Monday, August 24, 2009

Alpenrose Dairy and some Peach Pickin' Time

For a couple days Super-Hero has been bugging me about what to do this weekend. Frankly, I didn't want to do anything! He offered the beach. And you say to yourself "Are you crazy? He's willing to take you to the beach and you don't want to go?" And my answer, this time, is no. Because it's all about the packing. You see, we wouldn't go to the beach and stay the night. We would leave early morning (after I've fixed breakfast for everyone) and head off to the beach. The kids would play, we might fly a kite, dig some holes to China and then eat the lunch I had to bring for all five of us. And not forget that 90% of what I would bring would not be gluten free for Holland. Then we'd get wet, have no place dry to go change and then we would leave and maybe get taken to McDonald's on our way out of town.

Normally, I wouldn't mind doing that, but Friday when the idea was put on the table, I just couldn't wrap my tired little brain around more planning and fidgeting with food that would have to be properly stored while traveling. It just did not appeal to me. My kind of trip to the beach would be one small night spent somewhere, getting up at the crack of dawn to watch the sunrise. Sitting on the beach late at night knowing you have a warm room to go back to and could tuck the kids into bed and read a book and be refreshed for the drive home. When we get to the beach for the day, I end up driving most of the way because super hero here can't stay awake for more than 45 minutes while he's driving. I pack those No-Doze pills in our glove compartment, but he'd rather slap himself on the cheeks to keep awake. Or roll down the window for some fresh air. Or let me drive. Which wouldn't be bad, except 5 minutes after I've taken the wheel, two things have happened: 1 - he's fallen asleep. 2- someone is arguing with someone else in the back seat. Or touched someone or looked at someone sideways. So now I'm trying to drive and tell everyone they need to shush because I'm distracted and don't want to crash.

So, that's why I'm not in the mood for the beach. But I was in the mood to go check out a fundraiser at Alpenrose Dairy in Portland. I had never been up there, but Super-Hero had played Little League baseball up there a couple times. There were cute kid's activities (face painting, a real live camel, tossing games for prizes, catching rubber ducks, pitching contest, a bouncy house and of course food.) All the food was free. And after you filled your tummy with a delicious burger and ice cold coke, you could wait in line for free ice cream! It doesn't get much better than that.

What gets better now is that I'm talking to my mom asking if she made it to the rummage sale (she's the one who told me about it). We had a good laugh. She, my dad and sister's family all came up and we were all there about the same time, just never ran into each other. I found out they were heading towards Hillsboro to pick peaches. I missed peaches last year due to husband interference :-) He just doesn't understand that it's something I've done for years; something that makes me feel good and productive; saves us money by canning; and gives the kids a wonderful memory of picking peaches in an orchard. I convince him to go. In his mind "it's sooooo far!" Well, we're more than half way there right now! Let's do it. The peaches weren't completely ripe which is good and bad. They shouldn't bruise as easily as ripened peaches and we wouldn't have to come straight home to can peaches that could spoil in a day or two.

Now I just have to figure out how I'm going to can with a missing part of my canning paraphanalia. It seems Holland has absconded with the metal insert for lifting the cans out and keeping them directly off the heat while bathing. He seems to be doing a lot of this lately (gosh, big surprise there!) I was talking with my sister on the phone tonight and my cordless went dead. I ran over to the only phone with a cord in the house and picked it up. No dial tone. I looked to make sure the curly cord was pushed in all the way and waited for it to click. Nothing. Then I noticed that the phone jack is completely empty and there is no phone jack cord anywhere around. Another experiment somewhere in the house is enjoying the use of that phone cord.

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