Last week at the Mt. Tabor Art Walk, we got to see a cat rescue. We were never quite sure if the cat actually needed rescuing, but it was impressive, anyway.
There was this fir tree, and this cat. A regular, small-ish, domestic cat with a collar on. The cat was on a limb of the tree, and seemed in mild confusion. Two young men seemed willing to step up to resolve the situation.
Several onlookers, including two little girls, a neighborhood cat, and a crow (who found the whole thing hilarious), gathered to watch as one of the fellows climbed the tree. Creaking branches did not dissuade him.
He made is way up to cat level, and after much wrangling and reaching, caught hold of the cat. The cat was not happy with the grabbing, but gave in to the inevitable. The climbing fellow handed off the cat to his ground team, and all was well.
The fellow placed the cat on the ground, checked for damages, and gave him a pat. The rescued cat headed for a quiet corner while the heroes took their bows.
This is the sort of thing that happens all the time, magical moments of humanity out in the world. I love being able to get out there and see it!
This past Sunday Auntie Bridgett and I made a return visit to the Mt. Tabor Art walk. We drove rather than bussed this time, because there were other things to do later on.
First we visited Jo Brody, a jeweler, painter, multimedia artist and all around fun person. We looked at all her neat stuff and talked like old friends. She and Bridgett were having so much fun, comparing notes and geeking out at each other’s art!
Jo’s husband, Mark Brody, is one of my favorite artists on the tour. He makes bright, inventive mosaics that just inspire my brain! This new piece, that looks like a topographical map, is built on a piece of slate. Amazing.
This year he has shifted to these wonderful pieces with burnt wood that can be stained and sculpted. Such wonderful stuff!
We wandered down to Coquine and got some sustenance, then headed back up to David Ross’s house to enjoy his paintings of bunnies who play musical instruments and go out to celebrate. I didn’t take any pictures, but we bought some cards!
We also visited Dennis Anderson and his bright oil painted street scenes, and Jo Ellen Rademucher and her inspiring abstract expressionist paintings that were full of layers and speckles.
By this time, we were wearing out and wanted to head home. My brain was so full and happy!
I like keeping garden journals. They let me keep track of what happens in the garden and when it happens, so I can learn from each year and get better year by year.
But I also like to make them creative, so I’ve used a different format every year. This year I am re-using a movie list book. It has nice roomy format which I really like.
However, re-using a book means I need to do something in each page to cover, obscure, or otherwise change the illustration that is there, unless I find a page with movies about plants.
This page came close. It was a watercolor from the movie “Amelie”, where the garden gnome goes on some adventures. I wanted to keep the gnome.
I cut some junkmail paper to cover the non-gnome parts, gave it a blurry garden-y paint job, and glued it down. The inside of a security envelope got some darker paint, and I had the basis for a decent page. I gave the gnome himself a little more yellow, since his blue didn’t go with my yellow-ish green.
I found a few nice greens in a handout from our Portland Art Museum, and cut leaves and stems. Not bad, but flat and boring. Auntie Bridgett brought some darker greens from her collage box. Better.
And finally, I cut flowers from some pink and blue paper from the same museum handout. Now the gnome looks right at home in his garden, and in my garden journal.
Creating and solving these artistic challenges everyday makes my brain so happy!
It seems like this time, our warm weather is here to stay. Summer has begun, and I’m here for it!
I added twelve more lettuces to my plot, since we have already started harvesting leaves off the first ones I put in last month. My lettuce plot is near a big camellia bush and in shade until noon, so it is protected from too much sun as well as any heavy summer showers that come by.
Our dahlias, Laverne and Shirley, are growing strong and chubby.
I put the tomato cages around them because they grow REALLY tall and won’t be able to support themselves. Here is a picture from LAST September.
I have some extra space for flowers this year, since I’m growing fewer tomatoes. Black Eyed Susans are a favorite of local bees. I sprinkled some seeds in with the irises and lavender.
Once I was home and got the mud off my hands, I decorated some pages in this years’ garden journal. I will tell you about them when they are done.
Portland late spring is FULL. Full of sunshine, full of flowers, full of long walks to enjoy both.
Last week, Cynthia and I took the bus to the river and walked along the West Bank. The Iris Garden even made the Marquam Bridge look pretty!
We walked clear to the Tilikum Bridge, then caught the B loop streetcar and then the number 15 back home. I was well and truly worn out. Lunch and a lay-down put me right.
Which is good, because Auntie Bridgett wanted some exercise! We walked through the Sunnyside neighborhood, enjoying the roses that are just popping out.
We got inspired to go visit the dead people at Lone Fir Cemetery. I felt sure I could find the grave of Eloisa McLoughlin Harvey, Dr. John McLoughlin’s (“The Father of Oregon”) daughter, having heard Tammy Williams describe where it was. Well, I didn’t find it. But the cemetery was gorgeous.
Later that evening, we walked out again for dinner at a local favorite, Bluto’s Greek food. Sidewalk tables made for good people and dog watching along with our delicious skewers and pickled veggies.
It is just a few days until I head off to SOAK, the regional Burning Man event, with Auntie Katie and the Cousins. There is a lot to get ready!
First, I have volunteered to buy juices and mixers for the Limbo Lounge Tiki Bar that will be near our camp. I will get reimbursed, I just needed to pick them up and get them to Auntie Katie’s house for storage. I drafted Auntie Bridgett to drive.
