Some pictures from down the road a ways...

I love this road. It's really green right now, usually really mossy. Here's some pictures of what it looks like along the road. Kinda pretty, huh. I'm partial to it, I guess.
Here is another road off of that one. I love how the mossy trees look with sunshine filtering through them.

I want that....bridge...

Yep, that's what I want, a bridge. Actually a piece of a bridge. An old bridge from an old highway near me. They are removing the old bridges on this road, and I just love those mossy old ones that have been there forever. I'd been meaning to....but didn't ever get around to...going and taking a picture of this bridge when it wasn't being removed. It's over a creek, and in the winter and spring, there's a pretty good water flow coming down it. Up above is a small falls. It is beautiful to look from the mossy bridge, up the creek, to the falls. I've looked at that view so many times and now it not going to ever be the same. Well, it was getting pretty rickety I guess.
I stopped at the work site and talked to the demolition people and asked them what they were going to do with the handrail. They're going to haul it to the dump! Well, I told him, I want it, at least a piece of it.
I figured my husband would have a fit over that. Just a 4-5 foot section, the guy said it could be hauled in a pickup and he'd put it in for me. Last night, my husband and I went up and looked at it, and guess what??? He wants it, too! He wants to put it in a different place I wanted it, but, hey, if I get it I'll be glad. Just can't stand to think of the whole bridge just disappearing, it's a heritage thing I guess!

Our Small Town 4th of July

For a town with a population of 1800, yep, 1800 and one stoplight, we have a lot of fun on the 4th of July. We call it Clatskanie Heritage Days, I believe we called it the Clatskanie Scramble. I think Heritage Days is actually a better name, at least for a lot of Clatskanie natives.
In my 49 years, I think I've only missed a handful of Clatskanie 4th of July celebrations. There've been times when I haven't appreciated it as much, but this year, I was especially sentimental about the celebration.
When I married my husband, our family teased him a lot because he was an "outsider". Now that we've been married 23 years, he is well-rooted to our area, our home. He moved a lot before he got cemented in here, so it is also for him a place where his "roots" are now. Plus, we've raised our kids here, our kids have all, from age 30 to 9 (yes, there's a gap, huh?) have all romped in the hills around here, built forts, swung on the same tire swing that now my grandchildren are also playing on. I love my homeland!
We get to the parade early, like an hour and a half early! We set out our chairs, get ready to wait....
and visit with the same people we meet in the same spot every year LOL. It's a huge family reunion. The kids get set up to gather the candy thrown to them from the floats. Usually some family members are in the parade to throw a little extra. This year, my daughter Chantel didn't ride her horse in the parade, but my mom was in it because she is a Columbia County "My Fair Lady" Princess! Each city in our county has a princess, and we're proud of mom!
Well, as we wait....we visit... we see people we haven't seen in years...
The parade starts, this year the Boy Scouts carried the flags for the Veterans of Foreign Wars, as they are getting to difficult for the Vets to carry. Those men I've seen carry those flags all my life, some have already gone. We see the fire trucks, the clowns, the business floats, actually a lot of floats for a town our size. Many (or most) throwing candy to all the kids. Then there are the John Deere tractors of all shapes, sizes, and ages. I immediately thought of my Father-in-law, who just passed away last August. He was a John Deere dealer, loved the tractors, actually died driving his tractor. Died doing what he loved, farming. His dream. I got a little teary-eyed thinking of him, seeing his friends driving their tractors. I looked back at my husband and he had one of those moments where it hits you that your dad is gone. My parents are still alive, but I knew that was what happened. It hasn't seemed like he's gone so often.
After the parade, EVERYONE goes to the park to celebrate, to visit, to see more old friends. They had the carnival rides, the cotton candy, the curly friends, snow cones, lattes...the annual chicken bar-b-que put on by the Kiwanis. There were petting zoos, political booths, fancy old cars, the logging show, and tons more.
I saw a friend I haven't seen in 20 years. We were talking about our little hometown. She grew up, couldn't wait to leave home, live in the big city, have the career, and now....She's missing home, her roots, the coolness of our area compared to Phoenix. Well, come on back home. Get some property, get another horse, slow down! I started thinking about how only a couple times had I wanted to move away, but I love my homeland. I'm so blessed!

Beautiful weather, fun junking, and we even got things done!

This weekend, Kristin, my sis and her two daughters, my SIL and her daughter, yep 7 of us loaded into Kristin's SUV and headed EARLY up to Battleground area to go to Barn House. What a lot of fun and laughs we had, as we spent the day oohing and ahhing over all the neat stuff we saw, got to enjoy that beautiful area, sit packed in with stuff, since we didn't leave enough room to haul home treasures...We had so much fun at Barn House! Talk about inspiring! I'm still surprised that radio in the photo above didn't come home with us, Kristin loved it! We were looking forward to once again seeing Natalie, but a family tragedy had called her to Arizona. Missed you Natalie!

