Its hard to believe its been a year since we were downtown Brownsville for our first holiday celebrations here. Brownsville has a great weekend the beginning of each December to kick off the holidays and we have a new tradition of making and giving out fresh popcorn at the art center. It really draws people in. We were there again this year.
Festival of Trees is a fundraiser for the local food bank. Each local business donates a decorated tree for auction. You walk around and visit the trees placing your bid on the clipboard. Some are amazing! If you win, you get to take the tree home.
Silent Auction happens each year with items from tickets to the Willamette Valley Country Music Festival, to homemade goods, weekend getaways to the coast, local artist crafts, wine and movie packages.
Library Book Sale happens as well at our adorable little public library. They had a pretty spectacular Clifford the Dog themed tree for auction!
Christmas Art Market is a great sale of local artist goods and art at the art center. This is where we take our popcorn maker. Its also where Santa is stationed for pictures with Santa
I tried to get a few pictures of the day as we went along to showcase all the fun events. Its really my favorite Brownsville Event. Here is a little slideshow throughout my day.
Side Note here, we had an injured Rosa chicken a few weeks back. She acted normal but we noticed her leg had a huge laceration. She went to the chicken vet for quite a few stitches and healed very nicely. We aren’t sure if a hawk or fox tried to get her and she escaped but either way, she got away and deserved some stitches to fix her up. Shes happy and doing great. The vet had a picture to show us when we picked her up…. While under anesthesia, she laid an egg on the table. Ha!
Hooray for camping! Clinton took me camping a couple weeks ago for my birthday. There is a great little hot springs east of here called Belknap. They have the standard tourist style lodge, cabins and RV parking, but they also have great tent spots. Being tucked away in the trees is of course more our style. We found there are great walk-in spots across the bridge over the river if you are willing to walk a little with your gear. After a short walk we camped right along the McKenzie River with peace and quiet. If you are willing to throw your gear in a wagon and wheel down the trail across the river you get a more private campsite and its just a short walk to the main pool to enjoy the hot springs water.
We arrived late after work but it was still easy to set up camp. They have great wagons available to help take your gear to the campsite
The spot we picked turned out amazing. There were dense forests of trees and undergrowth and the sound of the McKenzie just steps away was more than enough to drown out the sound of anyone else nearby.
Our shady spot, tent and hammock. Just beyond the tent is our own little trail to the river.
I was amazed at the great little spot to hang out by the river. There was a park bench to sit and enjoy the water rush by. I am sure you could also plan a little fishing here if you wanted. This was the only spot that seemed to have a cute little beach area by the water. It seems there is evidence of someone visiting and constructing a little play area with the rocks 🙂
The source of the hot springs is just at the other side of the bridge across the river. This place is a neither high-end fancy resort style hot springs or a rural back country spring. Its somewhere in between where people looking for warm natural water and nature without feeling up to a backpacking trip can just relax. It was pretty much exactly what we were looking for this particular week. More backpacking and back country springs hunting later 🙂
The hot springs source was visible and very, very hot.
We had a great time and went exploring in the surrounding Three Sisters Wilderness. We found great views of the lava fields and mountain peaks. We will be back for hiking soon!
Ahhh….gardening! One of the most exciting parts of our new little homestead is space to garden. Its been a whirlwind of house projects since moving in so this year a small temporary garden is what we have to work with. Beginning this fall we should have our huge homestead dream garden in place. There is a little this and that planted. Just enough to eat, not enough to freeze/can/pickle…except the crazy carrots!
Pumpkins in the back mounds, carrots, spinach, beets and one jalapeno and eggplant. Cucumbers are trellising in the front.
When is comes to planting seeds the smaller they are, the less patience I have to properly plant them. Carrots in particular are nearly invisible and always end up thrown out as a handful and end up a overcrowded mess. I have to thin the carrot bed many, many, many times in order to get decent sized carrots. I have learned that thinning the carrot bed always gives great baby carrots that Layla always loves! Sometimes I throw them in stir fry or just eat them. This time, I tried a new recipe of small batch pickled carrots.
This book is really, really great. And its a local Oregon author. (You can see my sourdough culture started in the jar in the background…more about wild fermentation another day).
The thing I really love about this book is its very easy to experiment with the recipes. Most are small batches and just refrigerator pickles. This recipe, for example is based on just 1 pound of carrots. Its not overwhelmingly huge recipes that end in 12 jars of a product you aren’t sure if you will even like. It makes it easy to try new things. There are many ideas in this book I will be trying in the future. This day, 2 pounds of overcrowded garden carrots became delicious little pickled treats.
