The expidition to Rose and Silver Creeks was a great outing eventhough Blair got bitten by mosquitoes and I got poison Oak.

There were a lot of mosquitoes and Blair got his share of bites. Swollen.

The dog is very protecting of Lynn. They excavated Silver Creek and found many gold pieces and exposed the Chinese Wall.

This was taken at silver creek. It's dry now. the people working this spot unearthed a wall built by the Chinese in the early 1800's. The wall was on both sides of the creek, was about 5' tall and contained the creek and the gold. It was built from bedrock up about 5'.

Here I'm panning at the creek. No pics of Blair, he was taking the pics with his phone.

Tthis is where we pospected at Rose Creek, near Columbia CA.

Fixing dinner after a day of prospecting. This is probably the day I contacted poioson oak!

Protector of my garden

How wonderful! A Noam to protect my garden sent by my beautiful step-daughter, Sunny and her husband, Tom. I just love the little guy!

Master Fence Builder

Looking east from the carport of the little house.
Looking along the back fence line. The Pear tree is in full bloom.

Up the east fence line, facing front corner gate.

This 32" picket fence is going to go all the way around the garden area. That way the dogs can't get in the garden. Out in the middle of the back yard, currently grass, I'm going to put another garden. This garden may be squash and tomatoes, etc. It will also be fenced, just don't know how that will be yet.

On the Road again

Easter afternoon Blair came driving in just in time for dinner. We're glad to have him home for a while between jobs.

Mom's first Orchid

This was the first Orchid I gave mom on Mother's Day at least 35 years ago.

Her name is Joanna.

Flowers

Mom's Christmas Amarallis

Oregon weather and my buddy Bart

Hey Mom! This is my bone and I'm going to lay down here in the snow and chew it. Can't even tell it's snow, can you?

Snow or no, Bart doesn't care. He loves the snow and he loves a nice bone.

We have been having a very peculiar winter ! Snow, no snow, snow, no snow.

It's ok with me !

My men, 18 year old Jordon and 34 year old Anthony

New Years day 2009.

My son and Grand son - the pride of my life

The dude with the red beard cleans up pretty good too.

When Jordon came home for Christmas he did show some positive development. He's dressing more taylored and likes to talk about his experiences and training. The cold of Chicago is not a big problem after being raised here in Klamath, though it gets a LOT colder there.

Graduation from Navy Bootcamp

Here he is ! Jordon in his Navy uniform and through Bootcamp.

He remains in Chicago in Corpsman training

but he will be home for Christmas on a 2 week leave.

Snowflake Festival Parade

Tony and Linda go the KCC (Klamath Community College) and belong to the Science Club.

I made a Santa robe for Tony and he was Santa (Ho Ho Ho) on the float. Santa red beard!

The rest of the members of the various clubs walked along handing out candy and spreading holiday cheer. I'll have another pic on the float later.

Gotta just love Oregon! It finally snowed!

Our first snow - out front.

1st snow out back

Isn't it great! Only about 1/2 inch.

The Orchids are Blooming

The greenhouse you see in the background is where Lizzy, and most of the rest of the plants live. The Orchids live in the greenhouse attached to the house. Both are geothermally heated and stay comfortable throughout the year. Mom and I have about 50 orchids. Not all have bloomed but we are hoping to have a complete catalogue in the future. The following are blooming now.

Pansy Orchid - lavender and white - "Lovely Pansy" - Dendrobium

This little lovely has boomed three times this year. It grows on cactus wood and I'm naming it - "Innocence"

This is a second blooming this year and has another spike to bloom. I'm naming it "Spidy"

Eight blooms on this gorgeous work and it's second blooming this year, 2008.

I will call this orchid, "Magnificent Velvet"

Mom and I met 86 years young Mr. Willis at the county fair in August.

We all chatted for quite a while about orchids, since Mom won best of show with her little orchid.

He called a few days ago and said he had several orchids of one kind and wanted to know if we would like one. Of course, not turning down an orchid gift, we went over to see his orchids and recieve our gift. And, what a gift it is!

See how shiny the flower petals are, absolutely gorgeous!

Up close it is even better. The yellow in the center of the flower looks exactly like a tiny doll.

Yahoo - We are done with the pears

Altogether we canned 49 pints of pears. So we have now done apricots, apple sauce and pears.

Grapes will mostly go to wine, then we have the peaches (both trees are loaded) and the delicious apples (probably to apple butter).

He's in the Navy now.

Jordon is 18 years old now and started bootcamp September 3rd 2008

He's in the Navy now. He is our pride and joy

Jordon and his girlfriend (intended wife) Amamda.

4 Generations (from left, Jordon, Tony Me and Mildred-Mom-Grama-Great Grama)

My favorite Vacations have always been with my family.

Though I've traveled all over the Western US, Alaska, Canada and a little into Mexico, You will always see me come back to the Coast as my favorite place to go. The Oregon Coast is fantastic! It's the feeling of that overwhelming power and the insignificance of man; the reality of time and our minute stay in this magnificent place .

The campground is backed up to the shore at Arizona Beach, furthermost NW corner of California. Jordon and I love this RV Park though it has been a few years since we were there.

One year when I took Jordon to stay the summer with Tony in Arkansas I brought his second wife, Linda's kids back to be with their Dad, here in Klamath. Most know what this picture is, the great Salt Lake. But, these kids had never seen anything like it, so they were out there getting a sample of salt to take home (being watched by Ozzy). What a wonderful trip that was. We stopped everywhere that was of any interest. That was the trip I took Jordon to Denver for an American Water Works National Convention (my work). We visited the Dinasour museum, the US Mint and saw money being made and stopped at the Anheiser Busch brewery to tour the process of making beer and saw the Clidsdales. Sorry for spelling errors

The Caves in Arkansas are fabulous!

We had a guided tour and it took 2 to 3 hours to go through this one set of caves. We all really enjoyed the rock formations, under ground creeks and pools and, we saw fish that live in there, albino fish with no developed eyes. What a great experience that was!

Jordon was 6 when we started traveling together. Every chance I could get away from work, we were on the road. He has been an absolute treasure to travel with. We drove mostly, but we also flew. The first trip to Arkansas to visit Tony, we went to Silver Dollar City with Tony's first wife and his Dad. We have been there several times since.

This is a view of Lake Union and a portion of Seattle from the Space Needle. We really like going to dinner at the Space Needle when we visited relatives in Seattle.

Happy Birthday Blair !

And many more to come.

Love you,

Joanne

House Tour tag from Sunny Richins

Self Portrait (this color goes with my shirt)

This is where I spend a lot of time. Emailing everybody, taking care of finances and playing games. See my dump truck and backhoe?

The Kitchen is newly painted , it's also the most used room in the house and probably my favorite.

This is our Laundry, Pantry, Sewing Room. I have been getting baby blankets crochetted to take to the Crisis Center, and mending done.

Our Fridge is hard to take a pic of since we have a shotgun kitchen. But we have food enough to feed a lot of people.

The bath pic. I'm into fish and net, etc., even the toilet seat has fishies and shells in it.

My closet isn't a nice walk-in as big as I would like, but it's quite usable for our clothes.

Well, these are my Keds and my favorite shoes. In earlier years (much earlier - college) they would have been wedgies, work years classy heals, but in retirement I can get further, faster in my KEDS