Rain in Portland

Its been raining a lot in Portland, supposed to snow. Up at elevation around here it has been snowing a lot... down at my house its just wet and the grass is freezing at night. Tim and I want to head up Mt. Hood to go to Bagby Hotsprings while we still can (its too remote and they don't plow the roads so its not accessible during the winter if there is a lot of heavy snowfall) but I fear it may be too late... and I have so much work to do... we'll see. I would like to see Bagby one last time before the Forest service sells that chunk of old growth forest.

My Dad took the picture above. It arrived in my email box today. I love how you can see one little flower in the rain drop. Delicious. Great photo Dad!

Rain Chain

My glass mobiles look beautiful in the rain, and many times I have thought about making a rain chain. My friend Sandy has been asking me to make her some for her garden... and its raining really hard out at the moment... so I got inspired to mess around!

While I am buzy here at home in the studio creating mobiles, I took some extra circles and whipped up a little bit of rain chain. If you don't know what a rain chain is, its a decorative element that functions in a gutter system to guide water flow down into drainage (or even better - into a rain barrel to store the water for future garden watering) while being more decorative and beautiful than a plain gutter.

Okay, so while I don't have a rain barrel (damn I want one! with all the rain we are getting lately it would fill immediately!) and I didn't want to disassemble my gutters mid downpour - so I couldn't test it out completely... BUT I do have some gutters that need to be cleaned out, and there is one particular section of gutter that needs to be fixed (when its stops raining I need to get up there and re-connect the gutter system and clean out the debris) so I took advantage of the steady drip and see how my proto-type works... I got completely soaked putting in a hook to hang it and its sorts late so its kinda dark in the video... but I thought I'd share!

Next I've got to actually set it up when its not raining, in the gutter system, to really see if it works... this test was just to see what the flow would be like. And that was a thumbs up!

Seeking Sunshine

What to do when the rain in Portland won't let up: go to Kah-Nee-Ta Warm Springs Reservation! The resort there touts 300 days of sunshine a year. I went out there for a quick trip with some friends and it was heaps of fun. Yeah for sunshine.
Kah-nee-ta is known for their wonderful sunny swimming pools (which they keep a warm 90 degrees or so! it was great! and there are waterslides!) and I went and slept in a Native American teepee. I've seen the insides of teepees before, but this was my first opportunity to sleep in one overnight. Pretty amazing I must say, they are huge! Sorta like camping, but everything is sorta indoors - I like it!
The resort and campgrounds are about 20 miles or so within the Warm Springs Reservation land. Driving in the sites were incredibly beautiful. There were a lot of horses grazing. Some horses out in the middle of the road blocking traffic. And an amazing cloudy sky from all the rain in the distance.
Its still raining back here in town - but thankfully I got to see the sun out at Kahneeta. It was fun to swim in the pool and enjoy the warmsprings water.

It Rains Here in Portland

Portland Oregon has a reputation for the rain. These days the weather seems to always say "Chance of Showers" when honestly right now the sun is shining outside... occasional rain with mostly beautiful skies. What can I say. All these intermittent showers make Portland a very green city. The flowers and the trees and glowing. In fact, my lawn is growing quite fast and its getting embarrassing - but the dandelions look so cute with the daffodils and yellow tulips! I am too busy to cut it, and I kinda love how it looks long :)

Rainy Saturday at the Portland Saturday Market

Saturday was a rainy morning at the Portland Saturday Market. Classic local weather... a constant drizzle, occasional real rain, persisting for hours. It was drab, and wet. I am getting used to my new/used tent and the top collects water, which I have to spill out in little waterfalls. Kinda scary. These tents do that! I have ideas though, techniques that will improve this situation... the tighter I get the corners - the more taught I can get the top to pull (which decreases pooling water) and also my neighbor had a great make-shift use of some clamps to push the canopy up. Oh yeah. Next time I will do better. This Saturday I was soggy. Did I mention the seams leak in my new top as well? Terribly. I was pretty wet.

Anyhow - the weather spiffed up a bit in the afternoon. It was actually a nice day after about 3pm. We had some great entertainment at the market - these guys rocked out. I meant to buy their CD and the picture here doesn't show their name. Woops. Any shout outs to who these guys were?

A Wet Weekend

Its been raining here in Portland this weekend. I was "rained out" of the market this weekend. Okay, so I am a wuss and I just didn't feel like hanging out in the bad weather all weekend, outdoors, trying to sell my artwork?! No thank you. But rest assure the Portland Saturday Market is open rain or shine, I just didn't happen to be there.

Image is from back in 2001 - me underwater in Koh Tao, Thailand.