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March 3, 2024March 15, 2024

Weather . . . again

Making paw prints in fresh snow is good fun

Don’t mean to complain about the weather . . . but . . .

Again this week we’ve been under mostly gray skies with a few inches of snow flurries thrown in.

One of the consequences of a wetter than normal winter is rivers are at or above capacity. Streams we frequent are running at April levels.

Un-fishable water is usually a product of run-off and right when ODFW opens the Upper Deschutes River as an alternative.

These dreary days mean we’ll fill the blog with more domestic tasks.

Oh there was activity, just mostly indoors and with fewer photos captured.

Not fishing doesn’t mean not thinking about fishing. Limited stream access just means more sitting at the desk spin’in feathers.

I even posted some of the patterns on Instagram. Winter is the season to refill boxes with patterns depleted last summer.

Books occupy another segment of daily activities. What an Inter-library loan can’t find, Hoopla and Kindle can.

Ken Forkish, owner of Ken’s Artisan Bakery In Portland, Oregon has written several books on bread. Evolutions in Bread and Flour Water Salt Yeast make for great reading.

There is always an eclectic mix of titles stacked on the living room table. This week that pile contained an inordinate number of cookbooks.

The other activity associated with dreary weather is cooking and we’ve done quite a lot of that. Soup Sunday returned this year and we’ve sampled and canned a couple of good recipes. JQ tweaked her chocolate pound cake recipe to perfection and fourth time seems to be the charm on finding a truly good chocolate chip cookie.

We didn’t get out much but that will change with the season. For now we’ll start a new book and wait for the real thaw.

February 25, 2024March 15, 2024

It’s Been A Week . . .

The inevitable process of aging is not something we dwell on . . . what’s the point?

However, there are moments in this ‘getting older’ journey that are much less pleasant, one of which is the inevitable colonoscopy. If you know, you know and if you don’t, you’ll find out soon enough.

That is what occupied during our week. And it really did involve most of the week. For a forty minute routine procedure you give up the better part of three days in prep. Prep is the unpleasant portion of the process.

I’ll spare you the details. The bottom line is the week was taken up with medical procedures, rather than any ‘fun’ activities. It ended with a clean bill of health . . . so there is that.

We’ll be back with a post next week with something a little bit more interesting.

February 18, 2024March 15, 2024

Time Flies but Still It’s Winter

As I’m writing this post the snows have returned.

Not as deep as before, but there is still some shovel work required. We understand it’s winter and yet days under gray sky seem more numerous this year than any in the past.

We don’t lament the inevitable and in fact look forward to a seasonal shift. It has been common in Central Oregon for snowy winter days to be followed by sun and blue sky. Usually in equal amounts.

Not this year.

The week didn’t start with snow on the ground. Mid-February started with a spring-like feel.

It’s referred to as false spring, but regardless, we took advantage and headed to Maupin to spend the day on the Deschutes.

Rivers remain swollen from January’s melted snows so the fishing wasn’t great.

However, the day was sunny and temperatures pushed into the fifties. We sat up chairs on river’s edge, enjoyed the day and waited for winter to return.

We didn’t have long to wait.

February 11, 2024March 15, 2024

A Summer Lake Afternoon

The weather really didn’t change much this week.

Nor does it look like it will next week. Lots of gray days meant we got house projects done. Luckily, we managed to work in a day trip over to Summer Lake.

We took advantage of a break in the weather and headed over to the wildlife refuge.

In the winter the highlight is swans, who typically spend the season at the refuge. We had a nice chat with the local Fish, & Wildlife ranger who pointed out that both Trumpeter and Tundra swans swim together.

The view southeast to Paisley and Abert Rim is crowned with an azure sky.

It was a “summer” like day with no one around. We got lots of footage and watched the swans paddling around.

February 4, 2024March 15, 2024

Time Flies

We have hit the end of January already.

So far . . . another atmospheric river moved through the Pacific Northwest. Any snow we got last week is now mostly gone.

We had a surprise visitor this week.

Frequently we see deer, birds, chipmunks and cats moving through our outdoor spaces. To our amazement we saw a fox scoping things out, then scampering away. So cool.

With inclement weather the majority of our time this week was spent on kitchen projects.

We’ve been perfecting our pizza dough and sauce and we’re finally getting around to processing all those pounds of fruit and berries we froze last summer.

We usually put off canning during the heat of summer and schedule most projects during the colder months.

This has become a standard winter activity, especially when the weather isn’t conducive to excursions.

Added to this year’s preserving, we are trying small batches of fruit juice and syrups. These are delicious poured over a scoop of yogurt or ice cream. They are also great for refreshing spritzer drinks and used to sweeten sauces.

Ft Rock … an amazing geological structure

We did manage an afternoon jaunt to Fort Rock , , , mostly just to get out of the house. We had a great walk and managed to view some soaring hawks. It was so quiet and we had the road to ourselves. Heaven!

Spent a couple of days trying to recover drone footage that mysteriously disappeared from the camera card.

Gave up . . . so you get JQ’s fun stroll footage. The cloud cover offered excellent backgrounds.

In all it was a great day jammed into the middle of a good week.