After getting a few small tasks done we left for Florence around 10:30. It's a very pretty 1-hour drive out to the coast through thick woods, much of it along the Siuslaw River. We decided to go right to Lovejoy's Tearoom for lunch and were the first to arrive. Within 10 minutes four other parties had arrived including a group of 10 older ladies, a church group that drove down from Newport.
I read on their website last night that the original owner, a Brit, retired six months ago and sold it to one of her long-time employees. Based on our disappointing experience today she's got some learnin' to do. Pam ordered a shrimp salad that arrived without shrimp. I ordered a lunch that included a cup of clam chowder (good) and a ham/pear/Gouda cheese sandwich that came 30 minutes later. But maybe it was aged Gouda??
Too pricey for that kind of food and service.
I got all four raised beds ready for the delivery of 3 cu. yds of topsoil that will arrive between 10:00 and noon tomorrow. Serendipitously, they have a sale on delivery charges that ends tomorrow, so I'm saving a substantial amount of money. Once it arrives it's time to use that new off-road wheelbarrow to get it into the boxes, raked, and ready for the veggies we'll plant.
Tomorrow is also freedom day for the pullets. Once it's warmed up, around 10 a.m., I'll open the little door that allows them to go out into the run. That's fun to watch. They peek out at the great outdoors, instinctively drawn but afraid of the unknown. If it goes like it has in the past they'll take turns staring out the opening for 30 minutes or more before one of them works up the courage to go down the ramp.
Because they've been closed in the coop for the last five days they'll instinctively go back in there when the sun begins to set, and/or whenever they want food or water.
Like most of the PNW we've been unseasonably warm the last two days with temps in the low 80's. I took advantage of the sun and warmth by working hard on outside chores with shovel, rake, and post hole digger.
Maybe it's my last name; I enjoy doing farmer stuff whether it's dirt or animals. And I'm still struck by the beauty of this three acres in the middle of the woods.
When I'm done with the day's chores, usually because it's dinnertime, I almost always take a few minutes to walk some portion of this property - to the creek to see how fast the water is flowing, into the woods on the other side just to look at how lush the forest is, to the coop to peek in on the chickens, up to the garden to see the leaves appearing on the apple tree....
Can you guess how often I've missed the setting of our home in Sun City, AZ?
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