Weekend Update....

If this was Sunday night, this would be my weekend update. If I did weekendly updates. But per normal I'm a large, fluffy white wabbit without a wocket pawch. Would that make me a puka? hmmm.

Friday night I set my head to losing weight...which normally means I will eat low fat, stay away from the cookies and Australian licorice and gain weight. So after reading up I bought myself some Alli. We'll see how that goes. I also began my food journal... again, because for me that is a crucial tool of conscienous dieting.

I also set my head to getting my new cutting garden done.


See not far along after months of ... stop and go work.

The weather forecast was for high winds, Friday afternoon my friend Merlin the Windwand Man clocked 48mph winds. Saturday was forecasted to be as or more gusty*, so I wanted to get an early start.

For the first time in months, I put off my chores, put off my grocery shopping and was in the nursery by 10am buying the remainder of the blue stone for my path. I also picked up more lupin, echinacea, rudbeckia, cupid's darts, asteamaria, and speedwell (definately need more speedwell.) And oh mi gosh what do I find in the lilly garden?

The first lilly of the season...

By two o'clock, a four foot square of solid clay broken up I was ready for a break. Sitting on the deck enjoying some lemonade we kept hearing this raucous chatter and squawking.

Poor mama Flicker was trying to keep up with the demanding mouths of her young. Through the binos we could tell there were at least two. The old "squirrel tree"** is about one hundred feet or so from our deck (crap I don't know how far it is, it's farther than six inches.) My camera doesn't zoom in well enough.

We finished off the afternoon setting the foundation for our new solar fountain's base.

Sunday morning, wind was up early, we mixed the cement, fixed the solar pump's wire through some protective conduit, did our first pour only to find we'd threaded the wire through wrong. Can we say "Cluckster suck?"

Seriously we should be Laurel and Hardy. We worked out the wire, rethread it through and filled the base with the remainder of the cement.

Just to make sure it was still working we hooked it up.

It worked for a whole ten minutes. I don't know if the pollen clogged it up or what. But after blowing on it, knocking on the basin I couldn't get it to work.

So I picked up my toys and walked away. At least it is in, the cutting garden is closer to completion. Too kewl.

Sith,
Cele

* Saturday the high wind was 58mph, Sunday 63mph, and Monday before noon it already had a high winds of 38mph.

**I named the snag the squirrel tree years before it became a snag. For years you could watch baby squirrels venture out from their nest in the tree at the start of summer.

Talk Thursday: Attitude Adjustment

Probably, everyone needs an attitude adjustment, but unless your mom and dad sat you down and pointed it out, most of us don’t notice just what adjustments need made. To me life is a continual progression of changes, and errrr, attitude adjustments.

Apparently I use to be a negative personality. My second husband pointed this out to me over two decades ago. I was pretty stunned. What, me negative? Worse I wasn’t just negative, but I was quick to make that negativity known with rapidly offered comments that I didn’t like a something and someone, or other some things.

Yes, even I had noted this distasteful quirk in my demeanor. Not that I needed to comment, not that anyone wanted to know… It was just, me. Not a very pleasant part either.

So I changed. Yes, there are people I don’t care for, there are things I don’t enjoy, but unless the conversation is deeper and more one on one, I keep my thoughts to myself. Most of the time my goal is to leave people smiling, loved, and happy.

On the other hand I am a bit of a homebody and yes, a loner so I don’t offend too many people with the lingering remnants of me past.

So I open my arms to you. Welcome you into my life, my home, and my heart. Oh and for Fii – WARNING - the weather is for sunshine next week – that means wind somewhere between 10 and 2… a lot of wind. And if it gets too hot in the valley (three days in a row) look for fog. Have a great vacation. I look forward to seeing you Wednesday.

Sith,
Cele

Well Steve, now that you mention it...

I had never watched ice carving. The finished product has long enchanted me. And then Sunday morning as we waited for the auction to begin on the final day of the 2009 Oregon Divisional Chainsaw Sculping Championships they announced they were having an ice carving demonstrations.

First he explained the three day long process of freezing the 300 pound block of ice. Most ice has cloudy deposits locked inside. This he explained was because the water was still as it froze.

Instead of allowing the water to remain seditary in the process, the water is continually slow circulated leaving a clear block of ice. Except for one small pocket of cloud which they remove and fill will water for the final freeze

I tried to use my video function, okay I used my video function but it was a fuzzy video and I won't make you suffer.

I'll just let you see his steps. But it was really cool watching the chainsaw throw ice all over in a spray as he divided the wings. His sweeping arcs as he carved the neck. Amazing.

And then he poured water all over it and was done.

Sith,

Cele

Wood Chips

Oh dear bloggees, I am falling behind. I still owe you a Talk Thursday, but today…yes, the Monday after it’s time for the Oregon Chainsaw Sculpting Championships in Reedsport. An annual Father’s Day weekend event that Ducky and I never miss.

Officially one hundred and fifty years old on February 14th, Oregon celebrates her 150th birthday all year long. This year’s extreme art extravaganza focused on that sesquicentennial milestone.

The Oregon Chainsaw Sculpting Championships features around 20 chainsaw artist who travel the world competing in the Echo Cup Challenge. Chainsaw artist from not only across the States, but also Australia, England, Japan, Germany, and Sweden vie for the first leg’s points.

This year there were fewer moose, a lot of bears, and a few nautical themed pieces, like Oregon’s Cape Blanco (pronounced Blank-0) Lighthouse.

