A Weekend Get-Away

It is amazing to me how quickly time passes, and how soon this blog gets out of date. Again, my apologies. This past week has been consumed with work and the usual chores on the farm. It is lovely to see the days getting longer, finally. Soon the grass will start growing and I can be thinking about starting things for the garden.


We did, however, manage to squeeze a little winter get-away into our busy schedule just last weekend. I was in charge of finding accommodations with the following three criteria: will let us bring our old dog, has a fireplace, and on the beach. We were also focusing on the Long Beach, Washington, area as it was familiar to us and about as short of a drive as we could get to get us to the ocean. It's always a crap-shoot regarding the weather on the coast in the winter, but we totally lucked out and got a beautiful weekend, right up until we had to drive home, which was totally OK.


After much searching on line, I found The Breakers. It is a great place with units that are owned by people who then rent them out when they're not using them. Ours felt homey as soon as we walked in the door! It was a wonderful find. There was also a pool house and a hot tub that I didn't use, but Frank made sure to take a daily soak!


Frank and Sandy also put in lots of beach time. It's the one thing they miss from living in Oregon so they really probably overdid it! Lewis and Clark, while they were wintering in Fort Clatsop, Oregon, made a foray up to this area and there are many historical markers. This is one identifying the location of a giant sturgeon that Clark encountered. Sandy is checking out to see if it's real or not!


On Saturday we ventured up to Oysterville, which used to be the county seat until 'the raiders' from South Bend descended on the town in the dark of night and over the water to steal all the records away. This plaque bears testimony of the bad blood that still exists! Now, Oysterville has about 10 historic homes, a church, and an oyster farmer, who sells to the public as well as restaurants and such.
Going to Oysterville is truly like stepping back in time.


At night Frank would work on some school work and Sandy would do what tired, old dogs do. Mostly she was on her big dog bed that we brought, but occasionally she'd venture up on the couch for a few minutes but it wasn't as good as stretching out on her own bed. We loved having the fireplace (I miss that from our old house) and we ate bad things that tasted really good from the joint across the street. It was then time to go back home and start back up on eating more healthy!

Not much else going on here. We did do our part to stimulate the economy by ordering new carpet for the house. It should be here in the next couple of weeks. We are NOT looking forward to practically emptying the house but it will be so nice to get this crappy old carpet out of here.


I also had a nice surprise when I went out to clean the barn on Thursday and found a large bale of the most beautiful hay just inside the door. Come to find out our neighbor, who works for the state roads department, found it and thought to bring it home for me. What a great guy! Only a horse person could think this was such a wonderful gift! It's too rich to feed to the donkeys or the fat mini, and LB didn't like it (who ever heard of a picky pony?) but Bailey is sure loving this good treat!


Spring sure feels like it's here in the Northwest and I am excited to see how our blueberries and raspberries do this 2nd year after they were transplanted. I am also more than ready to start seedlings for our garden, but it's still way too early. I also need to get Larry's field fertilized soon so I can move the horses and donkeys over there in late March, then fertilize this field and let it rest. There is always something to do on Red Pony Ranch!