9/5/08 I am writing this as Elaine is driving south towards the California border. This morning we left Days Creek, where we stayed several days with our friends Pat & Tom Bryant on their beautiful little farm. Not only are they always welcoming, when we visit, they are interesting and always busy with a myriad of projects. We were able to help with a few of them, but when it came to dealing with their critters, we left that up to them! Because we had just arrived from Winchester Bay, we had some fresh crab to share with them, and here is a picture of our first dinner together, enjoying the fruits of the sea.

The first day we were there, we went with Tom to the nearby river to collect some flat river rocks for his fireplace project in his big storage shed/shop/art room complex. Here is a picture of Mary & Tom at the site:

On the north side of the hill we could still find some good blackberries, so we wanted to pick some for a cobbler. Elaine was whining about how hard it was to get to them so Tom developed a new method of picking. He used a large leather glove to protect his hand and he cut off the stalks of berries and handed them to us in a dishpan and then we just plucked off the berries into another pan and threw the stalks away. We had a large amount of berries in about 10 minutes! The cobbler that night was delicious.
The next day we helped Pat out in their very large and productive garden. She had some small plants that had been developing in their greenhouse which she needed to plant. She also had a row of beets that were ready to harvest and she wanted to pickle them and can them. So we went out and helped with that. Here are some pictures of all the fun we had:

Pat Rototils the Garden

Elaine and Pat Planting

Elaine & Pat With Finished Rows

Pat's Pumpkins
As they were planting, my job was to harvet the beets. When the green leafy tops are cut off, then they get thrown over the fence to the waiting goats:

Because Pat &Tom have sheep and goats, they had to get a guardian dog to patrol the fenced areas to protect the livestock from predators such as cougars, coyotes, etc. Here is a picture of Dutch, the guardian dog:

The two newest critters on the farm are Fudge and Pudge. After all the great food we had here, we fall into the same category as these animals!

Before arriving at Tom & Pat's, we stopped at the Escapee park in Sutherlin to visit our friends Pam & Sid Bowen. We not only go to see their new park model, new truck, and new (old) small travel trailer, they took us out to lunch as an early wedding celebration/present. It was great to see them and here is a picture of them in front of their new trailer, which they will use to go over to the Crabfest on the coast, of course.

It has been nice to be off the coast and experiencing some warm weather! Now that we are heading towards Redding, it is even getting HOT. We will be back at Park Sierra within a day or two and have a few doctor's appointments next week. It will be good to see all our Park Sierra friends again, and also start getting arrangements made for the wedding on Oct. 25.