In a tent

We took our first camping trip of the summer last weekend. It was a quick trip to Columbia Hills State Park near The Dalles, less than an hour and a half from home, but Alex and I were keen on seeing the petroglyphs there. We even signed up for a guided hike! But first we hit the lake for some fun. Well, they did. I hovered around the shoreline.

Splash!

 

Run! He's right behind you! Run!

Watching a colorful freight train in the distance.

The park was pretty open and grassy, but it held a few surprises:

On our hike we learned about petroglyphs (carved in stone) and pictographs (painted images) found in the Columbia River valley. Many were removed and relocated before the Bonneville Dam raised the water level dramatically in the '50s. Others, higher on the cliff walls, remain today. How old are they? Well, our guide was vague..500ish years old.

Our guide Dylan

 

Our motley crew of explorers wove through the valley, complete with parasols.



Here is what we came to see: Tsagaglalal, also known as "She Who Watches". Uncommon in that it is both a petroglyph and a pictograph, She Who Watches is thought to represent the death and disease brought by early white people. Dylan told the Native American tale of the female tribal leader who promised to watch over her people forever. She was warned that the coming white people would never accept a female leader, and after a ferocious multi-day battle with a tricksy coyote, was smashed onto the cliff wall and defeated. There she remains today watching over her people. (It was much better the way Dylan told it).

I think we tired out poor Ole. He hitched a ride on the way out.



Then it was back to camp for a little rest and relaxation.

 

 

 



 



Back on the bike

We're back to our loveliest summer tradition--the after-dinner bike ride down our country road. The blackberries are nowhere near ready yet, but every ride we talk about how we'll pick them when they're ripe.

There are lots of opportunities to get off the bike when we ride:

To show off road rash.

To get a boost above the tall grass.

To show Dad the geocache we found in the crook of this tree. It's a plastic severed foot--it had me a little nervous the first time I spotted it.

The shadows are getting long. It's time to head home.

One last look at that view. What a beaut!

 

Springing along

Things are really moving along this spring and we're hustling to keep up. A package of new bees arrived to replace one hive that didn't survive the winter. It has a distinctive sweet smell and a nervous hum.

 

As I installed the new hive, I noticed the old hive was really large and acting kind of funny. Sure enough, that hive swarmed the very next day and, despite my best effort to woo them back, took off and made a new home in a tall, tall tree. Good luck to them, I say. So I'm holding steady at two hives.

Ole watched the action from the top of this giant pile of compost we had delivered for the garden.

Most vegetables are planted in the garden now; I'm just waiting on warmer weather for a few things (like my precious, precious tomatoes). Here are the sugar snap peas and radishes, already much larger than when this photo was taken and this blog post was started:

First taste of sunshine and fresh air.

Tomatillos headed for the garden.

We've been talking a lot about camping as we prepare for our upcoming weekend camping trip, and I stumbled across a fantastic idea...tent naps! We had a perfect run of two days, so that's a success in my book. As I write, he's restlessly flopping around in the tent set up in his playroom, so it's not a perfect system.

And a quick nod to summery evenings=so wonderful.

Not again!

We heard a hummingbird zipping through the gym the other day, and when we stopped to look we realized it was trapped inside and confused. I hung a feeder and it quickly stopped to drink and drink. Apparently, a trapped hummingbird can starve to death within an hour! 

It must have flown in through the open French doors, but it kept flying up high looking for an escape at the roofline, zipping nervously the whole length of the building back and forth. I figured that since it had a feeder now, it was best to just leave it alone. Besides, there was no way to catch it. We left the doors open overnight figuring it would eventually find the very obvious way out.

But no. It was still fruitlessly searching for an escape the next morning. I hung a second feeder right in the doorway and turned on all the lights. He flew to each chandelier and perched.
By this time I'd done a little research. I had assumed that this was a juvenile hummingbird, maybe a recent fledgling, not yet savvy to the human world. Again, no. It's an adult male Rufous Hummingbird, just clearly not a terribly clever one.

Eventually, he worked his way over toward the door, and casually sipped his way around the feeder. I saw the moment he realized he was outside, 'Oh', and he flitted off into the lilac bush, probably exhausted from his ordeal.
I closed up the gymnasium that afternoon, lest he find himself trapped again, and found this tiny remembrance...a feather.

Getting growing

Every early spring I aspire to grow all our vegetables from seed and enthusiastically press them into pots of fine soil. I water them and place them in a sunny windowsill. Nearly all of our south-facing windows have an overhanging roof above them, however, and every year I watch my tiny seedlings sprout and reach for a bit of sunlight they never find. They grow ever paler and leggier until they finally collapse in defeat. This year I finally smartened up and set up shelves and lights in the basement. How about that...it really works!

Everything I planted is alive and growing, but the tomatoes are especially robust. We've got Heinz for canning, Sunchocola cherry tomatoes, and Brandywines for slicing. I've transplanted them once into larger pots, but they're almost ready for another size up.

I'm glad they're so happy under the lights because they'll be there for a while. I started them awfully early, and it'll be cold and rainy outside for another two months. Just keep on growing!

Bun Bun's first bike ride

I think she liked it!

The child's gone wild

The weather here has turned shockingly lovely, so much so that I declared yesterday 'Outside Day' complete with lunchtime picnic, lounging in the sunshine, bare feet, dinner from the grill, and all that good stuff. Ole has taken right to it, of course, and by the end of the day was covered in sand and dirt with a black eye and a bloody nose--but no complaints until it was time to come inside. Okay, the injuries sound much worse than they were, but I do think the boy has gone a bit wild.

A tree climber just like his mama!

"Careful," I said drowsily from my sunny blanket.

Even tough guys need a snack break.

The wee baby chicks have become teenagers already, so I moved them to a more spacious home in the gym where they can roam around a bit more but still be safe. They, too, got to enjoy Outside Day in the grass and sunshine. 

And here are a couple photos in the garden where Ole helped to replace a fence post from inside the hole. Muddy muddy muddy!