Beautiful garden carrots with dill, jalapeno, garlic, peppercorn in a white vinegar pickle brine.
They turned out amazing. They will sit in the refrigerator and continue to become more amazing each day (if I can stay out of them). The rest of the garden is on its way. Most things are delayed in Oregon compared to California because, well, its just not hot as hell around here! I have learned that its normal for my corn to be only “knee high by the fourth of July” which was shocking to me as I was thinking my poor garden was just not working. Zucchini and tomatoes, for example has been all over facebook from friends and family in hotter states like California and Tenneseee. Here, they are just starting.
We have plenty of tomatoes planted for sauces, ketchup and sun drying. A couple small rows of corn, zucchini for eating and canning relish, red potatoes have already been harvested, cucumbers running wild, many heads of cabbage that can’t wait to become wild fermented sauerkraut, a few beets, peppers, broccoli, then the greens… lettuce, kale, and chard.
Hopefully soon we will be canning, dehydrating, pickling, fermenting and preserving. Its exciting to have space to grow more and more food each season!!!
Happy late 4th of July…here in Brownsville we enjoyed the town pancake breakfast at the park and amazing fireworks show!
(Seems I previously hit the ‘publish’ button accidentally. Here is the rest of the post 🙂
We have had some amazing weather the past couple days. Its sunny and warm and not to hot. A little bit of a breeze makes me remember just how amazing summer in Oregon really is. Layla and I had not been on an adventure in a while. I decided no projects today and after taking my toes to a pedicure, I took those toes to the lake. If you know Layla, you know this girl loves to swim! We found a great little spot with no one around and lots of sticks to chew on. First things first, Layla set out to chew the log in the water.
Foster lake is just 20-something minutes from our house down the country roads. Its nice to have something so close. Click Here to watch Layla have a blast swimming!
After chewing many, many sticks until there were not more sticks left to throw she was finally tired.
We stayed until the sticks were all chewed to nothing, bugs started arriving and the sun was getting low. This side of the lake has lots of trees and picnic spots. I think we will return with a picnic next time.
On the drive home, Layla was tired, and happy. It didn’t take long before she was asleep in the back of the car. Reminds me of all the times we did this when she was a puppy. She spent a lot of puppyhood at the lake. We will definitely be back soon!
Happy and asleep. She gobbled up her food when we got home and went straight to bed.
Spring is here and so are baby wild turkeysWow, it’s been a while since I have posted. Nearly all of Spring has whirled right past us. Things have been soooooo busy. My schedule had been pretty rough for couple months as I was transitioning to a store closer to home and there are many projects around the house we have been working on. Phase 1 of the remodel is almost complete, garden is mostly in, the pastures have been mowed down and new animals have arrived, wild and domestic. We have been busy around here! The more we clean up, plow down and plant, the more it looks like ours.
Many things have been a buzz quite literally (bzzzz). The status of the orchard trees remain “special needs” due to several years of neglect and no time to prune this year. Nature however, is determined and everything has flowered, everything has bloomed, everything is showing signs of making food. The plum trees were the first to sprout their leaves and the cherry and apple blossoms were beautiful. Layla and I have checked each week for signs of progress. Happily we have found the cherries and pears starting as well as Apples and walnuts. Thankfully there has been no shortage of bees around. You can hear them buzzing in all of the trees. Tiny fruit is happening.
pears, cherries, walnuts, apples
A few of the Mystery trees I pruned in the winter (while unsure of what they were), turned out to be gorgeous lilacs. They smell amazing! The largest and purple lilac tree seems to be appropriately placed just outside the office window and in full bloom is an amazing natural mural of flowers. I wish I had gotten a perfect picture to share! The other tree by the driveway finally bloomed and I still have no idea what it is. It’s the strangest shaped flowers. I have never seen these before, but I like them a lot. Just this week the magnolia tree has started to flower. Right now there is just one flower open and many other blooms looking like they are almost ready. I can’t wait!
Now back to the remodel. Phase one is nearly complete! We have a hallway! Also, a bigger laundry room and the entire house works like a normal house now. I can smell my coffee brewing in the morning now that our master bedroom is connected in a normal way.
hanging doors in the new hallway (isn’t he the best!?)We also have a few new animals around here now. There are 4 new little chickens that just joined the big girl coop in the “chicken nursery” side of the coop. This side is closed and safe feeling but they can still see the big girls. They will live here for a couple weeks while the grow a little bigger and the current girls get used to seeing their cute little faces every morning. This should make for an easier transition when they are all set loose. The older girls are all laying eggs every day now and singing about their success. Click here to listen to their song.
