8/3/2010 Yodersaground

So here we are high and dry at Cody's house (our old place). We'll be here through August except that next week I'll go back to the boat for a few days to fix some stuff. Among the stuff to fix is that pesky low oil alarm. I bought a replacement switch and, looking at it, I suspect that the electrical connections that I thought were shorting weren't even on the switch. Not sure what they were on but I guess I'll find out next week.

Been checking the coastal weather since we've been up here and so far it looks like we aren't missing any great travel windows. The combined seas are still in the vicinity of, if not exceeding 10' with a very short period. This equals steep waves which, as we now know, are quite uncomfortable.

While we've been up here at Cody's we've been doing various chores. Scott & Cody had cleared an area up in the woods where they want to have their wedding ceremony. They levelled the ground and planted grass seed. Lulu has taken over the management of the plot so she's now in charge of the watering schedule. She's also working on Cody's wedding dress along with Janet, Scott's mom. My job is to make table centerpieces as well as a bunch of benches to seat the wedding guests.

Scott brought home 4 chickens the other day so he and Cody have been spending a lot of time getting the old chicken house back to its original purpose as well as making a little outside area for the chickens. Last night they learned how to clip their wings. We always enjoyed having chickens and suspect that they will too.

Tomorrow we're heading up the The Dalles for our 3rd cousins' reunion. Haven't seen some of these folks for many years so it should be fun. I've ben hearing noises about barbecuing when we're there and, after I recived an e-mail from my cousin Mark's wife, Traci, mentioning how much they enjoyed the pulled pork I brought them a few years ago, I immediately jumped in the truck and went to the store to get some pork shoulders (Boston butts). So, I now have about 25 pounds of pork on the BBQ pit and am looking at about 8 or 9 hours of smoking time. No biggie since my job throughout the process is mainly to add another couple sticks of alder to the pit every hour or so. And yes, I am a whore for flattery.

As far as blog updates go while we're aground, I doubt they'll be daily. Maybe every three days or so. And I know they won't have photos unless I happen to be somwehere that I can get a high speed connection. Because waiting for a photo, much less multiple photos, to up load on a dial-up connection is pure torture.

Meanwhile, we're soaking up the nice warm weather while we can. It's weird, our retirement plan was to always be where it's warm and this is actually the first time we've been warm since we retired over a year ago.