August yellow

Black-Eyed Susans are a wonderful way to enjoy August.

Portland Art Museum's Tuileries Garden Exhibit

In early July I was able to make it to the Portland Art Museum to see the exhibit "The Art of the Louvre's Tuileries Garden." I wanted to see this since I visited the Louvre in Paris many years ago, but hadn't had the chance to explore the gardens. Inside the Portland Art Museum's exhibit are many full size statues and scupltures (some replicas and some not). It was an interesting exhibit and I wasn't aware of the story of the Tuileries Palace, and it having been set on fire in 1871.

Portland Art Museum has asked its visitors to help them capture "Parklandia" by sharing photos of favorite Portland parks on Instagram (#captureParklandia). Although this is a very bad photo, I have a picture of my favorite sculpture, Theodore Roosevelt, Rough Rider, which is actually located in the South Park Blocks, right in front of the museum.
The Tuileries Garden exhibit runs through September 21.

Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show 2014

I made it to the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show this past Saturday in Sisters, Oregon. There were quilts lining the storefronts on three streets (each stretching about six or seven blocks long). It was a super hot day and the quilts were great. Here are a few pictures...

This quilt titled Tile Works III is by Mary Kay Price. The description reads "Hand dyed cotton fabrics brushed with Shiva Oil sticks to suggest tiles." I think it looks like stained glass too.

"What Does the Fox Say?" After close examination of the photo I could see that this quilt was made by Elizabeth Hartman and is titled Fancy Fox. This is a nice coincidence since I am currently finishing up a baby quilt for a relative and I based it on Hartman's instructions for her Small Plates quilt from her book "The Practical Guide to Patchwork."

The Central Oregon Modern Quilt Guild's theme was the Ohio Star.

 Some quilting detail.

 Ric rac embellishes this quilt and also outlines.

 Landscape quilts.

 Whimsical quilting.

 This reminds me of glass mosaic tiles.

 The Portland Modern Quilt Guild's exhibit area.

A Spider!

We found this yesterday. We believe it is a folding trapdoor spider. From what I have found out, they are not dangerous. We would have put something next to it to show how big it is, but neither one of us wanted to get anywhere near it. You can see the ants in this photo for an idea of how big it is.

Happy 4th of July!

Enjoy your 4th of July festivities!

Ahh, Sweet cherries

Cherries are now at the farmers market and so I bought 6 pints (4 of dark red cherries and 2 Royal Anne) over the weekend.
I washed and pitted 2 quarts to get them ready to can. I used a light sugar syrup and ended up with 3 full pints from the boiling water bath and a half pint for freezing. The canned cherries come in hand somewhere around February when we always seem to get in the mood to eat chocolate cake topped with some vanilla yogurt and canned cherries.
After canning I had about a quarter cup left over of yummy cherry syrup that I added to some plain Greek yogurt for breakfast!

Canning season is upon us

Our local Master Food Preservers from the county extension held a Food Preservation Fair. There were different stations with information on everything from juicing and dehydration to canning jams, salsas and meats, to name a few. So you can imagine there were also lots of samples. I came away with a few yummy things I want to try: rhubarb orange jam, pizza leather, and spiced tomato lime jam.

Colorful flower box

Some cheerful colors to brighten your day.

Nikko Blue Hydrangea

The hydrangea is now blooming its vibrant shade of blue.

Cannon Beach Sandcastle Contest

We went to the 50th Annual Sandcastle Contest at Cannon Beach this past Saturday.


I have never seen so many cars on a beach before. They were all gone before the tide started to come in at the end of the day. This is Haystack Rock in the background.

 Vitruvius from the Lego Movie.

 Olaf the snowman from the movie Frozen.

 We loved these balls that are perched on top of sticks.

 It's amazing how many tools were needed.

 The Great Race story of the Chinese Zodiac.

 We tried our hand at making balls of sand. Use super wet sand for the base and then coat the ball in a layer of dry sand, and keep repeating until it is the size you want.

Waiting for blueberries

A couple berries on our early variety blueberry bush have turned blue. And it looks like we will get lots of berries from the other bush, which is of a later variety.

McKenzie River excursion

We took a drive part way along the McKenzie River, east of Eugene, on Father's Day weekend. The boys had fun throwing rocks and a pair of river rafts floated past us. Hatcheries are a fun place to drop in on. We stopped at the McKenzie Fish Hatchery where there is a small interpretive center. The Leaburg Fish Hatchery is also located nearby.