First grass time!When we expanded the coop we put a chicken door we can close to separate any new little chickens while they grow and they can still all get to know each other. We can then leave it open for full access to the entire run on days everyone can’t free-range.
We also now have a resident horse named Bentley. He is renting our front pasture. A local Brownsville couple are in between houses with no luck house hunting. His stables he was being kept at closed suddenly and Bentley needed a field to stay in, and we always need a horse to hug. He’s very sweet and gives long hugs at the fence and rest his head on your shoulder.
Things are looking back to normal around here with work and school. New posts coming soon as the harvests begin!
If you have been to our house, you have seen our awkward laundry room/garage/master bedroom situation. We bought the place knowing we would have to do a major remodel to make things make more sense. You see, our master bedroom is attached to the back of the garage. And there is no connection to the main house. You have to go out the laundry room, into the garage, then out the back door (to outside) then through the master bedroom door. Awkward! This past week we started phase one of this remodel and its complicated. I will try my best to guide you though whats happening. Its pretty exciting. Here is the entrance to the master bedroom from standing at the kitchen back door. You can see it shares a wall with the garage but technically no matter which way you go, from the kitchen or the garage you are still walking outside to get there.
Inside you have a super narrow tiny doorway going from the kitchen into the laundry room then a door out into the garage. This photo was taken after the garage floor had been raised, you can see the sub-floor plywood. You are looking from kitchen, through laundry room, into the garage.
This is so narrow even I have to turn slightly sideways and you cannot carry a laundry basket through here, its difficult but I can see why the previous owners did not want to move that wall on the right side.
That being said, hopefully the general floor plan is understood. Here is the new floor plan for the remodel. When finished, the picture you just viewed (above) will be looking from the kitchen, down a long hallway leading to the master bedroom. In the plans below you can see how the back of the garage space will be taken up to form a hallway, utility closet, pantry and bigger laundry room.
Left to right: kitchen, hallway passing next to laundry, new hall pantry/closet continuing to turn the corner into the master bedroom.
First step was to clean out the back of the garage and remove all the mess the previous owners left. Shelving, lots of nails, dirt, spider webs and any of our stuff we had been storing there. The wiring was clearly not done with any organization in mind.
Pretty clean in the next photo below, we also took down the shelves as well as the light. This is the back of the garage space we were looking at from the kitchen a few pictures ago. Next I took some chalk and drew the basic plan to get a better idea of what was going to happen.
Those are my standard width pink walls 🙂
You can see what part of the back of the garage will get swallowed up by the remodel. But you can also see how we will be able to walk from the kitchen, down the hallway and turn to go into the master bedroom. Just follow the arrows. The back door from garage will go away and that few extra feet there becomes a bigger laundry room. Remember that teeny tiny doorway out the kitchen? The hardest part of this project is making that teeny tiny doorway full size to have a standard width hallway. It doesn’t sound that hard to move a wall unless the wall needs to be where a water heater currently sits. Plumbing and electrical make this little move a HUGE deal.
Standing in what will be where I park my car the DOOR chalked is the new door from the garage parking into the house.
As you can see, then new wall runs right where that 1991 huge water heater sits. To make matters more complicated, the heat pump is sitting barely in view just to the left of the water heater. That could not be moved, at all. We had to work around the heat pump. The future site of the water heater is the small circle in white chalk about a foot from the current position. This space will become an interior closet accessible from inside to house the water heater and heat pump and maybe my mops, brooms, etc. We will refer to this as the “utility closet”. We found a great contractor to help us out on this one. Its just far too time consuming. As awesome as we are at DIY, we just don’t want to do this one ourselves. First day of construction Todd (who is great) framed and built the new floor in the new space as well as future utility room. Here in wet Oregon a black vapor barrier is always added under houses.
New floor going in.
After the floor was framed, sub-floor and insulation was put in. Basically as much as he could do before the plumber and electrician showed up.
Floor is in place, studs now outline where future walls will beNew laundry plumbing sticking out of the floor.
There was some concern that a water heater from 1991 may not work once it gets moved. While its functioning great right now, it seemed like a good idea to replace it. The new one is narrower and fits better in the utility closet anyways.
You can see now how the floor is the same height as the rest of the house, the water heater is on the opposite wall was before and all the plumbing and wiring has been moved. Soon, that wall on the right is coming down and moving to the left a foot. After the plumber came and did his part the electrician was here. He had to move our wall heater in the bedroom. We still need this for now until central heating/air from the main house is connected to the master. Luckily in Oregon you can live without air conditioning 99% of the year. The wall heater had to be moved because its current location sits right where the new doorway into the master bedroom will be. That is the door that will go from the new hallway into our room.
