Friday

Oh how lovely...it's Friday again!  joining in with Tanya's Willy Nilly Friday Five (as best I can) and FAST's Five on Friday.  Thanks to the hosts of two great memes!

1.  It's spring break for our grandson and he is visiting!  Have been enjoying him so much, and he's been helping me with a couple of projects as well.  He's such a great kid!  5'10 1/2" already.  I can't believe he is getting so tall!

2.  I finished the most wonderful book.  Mom & I gave up on our "book club blog" on Magnolia.  There just wasn't enough participation.  From now on, my reviews will not only be on Goodreads, but will also appear on my facebook page and I will include some here....

An Invisible Thread by Laura Schroff is one of the most beautiful books I have ever read! This book touched me like few have. The raw emotions expressed in the lives of both Laura and Maurice draw from the reader from opposite poles, and yet meld together in a way that only human stories can. Laura, an advertising executive meets Maurice on the streets of New York, a young boy panhandling for money to eat. She takes him to McDonalds and it is the beginning of a friendship like no other. Neither of them could know how both their lives would be changed by this friendship over the years. I was drawn so poignantly to Laura's story, of a wounded childhood that looked so normal....and Maurice's story of a boy surrounded by drugs and crime, just wondering what the next minute holds, much less the future. I felt their pain in their losses and broken dreams, but felt such joy in their triumphs! I will hold this book as a treasure always for the way this amazing true story of two very different people tells the story of us all.

3.  Got the stuff done at the DMV!  Well, that was something I had been dreading, but it all went wonderfully well.  They are very nice there and helpful.  Have new driver's licenses coming in the mail, and a new Disabled Veteran plate for the car that will also be arriving. 

4.  Spring is around the corner!  Tiny yellow flowers appeared in the front yard.  The temps are slowly getting warmer.  I've seen a few daffodils here and there.  Will post some pictures as soon as I can.

5.  If you ever get to Bend, OR check out the amazing food at Immersion Brewing...our son-in-law is the Executive Chef, and our daughter is the pastry chef.  They just celebrated their 7th Anniversary!  They've been together 18 years though. 

Cute shot done with a phone camera of the Anniversary couple!

And a photo of them on the Cruise we took a year 1/2 ago...

A Place For My Treasures

We have been living in our new home for three months now.  I am very slowly unpacking the boxes and putting things in order.  And I do mean slowly...I have chronic fatigue syndrome and a bad back so I work in small spurts.  But things are coming together.  One thing I have always done is collect wonderful breakable things:  teapots, pitchers, cups & saucers & sugar & creamers, blue & white dishes of all types, fiestaware, salts....just lots of wonderful things!  In the past I have been hard pressed to be able to display most of my things, and now that we own our own home, I want to display what I can!

When we first moved in, our daughter came over and placed my teapots on this top kitchen shelf for me!  I think they look great up there!  Please ignore the curtains...they will be replaced.

Here is a picture of some of the goodies waiting for a place to be displayed....

I am trying to decide if I want to put a shelf up next to the kitchen cabinets between the kitchen & diningroom (which will also help define the two rooms) or shelves in the window, which I also like seeing things displayed on, especially glass.  I may do both.

In the meantime, we found this amazing buffet on craigslist for just $150. and they delivered it for us!  It fits perfectly under the edge of the kitchen counter/bar on the diningroom side so it doesn't stick out into the room too far and crowd the table.  The glass doors will help some things be visible.

Two things that have really been a challenge in getting my main living area set up have been these collections, and also our books.  The books are finally dealt with!  We own a LOT of books! :-)  My treasures are important to me.  I will share as we solve these "treasure display" issues!  Thanks to Tom for letting me join in his wonderful Tuesday s Treasures!

Willy Nilly FAST!

Being cute with the title...I haven't been able to link in to Tanya's Willy Nilly Friday Five in a while, but I do add her link to my post hoping one day for a "fix" to the problem.  And now Amy's Five on Friday is FAST's Five on Friday.  Joining in to this young couple who have taken the reigns for her. 