The majority of main event pieces in the competition drew from a series of Oregon’s historical points

A few whimsical pieces

And I think this is my favorite main event piece.

Each morning the carvers are challenged to a quick carve at 10:30. For forty five minutes they carve what ever the wood blank has told their artist eye is captured in side.

Each evening at 5:30 the pieces are auctioned off. It’s a win, win, win situation for the chainsaw artist, the buyers, and the Reedsport / Winchester Bay Chamber of Commerce.
Father’s Day Weekend, next year, be there. Ducky and I will be.

Sith,
Cele

Random Things with photos

And oh look, it’s eleven. I decided to start doing Photo Friday to give me another inspiration for blogging each week. Well wouldn’t you know, they seem to always have topics I can't figure out. That is unless I shoot cars, car parts, and more cars. But because of Photo Friday it made me start carrying around my camera with me. Which lead to several pictures taken while I was out making sales calls last week in old town Florence.

I was able to spend a good portion of last Sunday working on my new cutting garden. It is slow going, the new solar fountain hasn’t been put into place, awaiting Ducky to make a pad to secure it against the wind and … thieves.

In the mean time Ducky’s Lily garden totally rocks. No lilies are blooming yet, that should happen in July and August, but the lupin are most beautimous. Pictures of those tomorrow. Today you get last weekend’s pictures of two of my three chain trees.

And my mother's wild iris to enjoy

Sith,
Cele

Talk Thursday: I’m Late

My mother always taught me it is socially appropriate to arrive five minutes late. Which is fine for say pregnancy, a class reunion, baby showers, private parties, but not appropriate for say, Thursday night dinner. Mom. Just saying.

My mom is always on time for Thursday night dinner with the girls, except when she has to pick up my grandmother. Which is every other Thursday night (the night we meet) because at the age of almost ninety, my grandmother has no concept of time and has usually had too rousing a day at her pinochle club. Hey, it happens.

Headline: Pride goes before the fall.

Finding a parking space on an early fall evening in Old Town isn’t an easy feat. My grand mother suffers from advanced osteoporosis and, while she can walk, doesn’t walk far well. So imagine my delight to arrive for our 6pm reservation at the Waterfront Depoe (the best restaurant in Old Town Florence, heck in Florence) and find not one, but two parking spaces being vacated. I stood in one parking space and watched the second being filled, hoping, watching, fingers crossed that they’d soon show so they could park within a reasonable walking distance for my grandmother. But then a car (not considering my fat ass any sort of an opponent) forced me back on to the sidewalk and the space was gone.

Ten minutes later, as I worry our reservation was gone, a third space opened and yet still no mom and grandmother. In the long run (20 minutes after our reservation) they show up, I’d just watched the fourth and fifth spots open and instantaneously fill up. Being slightly peeved I comment, with probably abruptness, that had they been CLOSE to being on time they’d have been able to park near the restaurant, instead of mom having to drop grandma off at the curb and then driving a block and a half away for a parking spot. My standing in front of the community’s most popular restaurant reminiscent of a rejected, stood up wallflower on date night is of no consequence. They’re probably thinking I’d been use to it.

Flash forward two weeks. It’s fifteen minutes before I leave for our Thursday night girls dinner out and I’m at work. The phone rings – a big client calls. Calls again, vacillating whether I know how to spend her dollars. And then calls again. A fourth call and $1900 order later I arrive at the restaurant, ten minutes late, to hear my grandmother tell me, if being on time is so important to me, I should try being on time. Note she was sitting nice and cozy in the booth of a local, not too busy – there is always parking in the front –Mexican restaurant, discussing the weather with my mother.

I tell ya, being righteously peeved comes back and bites me in the considerably large butt every single time.

Sith,
Cele

Talk Thursday: The Psychology of Running...

...Demented if you ask me, which you didn’t but there you have it all the same.

Sprint. I ask, "Where is the snake?"

Jog. Have you seen what that does to the gravitational pull of the breast? No, thanks.

Run. By choice? You’re insane.

Marathon. Masochism.

I don’t run, by now you’ve probably figured that out. There was a time once when wanted to run, like the wind, on the beach, fleet of foot. I envied those whom I saw flying across the hard pack sand. I tried it once and ran the mile from the North Jetty to Driftwood Shores and then walked back. It was exhilarating the endorphins must have kicked in fairly fast, because I don’t even remember being winded.

The next morning I wasn’t too sore so I tried to do it again. Had this been in the day of cellphones I might have tried calling 911 it was that terrifying and debilitating. I couldn’t breathe, my leg muscles contorted in agonizing spasms, and I may even have lost consciousness once or twice and that was in the parking lot. On the beach I couldn’t seem to find a rhythm, two left feet plodded - thunk thunk th-thump in the hard pack, or maybe that was my heart pounding in my chest. Whatever. The sea lions heartily laughed in the surf. Sand dabs move faster.

The time has long since past where I’ve acknowledged that once I’m finished with a hobby (sport) – it is for life. I thrived on back packing and hiking all through Girl Scouts. I was the first in our family to water ski. Rollerskating? Remind me to tell you my Roller Derby story sometime. Surfing was a budding passion in high school until we moved to Oregon. I once dreamt of being a dancer and took classes for years. I pumped iron like a religious maniac, six days a week, two hours a day, for several years. I survived parasailing for a whole marriage. Running lasted a whole day and fifty yards. Where’s the psychology in that?

Sith,
Cele