Hiking Springville to Germantown and Back

Our path today.

Aaron and I hiked a total of about 6.6 miles today.

We started out at Old Springville Road and hiked down Hardesty to Leif Erickson. We followed Leif Erickson all the way to Germantown Road. From there we took the new Canon trail up to Wildwood and followed WW all the way back to Springville.

Stream Violet - Viola glabella

AKA - Yellow Wood Violet

Thyme-Leaved Speedwell - Veronica serpyllifolia

Indian Plum - Oemleria cerasiformis

Western Trillium - Trillium ovatum

Salmonberry - Rubus spectabilis

More Trilliums

English Ivy - Hedera helix

More Salmonberries

Indian Plum

Mud

Red Flowering Currant - Ribes sanguineum

Pileated Woodpecker - Dryocopus pileatus

Aaron saw this one first (and ID'd it).

Unfortunately I made too much noise while catching up and only had the chance to snap this one blurry picture.

Oregon Grape - Mahonia nervosa

Sword Fern - Polystichum munitum

Blue Skies

Licorice Fern - Polypodium glycyrrhiza

Raindrops on Fruit Trees

Sun and rain on our neighbors plum (?) tree.

Our pear tree.

Spring Snow

Surprise snowshower

The weather the last couple days has been very strange. Sun, snow, rain, hail - sometimes all at once.

Aaron's Birthday

It was Aaron's Birthday, so we went to Imbrie Hall after work.

Isil brought a beautiful cake from the Beaverton Bakery. The cake was excellent, but there was a draft and the candles had to be relit at the table.

Aaron, Isil, Deholi and Sara

The table including Sami

The outdoor fireplace.

It was a cool evening, but we all enjoyed sitting by the fire. One of the bartenders even came out and split some more wood for the fire while we were sitting there.

Deholi smiles - another view of the fireplace.

Fire is mesmerizing.

Another pic of the fire.

Shopping for Huckleberries

Rooster Sculpture at Farmington Gardens

Sami decided we should have a huckleberry hedge along the sidewalk in our front yard. It's a good idea - huckleberry is native to this area, it's rather pretty and it has tasty berries. Also it will help keep the school kids and their trash out of our yard (we live right between two schools).

Anyway, I first stopped by Bethany Nursery (photo) since it's right across the street from work. Their huckleberries were kind of small and I thought the price was a bit high, so I only bought two.

I decided to go to Farmington Gardens on my way home. They have a huge selection and I thought they might have more varieties of huckleberries and maybe better prices too.

Anyway, Farmington Gardens had a bunch of these cute rooster sculptures. I don't think I'd want one for my own yard, but I did like them.

Rooster #2 & Rooster #3

My shopping wagon

This may be common at garden centers - I don't know. Anyway, I liked the wagon.

Farmington Gardens is huge and they have 4 of these big greenhouse areas plus fields of other plants outdoors. I had to go to the far corner to get the huckleberries. I only got two of the huckleberry bushes because they were more expensive than the ones at Bethany and a bit smaller too. I also got a couple little lingonberry bushes and some herbs.

The Sauna is Home

We bought a modular prefab sauna from Finlandia Sauna.

Although they import the stoves and rocks from Finland, they build the panels from local wood at their factory - only 15 minutes from our house.

View inside the shop.

There were lots of guys working in there, but I didn't want to intrude, so I didn't take pictures of them at work.

Sami decided this must be the best smelling workplace ever.

Sami finishes loading the sauna parts.

Both Sami and the guy helping us load the pieces looked a bit nervous, but I knew everything would fit.

The sauna is home.

Unfortunately our drywall mud didn't dry as fast as we'd hoped (it was a cold night last night) and I still have at least two coats to do before I can prime and paint the walls.

It will probably be Saturday before we can install the sauna in the laundry room - it's in the garage right now.

Garden Update

My favorite tulips

I don't remember the name for these and they don't seem to be selling them at the Wooden Shoe Tulip farm anymore. Maybe next year?

Kaufmannia tulip

I posted a photo of one of these tulips in an earlier post. I think they age very gracefully. The shadow was cool too.

Grape Hyacinth - Muscari

We didn't plant these, they lived in our yard when we got here. However, they seem to be in a different location than last year. Very strange.

Rhubarb is looking good.

Beautiful Dandelion

I haven't picked dandelions in two days, so we have a lot in our garden at the moment. At least they attract the beneficial insects.

Camelia

The Ceiling is In

Sami and I celebrated Easter by putting the ceiling in.

We had hoped to get it taped and put at least one coat of joint compound on it too, but we ran out of time. We did manage to replace the old home-made hack of a duct with a new (somewhat ugly and circular) one.

We also cut the holes for the speakers and got the lights in, which will be very useful for us when we're mudding late tonight.

Happy Easter!

Brown eggs dyed with food coloring.

Since tomorrow is Easter, I decided we'd better eat sausage and eggs for breakfast. The elk sausage from the farmer's market is surprisingly low fat and very tasty.

The eggs... were brown. I was afraid they wouldn't dye properly and I didn't have time to get more (because I only had about 20 mins to work on them while Sami was putting mastic on the ducts in the laundry room). So I went ahead and tried. I was pretty pleased with the results, though I didn't manage to get a nice blue egg.

Mushrooms and Magnolias

Unidentified Mushroom outside building 9.

I don't feel like we've had a very rainy spring, but I guess it doesn't take much. Mushrooms are popping up in the strangest places again. I even saw some on the greenroof on the new OHSU building the other day.

Another mushroom

Star Magnolia - Magnolia stellata outside building 5.

The magnolias are in bloom and they're smelling great. It was difficult, but I managed to refrain from picking them.

Another magnolia flower

Flicker in the Garden

Northern Flicker (f) - Colaptes auratus

I saw a couple of these birds in the park back in February, but today was the first time I managed to get a picture of one in our own garden.

Here's another picture of the flicker in profile.