Sunday Brunch

Whew, I am glad that this week is over.  What a busy week we had.  We were not home one night this week.  I managed to make it to five of the seven home baseball games, while Scott made it to three.  In fact, Monday night, Tonja and I were picked to sit in the best seats in the house.

Two nice leather recliners right along the third base line!  The weather is starting to get warmer and we no longer have to pack in our snow jackets for the evening.

Scott and I made a quick trip to Salem on Friday.  I had a meeting for work, but we managed to fit in a quick side project.  I’ll let you in on that one a little later in the week.  I haven’t had time to work on it yet.

I wanted to catch you up on the yard/glass project.  As soon as the weather turned nicer, the grass grew really fast and the dirt dried out to where it was too hard to do anymore digging for the year.  I called it quits on the digging and took my six full buckets into the house for cleaning.  When I say cleaning, I mean that I soaked the glass in hot soapy water and then washed each piece individually with a toothbrush.  It was time consuming, but there really was no other way.

This is the pile that I ended up with:

This pile contains all sorts of finds. 

There are the remnants of an old Wesson container:

Various types of handles:

Lots of pieces to something that was painted a very shiny orange and blue.  I can’t figure out what it supposed to be because these pieces are all shapes and sizes:

These pieces must have come from a window:

And these pieces make almost a complete crock:

There is blue glass:

Glass with Texture:

Glass with writing:

Even glass with painted flowers on it:

There are whole bottles:

Just bottle tops with the lids still attached:

There is even a pot with a lid:

My favorite is a bottle top with a marble stuck in it:

Yes, it is wedged in there.

Now, you might ask what one person would do with all this glass they have collected.  I picked up a large old crock and an old pickle jar.  Between the two, they are pretty full. 

If anyone else has any ideas how to properly display shards of old glass, I would love to hear them.

One last note: I was done in the yard for the season, but apparently someone else was itching to get it.  On my way to work Tuesday morning, I noticed some tire tracks in the gravel headed straight for our fence line.  Someone was nice enough to drive through our fence line and then leave. 

The downside is that Scott has to spend time and money fixing this.  But the upside is that the culprit was nice enough to leave behind some good fishing gear and parts to an orange pickup.  Hmmm, I’ll be keeping my eyes out for an orange pickup missing parts.

Sunday Brunch (Wait, What Day Is It?)

Do you ever have those weekends where you bounce from one thing to the other?  Where you just go, go, go, and by the end you are so exhausted that you can’t even remember what you did?  The kind of weekend where you take extra days off just to fit it all in.

This past weekend was one of those weekends.  We headed up North first thing Friday morning with a truck loaded down with stuff for my parents garage sale.  I am sure that people on the road couldn’t tell if we were moving, heading to the dump, or just plain crazy to be hauling this junk 250 miles just to sell it for pennies on the dollar.  I am pretty sure that my husband fell into the category of thinking I was crazy.  It’s not crazy, it tradition.  Every year, my parent’s subdivision holds an annual garage sale day.  We participate every other year.  This happened to be the year.

We spent Friday rounding up everyone’s stuff.  Between my parents, my sister, and us, we had quite a variety of items for sale.

Everything was priced and ready to go at 8:00am Saturday morning.  At 8:01am, the sky opened up and the rain came down.  This was a shock from the warm, sunny day on Friday.  But, this is Albany, the Willamette Valley! A little rain never stops anything.  Within ten minutes, we had a crowd.

Another ten minutes went by before my dad and Scott made the executive decision to put up the pop-up tent.

The pop-up tent helped (as long as you didn’t stand under the sides that would unload puddles of water when you least expected it!)

My dad is the salesman of the group.  He hates to see people leave with money still in their pockets.  He even told several customers this very thing.  As the day went on, he was wheeling and dealing.  Everything had to go.  He and Scott where happy to tear it apart, box it up, or load it in your car.

In the end, we made close to $400 between our three families.  This was awesome considering the weather and the lack of advertising.

The garage sale was just the first nine hours of the day.  We had enough time after cleaning up to get cleaned up ourselves before attending my niece’s Summer ballet recital.  This was her first performance on her toes shoes and she looked beautiful!  I was very proud of her.  We all went out to dinner after her performance and made it back to my parent’s house around 11:00pm.  What a long day. 

We woke up Sunday, had breakfast, took a truck load of stuff to my sister’s house, loaded up our stuff to take home, and headed down the road towards home.  We didn’t make it far before we had to stop at the new Cabela’s store in Springfield.  I am thinking that every other family within a 200 mile radius thought it would be a great idea to take their dad there for father’s day. It was so crowded that we would get stuck on the aisles.  It was too much and we left without purchasing anything.  Maybe we will go back on a day that it isn’t crazy.

From there we went another 30 miles to the town of Dexter.  They were having their weekly farmer’s market at the park, so we stopped by there.  In addition, we stopped at a roadside strawberry stand to pick up a half flat of fresh strawberries.  Last official stop was for lunch in Oakridge.  The four hour ride home took about seven hours in the end.

We made it home in time to do the Sunday chores of taking out the garbage, cleaning dog kennels, cleaning the liter box, three loads of laundry, cooking dinner, and sorting through three days of mail.  Ugh, we were exhausted by the time our heads hit the pillow last night.

This week isn’t looking any better for having any downtime.  We didn’t even bother with the weekly grocery shopping because we won’t be home together one night this week.  Summer officially starts tomorrow and it is supposed to be 90 degrees here.  A far cry from the 60’s and low 70’s we have been experiencing.  A few days of hot weather is nice, but I for one am hoping that it doesn’t stick around very long. It might be time to get the dog’s pool out and go for a swim.

