We continue to work around the hatchery. We try to get all the mowing…and there’s a lot…done on Thursday and Friday, but keep busy at other times too. Here Ed is using a hammer drill to insert concrete anchor bolts into the steps to secure a handrail.

We’re trying to use all the mulch dumped for us earlier. Connie flexes her muscles loading and unloading the Gator. She has made a huge difference in all the landscaping around here.

Connie hates weeds and sometimes finds them in hard to reach places.

Just below the area where Connie is pulling weeds, and just below the weir, is this pool of Spring Chinook (King Salmon), 10-15 pound range. These salmon are “lost.” Believed to have taken a wrong turn (probably following a Garmin eh Cliff?) or mistakenly came up Big Creek to spawn. So they just wander in this pool, can’t go up any farther upstream and not in their nature to go back.

We see anglers up and down the creek and not many catching fish, or only one or two. The “lost” salmon are just beyond this closed sign. Go figure.

There are six homes on our neighborhood street, the hatchery road. Hatchery techs and the manager live here, and most have children; ranging from toddler to 12 years old. Having the kids around playing in the street (rarely has traffic) give us joy and we’re getting to know them. Our next door neighbor, Julian and Julia have two children that we see most often. Here is Henry and is little sister Isabel. Grandpa just got them this contraption from an antique store.

We don’t get a lot of wind here, but an occasional gust causes concern with the awnings flapping around. If the wind catches them just right, we’d have more damage to contend with. Ed hung a couple buckets of rocks using bungee cords to the awning arms which seems to help.

Hard to believe that the nearest Walmart is 40 miles away in Longview, Washington. We do need our Walmart fix now and then and the drive is actually quite nice. Highway 30 takes us through Clatskanie, Oregon. We made the Walmart trip Saturday July 23 and stopped at the Clatskanie Farmers Market on the way back. A fun day.

Remember the dewberries we posted that we picked in our last post? Connie made a delicious dewberry crisp. We don’t eat desserts much, but had to indulge in this tasty treat. Locals like the dewberries better than the blackberries. Dewberries are like blackberries, but a lot smaller, ripen a month or so earlier, and are much harder to locate and pick. We are surrounded by blackberries. They are everywhere. Connie’s next project is Blackberry Jam. Yeah!

Living in Oregon calls out to visit a local brewery whenever you get the chance. We love Astoria’s Fort George Brewery. Stopped in for a Vortex IPA and a pulled pork sandwich(?) after one of our adventures to town. We ordered the pulled pork on chips instead of a bun. Quite interesting.

The hatchery asks us to work 20 hours a week each in exchange for living in this beautiful park like setting with full hooks-ups for our trailer. They even provide us with a cute little shed with a washer and dryer. Everyone is super and seem to love having us here. Our normal schedule of working around the hatchery is 7:30am to 11:30am. We often go over that a little, but it leaves us with ample time to explore Oregon. Especially when it doesn’t get dark until 9pm or so.

So Thursday July 21 we traveled about 45 minutes down highway 101 to Cannon Beach. What a delightful little town, albeit a tourist draw. They are well known for “Haystack Rock” (picture above). Can you guess why?

Enjoyed walking on the beach. Even got a little sand between our toes.

Other than exploring this quaint little seaside town, we had two primary goals. Those that know us can imagine what they were. One was to find the quilt store. Connie loved the Center Diamond Quilt Store and…of course, bought another “Row by Row” for her ongoing collection.

And we both loved the Pelican Brewery. Shown in the forefront of the street picture above. Several taps available. We tuned in to their Umbrella IPA (the green label on the left tap).

July 28 – Drove in to Astoria again for Astoria’s downtown Farmers Market setup on Thursdays. Click here for our earlier posting about the market. It was also time to visit Zac at the Astoria Brewery again. Zac is fantastic and hugs, sounds, and resembles our nephew Marshall. Connie tried a 10oz glass of their stout and liked it, and Ed stuck with the Ichiban IPA.

We always pass the Bow Picker Fish and Chips boat as we travel to/from Astoria. There is always a long line. Except this Thursday, so we had to try in out. A little pricey, $9 for 3 pieces of fish and some fries, but…the fish is tuna and absolutely great. Worth the $9. And they are very friendly.

So friendly even the sea gull says hello as we enjoy our fish and chips. Probably waiting for someone to leave a morsel for him?