1.  OK, we lived in Tucson for five years and one of our favorite things, and a rare treat, was the Navajo Taco made with frybread.  You can see Tohono O'doham woman making the frybread just outside the beautiful iconic San Xavier Mission....

This is the mission...it's one thing you CANNOT miss when you go to that area!

Ok, so to continue with my story...one day a couple of weeks ago (in Oregon) my husband is watching YouTube videos on how to make frybread.  He looks up all kinds of things.  So, we are watching, and there are several different videos of Indian ladies and men making frybread, and they all have the same basic steps and ingredients.  Russell wanted me to write the recipe down.  Well, it wasn't necessary!  It was SOOO easy!  So, I decided to try it!  My first efforts were awesome (my second batch I rushed and didn't have as good of results though...you have to knead it the required time!) My only problem is I can't master that slapping motion between both hands that makes the dough flatten out so much (it's kind've like the dough-tossing of pizzas, but not tossed, just slapped back and forth) So my frybread isn't as big as it should be.  BUT...we made Navajo Tacos and oh were they good!  Hey, I could've been doing this the whole time!  I waited till I moved to Oregon!  Oh well, better late than never...(Mom and Susan, don't kick me in the rear over this...I know we are supposed to be eating healthy now!)

2.  Now, there's a second part to this story...my husband and I always look for a great authentic Mexican food place when we go somewhere, and are very often disappointed.  Even in Tucson, we never found a really great place.   The best we had was a little Mom & Pop place in New Mexico and for breakfast burritos, there was an amazing tacqueria in Giddings Texas!  Anyway, one of our criteria is that they offer sopapillas as a bread...not those flat crunchy dessert things covered in cinnamon and sugar.  Real sopapillas are puffy squares of bread, often served just with honey, but can be eaten plain.  So, I thought...hmmmm, I wonder if I can use the same dough I made the frybread with to make sopapillas!  I CAN!

These were amazing!

3.  I posted photos of the flickers coming to eat at my suet feeder, and was so happy with the shots I got.  Went out front only to discover tiny holes pecked into the front of the garage door!  Other people in the neighborhood have been complaining about the pecking on their roofs and stovepipes, etc on NextDoor.  As a new home owner, this was so disturbing!  There is even an article HERE in the Bend Bulletin.

Happily the larger marks seem to be mud smudges.  I rubbed them with a wet finger as you can see to find the smudge will remove, leaving only a tiny hole underneath.  Thankfully!

4.  It's been lightly raining all week, off and on, and cooler than I had reported (in the 40s).  I walked out this morning to take a picture and the air is just infused with a fresh, wonderful smell of juniper!   It's glorious!!!!   I just stood there and breathed deeply!  Several days ago I saw my first jonquils outside the Sun Spot, a little café in Terrebonne...my first spring color.  I have some bulbs breaking ground and I wonder what they are.  If the deer leave these alone, I will plant more. 

5.  I've been reading instead of working this week.  I can't put the book down!  I mentioned this book before I ever started reading it, you may remember.  I have so much to do!  But, this book has captured my imagination because it's a true story of this area.  A Strange Piece of Paradise by Terri Jentz is her healing journey after being run over by a truck and then brutally attacked with an axe at Cline Falls State Park (see my photos of the park  HERE) in 1977.  This event happened 40 years ago, but just knowing they were sure they knew who did it, but he was never charged, and apparently the statute of limitations on ATTEMPTED murder was just THREE years makes this truly awful!  (That changed in 1997 making it unlimited statute of limitations just like murder due to the efforts of two Victims Advocates who were helping Jentz!)  So, this was a journey not only to determine who did it for sure, but also for Terri to be able to move through her PTSD from the attack, helping her to heal, and the town of Redmond to heal as well.  Knowing many people in the book probably still are alive and still could live here fascinated me!  Jentz became a member of the community by her frequest visits, welcomed and embraced when she returned after fifteen years.  It's well written and really interesting.....I finished it now and you can read my Goodreads review here if you like:  REVIEW  I highly recommend it!

