Home Again

We were home just shortly after noon yesterday. The kitties practically blew the doors off the RV in their quest to get outside and hunt up some mousies. Sadie paid particular attention to the azalea. Some strange cat must have been here marking its territory...and by "its" territory, I mean her territory. The noyve of some cats.

We all made a beeline for the greenhouse to see if there was any squirrel digging, and we found NONE!!! Hooray! I think the days of squirrel invaders might actually be over. Smitty gave it two paws up.

Interestingly, I turned the water off to the pickling cucumbers back in August since no one would be here to harvest anything. Somehow they survived and grew some monster pickling cucumbers!

I doubt these are good for anything, but I might try turning the water back on, cutting the plants back, and seeing if we can salvage anything. They never produced enough cucumbers to make pickles, but maybe they'll get a second wind. It's worth a try. Happily, the apple orchard at the bottom of our hill is still open for business. I can still get some apples for applesauce. It'll be my only canning this year.

Backing up to where we left Pasco yesterday, we crossed the Columbia River, which is kind of weird in Washington. The Columbia River is the state line between Oregon and Washington, except in the eastern side of the states where the river turns north. For Oregonians, it's a little weird to be on the south side of the river, and yet, still be in Washington.

I regret the next picture is out of focus. I was shooting through Mike's side of the truck. The light on the hillsides and green fields was very pretty.

This is what we saw for many miles...many square acres of wheat fields.

Eventually, we crossed the state line for real.

There's the Columbia River...right where it should be, on the state line.

The sign was hiding behind a couple of other signs, and I almost missed it...which would have been a tragedy, as I'm sure you can imagine.

Here's one of just a couple of barns we saw on our drive.

Here's Washington's version of Stonehenge. If you missed my post about this from last year, you can read more about it right here.

Here's one of many bridges that connects Oregon to Washington.

Here's another one...it's a train bridge, and it's almost always in that up position.

Coming around various bends, we were treated to the beautiful scenery of the Columbia River Gorge.

And more bridges. Here, a tugboat is pushing a barge toward Astoria and the mouth of the river.

This is a not-very-good picture of the Vista House at Crown Point. It's a national historic landmark, and you can read more about it (and see better pictures) right here.

It was quite a thrill crossing over the Marquam Bridge and seeing the City of Portland after such a long absence. 

At home, I was happy to see the California poppies I planted this fall had sprouted. I'd almost forgotten about them. They probably won't bloom this year, which makes me wonder if they'll come back in the spring.

Our tree at the far end of the field has turned red with its fall colors.

We mostly hung out yesterday, sitting in chairs and pulsating. I finished off the second of the small blocks for my redwork piece. It still needs the Sticky Fabri-Solvy rinsed out of it. That will wait until they're all finished.

The next one is hooped up and ready to go. I'll start on that this morning.

And I'm home in just a nick of time to display my fall quilts. This pumpkin quilt hangs on the short wall at the end of our breakfast bar. The embroidered pumpkin was from a class I took with Meg Hawkey of Crabapple Hill Studios. The rest was my way of setting it. I used the same pumpkins from the table topper pictured below it.

This candy corn runner goes on the breakfast bar. I've had a dream for about ten years to make those flowers out of different colors and call it a spring table runner.

And this small table topper will sit on the dining room table for a while.

I've scouted out fabrics to finish off my challenge piece. The reveal is November 1st. I still need to finish it off, but I have plenty of time...if I start fairly soon, that is.

Smitty is waiting for the doors to open so that he can get outside and kill something. For now, he's satisfied helping me write this post.

Okay, and thus ends our Great Lakes 2022 trip. Today will be spent unpacking. I'll fit in some time for slow-stitching throughout the day, and I'll need to make up a grocery list. There's a lot to do before we can feel as if we're back to what passes for normal. 

The weeds outside would have us believe we'd been traveling for two years, rather than two months. Honestly, we're both flabbergasted at how the weeds grew while we were gone. We have to get those under control, and fast. There are mountains of laundry to do...mainly, bedding and quilts from the RV. Most of the clothing was kept up while we traveled. And...let's see...what else? Oh yes, we need to hunt down our contractor and get him back to work finishing up the basement. It's good to be home...except for the basement and things still stacked all over waiting for the carpet to be laid. Fingers crossed it will happen at a faster pace than it has so far.

I'm going to take a few days off from blogging. There's a lot to do, and none of it will be very interesting as blog fodder. I'm hoping to get my temporary sewing room set up on the dining room table within the next day or two. When that happens, I'll know we're moving in the right direction.