Tuesday Travel: Home Base

Me and my siblings visiting Dad in Salem.

The view from my walk looking back at Michael's place hidden by the trees.

     On our way back to our Home Base in Olympia, we stopped for a few days in Albany, OR to visit family. We were able to gather all of my siblings to visit with Dad who is 92. It has been several years since we were all together, so it was pretty special for Dad to have us all there at the same time. I'm amazed at how my Dad just keeps going! We stayed at my nephew's place in North Albany where he has several acres and it was a very pleasant place to recharge from all the visiting. We made the most of our few days there visiting with as many people as we could fit in. There were so many more people we want to see, but there wasn't time. We plan to return for a more extended visit later in the summer.

My one blooming Iris!

Hellebore plants are happy.

Wild bleeding hearts, Columbine

     We were glad to get back to our lot and settle in after being on the move every week or two for 6 months. We had plenty of cleanup to do from winter storms, branches and leaves to clean up, weeds to kill and the snow damage to assess and repair. After weighing options, we decided to replace our Costco tarp garage with a new one. It didn't do very well with the 17" of snow they got here in February. We are so thankful for our neighbors who came and got the snow off and propped it up until we could get home and fix it. Jerry has added supports to the new one to give it a better chance of survival in the future. Most of these in the park failed under the weight of the snow. Thankfully, the Harbor Freight one that the van was stored in did fine. It had a large tree over it, cedars alongside of it and a wider base which helped quite a bit.
     Coming home to see so many flowers in bloom was fun for me. I loved the amazing flowers we saw this winter, but coming home to familiar ones is always lovely. To see my shy Hellebore blooming profusely, the Hostas beginning to unfurl, and buds on my Peonies made my heart happy. Now my wild Bleeding Hearts and Columbine are in full bloom as are my Irises. Well, one Iris that's in a pot, anyway. The dirt here isn't all the great, so the many Irises I brought with me from the house add greenery, but haven't bloomed. For the most part I do container gardening. Not that I'm that much of a gardener, but I do love having fresh herbs and a few flowers. The herbs I have are Anise Hyssop, Sage, Lemon Balm, Chives, Mint, Stevia, Basil, Oregano, Lavender, and Thyme in varying degrees of success. It very fun to go out and clip some herbs to add to a salad or something I'm cooking. I was also given a space in the Community Garden in a friend's plot, so I now have two cherry tomato plants. We'll see how that goes! My Mom had such a green thumb, and so does my son. I used to feel like it had skipped me, but I've found that I've been able to build on a few successes here and there and I do well enough to suit me.

My little herb garden. 

    We were able to meet the original owners of our RV this past weekend. Imagine our surprise last year when we discovered that not only were a couple of people in our park related to the original owners, but a few years ago this very Motorhome lived in this park just a couple of streets over! We purchased it from a small family RV dealer in Vancouver, WA who bought it at auction 6 years ago. The names of the owners meant nothing to us at the time; we were still living in our house in Renton and didn't even know that this park existed. Jerry made note of their names as a matter of course when we bought it. (He's very good about documentation.) Last summer he had reason to check back in his records. "Do you think the Malley we know might know the Malley who owned this rig before?" he asks. Sure enough--brothers! At one time, all four brothers lived here. So of course when there was a family birthday party this weekend, several people made sure we got to meet the original owners. It was fun to get a little history about the rig and share how much we enjoy it now. What a small world!