Welcome to the jungle.

That is, our garden. It's growing like crazy! Check it:

Pole Beans,

Cucumbers,

Corn,

and Tomatoes (5 kinds!).

And the lovely harvest.

We be jammin.

Sauvie Island + picking berries until your hands look like those of a cold blooded murderer + a ten pound bag of sugar + Molly doing all the work while I eat berries = flippin' phenomenal jam!

THE Refrigerator

The Criders came over for s'mores one evening and we got Caleb a little sidetracked with some kitchen demolition. Turns out the wall behind the cabinet is in good shape, just needs some paint.


So we put in an order for a lovely, and more importantly, large refrigerator! She was all set for delivery last week, but when she arrived the guys who came to install her didn't believe it could be done. They stripped off her doors but still couldn't get through. In fact, we had to refuse delivery. But I just couldn't give up on that fridge, so before they left I made them measure the back door one last time. Meanwhile the other technician was able to remove the one stubborn pipe that didn't want to fit through the doorway. Victory!


When they connected the waterline they found a leak in the wall. Our "first response man" Benjamin came over and worked his magic to fix the leak and we were in business. Take a look! Isn't she a beauty? We love her with an everlasting love.

Thank you!

Garden

Corn!

Backyard Garden

We are growing: onions, tomatoes, spinach, kale, lettuce, turnips, radishes, carrots, potatoes, corn, cucumbers, raspberries and beans.

We backfilled the retaining wall and planted some flowers and succulents.

Updates

Last night we enjoyed dinner on the patio with the other Evergreen girls house.

Tonight we did some yard work, and finally started edging the walkway.

I thought the lack of dishwasher would be the biggest downfall of the kitchen.  Turns out I don't dislike doing the dishes by hand as much as I did in the past... and the refrigerator has proven to be the weakest link!

Up next: our creative bathroom storage solution!

The man of the house

Meet Oscar, our weather boy. Or, as I-who-cannot-hold-my-tongue tell guests, "Come to the kitchen and say hi to Oscar the stripping weather boy!"


How Oscar came to live with us is another story, but as his 75-page instruction manual says, he's the "here's how to dress!" guy that lives inside our mini weather station. In this photo, he's sporting a sleek ninja ensemble. (Notice in the bottom right corner that it hit 80 yesterday!)

When we first met Oscar in April, he was wearing an overcoat, scarf, and hat almost every day. Now he tends toward the ninja look, or a modified version I like to call his Grease outfit--black jeans and a tight black t-shirt. Occasionally he gets out a beach chair, though he still pulls out the umbrella many days.

I don't trust his predictions much (he's holding an umbrella tonight...maybe I just don't want to believe), but we're really all waiting for when the weather gets really hot, because then the manual promises us that Oscar will strip down to his beach wear: nothing but creepily small boy shorts. And then, I guess, we're supposed to do the same. Perhaps that will finally scare the neighbor's chickens to death.

We are making excellent use of the oven

Rhubarb pie, in honor of the landlords. We ate it with relish (figuratively) and ice cream (literally, and lots of it).