Judy – Page 88 – Dear Liza

Animal Complications

Dear Liza,

We have been extra busy this week, keeping up with the needs of our fellow critters.

Mouse, before her allergy problems kicked in…

Mouse, our cat, has skin allergies which make her itch. When she was an indoor-outdoor cat in Salinas, we saw the scratches in her face, but assumed she had been fighting with local cats. But now that she is exclusively indoors, it is clear the scratches are self-inflicted. The vet tells us that she is allergic…. to cats?

She is on medication that soothes the itch, but it’s hard on her liver, and can only be given in small doses. So, for a week, poor Mousie wore the collar of shame to try and let her damaged nose heal. She was not happy. She walked around like a depressed lampshade.

Finally, her nose had healed enough we felt it was time to lose the collar. She is so much happier! Now, if we can just keep her from hurting herself.

Meanwhile, Cousin Kestrel has finally gotten her pet snake!

Kestrel has always been very sympathetic to animals. When she learned about hog nosed snakes, she became fascinated. She did hours of research to learn how to care for one, and worked with Auntie Katie to develop a vivarium for it to live in.

The vivarium has plants, insects, and sandy soil for snakey to tunnel into. It has a warming mat to protect against Portland’s chill and a humidity monitor to keep him comfy.

The snake’s name is Sir Issac Snooten. He passes his time underground, teaching celestial mechanics and gravitational laws to the isopods who eat his poop.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Cake Walk

Dear Liza,

Our spring has been alternating between rain and sun, so when the weather is nice, we get out in it! Grandpa Nelson and I headed out in Friday, with not much idea of where to go.

All sorts of flowers are blooming! The tulips are starting to fade, but azaleas and irises are going berserk. The colors are eye-smashing.

We continued south west, sort of in the direction of Ladd’s Addition, where Auntie Katie’s book shop, “Books with Pictures” is. The rose gardens had a few early bloomers looking good, with dozens more in bud, just biding their time.

Palio, a delightfully tasty and pleasant bakery/coffee shop on the Ladd’s Circle Park, has set tables and chairs out on the sidewalk. We ordered some delicious lemon custard cake and texted Katie with an offer. “Yes, please!”

Auntie Katie got her second vaccine just the day before and is on her way to being able to run her shop more easily. The business is doing well, mostly because she works hard to make sure she gets books to her customers. She has been driving to deliver all over the city for more than a year now. Exhausting, yes, but that’s what it took.

After a lovely chat and snacks, Grandpa Nelson and I headed back home through the Richmond neighborhood. It is full of craftsman style houses from the turn of the 20th century and hundreds of majestic trees and flowers bushes.

Portland is a cakewalk!

Love,

Grandma Judy

A Sunny Afternoon Out

Dear Liza,

The other day, Grandpa Nelson offered us lunch out at Monster Smash. It is a pleasant mile’s walk away and has yummy burgers and fries.
Belmont Station, the tavern just in front of the food truck, sells good beers and ciders. They also have a bright breezy patio with windows that open all the way up, making for a pleasant airy environment, more eating outside than inside!

The breezy patio at Belmont Station

We enjoyed the yummy burgers and such, and Grandpa Nelson had an English Reveille’s Cider, which is actually made in Astoria, Oregon, just about 90 miles from here.

When we had eaten ourselves silly, we headed down Belmont towards home, and along the way we found a new food truck pod, The Bite on Belmont. Auntie Bridgett found the coffee she was needing from Kind Coffee. It was tasty and the service was very friendly.

We made a quick stop for a six pack of Guinness at the Belmont Market and a to order a book at Belmont Books, and headed for home. We put our feet up and rested up for the Giants ball game later this evening.

I love that we manage to keep each other entertained!

Love,

Grandma Judy

Goslings at Laurelhurst

Dear Liza,

Just three blocks from our house is Laurelhurst Park, which I have told you about many times. It is my favorite place in the whole city.

And in Laurelhurst Park is little Firwood Lake. It is at the lowest point of the park, of course. It is the natural place for a lake, but it hasn’t always been there. Back in the 1920s when the park was being developed, folks thought of filling in the bottom part of the park and installing a baseball field.

But even then, they knew about drainage and flood control, and realized a lake would be a better idea. And it has been.

Year round, we have ducks waddling and swimming and doing adorable duck things. Spring brings ducklings, who bob about on the lake like fluffy corks. And now the goslings have come out to play!

Geese are always majestic creatures, tall and arrogant looking. But give a pair of geese a few goslings, and they become positively ferocious. Walking through the park this afternoon, we came across this pair and their young ones. Several folks were already watching, keeping a good distance. The pair remained vigilant but calm.