Thanks to snapchat I can draw you a great visual representation of how the heater was moved and where the new doorway to the hall will be. Again, small changes in this remodel get super complicated as everything that was here was right in the way of everything we needed to do! (Yeah, that 80’s paint color needs to go as well! Soon enough!)
So after the first week of construction we have a new floor and have moved every major plumbing and electrical object that was in the way. Starting Monday the real fun begins and finally walls come down. The current laundry room wall on the garage side comes down, the entire wall from the teeny doorway to the garage will come down and a door to the master bedroom will get cut out. Now I am excited! I will update this post next week as more things happen.
And here is your overdue Layla cuteness just for fun. She didn’t nap much this week with all the construction.
Chickens are funny little creatures that make you laugh almost every day. This trio of new girls do the weirdest things as they are growing up and getting more comfortable. Chicken-Diana has taken to liking her humans so much she greets you when you get home and runs to say hi whenever you come outside. She also often follows me to my car in the morning as I leave for work. I would love to take her to Walgreen’s but that would just be too distracting! They also like to (peck) knock on the doors around the house. I opened the blinds the other day to see them hanging out on the firewood having a good time.
Peeking out the front door, chickens want to say hi (L to R, Florence, Diana, Mary)
In other exciting chicken news we are finally back to egg production. Chicken-Mary had her first tiny little starter eggs this week. She seemed to look like she was getting close so I put the fake wooden eggs in the nest boxes for encouragement. I checked later that afternoon and sure enough she laid a cute little tiny egg. Penny also seems to be thinking about laying eggs again but we don’t expect very many from her anymore.
Chicken-Mary’s little starter eggs
For months I have been wondering why Layla is digging so many holes along the back of the house. It started with a couple spots of narrow holes probably out of boredom. Here lately, there have been several large ones behind the hydrangeas. Today, I was surprised to find out it may not be entirely Layla. She digs them but I think others are responsible for making them much much bigger, rounder and chicken butt shaped! This social gathering of bathing in the dirt is a really good sign that the flock is fully integrated. Penny was right there with them. Diana was trying to run into the kitchen…of course.
The flock that dust bathes together, stays together.
Keeping on the subject of feathered friends, there are two new guests at the pond this week. On our walk last week, Layla and I startled two ducks swimming and they flew away. Since then, I have watched them come back and hang out most days in the pond. After getting a good look at them they are 2 Mallards, one male, one female. Its amazing how camouflage the females are. If she wasn’t swimming I may not have seen her at all. She is just behind and to the left of the male and hard to see in the photo. I tip-toed as quietly as I could down the hill to take this picture of them this morning. I didn’t want to scare them away. Maybe they will decide its safe here and stay. Maybe there will be ducklings one day. I am looking into encouraging nesting with duck nest boxes.
Mallard ducks on the right of the pond. Male and female
Since we are down at the pond we can visit the resident salamanders again. This time I got a better picture. You see, Sal and Amanda like to hide. They actually like to come up and look at me with cute little faces THEN hide right as I have my camera out. This time Sal played dead and floated in the water a while trying to convince me he was just a stick and I got a decent shot. Enough to share that he is indeed a salamander. Amanda is in the weeds below, she’s never in the mood for photos.
Sal and Amanda the elusive pond salamanders
In addition to being distracted as usual by wildlife we have done a few things around the yard this week. We had a pretty sunny Saturday and it seemed a good day to visit the nursery for a few plants. We decided to put Gardenia in the front of the house. The green foliage and white flowers should look good with the red house. Also, I love the smell of gardenias (we had them in Sacramento) and hopefully the fragrance will drift into the house through the open windows this summer. I also transplanted a piece of a fern in the yard to the spot right near the deck. It should take root just fine.
Starting to landscape, Gardenias should bloom and let the fragrance in the front window
Speaking of sunny days and Spring time, its time to get the motorcycle ready for adventures. New battery in, and it got a bath and tank of gas this weekend. Every familiar sight and (Harley) sound here makes it feel more and more like home, its feeling much more settled in around here now. Motorcycle dates are in the future as the weather gets warmer.
Spring is on its way and so are motorcycle dates
Here is a daffodil picture just for fun! The wind knocked some down so the broken ones came inside to look pretty in a vase.
Daffodil’s taken down by the wind look nice indoors
Oh look its Nessie! She is so cute. She is enjoying being a couple pounds lighter lately and jumping and exploring lots. The other night I found her on the far side of the house when I went to lock her up for the night. She also got a new cat house for the loft.
lazy Nessie
There was an old two sided shelving unit in the loft when we moved in. It looked like it may have had glass fronts at one point much like a display case (I removed some broken glass). It is open on the top and has shelves front and back. She has played in the shelf the whole time we have had her. She usually likes to jump to one shelf then the top shelf then to the catwalk. She also likes to go around to the back and hide when noises scare her. I decided to make the shelf a cat house for her.
