Happy Thanksgiving - What have you given!!

27 Sep 10 – 15 Nov 10

We have NOT finished unpacking everything so the car will go in the garage. We still have some boxes with various things – Miriam cannot find her favorite cook book and I have not found all of the things I will need to finish some repair work on a bookcase. Our only BIG problem has been the heater going out on the water bed. It does get cold when there is no heat underneath. It was new when we were in Ohio in June and did not get used until we moved in, but I'm not going back to Ohio to get it replaced.

We are both in excellent health and have found a Doctor in Brookings. We have gone thru all the tests and physicals and the only bad things he didn't like was Miriam did not walk enough. She has been better about it since and she has a lady at church that keeps prompting here to walk. I caught L1's cold – I must have caught it over the phone, but I am mostly back to normal.

We have had overnight company a couple of times already. Miriam's sister and sister in law was up for three days and her sister and niece(Julie) were up for an overnight stay then went to Brookings. Julie is looking to buy up this way as she is into surfing and the water is fairly good from Northern California up to about where we are.

Our door is always open to anyone wanting to get away from the cold. We will even have a warmer house after the first of December as we are having a heat pump installed to get away from the electric baseboard heat. Thanks Prez for the tax break.

Pictures:
God is still in control.
Our view from the front window
ditto
California Quail – NO NO NOT Dan!

13 Sep 10 – 26 Sep 10

We are now home owners in Gold Beach, OR. Anybody who wants to come and enjoy the great weather, scenery, and small town atmosphere are welcome. We moved the furniture in this past week. We loaded the truck in Grants Pass on Thursday with the help on a couple of people we went to church with years ago and unloaded with some great help from people at the church we are attending in Gold Beach. Everything is not in place, but the waterbed has water and the table has chairs and we still empty boxes. We are finding that small house living has some challenges, but we will adjust as we now have three times the room we had in the RV. The biggest challenge is in the kitchen as we do not have all the cabinet or counter space we had in Braceville. We also love the fact there is not as much to try and keep up with. I will have something growing in the next week or two if it is only salad greens and onions. No big huge garden here, but I hope to be able to supply our wants and needs for vegetables except corn and a couple of things that require more space.

I plan on continuing this method of keeping you posted on the happenings in Gold Beach, but will only post on a monthly basis unless something of importance arises. I will try and post pictures twice a month to show the beauty of the area. I already have places in mind for picture taking, but I need to be there early in the morning and I have more pressing things to do. Even as I write today we have a landscape person cutting the hedge back to enhance our view of the ocean. He will also cut what grass is left after I make garden. I will NOT own a lawnmower or weed-eater here. I will post pictures of our view in the next post that will give you a better idea of why we both love this house.

We are already seeing birds migrating and using the river as a place to refuel. A lot of the birds of Ohio do not appear on the west coast so we are in a learning phase of those birds calling this area home.
We have pasture behind us so can go look at the cows if I need the fix.

Pictures:
The view from the living room used in the listing on line.
The front of the house used in the listing on line.
The waves breaking over the jetty – we had really high surf this past week. The fog horn is the structure you see.
Our neighbor – I call her Thanksgiving dinner. She was on the side of the garage on Saturday.

waiting

6 Sep 10 – 12 Sep 10

If nothing goes awry we should own a house next week Friday. All the paperwork is done – all the money is spent – all we do is wait. Miriam is ready to get out of the RV, but I on the other hand do not need to land yet. It is NOT spring and nothing will grow now so why do you need to have a house?

We haven't done much this week, but sit and watch paint dry. NO NO NO we are not painting – just a figure of speech to say not doing much. We go to the jetty and watch the birds – watch the sea lions – walk on the jetty and do both or watch the fishing. We have only seen a couple of 15 – 20 pounders caught. Everyone I talk to says the fishing is spotty. Miriam goes and watches the 'gun' boat. It is a boat funded by a local fisherman's organization using firecrackers and underwater percussion devices to keep the lea lions out of the fishing areas. They wreak havoc on fish and equipment when someone has a fish on the line.

No pictures as I didn't take any this week. We are both fine and looking forward to having a house.

We have not found a church home for sure, but we think we will be Baptists again for a while.

Another week in Orygun

30 Aug 10 – 5 Sep 10

What goes BLAAAAA for 3 seconds out of every 30 seconds? Why the green cylinder they call the fog horn on the north jetty at GB, of course. I think we have acclimated to it so it is not as obvious as it was at the start.

I can tell you a RV is not the place to try and make jam! We picked about a gallon and a half of blackberries up the river – ended up with them in 2 pans as the stove isn't big enough to use a large pan on. Started everything boiling with all the ingredients and had another problem – how do you heat jars and lids while you are using both burners? Needless to say – we coped, but it was a chore in very limited space. We have 5 pints of blackberry syrup as we used honey instead of sugar as the sweetener. We have already started using it in oatmeal and it tastes great.

We are just waiting for everything to happen on the house. I guess no news is good news as they say. We have done all the preliminary work on our end and we wait for the appraisal then all the money they want. It looks like it will be a couple of weeks yet at the earliest.

We are still trying to find a Church home and seeing the sights. We both are in great health and intend to stay that way.

Yesterday is History
Tomorrow is a Mystery
Today is a gift from God

How are you using your day?

Pictures:
Fish Hawk aka Osprey - I didn't get wet in that last dive, did I?
Steller's Jay – this is our Blue Jay
Surfing – one wind surfing and one kite surfing – they are dark because they have on a wetsuit

More Oregon

23 Aug 10 – 29 Aug 10

We are now working on all the things that have to happen before you can finalize a house purchase. Loan, insurance, utilities, where to park the RV and all the other things are taking some of our time this week, but we have had time to go look at different sites and watch the birds.

