Our Independence Day celebration this year included no gathering with family for Challenge Croquet. Instead, I made hotdog buns (which were delicious) and we ate hot dogs, some delicious sides, and faaaaaaancy chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting that I also made.
Not pictured: the potato salad my mom brought over. She makes great potato salad, which is even more amazing because she’s doesn’t eat potato salad.
I took a picture of my harvest each day in June and here you can see what I got a lot of.
If you’re looking for volume with very little maintenance and you live in Portland, plant raspberries. This is from one stand. I used to have three, but couldn’t keep up.
They are weeds, those briars. And their fruit is so delicious.
The peas have been delicious too.
Having celebrated our anniversary during quarantine, we knew how to make things work for Matt’s birthday. Takeout from Canard! Those fries were quite good, as was everything.
And then a peanut butter icebox pie with 4 and 2 candles for dessert!
We also played board games.
There’s been a lot of construction noise floating through my window screen. Here’s what they’ve accomplished at the Oregon Motel.
Time for a fun date! Once again Laura O. Foster provides a great walk for us..
It’s a house that John Povey, of Povey Brothers Glass Company fame lived in! Such a charming façade!
The book said Povey’s name could still be seen in the front steps. It took a bit of squinting, but Matt eventually found it and pointed it out to me. Can you see it? Look at the top step.
Portland has hosted its share of protests focused on racial injustice, police brutality and the killing of George Floyd and others. The Irvington Neighborhood was awash in signs included this Burma-Shave-type message:
Last sign says: Our Minds
We spotted this fella in some side yard bamboo.
Aside from signs, Irvington is awash in Little Free Libraries. I found a big win in this one. Look at all these postcards!
And everyone can use a neighborhood cat review.
Or two.
Cambia Todo Cambia translates as Everything Changes (or maybe Changes, Everything Changes?) You can see a delightful performance here and read the translated lyrics here.
I can tell that the Crystal Garden Apartments were built when Apartments were faaaaaaancy. Guess how!
It’s that plaque telling “tradesmen” to go around to the side.
I found a great site that has a list of apartment houses, including the Crystal Garden Apartments. The same site also has two images of my beloved Rose-Friend Apartment, now torn down, but forever in my heart as my first Portland home. Actually, I’ve now just spent 15 minutes clicking around the site which includes an interactive map with current and destroyed Apartment Houses. There were apparently three other apartment houses in the next block over from my beloved Rose-Friends Apartments. This is a fabulous site and you should check it out. The Apartment House in Portland.
I wonder if the cat at 1538 and the dog at 1530 are aware of each other’s presence.
This gorgeous house has unique window covers on the second story.
Names of Black people killed by police.
I also thought these signs were beautiful despite the sadness that comes with them having to be made in the first place.
This was a great walk! Thanks Portland City Walks!
Aside from our usual frozen pizza, we also played two more games on our pandemic list. 10 Days in the USA was a fun trip. Because when you can’t actually tour the USA, you might as well play a board game about travel.
Guillotine was our second game. Because why not execute some nobles while passing the time at home?
History will (hopefully) soon forget, but Matt is aping the way a certain occupant of the White House awkwardly held up a Bible.
Before view #1: the topknot pulled back
Before #2: the topknot released
After: The YouTube instructions were carefully followed. I learned that hairdressers must have amazingly strong hands. Mine were aching by the time I was done.
The realities of Matt’s thick hair made visible.
My view from my desk. You can see the peas are doing their best and that I planted a few pole varieties that have grown past their supports. The raspberry bush (middle on the right) is producing and the contorted quince (front right) continues its poky journey.
From the other edge of the yard you can see the parsley that has gone to see (left front), my seed beds, a bit of the tree collards (left back) and some bits of green that are spinach and lettuce.
Over in Leo’s yard I have the supports in the ground for the pole beans and those white bits are eggshells around squash and collards that the slugs want to eat all of.
From another angle you can see better the pole beans.
This all feels like a very slow start.
In other news, this fella showed up. I’d not seen any rabbits in my yard before and was first quite excited and enchanted. Then I remembered all my lovely green starts and chased him off.
They are doing construction at the motel and I wonder if there was some bunny displacement.
I had a bunch of leftover peas and I’ve been planting them since mid-March. The first round is ready to harvest.
I do love fresh peas!
Restaurants in Multnomah County are only open for takeout, so takeout it was for our anniversary this year. We chose Hatyai and had a delicious meal.
The unboxing:
All the delicious flavors!
Our anniversary portrait this year is a closeup.
Normally we would see a superhero movie, and it probably would have been Black Widow, the first female-led superhero movie of the long trail of anniversary superhero movies starring guys. But it was not to be. So we watched Batman Begins which I need to see again because I am watching all of the Christopher Nolan films.
