My daughter Rose joined us since she was knitting in gradeschool with Geri (the master). Rose had a few requirements, being the cool teenager in the bunch.  We were not a club, but a gang. We are the K-Gang with a symbol of two crossed knitting needles as our "gang" sign.  Us adults get an enormous amount of mirth out of being corrected every time we say knitting club.  Rose said it definitely was not cool she was knitting on Sundays with a bunch of women. But secretly, I know she loves it.  These women are all her aunties... not related by blood, but I just about have a blood oath that if something happens to me they need to step in.
 Anyway, after my required scarf as a first project, Geri sent me on to do a hat.  Everyone told me DO NOT TWIST when doing to circle for the hat. Yeah, yeah, so I was careful.  See the above? It took me a while to figure out there is no magic I can do do untwist that.  The sad thing is that it took me 5 rip outs to get that far.  I would like you to take note of the lovely knitting.  I think the other club gang members were shaking their heads everytime they would find out I ripped it out yet again.  But I want to wear it, and I won't if it is a big lumpy mess with missing stitches.  Can we say p-e-r-f-e-c-t-i-o-n-i-s-m.  It does help with the retaining the brain.  Geez, in the beginning it was like reinventing the wheel, I could almost feel the sputtering and grinding in my head as I tried to get my fingers to make incremental moves between needle and yarn.  But it gets easier. I should have that hat done at the height of summer heat at this rate.

Spring frogs

Last night I called the kids outside in the dark.  My son does not like the dark, my daughter was in her pj's.  We stood there together listening to one lone frog call coming from the wetlands.  I don't know how they work that singing thing... are all the other ones just sitting in silence until all thousand start singing at the same time?  What is their signal? Because it really is "all at once".  So Feb. 13th is frog day for 2012.

Unrelated picture since I am lousy at frog hunting: This is little Chuck, who passed away this winter and was buried in the animal graveyard we acquired with the farmhouse.  I know he just looks like a rodent that my cat brings me when she thinks I am a failure as a hunter but he had a big personality, with an addiction to cheese.

Dining room paint job

Finished room color. SO exotic. SO unusual. Called cottage white. I am a color wimp.

My bay window in the dining room is showing signs of 'tilt'... they windows don't quite seal anymore. Sigh. Note my old emergency princess phone?  Supposedly us earthquake prone landlubbers need one because cell phones will not work when the big one hits -- they will be overwhelmed and calls won't go through. 

Amanda waiting for me to finish painting. I am somewhat messy about it.

I used to like painting but my teeny dining room cured that. With five doorways what seemed a two day job has taken ten. I did strip all the door hardware and refinish them... taking off YEARS of overpaint. And I did get to see one of the early paint colors - rather a blue green with the consistency of a milk paint... and I did get to curse 100 years of painting the trim without sanding which makes a big rumply paint mess ... gee, am I complaining?

Quiet on the homefront

It is not really quiet here but I have been laptop-less. I decided it had a bug so took it to a friend who does that for a living (computers). I am not on the computer near as much but thought I could do an update --since it is not still snowing here -- that is but a faraway dream.
I have been busy tracking down hay for the picky horses, "organizing", painting, cleaning, parenting, and washing my bird-bombed cars repeatedly.  I don't know what it is about the birds this year but somedays I feel I am living in the tropics from the cacophany above.  And they certainly make my cars look -- spotty. I am also waiting for my annual spring frogs to start up their singing. The first year I noticed it started exactly on Valentines Day (which I thought appropriate since they are singin' frog lovesongs) the next it was about a month later.  It goes on for months, which I don't mind, even though it is REALLY LOUD.
I have a Sequim story.  Sequim is a sleepy, former farm community(now retirement leaning) supposedly sunnier than the rest of the NW town on the water in Washington.  It is also known for its lavender fields... and I go there for berries every year.  When you google Sequim one thing they don't show is the haphazard development of this town, they choose the lovely farm fields and seashore, which is not what you experience when you first take the Sequim exit.  Anyway.... 
My friend and I went up there on Friday - me to find hay, she to visit since she used to live there.  There was also an estate sale I wanted to go to.  We hauled up there - about an hour away - and I bought a craftman tool storage unit (organizing!) and a giant antique marble table top (I don't know what for! Probably art...)  found hay and a great breakfast place.  I had the Buick which would not fit the tool storage, so drove up the next day with the minivan to pick it up.  They were having adopt-a-dog day at the local coop where I am a member and I met a teeny 8 lb canine (not as dumb as I thought ) and a huge 200lb. St. Bernard (I can't believe how big it was) and miraculously did not come home with a dog.  It is good there are people willing to foster all these pups and pay their medical bills.  End result : found hay and more projects to accomplish.

Courtesy Livia Comandini http://www.trekearth.com/members/lestans/