weekend!

Young Cameron from the McMinnville shop recently looked at me with a bright smile face when I answered question about my weekend and said, "Hey, last year was my first Portland summer. What I learned was, they go quick. Better stop and enjoy it now!" Lordy, why is it that so much of the best advice I get is from the mouths of ... younger people?

No question about the potential for burnout in this year-of-building-and-little-else. Even my cell phone was laughing at me on Friday when the appointment bell went off and I looked down to see "Seattle to Vancouver", the 200 mile bike ride that as of March I had still planned on doing. THERE'S BEEN NO TIME OR ENERGY FOR TRAINING, I yell at the darn overrated little iphone. Doesn't it know how hard it is to build a home and help run a business in a recession? Isn't it supposed to be Apple Corporation sensitive, maybe offering condolensces, even a massage, rather than this naked unemotional pre=progammed reminder?

But... all is not lost and by golly we live by the Willamette River, near the confluence of the Columbia. We've taken to heading toward Astoria at the Pacific, never getting there, but instead pulling over at one or more forever stretches of soft sand to pick berries, swim, watch the boats.. er, ships, go by.
I love that Portland is a working port. My understanding is that much of the wheat in the west goes through here, coming down the Columbia on barges and trains. Don't think that these bad boy ship captains will yield, or that they are going slow. They won't and they aren't.

Went tubing with Brian and Penny of Cedar CreekTimber last week. His boat is very fast. We had fun, although we flipped once and poor Maxine bruised a rib. 35mph makes the water surface seem hard indeed. Ah, the risk of the wild side. She'll be moving slow for a bit, with a game face and a painful grimace.
The flip was about ten seconds after this clip. I asked for a re-take.



Monday we're spraying the Enjarre clay plaster wall coating. There's been a pleasant response to blog announcements and eblasts. It's exciting, honestly, to be the first project in Oregon with this new application method of a great and natural wall coating, and the first we know of the whole house, ceilings and all, finished in American Clay. We''ll be continuing the spray and then the hand work for the next two weeks, if you want to stop in. These shots are from Friday, when Josh and Noel from The Traditional Natural Plaster Company, with help from our own Michael, all got into the rhythm of the first day of the project.