Birds of a Feather

About this time last year, I was walking down to our local park - Wallace Park (yes I am famous) - to throw the frisbee with Sona. The park shares space with Chapman Elementary School. As I walked by, I noticed that the hill on the other side of the park was crowded with people of all ages. Young children were "sledding" down the hill on flattened cardboard boxes. Young couples and families were having picnics. Fathers and sons were throwing the football. Then I noticed that everyone kept looking up into the sky towards the school's chimney. That is when I saw them for the first time. The Chapman Swifts.




Vaux Swifts are a small migratory bird, often described as a cigar with wings. Each fall they arrive in Portland and roost at night in the chimey at Chapman Elementary. From late August to mid October, each night hundreds of people - young, old, families, hipsters, yuppies, yipsters, hippies... - gather on the hill and in the fields adjacent to the chimney as sunset approaches. At first the sky is clear. Then as the sun continues its slow descent behind the west hills, the birds start to appear. Flying in an erratic pattern - darting this way and that - these graceful flyers approach the chimney, only to suddenly revert back out into the nightsky. This nightly ritual isn't without peril, as most nights the peaceful show is interrupted by a large falcon that will try to snatch one of the swifts, which invariably elicits "oooohs" and "ahhhs" from the crowd. Finally, as the sky starts to turn towards dark, the swifts come together in a whirlpool pattern circling the chimney and dive into the chimney in shifts. It is as if someone turned on a giant vacuum cleaner and the birds are being sucked right in.

We went the other night and had a nice little picnic. Priya had the best spot on the house as she was laying on the blanket, eyes to the sky. It is quite a site, and I don't know which is more impressive to watch - the Swifts or the community coming together to enjoy a beautiful summer night.

Priya Laughing

Priya is just learning to laugh! The problem is that she quickly forgets that she knows how and it may be a few days before she laughs again. In the beginning, it was quite a production to get her to laugh. It mostly involved Dad making lots of silly noises and looking like a dork. Everytime she started laughing, by the time we got the video camera out, she would stop. Here is the first footage we got of her laughing, which was at Crater Lake. It is about as long as your average Bigfoot video. More to follow.

It's All About the HOPS!!!

It is that time of year again - hop harvest. The Northwest is at the forefront of craft beers. One of the new brewing techniques that has caught on in recent years is brewing beers with hops fresh from the field. Usually, hops are harvested in the fall and then dried for storage, often in pellet form. The storage process removes much of the flavor of the hops, but is necessary in order to brew beer year round.





However, fresh hops beers are brewed with hops picked from the field within hours. Bags and bags of the fresh picked hops are dumped into the brew. That is the beauty of living in the Northwest, where close to 90% of the hops are grown for the US market. Every brewery in town (30+ and counting in Portland alone!!!) crafts their own "fresh hops" beer or two.

The first one popped up in town last week, and each brewery will be rolling theirs out over the next month. The fresh hops add amazing floral taste and aroma to the beer, while removing much of the bitterness. Each brewery uses a different style, so they are each unique. The season culminates in a "Fresh Hops Festival" where all the different breweries gather to pour their fresh hop products. This year it is October 18th at Hopworks Urban Brewery (HUB). It is not too late to book a flight!!

Grandmaman Wallace's Visit

We ended Grandmaman's visit with a day at the waterfront. They had a little neighborhood festival going on. Sona learned how to run through the dog agility course, which I think was more fun for Ami than Sona. We relaxed along the waterfront and watched the sailboat's glide by in the sun.







Priya was enjoying the sun and took the opportunity to work on her flying.

Sona could not understand why we were at the riverfront but not going in the water:

And with that, Grandmaman was back on the train to Seattle. Priya was sad. But we will see her again soon in Florida!!

Blessed with Guests

Summer keeps rolling along here in Portland. Sunny skies and highs in the upper 70's to mid 80's. Just beautiful. We have been fortunate to have several guests over the last few weeks and they have been lucky to enjoy this great weather.

First, our friends Nadia and Jonathan stopped by for a couple of nights after visiting Seattle. They made it out to Sauvie Island for a picnic and blackberries. Then we hit the International Rose Garden:



Priya is happy after a dinner at happening (and loud) Clyde Commons.

Shortly after Nadia and Jonathan left, Grandmaman Wallace arrived, also after a stop in Seattle to visit Uncle Chris. Grandmaman got to spend A LOT of time with her granddaughter as Ami and I worked most of the week to save up some vacation days for upcoming trips. Also, MusicFest Northwest was last weekend, with some great concerts. So, Grandmaman did lots of babysitting. But, we did all manage to make it to the Portland Japanese Gardens:

More pictures of Grandmaman's visit in the next post.

