October Was My Turn

When you make friends with bloggers, the friendship can include finding a way to visit. For those of us able to travel, it’s kind of fun to get creative about how and when to show up on the doorstep of a long-distance friend. This October I had not one but TWO blogger friends come to visit me, and I feel so fortunate that it was my turn.

Ms Marlene from In Search of it All came to Portland for a bucketload of catching up with old friends. She said she would be here anyway, to buy shoes, so she added on visiting. I think that is a good reason to go to Portland! Please any of you reading this who need shoes, come to Portland, and then we can meet for lunch.

On my way to pick her up from her other friends house where she stayed, I passed a cute display on the front lawn of the Milwaukie City Hall. Marlene was game to go right back there and see what the heck it was all about, so before we went to eat, we explored the Halloweeny scarecrows.

I looked this up and discovered that the city of Milwaukie (a Portland suburb) hosts a scarecrow contest every year. This year there are three categories of scarecrows:

• Traditional or Contemporary Scarecrow: Think outside the box and create a cutting-edge creation OR give us your interpretation of what you think of when you think ‘scarecrow’.
• Character Scarecrow: Create a scarecrow based on your interpretation of your favorite movie, television character – human, animal or animated!
• Group/Organization Scarecrow: Create a scarecrow that represents your group!

• Headstones in the lawn included:
• Dearly departed brother Dave. He chased a bear into a cave
• Your Name Here
• Claire Voyance. Should have seen it coming.
• Aaron Judgement. Accidental death.
• Mary Aster. Should have walked a little faster.
• Here Lies Sam I Am. Who despite his better judgement ate green eggs & ham.
• Ricky D. Bones
• Fester N. Rott
• Jim Wattsisface. Gone but not forgotten.

My companion was tired at the end of the day at the end of an exhausting week, and when I asked if we should get a photo together, she said “No.” But I had already stealthily taken one of her. Forgive me, friend. I love you so much I took one without asking.

Look at Marlene’s great post on this display. She captured lots of scarecrows and gravestones that I did not.

After exploring all the scarecrows, we went out to dinner, and Marlene insisted on buying my meal. I argued a little bit, but then let her win. I say “let” her win, but you should try to out willpower Marlene. It simply doesn’t work, and I realized I had met my match. After lots of hugs I said goodnight and goodbye and she left soon after to fly home to Arizona.

Since I’m on a Halloween theme anyway, let me throw in some fun pictures from a recent weekend with Pedro and his twin boys. We went to the most popular pumpkin patch around here, which is on Sauvie Island. It was pure madness. Cars were bumper to bumper from Highway 30, crawling all the way to the parking lot. I had my heart set on walking through the corn maze, and all the men supported me. Then we stood in line for treats of caramel apples and roasted corn. Then we went home! So many people were there we had zero interest in hanging around any longer.

But!! The corn maze was huge and somewhat private, and quiet and peaceful, so it was enjoyable.

Last month, Pedro and I had visited a different pumpkin patch and purchased pumpkins for our home. He painted his and I love it so much I just have to share the photos he sent me:

It’s harvest time at home too. I stopped battling the deer and finally took down all my garden plants that were in the yard. The deer had eaten the tomatoes back to stumps. Apparently, they don’t like tomatillos, so I had a big harvest.

Also this time of year, the many many maple trees slowly let their leaves drop. This careful dispersal of leaves onto the driveway means that I am constantly behind on cleanup. The first year I was here I did not understand what piles of leaves do when left on the driveway: they turn to mud, which in turn encourages weeds to grow in the driveway. So now I am forced to clean them up. I also need to climb up on the roof multiple times and dig the leaves out of the gutters.

I usually check my email first thing in the morning, then I do not look at it again until first thing the next morning. For whatever reason I happened to glance at my email in the evening and saw a note from another blogger. Curt and Peggy Mekemson from Wandering Through Time and Place would be in the area as part of a long road trip. Would I be around the next day? Whew! Thank goodness I had looked. I would have been heartbroken if I missed them. I invited them to park their RV at my house and stay the night.

We met up at the highway in Rainier and I led them into the hills to my house. I had it all worked out beautifully in my mind, how easy it would be for them to pull right into the loop driveway, then park as they were. Then simply pull forward in the morning. I worried about this little kink in my driveway on one side, where there is a fencepost next to my woodshed, but I took a good long look at it and thought they would be just fine.

Oy. No. The little S curve required to get between the fencepost and the woodshed was simply too tight for the truck and trailer to get through and I felt so terrible for getting them stuck. They had to back out of that S curve onto the main road again. Peggy drove and Curt gave directions and then their backup technology failed, but after a long time of frayed nerves and me running out into the road to stop oncoming traffic so no one plowed into the RV, we finally got them parked on my lawn up by the main road. Yeesh. Peggy said she needed a hug after that, and she had certainly earned one. ❤ They told me the previous night, visiting another friend, the same exact thing had happened. Oh my goodness.

Anway, my friends were here!!

I told them that I had been so pleased to visit their home in Southern Oregon (back when they lived in Southern Oregon), and recognize all the scenes that I had learned from Curt’s blog. Now it was their turn to look around and see if they recognized scenes from my blog.

They certainly recognized my kitty Racecar.

I knew they had been driving all day and would want snacks, and I had just the thing to put out. Remember all the tomatillos? Earlier in the week, Pedro had honored me by bringing his molcajete over to my house, and he gave me some instructions on how to make salsa that he had learned from his grandma. I roasted garlic and peppers and about twenty tomatillos, and then began the surprisingly hard work of grinding it all up.

The next morning Curt & Peggy bought my breakfast at a local cafe and then with lots more hugs, I sent them on their way down the coast to continue their road trip as they make their gradual way to Florida for holidays with their kids.