Wanglers

Passed this great barn today on our way to Prineville.  Connecting with Tom's Barn Collective. 

Flickers Loving the Suet!

For Anni's Bird d'Pot and Stewart's Wild Bird Wednesday, I want to share our frequent Flicker visitors to the suet feeder! 

Warmer Temps Now...

We are in the 50s mostly and even rising into low 60s...it's been so welcomed after all that cold and snow.  That apparently has moved on to the NE.  Getting out a little.  Sharing with Tanya's Willy Nilly Friday Five and Amy's Five on Friday (soon to be Fast Five on Friday)...Also joining Eileen's Saturday's Critters.

1.  We stopped to visit with a cute neighbor donkey...

 

2.  Dern it, this thing won't cooperate...:-)  So, it's all connecting....  Two is a quick drive through the picnic area of Cline Falls State Park in Redmond...

 

Look, running water!  I really missed that in Tucson.  This is part of the Deschutes River which goes through downtown Bend and up toward our house in Crooked River Ranch.


3.  The original Ranch House owned by William Gates in 1910.  It now serves as a Senior Center for the ranch, and other events are sometimes held here...

 

4.  This is a distant view of Horny Hollow, where the ranch hands stayed in bunk houses when this was an active cattle ranch.

 

A house near the Ranch House that shows the depth of the Canyon...

5.  Above our heads as we are in the bottom of the Canyon...

 

 

 



Dark Eyed Junco

On the day we had so many visitors to the suet feeder, there were two types of little birds: the Mountain Chickadee, and this Dark Eyed Junco.  They come back now and again, but really haven't attacked the suet like the birds always did in Tucson.  (A single junco is out there feeding as I post this). Perhaps they will get more used to feeding in our yard as time goes by.  Connecting with Anni's Bird d'Pot and later with Stewart's Wild Bird Wednesday.

I only got them on the deck.  Here's male and female together.

A little closer...

Female alone.

Deer & A Few Other Things

I'm going to bundle up my meme sharing some this weekend.  For Tanya's Willy Nilly Friday Five and Amy's Five on Friday which is morphing into Fast's Five on Friday soon.  I have five things to share, which includes my Deer for Eileen's Saturday's Critters:

1.  Let's start with my critters, the mule deer...with a few shots from the neighborhood...

2.  Then Wednesday four muleys came back to our yard to hang out for a while, just feet away from our back deck:

She decided to lay down and rest a while just beyond the deck.

3.  The big snow is about gone.  This week it's been in the 50s and there's been a light rain off and on.  It feels GOOD!  I am really looking forward to some signs of spring!

4.  Redmond is the closest town of any size to the little hamlet of Terrebonne, but it is still small.  We shop there because in Terrebonne there are almost no stores.   When I heard about a book about an axe attack on two college girls traveling through Central Oregon back in 1977, I was curious...did it happen close to here?  Imagine my stunned surprise when I received the book in the mail today and learned it happened in Redmond at Cline Falls State Park!  Tragedy can occur anywhere...we watch a lot of true crime shows about murders all over the country...many times in a small town where people are shocked and say "We didn't think it could happen here."  This violent attack doesn't disparage the reputation of this nice little town, especially since it happened so long ago.  But, I have to say, yes, it was a bit of a surprise!  I look forward to reading the book.  And frankly I look forward to going to Cline Falls State Park where the online reviews are quite glowing of this park on the Deschutes River (the same river that flows behind our own property).  It looks lovely and peaceful.  One never knows where evil can lurk, that's for sure!

5.  Went to pick up the mail at dusk...it didn't seem like a good time to take the camera and get any photos, but there on a fence sat a lovely little mountain bluebird!  He sat there the whole time as we drove up, I got out of the car, retrieved my mail, got back in the car and drove off...I SOOO could have gotten a great photo had it been a little brighter.  Haven't seen one at the house!  Rats! :-)  Well, moment lost...maybe I'll see one I can photograph soon.  Here's photo from Central Oregon Birds online (not mine!)