Nessie’s new house front view
She can hang out in her bed on the middle shelf then jump up through the open top to the top bed or continue on to the catwalk and walk along the walls like she does. There is also still the option for going to the back shelves and hiding from things when scared. Of course there is plenty of recycled old carpet for her to have a soft landing and also to scratch and claw. She is already liking walking and balancing along the front and sides. The bottle shelf is a great place for her food and water as well as some storage. She loves it! In warmer weather I will probably paint it a little cuter but for right now she doesn’t seem to have the patience for me to have her house occupied for that long!
Nessie’s house top view, she likes to jump up to the top of this shelflots of re-purposed carpet to scratch and stretch
And last but not least here is a Layla picture, just because!
We woke up thinking chocolate valentine waffles sounded good today. However, since we have freeloading slacker chickens right now we were out of eggs. Scones it is!!! I am a little famous for my white chocolate cinnamon chip scones so it was hard to venture out into uncharted scones territory but they were amazing! A little chocolate drizzle and we called it breakfast. Perfect fuel (not really) for some hard yard work!!!
My last day off with the dogs was filled with hours of pulling driveway weeds and taking down more branches from overgrown trees. There has been a lot of overgrowth removal and general reshaping of bushes, trees and other plant life here. Today was the day to pick it all up and put it in the burn pile. After one truck load of leaves, there was still a lot of debris to pile up and move. The great thing about only going as far as your own pasture is the truck doesn’t have to be highway safe…..pile it high!
One great surprise here as the rain subsides and days are warming up are bulbs popping up everywhere. Everywhere you look under almost every tree and all along the driveway there are daffodils, crocus’s, tulips and iris’s popping up. Its going to be very exciting when they all bloom.
The little chickens are getting bigger and over 3 lbs now. They have great big tails finally and are venturing around the yard doing their job at pest control. Chicken-Mary has a comb and waddles now and is a little more developed then her sisters.
Chicken Florence in the background, Left-Chicken Diana, Right-Chicken Mary
Nessie plays more and more and even came and meowed at the front door to say hi the other night. She has recently climbed a tree and seems much more adventurous as the weather improves.
Nessie enjoys the catwalk in the shop now and climbs and struts her stuffWe are going to take a break from the yard work now and see what the property brings us in Spring. We may have a little pasture clean-up but will start focusing on the house remodel of the laundry room/hallway/master bedroom in the next couple months. More to come!
(Note: last post “Salamanders” contained cute videos that may not display in the email sent but just click to go to the website to view)
Layla’s good friend Kona is staying with us this week. They have been having a blast playing all over. The weather was great today and “we” did a lot of yard work. I pulled a lot of weeds. They were exhausted!
Kona and Layla patrol the orchard
The little chickens are getting bigger and bigger. Today they met me at my car door when I got home.
Diana-Chicken was the first to greet me today outside my car
The chickens love Layla, they have no fear of dogs and even chased Layla across the driveway one day. Penny is still the big boss and always checking me out to make sure she’s not missing treats. She is doing better now getting along with the young chickens and hopefully soon they will be one cohesive group.
Penny looking at me in case I have something good
Nessie is very affectionate and improving more and more each week. She comes to the house now and suns herself on the deck. She ventures out and explores every day. We found a dead mouse in the driveway by the shop one day and are hoping it is her finally feeling relaxed enough to hunt! Keep those field mice away!
I took the dogs for a walk to the pond yesterday. I saw more salamanders swimming again. Also, finally spotted one of the many frogs we hear singing every night, he was too fast for a photo but I saw him!
We have had plenty of rain! The pond is full and flowing into our little creek and across the back pasture. Layla loves taking a walk down to the pond. When you open the gate she waits with anticipation then sprints across the property like a racehorse!
This week we explored the pond again and something caught my eye. We have salamanders. Three adorable little aquatic lizard like creatures were wiggling around in the weeds. With all of Layla’s excitement in the water I am surprised she didn’t scare them away!
In other news…..Nessie has been exploring lots and getting more comfortable. She like to sit in a lap for a bit and surprisingly loves being brushed. Recently she showed us what she has been up to in the shop when she climbed right up on the beam like a catwalk and strutted her stuff. Now we know what she has been up to! She’s getting in a little bit better shape each day and enjoyed a nice sunny day we had.
Pedersen Homestead 