Day: September 24, 2017

Orange Door Project: Side Yard rehab

Project time!  We are making a nice path from the sidewalk to the edge of the backyard.  I look forward to not walking through mud (in the winter) weeds (in the summer) and cat poop (year round.)

Here are our “before” photos.  Side yard from the fence to the edge of the yard.  Big weedy mess. 

From the fence to the sidewalk: big weedy mess.

From the sidewalk looking back to the fence:  big weedy mess, though that is mint that I planted.

The side yard is a Fall 2017 project. After that, we will tackle the backyard, which is a Spring 2018 project.

The plan for the side yard: clear all the vegetation, dig out 4″ of dirt.  Add back in 2″ of gravel, landscape cloth, a layer of sand, flagstone, then more gravel.  I’m very excited to be done with this project and have an easy  passage.

Hike to the top of Mt. Sylvania

I’d never heard of Mt. Sylvania, but here was an urban hike, so we went for it.  We started at McNary Park, which had a nice mist going.

Most of the hike wound through the largest planned community in Oregon, which sits on the border between Portland and Lake Oswego.  There were a good amount of tunnels to walk through.  I observed that Lake Oswego tunnels do not stink of urine.

A few houses ring the top of Mt. Sylvania, including this one, custom built for astronomy, and with an awesome weather vane.

On a clearer day you can see a very long way.

This was also one of those hikes where I had no idea where I was most of the time.  Just after I took this picture of this house that utilizes much Deco glass, we turned the corner and, “oh hello!” there was the car.

An obituary that caught my eye

You know how you hear about people having to cross state lines to get married (Mildred and Richard Loving, for instance) and you think that perhaps that only happened in the south? (Maybe that’s just me, thinking along those tracks.) 

Here is a woman who had to cross the Columbia River to marry, because Oregon didn’t allow a white man to marry an Asian woman.  The rest of her life is also interesting.  What stories might her parents have told her, of their life in China?  And what stories could she tell us about being an orphan at 16?  Or her experiences volunteering for the Rose Festival and the Portland Rose Society?