The Chef’s Store had everything we needed at pretty good prices. It is huge and full of all sorts of goodies. We will be back for Halloween candy!
Still, seven and a half gallons of pineapple juice is a lot to deal with!
Another chore that needed doing was mending the camp chairs. Since Katie uses them at Burning Man and SOAK, they get a lot of hard use. Fortunately, she has lots of cool patches that are perfect for, well, patching. I used the heaviest thread I own, doubled up.
The patches all have a sense of humor, as well.
Along with shopping and mending, I am finding all my own gear. My old recess whistle will come in handy, as well as the pocket knife Great Grandpa Lowell gave me years ago. I am sure having fun getting into camping mode!
We will soon have a new place to eat and drink here in Sunnyside!
Tony Pepe is opening a cocktail bar called Eris (named after the goddess of chaos, and also the dwarf planet) right where our Rendez Vous used to be, just a block down on 34th.
Tony is a very friendly fellow who showed me his progress and told me his plans. He will have some wine and some food, but is mostly a creative cocktail maker. He also, much to my appreciation, loves cats. His own cats are called Victor Babitch and Dante.
Tony was painting today, hoping to get the ceiling done before his furniture gets delivered.
Since he is the sole owner and designer, the place will be a direct reflection of him…. Which means it should be delightful, intelligent, quirky and fun.
I’ll tell you all about when we get to visit Tony and Eris next month!
I am still playing in the journal Ruthie Inman got me started on a month ago. The cover is made of tissue paper built- up on fabric with thinned white glue, and has these pinks and greens.
I got quite a few of the pages done,
and then it was time to sew it all together. Using the awl and thread Ruthie sent me last year, I followed her directions and pierced and sewed the pages into the cover.
But I still had the center pages, the double page spread, completely blank. I wanted it to reflect the soft pinks and greens that are in the rest of the book, but couldn’t find collage materials I liked.
Finally, I painted them myself, using watered down acrylic paint. A sea green and a phthalo green gave me the look I wanted.
I kept building up layers of tissue paper, tissue leaves from napkins and such, trying for a sort of dreamy landscape look.
Then I made a mistake. I thought these pink worm-like bits of magazine paper would fit in, so I glued them down. The next morning, I realized that they were a bad choice. It took a few days for me to figure out how to fix it.
I got brave and used an exact-o knife to trim to awful pink bits away and repair the scratches with bits of deeper pink tissue. I like that every layer shows the layers underneath.
Now I have the dreamy landscape I wanted. I might find something else to add to it, someday. But for now, I love it.
Fort Vancouver, Washington, is a historically accurate re-built fort that the Hudson’s Bay Company used as the hub of its fur trading network here in the northwest from 1825 to 1866. Seeing it again this week with a proper guide, I learned so much!
Britt, a wonderful Lone Fir volunteer who portrays “Bunko Kelly” on the Tour of Untimely Departures, had made the arrangements after learning that some folks connected to the Fort are buried right here in our own Lone Fir Cemetery.
Tammy Williams was our guide. She is so knowledgable and enthusiastic that she made the fort come alive! Her explanations of artifacts and the actual smells of the cookhouse let us feel the daily routines of trading pelts for goods, cooking for twenty people or more at a meal, and raising children of white, Indian, Hawaiian, and mixed lineage.
In particular, Tammy told us of Eloisa, one of Chief Factor John McLoughlin’s children. McLoughlin is often called the Father of Oregon for his running of Fort Vancouver in support of the American Pioneers who first came to Oregon.
Eloisa was born in Fort William, Ontario, while her father was stationed there. She was seven years old in 1824, when her family came to Fort Vancouver. She married William Glen Rae, a man of violent temperament. They moved to Fort Stikene, Alaska, when William was assigned to the Hudson’s Bay Fort there. Eloisa hated the place, which was badly run and riddled with alcohol-fueled violence. She gave birth to her second child on the boat from Alaska back to Oregon.
William moved to another of the Company’s forts in Yerba Buena, what we call San Francisco. After her recuperation from childbirth, Eloisa and the children joined him.
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Eloisa described Yerba Buena as a vibrant, interesting place. She saw bull and bear fights and partied with Spanish ladies and gentlemen.
William’s drinking and bad decision-making lead to his death by suicide, and widowed Eloisa and her children returned to Fort Vancouver. She re-married a manager of The Hudson Bay Company, Daniel Harvey, and had three more children. Sadly, Eloisa was a widow again at age fifty.
Eloisa’s life was exciting and tragic, full of experiences that were rare for women of her age, like traveling by steamship to Hawaii, and common, such as being widowed twice by age fifty. Eloisa passed away in 1884 at the age of 66, and is buried in our own Lone Fir Cemetery, alongside Daniel Harvey, Sr., and her sons Daniel Harvey, Jr., and James William McLoughlin Harvey. I will visit her next time I am in the neighborhood.
Mother’s Day Sunday started slow here in Portland. Auntie Bridgett, Mouse and I spent some quality time in the couch, studying language and doing puzzles. Doesn’t Mousie look pretty on the new quilt?
I walked down to Auntie Katie’s, and we had some time together. Her cat Maggie and I helped her hang a newly framed picture. Maggie was so interested!!
We all did some planning for our upcoming SOAK camping adventure, and Kes and Maggie had a good snuggle.
We all enjoyed Speilman’s bagels for lunch, and then I headed home. The roses in the South Rose Garden of Ladd’s are just starting to open up. It’s going to be a pretty summer!
Dear Liza 