Tag: Kenton

Walking in the snow.

I got up early for a walk in the snow.  Here’s the view from just down the road.  As you can see, there have been few cars, a few people and one bike out and about before me.

Walk sign covered with snow.

Partial obscuring of street sign by snow.

I think that no one will want this couch.

A rare sight in Portland!  A shoveled walk!

Portlenders are very good at hunkering down in the snow.  We’re stalwart through the worst driving rain, but everyone just gives up at the first sight of a flake.  Example:  it’s 7:15 in the morning and I was the first person to walk on this stretch of sidewalk.

It was a blowing snow, so there were some fun shapes.

I shoveled my walk, though.  When shoveling happens only every few years, it’s quite fun.

I set out later for another walk.  Here I cut through a pristine alley.  But you notice a bike has been here before me.

A van, but what’s this?

A bit of snow graffiti.  This was sweet graffiti.  My friend captured a picture of a car where someone had written “PENIS” and another passerby had amended the word to “DENTIST”
More drifts of snow.

Icicle.

Goodbye to house.

I can’t say I’m sorry to see this house go as it has been boarded up since at least 2007, when I moved to the neighborhood.  Plus, once a gang of homeless people had a huge fight in the backyard while I was walking by and the bad vibes have never dissipated.

I felt compelled to make a record of its being though.  Poor house.  Too bad no one took care of you.
Any bets about what will replace it?  It’s sandwiched between a gas station/cheap tobacco store and a house that has a coffee shop.  I’m guessing it will be commercial rather than residential, but you never know.  Then again, it could just become a vacant lot.

What’s the plan for the tree?

I’m walking out the door for a day of playing Settlers of Catan (I know you are jealous) and I see that my neighbor has people doing work on his parking strip.  They’ve pulled out all the bamboo and have hacked off several branches from the Flowering Plum.  I figure they are just doing a rough cut for a rather aggressive pruning job and go on my way.

But when I look out the window the next morning, I find that the work appears to be complete, for there is mulch spread all over the parking strip, yet the tree has been hacked to bits, and still left standing.

What the hell is going on?  I hate flowering plums.  We have one in front of our house too. They were planted along the street when the Max line went in and you can see two on the other side of the street in this picture.   I think they are ugly trees, save for the four days in the spring when they are blooming.  I’ve wanted to replace ours with something more pleasing to the eye since the day we moved in. But I haven’t because it would ruin the uniformity.

However, I would never just chop it back like this and leave it.  It’s ugly.  Either take the tree all the way out, or trim it properly. 

Worry.


I’ve had my eye on this corner since I moved to Kenton.  I love the uber-tiny house on the left and all that space just ready for a fabulous yard.  But the large tree that was on the lot has been removed.  And I’m worried that that large yard space will soon be gobbled up by a large house much like the green guy next door.  Who once upon was a much smaller house with a larger yard.

Oh infill, will there be any tiny houses with big yards left by the time I’m ready to move?

House and lot.


I’ve had my eye on this house since I moved to the neighborhood because it’s right by downtown Kenton, plus it’s a tiny house on a huge lot.  It looked like old people lived there and I worried they would die or move before I could buy it from them.  I could do a lot with a lot that size, even with that big tree plopped in an inauspicious place.

Sadly, the house went on the market in September and sold pretty quickly.  And there are suspicious signs that the huge lot will soon be no more and there will be a tiny house on a tiny lot and a huge new infill house on what was once the rest of the lot.

Phooey.