Christmas Travel

We traveled to California for Christmas this year.  My next post will chronicle the joy of our Christmas visit.  But this lays down the epic days of travel.


We left after school on Wednesday.  We traveled to Portland to visit our friends and stay over night.  Our first challenge began at 4 AM when Dakota woke up with a tummy ache.  A few episodes of puking and no more sleep.  Up and on the road by 7 am.  Heading south we knew the winter weather presented a possible challenge.   About 3 hours south of Portland, it started to snow.  We were able to cross 3 passes before the snow stopped traffic.  So just north of Grants Pass we found ourselves stopped behind a long line of cars.  TWO and 1/2  HOURS later we were moved about 100 yards to over to the right to make room for the Snow Plow (which never actually showed up).  Another 1/2 hour later we began to move over the pass.  Slow going with lots of cars spun out onto the side of the single lane of passable road before we got into Grants Pass.  We got gas and then headed out to the coast.  We had one big snowy pass to cross to get to the coast.  We were able to cross without to much trouble.  We made it to Eureka for a hotel night.  The next day seemed to be an easy shot down the coast to Gualala.  But the winter storm had brought flooding rains to all the Coast Range rivers.  Luckily my mom caught us before we turned toward the coast which would have left us stranded north of the Garcia River, just out of reach of my moms house.  So the long curvy way home finally go us to the coast to start our wonderful visit.

The snowy roads....

Wren's Winter Music

Wren's love for music grows with the opportunities.  His skills and understanding of music theory on the piano transfer well to other instruments.  So when he picked up the trumpet this year in middle school band it came pretty easy to him.

Here are is a video of Wren's winter piano recital.  Wren is not particularly fond on playing in public on his own as it makes him nervous.  But he does like playing in the school band performances and plans to join the jazz band next year in 7th grade. 

His uncle George gave him an accordion for Christmas and he is already working on learning about how to play this new and wonderful instrument. 

Our Boys

Our boys are doing great.  This week Dakota decided to turn his room into a snow world.  Here he is showing off his work.

LEGOS:  A world of creation if you can find your niche.  Battles and fighting is what the boys always choose when they play together.  This unfortunately does not interest me so when they ask me to play legos, I am challenged to find my place in their world.  But just the other day, I thought about building nature from legos.  So with that in mind, I started with a tree.  Dakota added a cabin next to the tree for us to live in.  Then he noticed that we needed some water and then a waterfall.  We both had fun with LEGOS. Yea!

Wren got straight A's on his report card this first quarter in Middle School.  We are proud parents.  He has chosen a movie night out for his reward. 

 

 Tomorrow he has a presentation on the Greek God Pan.  He had to make a costume, write a poem and re-tell a myth in addition to preparing his speech.  He has been practicing his presentation today.

And here is his poem.

Pan

flute player

enjoys nymphs company

the son of hermes

god of shepherds and flocks

very high musical talent

the nature god

natural intuition

Pan

All Gone!

Almost done. The trailer is down and they are sorting the metal for recycling.

Here is the crew.  Travis, Tim and AJ.  A very professional team who work well together and got the job done in 2 days. 

 Here is the view from the carport through where the trailer used to be where we can now see the cottage.

 Here we are looking south toward the carport.  All the dark brown dirt was where the trailer once stood just as long as it could until somebody lifted the trailer away.... (reminiscent of a line in the lorax)

And through it all the did not touch this rose which was sitting only 8 feet from the trailer before they started.

CRUNCH TIME 2!

Here is the first video.  This one is a bit long at 2 minutes but wait for the end when the whole roof comes down.  CRAZY!

In this one you will hear me laugh.  At that moment, the whole trailer pivoted about a foot and moved off the blocks that it was sitting on.  They had to pause to check how close they were to the surrounding structures.  All was okay so they proceeded.

More tomorrow....

CRUNCH TIME!

 The trailer is coming out.  Here is the first round of photos.  I will do a second post with 1 or 2 videos that were pretty unbelievable.  

DAY 1
Dakota and I got to do the first crunch.  Crazy how much power this little machine has....

The began at the north end of the trailer with the CRUNCHER and just began taking big bites out of the structure.

 One of the first things they did was take out all the windows and any glass so they did not leave any big shards in the dirt when they were done.  That is thinking ahead.

They began at the south end of the structure on the roof, disassembling by hand the roof and the trusses.  Usually they would just crunch the whole thing but because of the 2 structures close to the trailer, they chose to do the roof by hand. 

Amazing power of a dump truck to haul while having no power to get out of the garden dirt .  The little mini excavator (AKA the CRUNCHER) had to pull the dump truck out of the garden.  

 Continuing the crunch.

 After they got through the first third, they came in with this crazy gas powered circular saw and cut through the metal frame with sparks flying.  I noticed that the boss delivered a fire extinguisher when he delivered this tool.  That made me feel like I had chosen my contractor well.

Here is a view from the inside of the trailer looking north with the kitchen gone.

 This is a slightly confusing photo without seeing the video first.  So go to the next post, watch the video and then come back to see the roof structure on the ground.

 We are about half way through at this point.

 Beginning to see what our view out the front of the house will be.

 The pile accumulating to get put in the truck.  One of the limiting factors of this process is the distance to the landfill.  I think we got 4 loads out today.  Here the excavator is loading the dump truck. 

 Bigger Pile.

 I gave Dakota the camera and here are some of his impressions of the day.

Around 3pm, I needed to head home to get connected with Wren.  This is the only part that was left standing.  I think they probably crunched it too and just left the floor and the big pile for tomorrow.
These guys are amazing to watch.  Very thorough and they do their job well.

Fall Compilation

Time to get the garlic in so it can overwinter and sprout and grow in the spring.  We planted 6 rows.  While digging the rows, we found another bucket of potatoes to add to the 40+ pounds we have already harvested.

Here is the garlic laying in the rows, ready to cover.

 And the potatoes we found these made a yummy dinner of potato leek soup.

Additionally we have trimmed back all the raspberry plants.  This is a view of our fall garden from the spot where our kitchen windows will be.

We got permission to take Dakota to the Whitman climbing gym during closed hours.  Here are Wren and Dakota climbing the wall together. They were having so much fun and Dakota made it all the way to the top!  He was so proud and then a bit scared about the coming down part.  But he made it with hardly any tears.  Having his brother there was a great big help.

Back to news on the property.  The sewer project is finally complete!  Here is a view of our new 1/2 of the road.  It looks so nice and will be a great place for skate board and bike and such.  Lucky for a nice quiet street.

Yesterday Dakota and I raked leaves for a while.  They were so beautiful, I had a hard time raking.  I just wanted to take in the beauty of it all.