After leaving Barn House, we hit every yard sale just about along the way to the highway, until it got so hot we could stand it no longer. Found some more awesome treasures, stuffed them into the car. Went out for lunch, took my niece back to her home in Longview and on the way hit still more yard sales. I found an awesome old rickety ladder for 2 bucks!! Yeah! Couldn't fit that in, so my niece brought it home for me.

It was so hot, I was glad when we finally got home and jumped in the pool, ahh, that felt GOOD! I love days like that! Somehow, when you're out like that, you always meet nice people, and we met this lady, who takes some awesome pictures. I'll be sure to watch her blog and see what she's been doing!

Wonderful Finds This Weekend!!

Well, this weekend was very rewarding, as far as treasure hunting goes!! We decided to take the day to goof off, and Randy always knows what I love to do! So, we spent the day garage saling, and going to estates sales. Today, dd Kristin and I went back to the estate sale for half-off day. We found some pretty neat things, even though not a lot primitive, which I love. Still, I found some neat goodies to stock in my Etsy shop!





Did you see this orange Thermos pitcher and cups? I remember my Grandma had those! I love wooden strawberry boxes, too, so I guess I did find some "prims"! The bright blue thing is a roulette wheel/ashtray, you don't see those everyday, right? How about the vintage golf shoes? They were barely worn and in really nice condition! I love the pink clock, don't you? And the 70s shower curtain was a neat find!

I'll put the pokeno cards on my Etsy supply section, and look at those unique cards, I think they're for learning the Phillipine or Japanese?? language, not sure which. The estate sale was for a lady in her 90s who is Japanese, but was married to an American serviceman, and lived in Japan, Phillipines, all over.

Kristin found some pretty neat things, too, so we had a blast!

What a fun day-I did no work!!!

Yesterday was my birthday, and two of my grandsons came and spent the night at Grandma's to help me celebrate! Are you kidding??? They came to spend the night with their uncles! Yep, my boys are 9 and these two grandsons are 3 and 5. So you know, when they come to Grandma's house, I have to trip them at the door and remind them that, yeah, hey, here I am, the Grandma they came to visit! Oh, I know they love me, but it is a little different having young kids and grandkids at the same time.
Well, of course, they had to build the fort out of blankets and a card table. They had their cups laying there from the frozen fruit they consumed last night, they had their wet clothes all over the bathroom from their hot tub frolick last night. Aidan, the 3 yo, got up and said, "I'm hungry Grandma." Well, there was no cereal, so I said, how about if Grandma makes you pancakes? "No, I want flapjacks, not pancakes". So, here I was making panca.....FLAPJACKS, I get a phone call from Natalie, a friend we thought we'd totally lost track of. I have to talk on my cell phone out on the porch, I talked awhile, then remembered (because of the burning smell) the panca...flapjacks. Natalie was in our town, so of course I wanted to visit with her and invited her out. She had Joe (from Barn House) with her. I hadn't met him yet, but I thought how cool, cuz we wanted to get out to his sale in a couple weeks, so that was neat to meet him.
BUT, when I got off the phone, and started into the house, LOL my whole house was dark with the smoke. So, we opened all the windows, turned on the fan, started getting the messes picked up. I figured, like I always do, I'll give it my best shot to get my house ready for unexpected company and what doesn't get done, oh who cares???
It was sooooo good to see Natalie. Her and Joe were on a hunting expedition for primitives in our part of the country. They were going to stop at our shop, (bummer, we're not running it anymore), but at least we got to see them! BTW, click on the link to visit Barn House, you will love it, and I am anxious to go to their sale in a couple weeks!
Then my friend Bonnie treated me to lunch for my birthday and we sat and visited until after 5! So, it has been a fun day.

Did I tell you...I got chickens!

Well, we've raised chickens several different times over the years, and in several different ways. I once designed, yep, all by my own brain LOL, the last one that was a frame made of PVC pipe wrapped in chicken wire, with a couple of nesting boxes with hinged lids at one end (OK, Randy designed the nesting boxes, he is a carpenter after all!). You could move it around, worked great, but for some reason we gave it to our friends.
Well, I'm sick of the egg prices here in Oregon. So, I thought, let's have another chicken house. This one has turned out sooooo cute, I can't wait to decorate it LOL. I was going to try building it with my kids, to give Randy a break and do another honey-do project instead, but.....he got involved, then him and the boys took over! At first, I was a little taken aback that he used recycled tin for the roof, but he said, "well, you like the primitive look, don't you?" So, what could I say?? But he put the old paned windows in to give out hens some light. Now it's too cute for a chicken house! Not complete yet, but this week hopefully, it will be.
So, here's my chicken house so far, and look at my awesome egg crate!!! My sweet daughter got it for me for my birthday at a show we were in a couple weeks ago. What a deal, we found it for $10. !! I told her to let Randy know that I wanted it for my BD, but she said she'd be the one getting it for me. They marked it down from $20. and I said, "Thank you Kristin!!" So it will be under the overhang, I'm thinking. Cute, HUH?