A Day on the John Day River

Lyndee and Sam, Mike and I, and our three gorgeous golden retrievers, went to a fun swimming and fishing spot near Kimberly today. What a nice way to show Sam Eastern Oregon!

I am so happy Lyndee has moved back to Bend! They arrived there this evening! I am anxious to hear how Lyndee likes her new apartment and how Sam likes Bend.

Unusual Group of Campers!

Lyndee, Sam and I were sitting at the kitchen table eating dinner last night when a lady climbed up the hill and came to the window and asked if they could camp out for the night and stake out their llamas. They are on their way to hike into the Strawberry Mountains and just weren't able to make it that far. I went outside with her and pointed to where they could camp and then asked her "how many llamas?" She answered "six". Mike was still not home from the golf course and I was really concerned he might not approve of my letting them camp here on his beautiful lawn. But he was okay with it. We still have to decide what to charge them. I have been keeping the dogs in the house, I am sure they would make quite a disturbance. I very much doubt they have seen llamas before!

Makin' Due

I stole away for an hour today to my favorite "Hidden Hole". As I was strolling the rocky bank, my flip flop broke. I made it function by wrapping grass around the rubber peg... hey... it worked! ~LG~

Plum Saga Continues

They were oozing out of their boxes and had to be dealt with... oh yes, it's those daggone plums I am referring to! So, Mike put a tarp down in the back of his car and loaded all the remaining plums up and hauled them up to our already pink back deck. However, only two of the carboy (big jars) were clean and ready for fruit. We decided to just fill them for the night and then finish cleaning the jars and split it all up the next morning. Mike was up first this morning and awoke me with "we have a problem". The plums, now stored in the big bottles IN the house had grown! They blew their little peaches off the tops and had spilled over and out the tops onto the kitchen floor. YUCK! The blob! The icky sticky purple blob that stains :( Remember my blog title "Abundance"? It's really all about perspective... right now it's "Annoyance"! Stay tuned!

Plum Tackling... and Peach Peeling... Our Summer Olympics

Last night Mike took one more step towards that plum wine he is going to make. He hauled 4 boxes of over-ripe plums up to the house and started squishing them.. without a real plan of attack. Thank goodness I managed to keep him outside on the deck (which is now stained pink and purple). Eventually, I got involved and brought him a few colanders and the sequence of squish and dump, squish and dump from colander to colander began. Here is a photo of last night's product... Next he will add sugar, water, and yeast and a special stopper... He still has many more plums to tackle and a few more of these big bottles.

I finally got the peaches peeled and into the freezer day before yesterday. They have to be perfectly ripe in order to peel them. Won't a peach cobbler in the middle of November be a treat!? :)

Yeah for a little getaway....

We hired an "inn-sitter" for four days, and headed to Bend to attend the senior golf tournament, the Jeld-Wen in Sunriver. We (and our two dogs) stayed at Dane's. His new home is right in the heart of Bend. It is a 1950's contemporary. One of these photos is of our room, the guest bedroom. Check out the nice wood ceilings and windows. I really loved it!

Dane works at "Lost Tracks" golf course part time and took us golfing there. Very nice course!

The golf tournament was a lot of fun as well, even though Saturday was 103'. We had special tickets which allowed us into a hospitality tent with views of the 16th green and 17th tee, with great free food and drinks.... very cool! We followed Mark Wiebe around all three days and chatted with his parents and sister and family. Mike took a golf class from Mac Wiebe at Palomar College back in 1976! That made it even more fun to have someone to pull for. He ended up in the top 20. Fred Funk won.

The last photo is of Dane at the top of a giant tree in his yard, a blue spruce, I think. He climbed it just because it was there... got all scratched up... silly kid, he has loved to climb since he could walk/crawl.

Golf Class #4

I didn't take any pictures at golf class last night... there were twelve ladies. I set up ten different stations that they went through after the warm up.. Lets see if I can remember them..

