Good Morning!

Love - London Acres

What a week!

Without all the gory details I can safely assure you that this was one heck of a week. One funny (in retrospect) example was Monday morning as I was getting ready for work. I had to be in early so I was really trying to be aware of the time. I got up, fed the dogs, "made the coffee" and went out to feed the goats. Once in the goat pen I discovered that our mama - Dolly was NOT feeling well. Due to some over indulgence on her part after a stable breakout the night before there was goat EXPLOSION (that is really the best way to describe it) all over their stall. I finally get that mess taken care of and made my way back to the house. On my way past the kitchen to jump into the shower, I noticed another mess. In the process of "making the coffee" I had apparently filled the filter with grounds, poured in my carefully measured water and then proceeded to set the carafe on the counter with the end result being a counter and floor soaked in coffee. Ugh! And in case you were wondering, no the day did not get better from there.

The favorite part of my commute (and especially this week) is seeing Mt Hood in all her glory as I head home:


To help put this dreadful week behind me I celebrated a friend's birthday last night and had a BLAST. Sometimes you just need a little girl time! We went to Esparza's in Portland for Tex Mex http://portland.citysearch.com/profile/8470153/portland_or/esparza_s_tex_mex_cafe.html. It was pretty good - interesting mix of traditional southern food and tex mex. Afterward we made our way to a very cool bar named....I have no idea. It was one of those places that is "too cool for a sign" but really was fun. Here's a shot from outside.


Next stop was a local dive in Vancouver for some good old fashioned booty shaking (minus the birthday girl-I know you read this Jenny!). Sorry no pics! Needless to say Nick had to eat his tex mex takeout dinner for lunch today as his delivery was a little late.

My Favorite Question

I had an email this morning from an old friend asking the most frequently asked question these days - "How do you like Portland?" This is always a hard one for me because I actually do NOT live in Portland. Now before all the Portlanders get all up in arms, I am not saying there is anything wrong with Portland. Portland is a very nice town - cool people, yummy restaurants etc.. I work there Mon - Fri. It's a nice place.

I just happen to be a little partial to where I do live! I live in a village of Mount Hood called Brightwood. Brightwood is a small town nestled in the valley near the Sandy River. It is pretty much as far from Brooklyn as we could get and we love it.

Here are a couple pics to give you an idea of how wonderful Oregon is:

Stacked stones on the bank of the Sandy behind our house:


A picture looking into the valley from our kitchen window last fall. This really doesn't do it justice. I will have to get a more recent pic up later.


Me and some friends from the top of Tom, Dick and Harry Mountain. This trail is about 10 minutes from my house and from the top you get a wonderful view of Mt Hood plus Mirror Lake and Government Camp below.


Here are my mom and dad at the coast when they visited. Oregon has it all - mountain, beaches, dunes and waterfalls!


Hope you have enjoyed this peek into the great place we do call home. Now come visit!

Idle Hands

Nick and I recently wrapped up an amazing semi-staycation. We went to a beautiful wedding in Poulsbo WA, hung around the homestead with an old friend and fished at Lake Billy Chinook. The last weekend I took advantage of the time off to tackle one of the larger home improvement projects we had been putting off...re-finishing the metal cabinet in our kitchen.

Here is the "before". As you can see the cabinet was painted our former home owner's favorite color - dirty/muddy bluish gray (the entire kitchen walls and all used to be this color). Wonderful taste!



After MUCH stripping and scraping and sanding and buffing and sealing.....here is the finished product. To quote Nick "It looks like a thousand dollars!". I am very pleased with the outcome and glad to have literally survived the project (that stripper is AWFUL)!



Here you can see the metal detailing a bit better:

Jammin'

Yesterday our neighbor Ray came by and guided us through his world famous Blackjack jam recipe. The secret ingredient is Jack Daniels and we have yet to get a complaint from any of our taste testers!

The chefs:




We managed to make 12 jars of Blackjack. Me and the final product:


Labeled and ready for the pantry:


The Blackjack was so much fun that after that we headed to a friend's house to pick transparent plums. We hauled home 2 kitty litter buckets full of plums - Thanks Luke:



We added a little Captain Morgan's and have deemed it Plum Smuggler. Delicious! We picked more blackberries tonight and hopefully there will be even more Blackjack in our future.

Fruits of Summer

The cobbler was a huge success!

Here is a shot of the ton of blackberries we picked yesterday. Some of these went into the cobbler, the rest are being made into jam today. Our neighbor Ray is an expert jam maker and has invited us over to take part in making blueberry and blackberry jams. His secret ingredient is bourbon so Nick is super excited.



In case you need an EASY cobbler recipe, mine (courtesy of my mom and Southern Living) is pretty good:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Place 4C. blackberries in pan and sprinkle with 1T. lemon juice. Combine 1 egg, 1 C. sugar and 1 C. all purpose flour in bowl and mix until resembles coarse meal. Sprinkle over fruit. Drizzle 6 T. melted butter over topping. Bake 375 for 35 mins. or until lightly browned and bubbly. Let set for 10 mins. Then my extra secret - serve topped with vanilla ice cream.

We have been putting our Seal-A-Meal to the test lately! Here is a snapshot of our downstairs freezer where we are squirreling away our beans, berries and fish to get us through the winter.



The fish are courtesy of the London Boys and their recent ocean fishing trip off the Washington coast.

The view from the boat EARLY that morning:


The Fishermen:


Salmon fresh from the water:


Rockfish (Sea Bass) just on the boat:


They are predicting a drop in temps end of this week and winter will be here before we know it!

The Launch

Nick has been bugging for me a long time that I do not have a "hobby". As if chasing after all our animals, him and maintaining a living space in the wilderness does not qualify as a hobby! So...I have decided to start this blog. I remember when I was younger I really enjoyed writing and I hope that maybe this will be an outlet to re-ignite that passion while keeping up with friends and family along the way.

This blog will really just be the ramblings of our life in Brightwood OR as we enjoy our home and attempt to establish a somewhat sustainable life here in the beautiful North West.

Meet the actors:



Our Pygora kids - Reba (black one) and Loretta (white one). I realize I don't have any pics of their mama (Dolly) on this computer but promise to post her (and Luke the cat) soon.



Reba - the one with the pipes. Just like her namesake!



Some of the flock. We have 9 chickens total - Jersey Giants, New Hampshire Reds and Aracaunas.



Chickenhawk one of our Araucanas.



Cheeky Charlie one of the Aracauna ring leaders. Our favorite bird!



The boys: Mack, Truck and Scraps.



The farmers all dolled up for a friend's wedding a few weeks ago. The bride rode to the aisle in the Mustang - Awesome!

Gotta go pick some blackberries to whip up a cobbler for a friend's birthday!