Mrs Rover & I, with daughter Emily, drove a load of furniture to the Portland OR/Vancouver WA area last week to help Emily & Evan get settled into their new apartment. It was an exhausting few days, with obligatory trips to IKEA, GoodWill, and a friendly local furniture dealer. Moved a bed, two dressers, and many boxes; bought locally a kitchen table, chairs, and assorted furnishings. And moved them all up to the 3rd floor apartment.We did well.
On a morning walk, we discovered something strange: people with
purple hands! Was this some sort of local cult? Or perhaps enthusiastic voters in some sort of election?:
Let's look more closely. What is Emily doing?:
YES, blackberry picking!:
I grew up in a blackberry picking family in the Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. Rare was the year when Grandma did not can 40 or 50 quarts in addition to the many quarts we ate fresh in pies and on cereal, and those that went into Gram's wine-making crock. The Portland area has blackberries in superabundance, and so it seemed odd that no one else was picking them and passersby on the trail looked at us like we were foraging hillbillies. Well, if the corn-cob pipe fits...
We also explored Portland a bit, and I dropped into
The Hair Lair at 3332 SW Corbett Avenue for a rare store-bought hair cut. Here are the stylists, Joe & Becky [note: Joe McKee was my student some years ago, and is one of the few people I would ever trust to cut my hair]:
And here's a pic of Joe & ER, post haircut (Hey Joe, don't bring scissors & a blow dryer to a gun fight):
This week it was back to the world: classes began Monday along with the bread & circuses of college politics.
5 comments:
What a great post!
The blackberry stained hands in my sidebar are awesome!
So glad the shades of red were from blackberries and not blisters from moving!
When Chris and I were first married, our little four room apt. was next door to a wild blackberry field. I'm sure it once belonged to the original settlers of that piece of land. But for us... it was manna from heaven. With $5 left in our pockets at the end of each week... having free berries was a gift!
Today, there's a Mr. Sub in its place.
This is the second time this week I've read of IKEA. It sounds like a great place to find basic necessities and then some.
There's nothing like Good Will stores... I have gone there a few times here and there and have always taken home a treasure~
I'm back at school Sept. 7.
Here's to a good year...
*Maria
ps. What fun it must have been to see Joe, Becky and their really cool hair lair! Looks like a good time was had!
Yum!
Black berry cobbler! Reminds me of home. We had as many we could pick in Oklahoma.
Be sure to tell Emily not to miss the cherries when the season fort them starts. I love the light colored ones best. That area is great for fruit and flowers, isn't it?
I think Portland would be an a neat city to start out in. I see lots of shows from there on HGTV.
When we lived in east Texas many years ago, we took the kids out blackberry picking along the sides of the road every summer. We did get a lot of strange looks... but the blackberry pies were worth it! No blackberries here, but we do have some pretty good raspberries.
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