In perusing dates-that-are-free choices, I discovered there is a park in North Portland I’d never heard of, much less visited. Matt and I set out to discover it. On the way we found this mystery.
With some treasure. Inside, there were painted rocks with googly eyes.
Though it was a long-ish walk to get there and we got there in time for the last gasps of the sunset, the view did not disappoint.
The combo of Forest Park (the reason the hills on the other side of the river haven’t all been developed with their own twinkling lights) and a working river limits our options for dramatic sunset pictures.
But Mocks Crest Park paid off. I can see why more than one website grumbles about the number of spoony couples during the summer months.
We haven’t been to Tryon Creek in years. I think the last time we were there we got lost, and it was a slog through the rain. But today’s hike was fun, and short. You can see Matt holding his mask. We would put them on when we encountered other hikers.
I loved this nurse log.
And! When we were leaving, we ran into a parent from my days at the Emerson School; it was great to catch up.
My friend bought tickets to see The Birds at the Zidell Yards Drive-in, but the show was rescheduled because of the smoke we had in September. She’s not a fan of going out on Sundays, so she gave me the tickets. Huzzah!
I do love a good drive-in theater. And I also find myself wishing that the pop-up drive-in theaters could rustle up a drive-in-sized screen. This is the same size screen that is used for movies-in-the-park-type events, where families sit no more than fifty to 100 feet away. The ratio with this screen from the car feels like when I had a 13-inch TV/VCR combo.
The view, though? Great!
Small-screen gripes aside, it was nice to see a movie sitting on a seat that was not my couch.
One day sitting in the new chair told me that despite all my careful measuring, it did not fit in the space the folding chair occupied. This meant reorienting my bed.
I don’t like beds jammed against a wall because that position makes it difficult to change the sheets. But I happened on a good solution by moving the cat tree over against the wall. When it comes time to change the sheets, I can push the cat tree out of the way.
Since being laid off in March, I have spent 30-40 hours per week at my desk. For that entire time, I’ve been sitting on an Ikea folding chair. This week my body said, “No more!”
The problem with finding a replacement is that the space between the bed and the desk is very small and the Ikea chair works because the back legs can partially sit under the bed. I took measurements and headed out.
(The red sheet that I usually have over my comforter is in the wash.)
At the used office furniture store I looked around and found this cube to help the cats get onto the bed. Sentinel has been using the folding chair to jump onto the bed for months now. I think he can still jump from the floor to the bed if he tries, but I don’t really want him to try. He took to the fabric cube right away.
I also found this little blue chair that does fit in the small space between the desk and the bed. I think? Stay tuned.
Okay, so there are still a few things to deal with. Expired emergency food, two bags of shredded paper, But other than that, I have cleared off the porch, hung the bike mount for Matt’s bike, fashioned a makeshift lock situation that I will fix eventually, and now it’s much easier to sweep off the porch.
I bought new water storage cubes. Previously we’d bought three-gallon containers of drinking water at the grocery store which would inevitably swell and burst when temperatures got below freezing. Our storage shed has an exterior wall and is not insulated.
These containers are empty, which means I can empty and refill them myself. It also means that can fill them to a point where even when they do freeze, they will not burst. I also appreciated the sense of humor as displayed by item three of suggested uses.
To manage the expiring food, I have made a spreadsheet. I’ve got one column that has the expiration date and one column that is a month before the expiration date. My plan is to print this sheet, attach it to our wall calendar on the month with the next expiration date. When the calendar turns, I can pull the food and incorporate it into the menu, or put it out in one of the neighborhood food pantry.
Et voila! Shelves. I cut a leftover piece of wood from the dryer platform in half (with a handsaw balanced on top of my recycling bins because I was too lazy to get everything out that was needed for the circular saw), installed four of those handy braces I’ve been using forever, did some drilling, and now there are shelves where there once were none.
Here’s a close-up view.
In keeping with my laziness, I’m not going to paint them. The bare wood fits with the utilitarian nature of the laundry area.
The thing about living in Portland is that by the time my garden really gets going, it’s September and thoughts of autumn have taken over. September is when the tomatoes really produce, which was always inconvenient when I worked for a school.
My garden in September is often neglected, poor thing. Regardless!
Here you can see the tomatoes going gangbusters. I think next year I will trim them back so I get fewer and bigger tomatoes. You can see a healthy collard plant to the right of the tomatoes and some other greenery that I have forgotten since I am writing this post in the far future. I also picked up a cat litter box with a cover from the street. My plan is to clean it and put it on the catio to give another litter box option to the cats. [Update from the future. I did this, and Antares showed some interest, but when the rains came, they flooded the box and I ended up throwing out a large chunk of soggy cat litter, scrubbing the litter box once again, and putting it back out on the street for someone to grab.]
From a different angle, you can see the orange 5-gallon bucket that I haven’t put away for week. Plus that the tree collards (back center) need better support. One of them has been flopped on the ground for weeks, poor thing. The raspberries are still spitting out a few gems, and between them and the tree collards are some spinach, kale and lettuce I started late in the summer.
Over in Leo’s yard you can see the squash doing its late-summer thing where it tries to grow a lot and gets powdery mildew. I didn’t get much zucchini from my three plans this summer (maybe I need to attract more pollinators?) but the delacata squash managed to put off a small squash for each plant, which wasn’t bad considering how old those seeds were. I staggered planting the green beans because I love green beans, but then I didn’t go out and pick much of the later plantings.
On the other side of the green beans you can see the Oregon Sweet Meat squash that I direct seeded. Steve Soloman seems to think this is a better way to go, but by the time the soil warms up enough for direct seeding, it’s too late in the season. Plus, I never bought another soaker hose so the poor thing had to grow on its own, without additional water. I got one very small squash out of this deal.
I have replaced the vent in the door (which was harder than most steps in this project due to screws not wanting to line up correctly) and found a curtain to go in front of the litter boxes.
Aside from the general awesomeness of this project, I think it’s the curtain that gives me the most pleasure. I found it at SCRAP in the material section. I couldn’t find a price, but I liked the look, so into my basket it went. At the register, I discovered it was $20, and when I hesitated, the clerk said, “How about ten?” I happily agreed.
When I got home, I checked to see if I could drape it over the rod, rather than sewing it into a curtain. It fit perfectly. I think the pattern is top-notch. Yet another big win from SCRAP.
