Red Dog

Last week our dog Red had his last day at the age of 15.  We have had him since he was 8 months old after getting him from the Humane society in Boise Idaho in July 2004.  He has been through many adventures with our family.

  • He was part of 8 moves to different houses including 2 new builds
  • He has been with us living in two states as well as an overseas assignment in Wales, UK
  • He was around for all 4 of our children's births and has been a major influence on their love of animals due to his gentle spirit 
  • He was my climbing buddy to many of Idaho's tallest peaks including a number over 12,000 ft and we continued this with many high regions of Oregon.  I can't count the number of nights he slept with me in the back of my pickup truck.
  • He swam in every bit of water he could find, no matter what the temperatures
  • He never once bit or even so much as growled through years of kids sitting on him, pulling his ears and tails

It was a beautiful day and he had one last time to be in his favorite spot - the water.  

Here is a video collage of his life with us starting from his very first day through to his last.  We will miss you Red dog.    

Weekend in Portland

Abbie had a Irish Feis this weekend in Portland and tonight we went and saw Lauren, Paul and Eleanor Breithaupt. Aunt Ginni was in town visiting so we had a wonderful evening all being together. Eleanor is a doll and Abbie and Eleanor had a fun time playing together.

Abbie 4th Town

Abbie has an economic system in school where they are given job assignments and they are paid each week and have to pay rent etc.. Once a month the students bring in things in from home that they have made and they sell them at Town. Abbie looked up how to make homemade dog treats and she made them all by herself and packaged them too. She sold them all and even some of the others teachers at school came in and used the school money and bought them. So proud of Abbie!

DIY Woodshed

Since we moved into our house a couple of winters ago I have stacked wood on the south side of the house off the garage. When it snows the wood gets wet the last think you want to be doing is clearing snow off when its cold out.  I decided I wanted to build a partial open air woodshed to stack the wood in.  It would be partially open on the sides to allow airflow to help the wood dry but also covered to keep the majority of the snow off.  

In the late summer I slowly started the tedious job of planning out the size, and layout, followed by leveling and squaring the cement deck blocks that would be used as a foundation.  Once this was completed I ordered a load of gravel and rented a bobcat to pour in gravel around the bases to level the floor of the shed which would be made of compacted gravel.  From here I ordered the wood which showed up last week.  I worked at it during the evenings after work and a little on the weekend.  All in all it was done in less than a week.  A much more reasonable project than the crazy garden project from the spring.  

 I have learned that the key is not to rush in the beginning and be sure to get the posts squared up right.  If this gets messed up you spend a lot of time trying to fix issues later.  The picture above shows the posts going in with a few board nailed in to keep them straight and square.  I used cedar for the front posts and the cheaper pressure treated posts for the inside back as no-one will really see these once the wood is is and everything is stained. 

Here is a couple pictures with walls up as well as the roof rafters installed.

Here is the completed structure including 1x4 face board on the front of the rafters and the roof strapping that will be used for attaching the corrugated roofing.  The second photo is the completed structure stained (Messmer's - Oxford brown - same as the stain on portions of our house)  I also added a black decorative "T" bar to the middle post.  I am thinking I will try to find a couple of similar black "L" brackets for the upper corners to hid the metal braces.    

Final shot with the roof added.  Now to load in the firewood for winter!

  



5th Annual Fall boys camping Trip - Big Lake OR (2018)

We just got back from our 5th annual fall boys camping trip in 2018.  This year we went with some friends that the kids go to school with and the location was Big Lake near Hoodoo ski area West of Sisters.  Dad Patrick with boys Severin and Ben.  Big lake is actually a bit of a misnomer, as the lake isn't that big but it was super 'blue'.    

Previous years:

This year we went the 3rd week of September so we didn't have to worry about deer hunting season (rifle).  I think the 3rd week of September will likely become our defacto standard going forward.   This year the weather was colder and rainy, but we were up at 5000 ft so that could have been part of the reason.  Due to soccer games we got a late start Saturday afternoon so the trip felt shorter than usual.  Going forward we agreed that even if their is soccer games, we might just skip them and even make it a 2-night deal Friday and Saturday.  As with previous years the requirement for this trip is that it cannot be car camping, and must have some sort of 'remote' aspect to it even if just a little.