The garden 20 years ago, when it still had a good view of the city!

Last Wednesday we decided to take a break from all the working and organizing and planning of lately and go for a little road-trip.
We'd talked about re-visiting Portland's rose-garden, where we'd last been about 20 years ago, and since it was a beautiful sunny day we went for it.
The International Rose Test Garden is a rose garden in Washington Park in Portland, Oregon, right next to the Japanese Garden and the Zoo.



There are over 10,000 rose bushes of approximately 650 varieties and they bloom from April through October with the peak in June, depending on the weather.

   

New rose cultivars are continually sent to the garden from many parts of the world and are evaluated on several characteristics, including disease resistance, bloom formation, color, and fragrance.



Portland's nickname is 'City of Roses’ and the garden is it's signature landmark.

It is the oldest continuously operating public rose test garden in the United States and draws an estimated 700,000 visitors annually.

The garden is situated on a hill above the city and parking close by can be an issue, since there are not that many spaces available. We planned to be there quite early, around 9.30, which was a good thing because we snatched up the very last one!

The entrance is free but you pay $2/2hrs to park, which is unheard of for Portland!

Well, we definitely managed to hit the garden at it's peak bloom! 

Pretty much all the roses were blooming which made for an absolutely stunning view down the hill and over all the flowerbeds that were just bursting with colors!

It took us about 2 hours to leisurely stroll the meandering paths, taking in all the sights and especially all the smells!

These last ones were some of my favorites, with their yellow buds that turned into orange/pink flowers!

We'd brought some coffee and cookies and found a sunny spot to sit down. The weather was beautiful, but this early in the morning it was still somewhat cool in the shade :

  

Closely watched by a whole bunch of, rather tame, ground-squirrels ... they were happily munching on some juicy new shoots but they were eyeing our cookies ...

                                                

We walked the steps down to the end of the garden and than back up again to the top from where you can overlook the whole garden and from where you used to have a view over the city (like the picture at the top of this post, which I stole from the web).
In the 20 years we hadn't been there the trees had definitely grown and nowadays you only have a few little peaks of the city in the far distance :

By than it had warmed up considerably, and we sat down again for a while for some more coffee on one of the benches where you can overlook the whole garden.

We watched quite a lot of groups of volunteers (mostly women) who were deadheading and pruning. I guess a garden like this can use some help in peak-season!

      

It's hard to stop making pictures when there's this much beauty around every corner!

                          

We debated going into Portland for some more sight-seeing and lunch but we'd had such a nice, peaceful and relaxed morning that we just didn't feel like having to deal with traffic or people or parking so we drove back towards Newberg and stopped for lunch at Sophia's Cafe in Sherwood instead.

This little Mediterranean restaurant, that offers Greek and Lebanese meals, had been on our radar for a while but we'd just never made it there ..yet.
We ordered a lamb gyro plate and fried vegetables with hummus and fries:

It was delicious! We'll be back!

And that's all she wrote for this week I'm afraid, not much else going on ..
We're still waiting on the permit from the county to come through, so we can move to our permanent spot, and are doing some daily weeding, mowing and pruning of the site.
I can't wait to settle in properly with everything hooked up and in it's permanent place. For now it feels like we're still sort of camping and might (have to) move any day.

We're keeping our fingers crossed. Hopefully we hear something soon!

 

This is the best picture I could get of one of the two young robins I spotted in their pretty little nest in the maple trees behind the barn.
Their parents are flying on and off feeding the hungry little tykes .. except when I take position behind the nearby shrubs to take a picture. I can wait till I'm blue in the face, or more accurate until my arms cramp up, but they won't come near the nest as long as I'm there!

We're having beautiful weather, not too hot and not too cold, and if it was up to me I'd keep it like this all summer long!
The vegetable garden of our landlords is going gangbusters, we've been told to pick up the pace eating lettuce, asparagus and snow-peas since they're growing like crazy.
We're happy to comply!

Their arbor at the driveway, which was completely covered with that beautiful Wisteria a couple of weeks ago, is now sporting two beautiful varieties of different roses:

                                                          

(And it looks like that Wisteria is having a second bloom as well!)

      

James has been working hard on several appraisals this week and I have accompanied him when he went out to measure them one day.
It's a lot easier to do with two people, one calling out the numbers and one writing them down and creating a drawing, although things got a lot easier with the introduction of lasers a couple of years ago which has eliminated the fumbling around with a tape-measurer!

On Thursday and Friday he helped Dan (our landlord) to tackle one of his 'projects' for our rent-barter.
They painted the new pump-house (they're on a well) the same color as their house.

It had been partly primed but that's as far as Dan got and he sure appreciated James' help in finally getting it done!
Just like with measuring for an appraisal, it's a lot easier and faster with two and of course James has all the necessary tools which helps a lot as well!

