Twisp of Fate

Since my last post, we have continued working on outside infrastructure projects.  About 2 weeks ago, our plumber came and completed the hookup of water lines and sewer to the shop building.  On the same day, we had 8 dump truck loads of topsoil delivered and dumped around the perimeter of the house.

The plan is to spread this out on top of our very rocky soil before planting a “Dry Site Lawn Mix” in the late fall, just before it snows.  This should then sprout in the spring.  It won’t exactly be a lawn, but will provide a grassy ground-cover around the house that we can mow, but should require little watering once established.  We also had some crushed rock and gravel brought in to make some improvements to the driveway and create a new parking area near the house, across from the carport.  Rick plans to build some steps that will come up from that area to the corner of the deck.

New parking area, and topsoil spread ready for planting

Somewhere in there, I finished up the 3 collapse weave scarves in brown/reddish tones.  Traded one of these with my friend at Backcountry Coffee Roasters for a “coffee credit”!

We have had more visitors.  Juno loves visitors!  My cousin Ernie and his wife Mary, who live down near Mt. Hood in Oregon, came through on a loop up to Anacortes/Camano and then over the North Cascades to see us:

Mary, Ernie & yours truly

The following weekend, our friends who own the Real Mother Goose Gallery in Portland, OR came for 2 nights.  Somehow I failed to take pictures, but they had not been over this way in a long time and had not yet seen our home here on Wolf Creek.  It was also their 40th anniversary so we took them out to the Arrowleaf Bistro in Winthrop for a nice dinner.

More “visitors” – all the bucks are hanging out together these days.  Some of them are in our yard almost every day.

Last week we went down to the Twisp River Pub for the Wednesday evening “Jazz in the Beer Garden”.  My brother had told us the visiting guitarist, John Stowell (from Portland, OR) was really good.  No kidding!  He was playing with Terry Hunt, who isn’t too shabby either, plus a bass and drums.

Last Friday we went to a moving sale down in Carlton and came home with a little Ryobi electric log splitter.  We tried it out this morning on some rounds that refused to yield to the splitting maul last year.  It is fabulous!  and not scary or dangerous.  It just slowly presses the log against a wedge at the right end.  Irresistible force meets (as it turns out) moveable object!

We still have to get one or two more cords of wood for the winter, which come cut to length but not split.  This is going to make life so much easier!

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We made a quick trip to Portland, Oregon this past weekend.  One reason was to pick up a load of oak display cases from our friends who own The Real Mother Goose Gallery in Portland.  These are cases that Rick built for the stores probably 25-30 years ago (there were three stores at the time, now down to two – one downtown and one at the Portland Airport).  Stan has been warehousing them for quite a while and was motivated both to get rid of them, and to help out some of the galleries here in the valley.  They are destined for the Confluence Gallery in Twisp, Winthrop Gallery in Winthrop, and the new Methow Valley Interpretive Center that is opening on the TwispWorks campus.

We wound up with more cases ordered than would fit in our truck and cargo trailer, so rented a 12-foot U-Haul down there – and still didn’t quite get everything in.

We stayed with our friends who own the store, and bless their hearts, they also opened their home to some of our family who came up from Medford/Ashland to see us while we were there.  Rick’s daughter and her husband were there, along with her oldest son (our grandson) and his wife and 2 little ones.  So yes – we are in our early 60’s and we have two great-grandchildren!  It’s a long story which I won’t relate here, with a happy ending.  We were all together on Friday and Saturday nights, and had a wonderful long visit.

On Saturday, while Rick and Stan were loading the U-Haul, Judy and I took the two little ones (one 4 and the other almost-6) to the Children’s Museum near the Portland Zoo.  We took the Max train from downtown, which was a fun adventure for the kids in itself.  The museum has many different interactive rooms and they were able to play for hours.  Judy is an experienced mom and ex-teacher of early grades, so I was glad to have her along (and besides, it gave us some time together just for ourselves).  Unfortunately, I was totally lame and forgot to bring my camera!

But here is a family picture taken Sunday morning before we all went our separate ways – 4 generations:

The drive home Sunday was long but scenic and interesting.  It took us about 10 hours.  We went up the Oregon side of the Columbia River Gorge, crossing at Biggs and then heading up east of the Cascades through Goldendale, Yakima and Elllensburg.  There, we cut east and then up to Wenatchee and on to home.  There were dark clouds all around in the mountains, and it was really windy in the southern part of Washington, but we never actually experienced rain.  We saw a huge dust storm down in the valley south of Toppenish, and they were diverting traffic around it.  Turns out there was a big pile-up of cars (we thought the police officer said 20, but when I look online it says 5) so we managed to avoid a bad situation there.

We arrived in Twisp about 8 pm in time to grab dinner at the pub, then home under a starry sky.  But we woke up the next morning to this:

A storm front had moved in overnight, as predicted, and it was snowing and blowing all day.  We had to unload the truck and trailer though, and return the U-Haul to Omak (the Twisp U-Haul place went out of business a year or so ago).  Faithful friends and helpers stepped up to the plate, though, so the unloading went easier than we feared.  It is about a 40-mile drive to Omak, over 4000′ Loup Loup Pass, so that part wasn’t a lot of fun, but we made it.  Today, of course, it is all blue and sunny again!

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