This and That

I forgot to mention that Rocky's sister bought us all tickets to Peru Negro. It was good, but would have been better if I knew Spanish. They dance and sang telling the story of the Peruvian Negros who were enslaved just like American Negros. The performers looked like they really loved what they were doing. The music was very interesting with the odd instruments, like jawbones, they used.

Now here we are at the end of March and we've been getting snow. Thursday and Saturday we had snow on the ground when we woke up in the morning. It all melted before noon, but then we had rain, rain mixed with snow, and hail. This is not normal for us this late in the year.

Here is a recipe that I often take to potlucks and get lots of compliments on. I got it off a package of asparagus from the grocery store.

Marinated Asparagus

12 fresh asparagus spears
2 T olive oil
2 T cider vinegar
1/4 t salt
1 t honey
1 bay leaf

Steam asparagus until crisp tender, drain. Whisk together oil, vinegar, salt, and honey. Pour over asparagus and bay leaf in a shallow dish. Cover and refrigerate several hours or overnight.

I usually make a large batch and use less oil than vinegar. I add cooked shrimp, zucchini, carrots, mushrooms, onion, baby corn, or anything else that seems like would be good in it.

Cool Stuff

Yesterday I went to the weaving guild meeting and learned some interesting stuff.

The presentation was given by Jennifer Moore who is a weaver and rug designer in Santa Fe, NM. She is a wonderful teacher; if you ever have the chance to take a class she's teaching it is worth every penny. (My favorite of hers is We All Look Up at the Same Moon.)


Her presentation to the guild was about math and art and how they often come together. She talked about the Golden Ratio (which included the Golden Rectangle and Golden Spiral) and Tessellations. You can get all kinds of ideas for projects with this knowledge.


We watched a good movie that was on Hallmark the other day: Iron Will. Rocky made fun of me when I turned it on, but he enjoyed it as much as I did.

I just had to share this cloud picture I took the other day:


It was like a blanket was being pulled over the earth.

Special Weekend

This weekend the Oregon Special Olympics held their basketball tournament in Springfield and my brother Kelly, who is from The Dalles, was in it. This is Kelly, with the white t-shirt under his jersey:

There was a guy there whom I wish I would have taken his picture. He was a small, white, young man with a Mohawk hair cut and he had 20-30 Special Olympic medals hanging around his neck. I dubbed him Mr. T of the Special Olympics.

Basketball in the Special Olympics is a bit different. They play four six minute quarters with a five minute half time. Nobody gets called for traveling or double dribble. Fouls don't get called very often unless one team is about to skunk the other, then the refs try to help even the odds a little. The refs often have to redirect players if they head for the wrong basket.

There are bumps and scrapes just like any other basketball game, but these players don't get mad, they always help each other up, make sure they're okay, and smile the whole time. They really know how to have a good time, win or lose.

Kelly's team was good enough to win the gold medal. They won all three of the games they played in.

I don't know if you can tell from this photo but the teams are really mixed with young, old, men, and women. All teams were like that. I saw a couple of teams that had what looked to be twelve year olds playing right along with the fifty year olds. It was neat to see them all have such a good time together.

The team didn't know it, but I had invited them to ride the bumper cars before heading home. Since it was a surprise I said goodbye to Kelly after his last game on Sunday, but arranged for the bus driver to follow me. The guy (Artie) sitting in the other front seat asked Bob (the bus driver) where he was going; he knew it wasn't the same way they went to the freeway the day before. Bob said, "I saw a pretty girl in this car so I'm going to follow her." Every time I turned, Bob turned. After a couple of turns Artie yelled to the back of the bus, "Hey everybody, Bob's chasing some woman."

I think everybody had a fun weekend; I know I did.

Billy the Kid

We have an angora goat named Silverado (Otto for short) who is about 14 years old and near the end of his life. I've been giving him extra feed and decided to give him a shot of vitamin A & D on Thursday after dosing our crias.

Well, Otto used to be the alpha goat, but since his health has been declining Billy (one of our pygoras) has assumed that position. I can usually do almost anything to Otto from over or through the fence because he loves attention; but this time, as I was petting Otto and getting him ready for his shot Billy had to come and see what he was missing out on therefore shoving Otto away; so, in the pen I go.

It took several shoos to get Billy to leave us alone; I gave Otto a good petting, gave him his shot, and warmed up his ears. Having that done I headed for the gate when I thought I should clean the hay out around their salt lick while I was in there. Just as I crouched down to go in the shelter, BAM. Billy butted me. I didn't even see it coming. Thankfully, since I was somewhat squatted, he got me in the thigh rather than the knee. I was knocked on my butt in the mud and he was standing right by me. All I could think to do was grab him by the horns and hang on so he couldn't butt me in the head and kill or paralyze me. Somehow I managed to get to my feet while holding his horns and yelled for Rocky to come help me so I could get out of the pen safely and hobble to the house.

This is me taking a photo of my own thigh; not an easy thing to do. This is looking down at the outside of my right leg. It is kind of hard to see the bruise closest to my knee in this photo, the two bruises angle toward each other just like the horns grow out of the goat's head. That side of my thigh is hourglass shaped if you look at the profile. Rocky just came in my office and says this picture doesn't do it justice.

It's feeling much better now, but I still have a slight limp. I never realized before how much my thighs jiggle when I walk. Pain shoots across my thigh with every step.

Next time I have to go in the goat pen I'll be packing a big stick.

A Party for Jim

Here are the photos I took at Jim's Celebration of Life:

These are two of my brother, Ed's sons: Brian and Ron. Jessie had already left the party. These are my niece and nephews. I think the girl in the white coat is the daughter of Bud or Jackie, but I'm not sure. I'll update this post when I find out. The two boys on the ends are Brandon and Dustin (two of Jim's sons), but I don't know which is which. The middle three are Alan's kids Vernon, Jenny, and Toby.

These are three of Alan's kids Vernon, Jenny, and Toby. Christopher couldn't get away from work to come down from Alaska.

I'm disappointed in this photo, I was hoping it would be good enough to blow up and hang on the wall. These are me and my brothers. Well, the guy on the far left is Alan, Ed, and Jim's brother, Bud (their sister, Jackie, had already left) and the rest are Gordon, Alan, me, Ed, and Dave. Alan just goosed me and tried to blame it on Ed.

This is Ed and his oldest son, Ron:

This is Gordon's son Travis and his family Christina and one month old Curtis:

This is Alan, Ed, and Jim's mom Laura and her husband Ned:

Here is Jenny and Brian:

Alan and Toby:

Ed and Alan. Ed just came from a month in Hawaii.

Gordon with his grandson, Curtis:

Me and Laura:

Laura with my cousins Sue Gimby and Karla Bradly:

It was really nice to see so much of my family, but sad that it took the loss of one to get us all together. Don't ever miss an opportunity to be with loved ones.