I've been tackling a few other projects. One of them being the 'saving' of the grapes!
During our first visit to the property in May all that was visible of said grapes was that patch of brown, dead looking branches there on the foreground.
They used to grow over an old arbor that had slowly deteriorated and this winter it had finally given up the ghost and collapsed ...

                                   

When we arrived a couple of weeks later, this had happened!

    

                         

Not only had the vines started to send out new shoots but half of the leaves belong to ... blackberries! Vigorous, nasty, mean old blackberries!

Dan thought there where 6 different vines under the whole mess but exactly where they were was anybody's guess ..

Needless to say, it wasn't a very fun job to untangle the whole mess and figure out what was what and what to cut or save or lead whichever way ..
Many hours, bloody scratches and a lot of cursing later I finally got it done. It was unavoidable that some of the new growth was lost due to the tangles but at least now the rest has a chance.

Who knows, we might even get some grapes!
(These are table-grapes by the way)

Mowing the grass is a weekly occurrence in the spring, and we've taken responsibilty for about an acre of it, but since we haven't had much rain, and that particular area is not being watered, it's already starting to turn brown so we can slow down at that chore.
Which is nice, since this meadow is a little bit of a mine-field right now.
Compliments of this little dude .. well, little .. it's actually quite a hefty guy, for a gopher!



Talking about our barter for rent, we've agreed on 10 hours (between the two of us) per week but since there won't be as much to do in the winter we'll be doubling up on them over the summer when most maintenance as well as any special projects will be done.
Of course it's a new situation for both of us and we'll see how it works out.
We've made lists of things to be done and we confer almost daily about who is doing what or who needs help with anything and I think as long as we keep communicating and expressing what we like or not or what could or should go different, we'll be just fine!

Time will tell, but so far so good!

This is a picture of the little lake I came across when taking one of my first walks behind our new property.
Exploring our new surroundings is one of my favorite things to do after a move, and so far I'm liking what I see.

The neighbor's property next door used to be a nursery, where they grew a large variety of plants and trees, but since they moved to a larger area they are renting out the land to someone who uses it to grow a different crop each year.
Last year it was garlic, which you can still smell when the wind comes from a certain direction, and this year it's clover and grass/hay.
A small pathway is left at the sides, perfect for walking around the fields ..

After about 20 minutes I reached the lake (from the picture above) and another 10 minutes later, here's looking back at it from the other side ..

Eventually I'll reach the road we're on, Kings Grade, that brings me back to our place, which you can just make out there in the distance ..

Besides spotting the Canadian geese there in the lake above, I was accompanied for a while by a couple of loudly screaming Red-tailed hawks who were flying quite low over my head, circling and swooping  ..



In one of a couple of small groupings of tall trees I passed I discovered the reason why ...

I'm not sure if this is one of the adults or a rather large chick,
almost ready to fledge?

 

But lets get to the most exciting news of this post already ... THIS happened!

              

Yes! He passed! And on his first try, whereas statistically 1 in 3 people fail!
I'm so proud of him and we're so happy that this whole ordeal is finally behind us!
No more studying! Yahoo!
And to top it off, only 8 hours later an e-mail confirmed that his license was issued, which usually takes 2-3 days. (He'll get a hard copy over the mail in a couple of days)

So, time to celebrate! Open the champagne! Have some deviled eggs!
Which we did ...

           


But, no rest for the wicked, James already worked on some of our bartering hours by doing a little welding on a broken down lawn mower ..

    

A little grinding of the welds and some touch up paint and it was good to go!

We've also worked on 'bushwhacking' an area at what is going to be our permanent spot, which is overgrown with ivy and blackberries:

               

Believe it or not but I've actually done most of it (James was still studying at the time), but there was nobody around to take a picture so James is of course taking all the credit ..

And look what I found at Home Depot the other day:                                                   

                                                       

I was looking for a hanging basket to hang from my awning as I do every year but I just couldn't get over the $29.95 price-tag! I know, I'm a cheapskate, but seriously? 

Bimart had some for $19.95 just before Mother's-day but they were sold out by the time I could get there.
So, when we ended up at Home Depot for something else, I wandered over to their plant section, only to find the same $29.95 prizes.
But than a very friendly cashier pointed out a rack with priced down plants that didn't look that good anymore, or were a little past their prime ... for $5! Ha!
I picked one of the best looking ones (and another $16.95 pot of petunias for the same $5), and after deadheading them a little after I got home they turned into fine looking plants! Score!

Well, that was about all for now. Here's a last pic of James making pancakes and bacon (and eggs to follow) for breakfast.
The weather is absolutely perfect at the moment with temps around 74-82 so the BBQ gets a lot of use again!