RADIOHEAD

We took a quick family roadtrip up to Seattle on Wednesday so that my brother and I could catch the Radiohead concert. It was at the White River Amphitheatre outside of Seattle. The show was amazing. The audio was perfect. The lights and visual effects really enhanced the show. They concentrated on newer material with several tracks off of the most recent album, "In Rainbows" and probably 90% of the songs off of albums from or after Kid A. But, they did play a few gems from "The Bends" and "OK Computer". They played for close to 2 hours and it rained for the greater part of that time, luckily we were under the shelter. One of the best Radiohead shows that I have seen.

Here are a few pictures from the show (I am working on the trying to get the video I shot to work) and picture of Priya with Uncle Chris (AKA Big Unk).

Indian Festival and Vegetable Garden

Portland had an Indian Festival today in Pioneer Courthouse Square in downtown, which is referred to as Portland's Living Room. Anyway, the festival had good attendance and one entertainment act after another - bollywood dances, traditional dances, and bhangra. The bhangra was great as a bunch of people from the crowd stepped up to learn "Fixing the light bulb" and "Opening the door". You can see everyone giving it a try below:



Priya is giving it a try in the picture above. Even in her pretty yellow dress, she was getting hot and wouldn't muster a smile in the picture below. Look at those big fat cheeks!

The other big news is that I planted a small vegetable garden on the side of the house and it is finally bearing ripe vegetables. I planted two different tomato plants, two different cucumbers, 4 different peppers, a bunch of lettuces, and some flower seeds (in front of the dryer vent!). We finally are starting to see some red tomatoes. We were frustrated to see that something or someone took the first two ripe ones!! Several more are ripening as you can see in the second picture behind Priya who is sitting in her Bumbo.

Hopefully we will have some peppers soon. The second tomato plant has huge Better Boy tomatoes but they aren't ripe yet.

Crater Lake

We just got back from a little road trip to Bend and Crater Lake. I had been wanting to see Crater Lake since we moved to Portland. The lake was formed 7700 years again when a volcano Mount Mazama blew it's top. The lake is the deepest in the USA at almost 2000 feet deep. The famous lodge on the lake rim books months in advance and doesn't allow dogs. So, we stayed in Bend for two nights and made a day trip to Crater Lake.

After arriving at the lake, we went straight to the only trail that leads down to the water. You can catch a boat tour here as well but they were sold out of the trips that fit our schedule, which ended up being a good thing because the boat was tiny and probably not a good place for an infant.



The trail to the water is 1.1 miles of switchbacks. It was a pleasurable stroll down to the water and Priya did great, even falling asleep in the Baby Bjorn by the time we got to the bottom. The water was so blue and a little chilly. But that didn't stop Ami from dipping her toes in it and I managed to find a cliff to jump off of into the water (not in the picture below though).

The hike back up was a different story. Priya was not very happy and cried basically the whole way up. I had to carry her the last 1/3 because she wouldn't tolerate the Baby Bjorn. But we made it to the top and headed to the lodge for a great lunch, including a 3 berry cobbler with huckleberry ice cream (see, it's all about the berries).

On the way home from Bend the next day, we stopped at Detroit Lake and let Sona go for a swim since she missed out on Crater Lake. Priya had a blast watching Sona chase tennis balls in the lake (that's Sona in the background doing her best Lochness Monster impersonation).

A great little trip. Bend is a beautiful town surrounded by mountains and rivers with a walkable downtown filled with great shops and restaurants. Definitely worth repeat visits. If we had stayed through the weekend, I could have hit another brewers festival.

Portland Heat Wave

We are at the tail end of a heat wave here in the Northwest. Three days of high temperatures over 100 degrees!! While that may not be impressive to the Texans reading this, it is hot for the Northwest. So, since we are stuck inside today here are some recent photos:

Summer arrives - blog suffers!

Sorry for the lack of new posts on the blog, but we have 2 very good excuses. First, Ami and I are finally on our own with Priya. Grandmaman Wallace left on July 23rd. It was hard at first not having anyone to hand Priya off to when you were tired or wanted to update your blog. But, we have adjusted nicely. The main reason though is that summer has finally arrived in the Pacific NW and the weather has been fantastic. We had 24 straight days without rain!!!

We have been out and about and crazy busy with trips to Eugene, weekly concerts at our neighborhood park, BBQ's, multiple beer festivals, and my favorite - berry picking. I think we are closing in on 100 pounds of total berries picked and consumed. It is all berries all the time around here: berries with breakfast, berry lemonade, homemade berry ice cream etc...It started with strawberries, then raspberries, marionberries, boysenberries, blueberries and blackberries. All within 10 miles and with views of Mt. Hood, Mt. St. Helens, and Mt. Adams while you pick.

Anyway, you didn't visit the site to hear me fluff the berry industry. On to the pictures of Priya: Here she is at the zoo visiting with the seals.



Ami, Priya and a hippo.

Grandmama and Priya at the Lucky Lab brewery.

At a park in Eugene (home of University of Oregon).

I will put up a new slideshow of recent pictures and try to get a new video up soon. Now, where did I put those berries....