Friend Zoe and I met up for a walk on one of the few nice days this spring. We found this not-yet-completed mural. I love how it looks like paint by numbers.
And in circling Willamette River, I discovered this SUPer and his dog catching some sun.
There are some parts of the country where snow on April 11 isn’t weird. But Portland is not one of those places!
And unlike every other Portland snowstorm where forecasted snow is the talk of the town for a week straight, I had no idea this was coming. The morning of, I somehow missed noticing the snow when I opened my bedroom shade, and even as the radio announcer was saying “Snow in Portland right now,” I though he just meant the West Hills.
So you can imagine my surprise when I opened the curtains and, Wow! Snow! In April!
That bush in the picture leaned right over. I think it was the weight of the snow on the leafed-out limbs plus the fact that the ground wasn’t frozen. Once the snow melted, we hammered in a post and pulled it right back into place, so no harm done there.
Needless to say, I put off my plan to go back to the office until the next Tuesday.
I’ve always liked this house at the corner of Montana and Liberty Street. But it looks like the days are waning.
Next Portland tells me that there are 18 units coming soon.
PortlandMaps.com isn’t connecting so I have no details about the house at this moment.
And now PortlandMaps is working! It was built in 1948 and the main level is just over 1000 square feet, plus the basement. It was sold in January of this year for $556,675. The previous sale was in March of 2021 for $555,000. Before that it last sold in 2002 for $138,000 (those were the prices when I first moved here! Affordable!) And prior to that, someone bought it in 1996 for $82,000.
No word on who built the concrete planter out front, though.
The fifth quadrant has had a custom lampshade business since 1954. But no longer. The owners closed up shop and retired. I will miss this bit of local color.
Matt and I took the moms to see the Bakelite Santas. As they were last year, they were fun to find.
I enjoy their glow in the December dark.
This year, only one was wearing a mask.
It’s not unusual for traffic to back up on Interstate Ave outside our house. During the evening or morning commute there can be a line at lights for an hour or so. But it’s not usually much more than an hour. And it is never on both sides.
It turned out that this situation was caused by a carjacker who was shot by police. His crime spree started in another neighborhood and traveled, so it was a very complex situation that meant that neither side of I-5 was free flowing for most of the day.
Alas, this was also the day the plumber came to fix our dripping faucet. He had to go and purchase a new one, and I suspect our bill took a big jump due to how much longer it took to get to Lowe’s.
But the drip is fixed!
This pretty house has the chain link fence of death around it.
This is at 6305 N. Montana Ave. It’s 1622 square feet, built in 1928. It was last sold in December of 2019 for $599,036 and is owned (strangely) by a person giving that very address. However, NextPortland says that a permit has been issued:
A project at 6307 N Montana Ave has been submitted for building permit review by Fosler Portland Architecture: Construct new 3 story 19 unit apartment building with associated site work
https://www.nextportland.com/category/6307-n-montana-ave/
So it’s coming down for sure.
This little guy is at 6820 N. Montana Ave. I really love this stretch of houses bordered by the Fred Meyer, Rosa Parks Way, Interstate Ave, and I-5. There’s a bunch of small houses on big lots that are just cute. And I’m guessing in 20 years, they will all be gone.
This is an 881 square foot house built in 1927 that was last sold in October of 2021 for $320,000. It’s owned by a developer in Vancouver.
Reporting from the future, I can say that it appears they have been fixing this house up, rather than tearing it down. And there’s nothing in NextPortland. But a developer in Vancouver owns it, so my guess is that this doesn’t have much time left. It’s also got empty lots on both sides, so I wonder if they are just biding their time waiting for another property.
When the drops bounce up onto the window like that, you know it’s a big rain.
What is this craziness? 113° in Portland, Oregon.
We are in for some craziness the next few days. Even in the very hot summers of my Boise years, the temperature never got very far above 105 degrees. But Matt’s birthday forecast is 107 and the two days after are in temperature ranges I’ve never seen, ever.
Matt wanted spanakopita for his birthday celebration and so I got the recipe from my Aunt Pat.
Here is my spinach.
And here is the finished product. It wasn’t a winner. There was way too much moisture coming off of the pieces.
The diagnosis: don’t cook it in a 9×13 inch pan with sides (what I think of as a 9×13 inch pan) but use a flat cookie sheet or jelly roll pan. My aunt uses a nice round sheet.