But when a lady came by with a dog, the geese called their goslings to them and honked up a storm, hissing and telling the lady and her dog to get the heck out of the area. The lady and the dog, wisely, did.

And peace returned.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Cuke Sprout Sighting!

Dear Liza,

I feel like I have been waiting FOREVER for my garden to really take off. The radishes, lettuces and carrots have finally poked their tiny green heads above ground, but the cool cloudy weather, along with some shade from a nearby camellia bush, isn’t giving them any inspiration to really GROW.

Frankly, I’m getting just the tiniest bit impatient….

And then, making a stop by on the way to the grocery store, I saw this. This intrepid, stalwart zucchini sprout, lifting his little green towards our lukewarm sun.

I also noticed my itty bitty lavender plant has sent up some buds. They are getting blue and smell great! Maybe we are gonna see some growth after all.

Come on, sunshine! Gimme an “S”! Gimme a “U”! Gimme an “N”!

Love,

Grandma Judy

Living in Layers

Dear Liza,

Before I moved to Portland, I lived in Salinas, where the land is very flat. The wide Salinas Valley runs for about a hundred miles, wide and flat. Down most streets you can see a long way.

Portland has a river, too, bigger and wider than the Salinas, but the Willamette hasn’t flattened things out much.

One of the few unobstructed views in town… down the river!

Portland has lots of hills and lots of trees. Looking at anything more than a block away involves looking through things. And I am loving it.

Having to look through things and past things makes my brain work harder, and ask questions.

Is it the house I love, or the view of the house beyond the rock garden and blossoms?

Would this flower look as lovely if it were all by itself? (Probably not, I answer myself).

And why does the moon just look prettier through trees?

Anyway, I hope you love the street you live on as much as I love mine!

Love,

Grandma Judy

Hundred Acre Wood Progress

Dear Liza,

We got some rain this weekend, so we had a mostly indoor time, and not much to tell about. I thought I’d share the progress of my new-baby bonsai, The Hundred Acre Wood.

This is what it looked like back in early March, when Auntie Bridgett and I found these tiny plants at the Portland Nursery. Left to right, they are a bushy little cypress, a tall larch, and a wonky cotoneaster. In their new home, they looked a little frail.

But a month and a half in, with nice shade and plenty of water, they are thriving. The cypress is bushier, the larch has sent out fabulous fern-like leaves, and the cotoneaster has gotten even wonkier. This winter, once it’s in dormancy, I will prune it so it has even more lean over the edge of the pot.

I love having the time to focus on these long term projects that don’t HAVE to be done ‘right now’, but need consistent care to progress. They are good for my brain.

Love,
Grandma Judy

Funny Cousins’ Zoom

Dear Liza,

Sometimes it is best to just stop making sense and be silly. On your birthday, we got together on Zoom for our regular art thing, and the cousins came along for the ride!

Jasper, Kestrel, and Auntie Katie joined us for a while, and you were ‘wearing’, via the zoom filter, purple lipstick. This led to Katie getting a lesson in filters, and then it just got silly.

I enjoyed watching it, though I couldn’t keep up!

Happy birthday, Liza! And next year we will celebrate it in the same room!!

Love,
Grandma Judy

Another Art Challenge

Dear Liza,

My friend Ruth Inman gave us another challenge this week. It was to use text as a background for a piece of art. She offered some pieces of text to use, but I wanted to do my own. I used some stencils that I just got last week and went over the letters in waterproof ink.

I got my acrylic paints and an old credit card and scraped some color over the words.

The greens and yellows are a good start….

One thing I really like about art, and the artistic process, is that you learn as you go along. If something isn’t right, you work on it until it is. In this case, the pink made it even more Spring-y, but was way too intense. The letters were fighting with the colors! Help!

Auntie Bridgett suggested I put some white outlines around the letters, which helped a bit, but not enough. So I darkened the letters with some watercolor pencil and lightened the red bits up with tiny dots of Posca marker. It was better!

I still need to work on getting my stencils letters straight, but that will come with practice.

Have fun with your art!

Love,

Grandma Judy

It’s Pink Season

Dear Liza,

Pink has never been my color. As I have told you before, it was always mentioned as “The Girl’s Color” in a derisive sort of way that made sure it would never be “my” color.

But Portland has changed my mind about that. In Spring, pink becomes the power color. The color of pollination, of getting things done. And it is breathtaking.

The bees, butterflies, and birds love the pinks! They flit and hop around, making sure we see their colors, too.

So, though I may still not wear pink, I love it. It is bright and full of life, and will always, now, remind me of spring in Portland.

Love,

Grandma Judy