Making Centerpieces

With October comes our yearly forestry banquet for Clackamas County Farm Forestry Association. This is the same award banquet at which we received the title of "Small Woodland Owner of the Year" back in 2012.

The Farmboy has been serving on the board for almost a year now, so when the subject of centerpieces for the tables came up, he naturally came to me for ideas. And could I just leave well enough alone, offer my ideas, and let the guys do the work? Of course not! Instead, I almost single-handedly took the project on. I enjoyed it, but it took way more time than I expected, so you can believe me when I say that next year I will be delegating and/or forming a committee.

Ingredients: assorted plastic and wood lanterns with battery-operated candle lights (found at Craft Warehouse), large tree "cookies" freshly cut by a fellow board member who happens to run a firewood company, assorted fresh leaves, twigs, and branches foraged on our property, florist wire, wire cutters, and this fabulous base wire for forming the wreaths.

I didn't take pictures of the process, because I really needed four hands for assembling the wreaths, so the two that God gave me were way too full to also add in a camera. I basically layered bunches of Cedar, Douglas Fir, Holly, and Pin Oak over the wire, wrapping with the florist wire as I went along, and twisting the base wire ends together to hold a loose circle.

Some of them turned out a bit wonky, but everyone seemed to like them, and those that won their table drawing and got to take a centerpiece home seemed very happy.

Re-Foresting

Our little bit of earth has had a long and varied history. When the Farmboy first purchased it shortly before we started dating, parts of it had been logged and re-planted, but then left alone for several years. The result was a forest that needed a lot of our care and attention. In the past 18 years we've tackled everything from blackberry patches with stems the size of a cucumber to wild pests that like to eat fresh young trees to volunteer conifers that grow so thickly together they're like hedges, to pieces of land nearly impossible to reach without first building roads. It has been an adventure, and one that has seen its rewards (if not monetary, at least we have bragging rights!).

This Spring, we bought a parcel of bare root Douglas Fir seedlings to fill in some holes where we want a healthy forest to live again. The kids are now old enough to join in on the fun, much to their (insert sarcasm here) delight. Some day, we hope they'll be able to show their kids the trees they planted. I know that its rare anymore for properties to stay in families, but its our dream for our little bit of forest to be a place that our great-grandkids play one day.

This is what I wore for the occasion...
Don't judge. Camo and Plaid totally go together.

My camera has a little feature that turns a longer video into a shorter clip. I didn't choose the sections of video or the music, so I really can't take credit for how it turned out, but thought it was too perfect not to share.

Lately

A little Mexican Nativity- Souvenir of my Youth, Tarnish and Twinkle Lights, Knit Stockings, Christmas Songbooks, Fun Times with my Band, Low-lit Barn, Forestry People from across the State (award not given for tall-ness), Bitter Cold, Future Holiday Trees lit in the Night, Glowing House and Stars, Crabapples Hanging on despite Winter, Festive Shadows on the Ceiling, and the Girl and I out for a Frosty Walk ("Wook, Mama! My Shadow is almost as big as yours!").

Oh... and you're going to love it... this stitcher, having removed lamp from beside the stitching chair to make room for the Christmas tree, can now be found most evenings, working her fingers by headlamp light... gotta keep those priorities in perspective, eh?

 You can thank the Farmboy and his fancy phone for this picture.

At the Fair

The Clackamas County Fair... a small-town fair, not big enough to warrant a ferris wheel, much to our disappointment, but big enough for the Oscar Meyer Weiner Mobile to make an appearance.

We took the train tour...

Watched the Bunny-Rabbits show off their agility skills...

Looked at strange and beautiful and cute and stinky animals...

Admired random collections...

And the Fourth Doctor's scarf...

One lonely hooked rug (no cross-stitch to speak of, and the quilts were not my taste)...

Big strings of balloons against a blue sky...

We were there to help our friend and forestry mentor in the OSU Extension Service booth for a 3-hour shift. This duty was enjoyed by the Farmboy, while I roamed about with the kids.

The booth was positioned in the shade of this beast...

After the Farmboy was finished talking to people about trees and gardening, we walked over to the food village and got ourselves some hand-dipped corndogs with mustard and lemonade. Mmmm-good.

The almost-second-grader gave me my most favorite moment of the day, as he bravely went on the roller-coaster all by himself and spent the entire ride laughing with delight. Not just a little laugh, but a from-the-gut, out-of-control laugh that everyone from yards around could hear over the noise of the machinery.

The almost-Kindergartener wasn't ready for the roller coaster, and didn't want to go on a ride by herself, but had her eyes on a giant teddy-bear ride. She convinced her big Brother, even though he thought it looked too much like a little kid ride.

He doesn't realize that he's still a little kid. Shhh... its a secret.