July and Counting

Ian got serious about Frankinplant and spent time each day trying to reduce the 15 square feet of roots in the area just outside the back door. This the last "carpet" of roots he pulled out.  It's been a nightmare to deal with.  There were irrigation drips to the two mother plants which were surprisingly small for the amount of roots they produced.

This is the tag that was next to the last mother plant and now it makes sense.  It's native to Southern states and in fact, Missouri lists as a noxious plant.  It's noxious alright!  We have two more areas to clear and then I think we'll leave the area for a year to ensure we've gotten all the bits of roots left behind.

The hardest part of moving to Bend was leaving my daughter and her family behind in Reno.  They came up Friday for their first visit since our move.  It was also Kiernan's 17th birthday that day, and in spite of just having had shoulder surgery on Wednesday to repair a Bankart lesion, he wanted to spend his birthday with his "Oregon family."  The last two hours of the trip were pretty miserable but he rebounded quickly and enjoyed his party.

By the time of the 4th of July barbecue at our house, he felt well enough to play cornhole and since he was playing with his nondominant arm, the kids all agreed to play with the same handicap.  They all surprised themselves at how well they did.

It stays light late this far north so we ate and they played some more.  We left our house about 8:45 and all went down to Josh's work which is very close to where they light off the official display at 10:00.

I almost missed this sweet shot with DIL Julia and Alexia.  Sammie was happy to see Alexia. They're both twelve now so kind of grew up together.  Alexia brought her flute and played for me which really warms my heart since it's her mommy's flute that we bought her in 5th grade and Alexia started playing in 5th grade.  She's taking private lessons now and practices at home which really shows. What a treat!

When we got to Josh's work yard, we lined up our cars, sat out lawn chairs and opened up the back ends of our cars for extra seating - our own private viewing.

We went early to set off the "legal" fireworks.  Oregon is huge on them and there were tents all over town the past month selling fireworks and in fact, Costco had a big display just inside the entry.  It took an hour to light all of these off and meanwhile people were shooting off rocket fireworks all over the place.  It's illegal to sell them here but legal to sell them in Washington.  Ian stayed home with the dogs because they were terrified.  The traffic afterwards was mind boggling.  It seems that everyone had driven to a park or similar vantage point for viewing the fireworks go off on Pilot Butte and everyone was going home at the same time.  The roads were so choked by cars that it felt like an evacuation.  After I got home and in bed fireworks were still going off in the neighborhood.

It's been a whirlwind visit for all of us and especially for the cousins.  We went to the High Desert Museum yesterday which they absolutely loved.  They went to the lava tubes on China Hat Road today which are underground caves, much too athletic for my blood and I passed on that outing.  We did meet up with them this afternoon for the farmers market downtown and I love it that my "Reno family" had such a good time. I'm very sad that we met up tonight for pizza before saying goodbye until I don't know when again.

Somewhere in all this I managed to get Maudie Mae warped and I'm starting on dishtowels for the Christmas sale.  I went to my weave-study group today while the kids were climbing around in cold dark caves, and as always I came away excited about weaving.

I thought I was going to have to leave early and get back to the Cancer Center for my radiation treatment but they called me while I was driving up to Redmond to tell me that the machine was down again.  That's the third time and so my finish date is pushed back to July 21st, sigh.  I was originally scheduled to finish on the 18th.  I know it's just a matter of days but it's a head game.