Organic Gardening

I love productivity! And there's no better way to watch it than to plant a bunch of seeds and watch them turn into plants right before your eyes. I can hardly contain the anticipation I feel at growing all of my vegetables organically and feeding my family these wonderfully healthy products.



I ordered certified organic seeds and bought certified organic germination soil. I love it when my UPS driver, Terry, delivers big excitement in small packages. By the way, ask any UPS driver the name of someone you know (in the same geographical area) and they will tell you their street address. I have had success twice.















I usually don't start my garden until May, sometimes reaching into June . But this year I have these handy little greenhouses so I have started germinating my seeds.



There is control of temperature to be considered because different seeds germinate at different temperatures. So I sorted the seeds according to their temperature requirements for germination.


The seeds that need it cool to sprout I left outside in the elements.



We bought these spiffy heated mats that you lay under the trays containing the soil and seeds. For the seeds requiring 80 degrees and up I laid stone tile pieces under the heated mats to help retain the heat even more. At night I cover the trays with towels to help because it dips into the 30's and 40's for night temperatures still. Controlling the air temperature (done with heat lamps), the soil temperature and the humidity level makes for successful germination and plant growth.



The temperature this day is 55 degrees. You can see the warmer temp in the greenhouse.



By the time the outdoor temperatures are good for planting the garden my plants will be well on their way and able to be transplanted into the ground.



The two things that will potentially determine my crop is if the mice eat my sprouts when the lids come off the trays (this happened a couple years ago when I had less elaborate equipment) and if the temperature plummets, which today it has. It is 44 degrees at 3:30 p.m. The soil temp of the trays that need to be over 80 degrees dropped to 60 degrees. I may be reseeding my peppers and tomatoes.

Happy gardening!

Mountain Flying

When I have not flown in awhile I get a hankering to get up and fly around Mt. Hood (over 11,000 ft. elevation) and back, especially when it has gotten a fresh blanket of snow. So I piloted and Bruce took the pictures. Our friend John flew his plane with us.


I have been told that my grandmother, Martha and my grandfather, Chester packed their buckboard in the late 1800's and journeyed from Milwaukie to Government Camp (on the south side) with their friends and camped.

In all the trip took 2 weeks. Our trip took an hour.

This is the west side.


We were flying at 9,500 ft. and 6 to 7 miles away from the mountain on the north side.


Often times one needs to worry about flying around a mountain if it is windy at all. This day was calm with just a few bumps on the backside as the wind became an downdraft.


I also know that Martha never traveled in an airplane of any kind in her 100 years of life because she was afraid of flying in them. She did not trust that something man-made could carry one so high and not break.

This is the east side.


All in all, it was a great flight. Some clouds, blue skies and a view that leaves one speechless. This one was for you Grandma Mac!

What We Do On Monday Mornings

There is an airport SW of us that has a restaurant on the field that we like to visit every Monday morning. It is a 20 min. flight for us to get to Independence and enjoy an amazing breakfast. This particular morning there were a couple layers of clouds. They are fun to navigate around. We use our Monday flights to get in the air no matter what the weather looks like from the ground (except when we have fog) just to experience it knowing we can always turn back and land.

Here is the lower layer of clouds at about 2,000 ft. from the surface

Parked at Independence.

These are clouds around 5,000 ft. I love to fly when we have clouds hanging around. In fact if you talk to just about any pilot they will all agree with me. There's just something amazing about motoring around things floating in the air and the realization of how big they really are.

The hole that leads to home.

First Things First

You've probably noticed that the pieces of aluminum are covered with a blue plastic. There's a history to this stuff: The kits were originally shipped as bare aluminum, but the pieces got all scuffed up as the building proceeded. Some builders had no interest in painting their aircraft and wished instead to have polished aluminum, and scratched skins just weren't gonna work. There was enough verbiage on the subject that Van's started using the coated materials. To remove the plastic isn't a big deal, it's just a pain on the bigger pieces since it really sticks good. After a couple skin pieces, I started using my shop broom to roll the plastic off. Works like a charm! The only problem is now my shop broom has a big, beefy, sticky handle.