I would like to end by wishing my mother a Happy Birthday today.  I won’t tell you how old she is, just that she is very wise for her age.  I love you mom!

Sunday Brunch (just a little late)

This past weekend was free fishing day in the State of Oregon.  Free fishing day means that you don’t have to have a license to fish.  It also means that there are events held at lakes and fish hatcheries for kids to learn how to fish.

In preparation for free fishing weekend, Scott got the boat out last weekend.



Ummm, yeah this is redneck fishing at it’s best.  The dogs were having so much fun that Scott made a couple of laps around the yard.



Unfortunately, Scott didn’t a have motor for his boat, so they didn’t end up taking it fishing.  Neither one of them wanted to row.

Dusty and Scott headed up first thing Sunday morning to Lake of the Woods.  Luckily they got there early enough to rent a boat.  One that actually had a motor on it.



Dusty had to take it for a spin just to make sure everything passed the test.  The boys decided that getting a boat and getting out of the crowd was the better way to go.



After a few hours of trolling the lake by themselves, Dusty and Scott turned their boat back in and met up with Andy, Treva, Michael, and Devon.  They were catching fish by the bucket load.



Everyone was having a great time.



The boys came home sunburned, tired, and happy.  It was a good day on the lake. 

Sunday Brunch–Part One

This week, there will be two installments of Sunday Brunch.  There is a lot to report from the Brainard home front.  Tonight’s report will be about the opening of the Gems Baseball season.

First, a brief history of Gems baseball in our town.  The Gems (which are a type of potato, in case you didn’t already know that) originally played in the Basin from 1948 to 1951. 

The stadium, originally named Gem Stadium, was renamed for longtime youth baseball supporter Estin Kiger.  The ballpark is one of two all-wood stadiums left in the United States.  Sitting at an elevation above 4,000 feet, baseballs travel much farther at Kiger than the other sites of league opponents, most of which are right around sea level.

Scotty and Emily came over on Friday to go to opening night with us.  Over 1,700 people turned out, which is pretty good for our town.

Only at a small-town baseball game can you go to the beer stand and come back with a six-pack!

And only at a small-town baseball game is your mascot a large carton of French fries that answers to the name of “Tater”.

Friday night’s game ended with the Gems beating the Bend Elks by a score of 5-2.  Although the weather has not warmed up, none of us had to put on our heavy duty winter jackets.

Saturday night Scott had to work so Tonja and I went to the game.  It was a nice night at the park and, again, the Gems beat the Elks in extra innings by a score of 3-2.

Tonight was an earlier game, and the last in this series with the Elks.  Prior to the game, the OIT Softball team was introduced.

This team won the NAIA Championship a couple of weeks ago. 

Pitcher Jackie Imhof was named Player of the NAIA tournament.  That could be in part because she threw a no hitter in the semi-finals.  She threw out the first pitch of tonight’s game.  I am not sure if the Gems catcher has ever had to catch for a girl, but I think he was pretty impressed by Jackie’s pitching.

The lighting was better today because it was an early game.  Scott took his extra zoom lens.  Here are a few of my favorite shots from tonight’s game.

Tonight’s game broke the winning streak with a loss by 5-6.  It got pretty intense in the bottom of the ninth inning, but we just weren’t able to pull it out. 

Next game, next Friday night, against the Wenatchee Applesox (the defending league champions).  This should be a real test for our team.

Tune-in in the next couple of days to find out what happens when you leave the boy scouts unattended in your yard, and Scott’s idea of redneck fishing.

Sunday/Monday Brunch

The weekend is over, well almost over.  There are two more loads of laundry to do before it’s officially over.  Today was basically driving home, which took about six and a half hours.  We caught up with Scotty and Emily in Lakeview, while picking up a few groceries for dinner.  That was a special treat.

Yesterday was full of doing all the tourist things there are to do in Sumpter.  Ok, there are really only two things, but we did them both.

We started out by taking a ride on the Historic Sumpter Valley Railroad. 

This railroad dates back to 1890 and was built to haul timber and gold from the mining town of Sumpter.

Scott was so cute, I have to show you part of this picture blown up.

He wore his Burlington Northern Railroad hat that he packed especially for this part of the trip.  He was just as excited as the little kids were.

We boarded the train in Sumpter and it was all downhill from there, literally.  The trip to McEwen is downhill from Sumpter. 

I think because the weather was yucky there were not that many people on the train.  We were lucky that we were able to sit inside one of the enclosed cars.

Once we reached McEwen, the engine unhooks from the front of the train, switches tracks, goes around behind the train and stocks up for the return trip.

First, the engineer fills the boiler with water from the long metal tube.  Then he loads the engine with wood for fuel, to heat up the water, to make the steam, to make the engine go.

That lasted about 3/4 of the way back and then we ran out steam.  It took about 15 minutes to build up more steam.  We were about a half hour late getting back to the station.

While we were waiting on the steam, the Conductor came around and punched all our tickets.

The train ride was fun.  It would also be nice to do it in the good weather and sit out in one of the open cars.  There were a few brave souls who took that ride, but they were mostly children.

After the train ride, we headed over to the dredge and took a tour of that part of the Sumpter history.

Because we were late getting back on the train, we had to head over to the dredge fast in order to catch the last tour of the day.  The history of this type of gold mining is fascinating.  I can’t believe how people come up with huge pieces of machinery.

We had a great weekend.  We bought a few treasures at the swap meet.  We ate Philly Cheesesteaks and elephant ears.  We toured some history. We got away for the weekend.  It was so nice to have four days away, not having to think about anything else.

This week, baseball starts.  I can’t wait to share that all with you.