Summer has entered its final month and I am taking a new look at August. Everyone, it seems, takes the month of August off. Most of the civilized world physically quits working and packs up the family to enjoy cool breezes and lazy afternoons. Our congress just left whatever they were doing (do they really do anything?) in July to pick up again in September. Even though Amy and I don’t technically have to be back working until the 21st or so, my mind will be on vacation until the very end of the month. I’m going to squeeze this vacation for all it’s worth.
Best Pics
Before I get into the latest news and musings, I’ll let you all view the La Galleria. Here are the culled shots from Spain and Portugal, broken into three groupings: The first need no explanation, they are just images.
The next few are sketches I made. Each of them is titled, except for the one with two chimneys, which is Capileira. The Plaza Mayor in Salamanca is the best of the bunch, and was also the last. I must have been getting the hang of it just as we left.
As for the following, the are: the Alfama neighborhood in Lisbon, above Capileira, our hotel in Madrid, proof of the Spanish obsession with ham (a jamoneria) , inside a pasteleria (coffee shop) in Lisbon, the dizzying edge of Ronda, and last but not least, the first thing we saw in Spain that puzzled us and cracked us up every time we saw it – the exit sign.
There you have it, our trip in a nutshell. The picture of the month is one I’m having enlarged and mounted (from the Moorish palace in Sevilla) Alas, no bullfights.
A busy month
July, once we got back, has been non-stop. Dad and Barbara came the day after we got in, followed by Leslie the following day. Making their grand-daughter tours. It was really nice to see all three and catch up. Boise even cooperated, mostly, by not getting into the 100’s. Before Leslie had even left, I was off on my long anticipated solo trip into the Sawtooths. I took off from Boise in the wee hours and was hiking by 9:00 into the heart of some amazing mountains, where I spent four days and hiked about 35 miles in a big loop. Wilderness is, as I have come to term it, the kingdom of the bugs. I watched a pika up close, talked to a grouse for a while, and listened to a wolf pack howl all night. Oooooooooooo-ooooooooooh.
Having recovered from that, Amy and I headed west to John Day in central Oregon for the SolWest solar/alternative energy fair. We attended a few classes on solar energy systems, passive solar design, wind generation, etc, and met some really cool people. It was nice to camp (at the Grant county fairgrounds) among a bunch of hippies for a change. On a tip from a local grower, we headed out west and looped through some small farming towns in central Oregon before heading up to the high forest west of Baker City, where we camped among the stunted lodgepoles. We froze. Central Oregon, I did not realize, is very, very remote. We came down through Baker City and went up to Halfway, near the Idaho border at Hell’s Canyon.
Here’s the news: It appears that Corvallis is out and Halfway is in. Halfway is lovely, green, and very isolated. There are a few Mormons about, but aren’t there always? We seem to feel a pull toward Oregon, where they value the culture in agriculture and are doing a decent job at preserving it. Idaho, with it’s anathema towards land use regulation, zoning, or equitable taxation, has lost it’s good land and family scale agri-culture. All land in Idaho is developable, which means ag land is priced the same as development land. There is no distinction economically, culturally, or geographically. Small farms, in this situation, cannot compete for land, and do not have a market. So we’re lookin’ elsewhere. It’d be nice to know, as well, that your governor or congressman (or any other elected or appointed official) wasn’t a grade A dick.
The Wrap-up
I have also been getting this year’s house started. Permits, classes ( I am now a Responsible Person- according to the city) and bids. They will be digging next week (or today) and pouring concrete soon after. No pictures yet, but just imagine flat ground with a bunch of weeds and you’ll get the idea. A quick update on some of the readers: Al and Jane are back from China for a few weeks and I will see them this week. Jeremy is ensconced in Nome, Alaska where Wendy and Isa will join him soon. Brian and Rachel have discovered that Addie is more monkey than they thought possible in a human genome. Amy is excited because the veggies are finally starting to produce- time to eat!
Scott