*The big exercise ball to emphasize use of core muscles.
*A broom to exaggerate the roll of wrists.
*A weighted club with a molded grip.
*A medicus swing trainer for swing plane.
*Two different length chip shots to a target.
*A 'walk while you swing' with a 7 iron to work on changing weight side to side.
*A station with just a driver to swing, no ball, but aim and set up at a target
*Two putting drills.

Then they played holes 7 and 6.
The class lasted about 1 -1/2 hours. It was a nice evening. I hope I am helping.. I find it difficult when there are so many different levels of players... undoing years of bad habits on one extreme and the complete beginner on the other.

***** Inn-keeper's a Fruitcake ******

I am on a blogging roll... (3 days in a row). I finally picked a colander-full of cherries this morning after I did my Inn chores. I haven't pitted them, as it means walking back down the hill to the old house and finding that pitting tool.

Not sure why, but I took a couple photos of my daily routine of hanging sheets on the line and folding them. Here is a peak inside my 'cold house' where I store my linens as well as our fresh picked plums.



If I ever get that cherry cobbler made, I am going to take a photo of it and post it! Tonight is my weekly golf class, so I hope to have photos and a report from it tomorrow.

Plum Crazy !

Today was the day... and I guess there was no turning back after Mike decided to strip the plum tree. He sure worked hard ~ he used his shirt as a pouch and just filled it over and over again, going up and down a big picking ladder. I separated the ripe fruit into shallow boxes and the unripe into deeper ones and it is now all stored in the cold house. Mike plans to make plum wine... oh boy... we said we were going to do that a few years ago and it never happened...we made it into juice and then let it rot ~ so, we'll see!

"Zander" turned 3 today! This is him coming home from the swimming hole... ears flopping in the wind.. He's got a pretty good life! Three little girls staying in the RV Park threw the ball and ran in the sprinklers with him all afternoon.

Abundance

Entrance to our property.
Plums are ripe!

Peaches are just about ripe!

This is the last of the pie cherries. I better pick the last of them and at least make one cherry cobbler this season.

These little peppers are hot and yummy, no, the photo is not upside down, they grow upwards.

Anaheim chiles, we have four plants... our favorite thing to grow in a garden.

Our red raspberries are almost all gone, we have been grazing on them for over a month. And now, the blackberries are ripenning. On our three acres we have such abundance and I feel so bad how much we waste of it! I did dry/dehydrate one batch and also freeze another batch of apricots, but wasted way too many :(

Tent City Pops Up Overnight

We aren't even sure where the fire is, but the Department of Forestry arrived at the Dayville School last night and this is what it looks like this morning!

There are rows of refrigerated food trucks, laundry, water, portapotties and hundreds of firefighters in dark green pants and bright yellow shirts. Some were swinging on the swingset, some were huddled on the hillside under a trees trying to find a little privacy. It's remarkable how organized this firefighting machine runs.

Yes, more golf. This week's golf class and more...

I flunk in photography this week. It's hard to teach and document it! This week I was prepared for another big group~ so after our warm up and basics stuff we had three golf areas and I had a helper.

*We had a 6 hole putting course

*A three-station chipping target area

*And for the 3rd area, they played the first hole with their favorite club plus a wedge and a putter.

They kept score in each area and we totalled them up at the end. My thinking is that golf is about shot making, not just hitting balls. It was about 100' so the class size was smaller, seven ladies.

After class, at 8 pm, I headed to Baker City and stayed the night in a nice little motel, peacefully, by myself. I played in the Baker City ladies club invitational today. A group from our home course drove over, too. I am excited to brag that I won low gross, shooting an 81. I thoroughly enjoyed my playing partner, Dana, who is the ladies club president in Baker. I was so relaxed, I didn't even realize that I was playing pretty good. I so love just playing one shot at a time and not taking it too seriously. (Below is a photo of the Baker Golf Course club house/patio.)

'It does not matter how many times you hit the golf ball, what is important is the thankful attitude you maintain. '

Life is Good!