This weekend is 'Salmon Derby' in Gold Beach(GB) so we will watch some fishing also. We watched for about an hour Saturday morning, but had more fun watching the Osprey. While we were watching the score was Osprey 9 fish plus what looked like 1 eel to the fishermen's skunk. The weather was windy and the water was a little choppy, but the Osprey would take the fish out of the top of the wave. It looked like one will not be back for a couple of days as the fish looked it was a two or three pounder. I get a kick out of watching – pictures will come – of the seagulls chasing the Osprey when they have a fish. The Osprey always wins, but I guess a seagull must have won once or you would think they would give up.

After church this morning we went to the Farmer's Market at the Fair Grounds to see if they had anything good. We bought from the same people we bought corn from two weeks ago. It looks like we will have a little bit of non-store veggies, but not much. While we were there I had a chance to talk to the guy doing the selling as they were not real busy. I thought he said they were from in California, but they just have to go through California to get here. If you have ever been into California you know they have a vegetable – fruit – livestock inspection station as you enter the state. We have learned over time what they will permit and what they take so never have any of the things you will lose. Going thru the inspection station one of the things they are not supposed to permit is unshucked corn, but he had a whole bunch a couple of weeks ago and I asked if he had to husk all of it to get back home. He said NO. When he told me where they lived I even knew the place. Last December when we were staying in Cave Junction going back and forth to Grants Pass we passed his place every day. I almost put my foot in my mouth Sunday by asking if he had the place that could not spell 'corn'. Every time we went past I threatened to stop and take a picture because the was a BIG sign with big letters that said: “CRON”. I always thought it would make a good topic to make a spoof on – little did I know I would be writing about it today – no picture. He said we are across the road from the sign where they do not know how to spell corn – that is our last name.

Next week we will do more sightseeing and should have some pictures from the area.

Pictures:
Wrentit in Klamath.
Horned Lark in IA.
Do you wish you could sing like that.
All those clouds and no rain where we were.

Oregon again, Finally

16 Aug 10 – 22 Aug 10

Another week on God's wonderful earth. We arrived without incident – Miriam did drive the car as it was almost worthless to put it on the dolly for 75 miles. What a week we had – all settled in and found a church for Sunday before dark. The church was not a keeper, so we will try another in a couple of weeks. Next week we are going to go to Crescent City, CA to church and then to a quilt show they are having there.

We did move again on Monday, but stayed within the park where we are. We had the opportunity to move down closer to everything important – the restrooms and showers and we took it. This is one of the few places we stayed not having sewer hookups at every site. When the tanks get full we drive around to the dump station, but it is easier to use their showers and create less water in the tank. Now we can almost walk straight across instead of a city block or more. We are staying here for a month so this will eliminate one trip to the dump. The trip entails closing everything up and disconnecting from everything then reconnecting when finished. It is not a real big deal yet can take the better part of an hour.

We did do some driving around looking at different houses I had found on the internet at Realty.com. We saw two or three we will find a Realtor to go look at. We also have a new address – I will NOT post it, but if you send me an email I will mail it back. We spent parts of three days this week looking at houses and going out sightseeing in the afternoons. On one of our trips we saw bobcat cub – just bigger than a house cat going from the creek side of the road to the hills(no pictures). We did find some wonderful blackberries just getting ripe. It looks like I will have my work cut out for me one afternoon picking berries. These are those big Oregon berries as large as the end of any finger up to the first joint. If you find a good place to pick you can fill a five gallon bucket in less than an hour. I will make some jelly and Miriam will make some syrup. She can never get them to jell.

After much discussion and looking at more than ten different houses we went back and looked at one a second time. We made an offer Saturday afternoon and it was accepted later in the evening. It looks like we have found a home before Miriam's birthday, which was not part of her request. We have both enjoyed the weather here as it is in the lower to mid 60's without the humidity. Miriam said the other day - “Just like San Francisco weather.”

All but one picture is from earlier times and places:

On his way to Sturgis, SD
You have to name it – looks like Model A Ford running gear
Old three window Chevy pickup
1955 Chevy – that was our first car
Look at the size of the Fuchsia – over six feet tall in Klamath, CA

Back to nature

2 Aug 10 – 15 Aug 10

With three travel days in one week only to arrive where the internet is slow and I cannot upload pictures I decided to hold everything until we were in Oregon.

We spent a day in Marin County California visiting Miriam's brother and sister. Our day was one of catching up on family events – you know when you get older more happens – or you hear about more of the smaller things – I'm not sure which it is. We did not have any incidents going over Donner Summit except the one rest area where I wanted to stop and take a picture was closed. I thought I would get a picture of Miriam sitting on the rock in warm weather to go with the one I posted last November with her in the snow. No such luck!

We spent two days going up to northern California to stay a week at the same place we spent the first part of December last year. We had a wonderful time seeing what the fire is like when it was not raining. We did some sightseeing also at places the roads were closed last winter. We also stopped at one of those places that sell wood – Miriam loves wood. We bought a carved pelican for her birthday. It isn't as big as the one they had in the house when she was growing up, but it will have to do. We spent a day in the Gold Beach, Oregon area looking for a place to park when we move on Saturday. We looked at a number of places and chose the one right on the water. We will be there on Saturday afternoon and have to find a Church to attend on Sunday. It looks like I will get to make Miriam's wish come true – to be in Oregon before her birthday.

We will let you know how our first week in Oregon goes next week.

Pictures:
Goat at Rushmore – promised two weeks ago
River Otter – on the dock at Klamath, CA
Black Bear – across the river – We watched it swim across the evening before.
1964 ½ Ford Mustang – also promised
The last picture is for all you young people! That was how air-conditioning was done long ago – if you could afford it.