The Latest

It's been a while since we've posted a log here. And as I sit here, I'm trying to figure out what we did with July! Not much except plow away on the deck, I guess. Speaking of, I'm sure the throngs that visit this site have been waiting with bated breath to see how it's coming. Well, wait no longer. We are getting very close to being done with the whole darn thing. There aren't many in between pictures from the last one we posted, so here is what it looks like as of today. The floorplan is done, all boards screwed down and stained:



We've been enjoying some lovely late evening dinners on the deck as the weather has been fabulous. Almost too nice - considering the deck (i.e. our site of work) sees quite a bit of the day's sun. Here is another look from a different angle. Note Keith sitting there comtemplating the best strategy for creating the stairs.



Emily's folks just left after a nice long visit. As usual we got lots of work out of The Parents. Henry helped Keith with some vital construction on the back side of the deck, and Neena was invaluable in helping to keep the place clean for potential home buyers, cooking wonderful meals, prepping deck boards and keeping everyone on task and in line! We did allow them some R&R. We spent one morning canoeing a stretch of the Santiam right here through Lebanon and another day up in the Cascades mountain biking a stretch of the McKenzie River trail. Some pics from the bike ride:

Stopping along the way - we did this frequently as we Gracie needed the cool down. For the limited amount of activity we have given our dog (and ourselves) lately, we were nicely impressed with how well Gracie did along the entire 10 mile stretch.




She even had energy towards the end to do some high flying, log walking tricks:


Keith and I rode the entire stretch from North to South. Emily's folks started from the South and rode South to North about five miles to where we all met up at this cute little hot spring right along the river. It was a perfect way to end the day.

4th of July

Fourth of July is one of the "tradition" holidays for the Oxford side of the Caldera family (huh?). Which means it's a big deal, and people always try their best to show up. Thankgiving is the other holiday like this for Keith's side of the family. Anyway, the 4th consists of rustic camping out in BLM land along the Smith River west of Eugene. Rustic is becoming a relative term, as the number of luxurious camp trailers and RV's is starting to outnumber the tents and tarps. They've been coming out here to camp each year for all of Keith's life minus a few exceptions where they tried the "civilized" camps with rangers and formal camp spots - it wasn't to their liking as they were a little too loud and rambunctious for the camp host's liking.

At any rate, here is a look at what goes on during a typical 4th of July camp:

First and foremost.....lots of eating and hanging around:


Each night there is a poker game of some sort - as of late it has been Texas Hold'em as that is what everyone is playing these days:


Lots of horseshoe playing (note the big RV behind Dwayne - tough life if you have to sleep in that! - needless to say that was not where Keith and I settled down to sleep for the night):


For the second year in a row we had a rousing Cribbage tournament. Emily was the big champ last year, and Keith took the prize this year.


Weather permitting (or not for some folks) there is always large parts of the day devoted to the two swimming holes:


Where Gracie impresses all with her rock catching ability:


This is another shot of the "big" water hole that has this cool "waterfall" to soak under:


And the new activity added this year thanks to the plethera of children that showed up was waterfights with big soakers. Kiel put us all to shame.

Latest on the Deck

We were without our digital camera for a while, so it looks like we've made a lot of progress. Keith is very close to having this be his full time job, so hopefully we'll see some even faster progress from here on out. The boards you see lain out here over the supports have not yet been stained, and they are not actually nailed down yet. We needed a walkway to get to the master bedroom deck so we just laid down the boards that have been planed. We need to plane more before we start securing these boards down, but the planer went belly up. Keith has got some work to do on that now before we get rolling again....ahh the beauty of old machinery. It breaks down! Yes, but it is old and sturdy, so it can be repaired (with a little bit of patience!).

You can now see the shape the deck will take with this picture:




With the planer down, we moved on to the deck off the master bedroom as those boards are already to go - so I thought we should grab a "before" picture:

Coos Bay Sunset

A couple weeks ago, we spent the weekend in Coos Bay visiting Keith's folks and helping them around their house a bit. In the mornings and evenings we like to walk down to the bay to let the dog run. It's just two blocks from their house and sometimes the timing is right and we get treated to views like these: