New Appreciation for groups!

After working to garner some interest in starting a wood working group(s) in the area I have a new appreciation of what others have done to start the various groups I have been a member of over the years.

All of those I helped with one way or another. Either by doing demos, helping with fundraisers, or just helping to recruit members and generally help run them. With all of them though, they were already “groups” by the time I joined. Some bigger and more active than others, but all of them had been going for several years.

Many people here have expressed interest in being a member of a group should I get one going, but no one has offered to help get one started, or put up a location to get them recognized in the community.

The local Arts Center has offered up their studio space for Tuesday evenings from March to June for us to hold a carving group and I’ll be putting out word on that shortly.

Not one to give up easily, perhaps even when I should, I have decided to go a different direction. I’m going to start doing a meeting with just a couple other people (family members) and put out notice that we are meeting at X time at Y location and see if anyone shows up.

If enough people show up, we can discuss which way we want to go. If it stays just two or three of us, that’s ok too, it simply means less opinions need to be heard when we move forward.

In the end, like most other things, it’s going to be a group effort to make this a true “group” and it is a relief to know that it’s out of my direct control and a true community effort.

In the future I either will be reporting on how there is now a Carving, turning, or flat wood working group(s) in town, or there isn’t. 

Welcome to Home ownership!

Well, it’s been a fun few weeks. We moved in the end of January, Thanks to all those that came and helped us! It is nice to have all our stuff in “our” house, but it will be weeks if not months before we have everything put away. We Are gaining though, a little here and a little there when we are not working.

The doggy door is now installed making JJ a “happy dog” that can come and go as he pleases. That makes us happy as well, we no longer have to get up to let him in and out and I won’t have to stop working and go upstairs to do the same during working hours.

The funny event so far, well funny to us, perhaps not so much for the furnace guy. Our furnace stopped working a week after the furnace guy had been here to talk to us about a gas line that goes through the air intake duct. (its fine). We called him again and he was here the next day. After he and his apprentice worked on the furnace for over two hours he declared it a bad circuit board and ordered in a new one. Since we had a portable propane heated and the weather was not too cold we made due for the two days it took to get the part. He showed up with the part, changed it out, but the furnace failed to come on as he expected. Again he worked on it for a couple hours and managed to get it to work. Well, for a few hours at least. I called him again that afternoon and he told me he would warrantee the board and have a new one again in two more days.

True to his word, he showed up on the morning of the second day with the new board and was on hold with the furnace company. One of the first things he told me is that in the middle of the night he had woken up with an idea that the problem might not be the board. He proceeded to check out a pressure switch (one of two) and found that it was not wired correctly. Apparently in the past someone had worked on the furnace and rather than fix the problem had simply bypassed one of the switches. He hooked them up the way they should have been, cleaned a bit of moisture out of lines and the furnace fired up just like it was supposed to do…. An hour later he had the original board back in place and the furnace was still working like it is supposed to… When I tried to at least pay him for his time! When I pressed him he said it was a “learning experience” for him and not my fault he couldn't find the problem to start with.

One thing is certain, I will be recommending him to anyone in the area that needs furnace work done!

It’s a new year.

It’s been a long time coming but we are finally back in NE Oregon. Many years ago I was a kid in Pilot Rock, now we are living in Pendleton, just 15 miles from where I lived until the 5^th grade.  

Our new house (we sign papers on the 20^th) is an old, 1920, two story ranch house that was moved from one end of Pendleton to the other in 1960 and put on a basement. There is still a visible seam about ½ up the bottom half of the second story windows where they cut the top part of the house off to make clearance under the power lines. Since the only road through town at the time was right though down town, it must have taken up the whole of the street and been moved during the dark of the night.

Now sitting on an acre of ground the house is bordered on one side by a storage unit and on the other by a small city park. Quiet neighbors and a slow speed limit for traffic in front of the house will take some getting used to, but I think we can handle it. The nearest neighbor behind us is in a housing addition and they are about 120 yards up the hill behind the house.

There is a small, very seasonal creek between us and the hill, but it’s enough that we have to have flood insurance. I guess it Could flood if we had a 500 year flood but no one in the area can remember it ever flooding. A nice double car garage with a couple of small bonus rooms in the back will make a great wood shop and the deck will allow us to host gatherings at our house for a change.

So, here we are about to move in to a new (to us anyway) house, in a town we have only lived near, and starting a new business, in a new year. All is good with the world. Well our small little section of it anyway. Oh, and it’s the first time since I was a baby that my brother and I have lived in the same town.

Welcome 2015, here is to making it a Great year!

Thanks everyone!

As the year comes to an end I want to say a few words about how much I appreciate everyone who has had the confidence to make an order from me after I took over control of Llama Hardware. Even those that have not made purchases have shown support in so many ways that this year has flown by in a blur!

If it had not been for Barb spending months staying at our place the transition would have been much harder, Thanks Barb! 

While we knew that taking over Llama Hardware would be a lot of work, it has also been a great adventure. Learning the methods that Sid used when he started making the Flaming Star packs and how Barb made improvements on those has been fun, and adding my own little touches has now made them mine. 

Our return to the “llama world” has been great as well. Many old friends have came back into our lives and even more new ones have been added to the list. Thanks to our modern world we now have friends around the world that would have been nearly impossible to make even a few years ago. I have sold pack systems, and more, to countries over half a world away, in both directions.

Our move back to Oregon recently felt like coming home as well. While all the other places we have lived while I was earning my Master’s Degree in Anthropology were beautiful and I enjoyed aspects of all those places, they were never “home” to us.

I am still working on products to add to the Flaming Star line and will be adding a new line as time allows, Flaming Star Expedition Gear. This line will start out with small items like straps to hold fishing poles holders and rifle cases to the Flaming Star Pack system, and eventually move on to larger items.

To keep this from getting any longer, Thank You to everyone that has supported us in the transition to make Llama Hardware ours!

Richard

It’s a Process

Because we have purchased several houses before, we knew going it this would be a “process,” not a simple thing. Or least it never has been for us.

We thought we were pre-approved with one company, seems that no, that was not quite the case. The broker had gathered all the info and he ‘thought’ it would be fine, but had yet to actually turn over all the information to a finance company. Great, he told us this after we had made an offer on a house!

So, start the process all over again with a new company… yes, we could have stayed with that company, it was already in the process, but when someone is not telling me the truth about what they are doing, I tend to not trust them with my money, especially the amounts of money we are talking about when buying a house!

Meeting with the new person went smooth, she says it shouldn't be a problem, etc, but oh, she is leaving town early on Friday and won’t be able to get to things until at least Monday. And can we get her up-to-date bank statements, etc… I guess the others were over two whole weeks old and just wouldn't do to tell her how much money we had made over the last year???? Really?

Still working on the old farmhouse just on the edge of town here in Pendleton, but not so sure it will happen by early January like we were hoping. Oh well, so long as it still happens we will be okay. In the grand scheme of things a few more weeks is not going to make that much difference but in the short term it can sure be frustrating.  

A house with history.

The double car garage/ shop space.

Memories

Moving back to NE Oregon felt like coming home, but it was not until we made a trip to the ranch we grew up on that the memories started coming back to the forefront of my thinking.

The creek where I played and remembered being ‘Neck deep’ looks to be closer to “knee deep” to me as an adult. The “Turkey ranch” part of the place where we fed cows in the winter is still there, but the buildings that were standing then, are long gone for the most part now. The “new” horse barn that was put up while we were living there is now looking weathered and has been repaired in one corner. The corral that was so big, with fences so tall I could get above any cow is now falling down in disrepair.

On the other hand, the house we grew up in has been resided, has a new roof, and where the garden was is now an in ground swimming pool! The main house where the ranch owner lived is freshly painted and looking great.

Some of the places we rode for cattle still look familiar after all these years and I remembered many of the things that happened there. The bull that dove in the pond to avoid being loaded in the truck and then swam out and loaded himself into the truck! The fields I learned to drive tractor and the old pickup in are now in CRP and look overgrown and abandoned.

These memories were good ones, even with the changes and differences. What really hit home was that those memories I had as a kid were ones that I could only share with Lynn and James. Joe and my parents were never able to meet each other and I could never show Joe those places.

I know it’s all part of life, and that those events and memories of events are what makes us, ‘us’ but it would still be nice to share it with everyone we love.  Perhaps by sharing some of my thoughts on the subject I am able to do just that.

If any of my family or friends have stories/ memories/ etc. of things that happened on the ranch or at other times, please send them to me and I’ll include them in my list of stories I’m working on adding to my growing list that will end up being a book given some time to put them in order. 

New “temporary” quarters.

Well, we are now settled in our new, but temporary quarters. My brother-in-law has kindly let me take over his shop until we find our new house and shop. The plan is to be set up and sewing by the end of the day tomorrow, Monday.

Thanks to everyone for their patience while we have been moving and know that I will be back to work filling orders on Tuesday morning.

Moving required four trips with a friend’s 24’ enclosed car hauler, one for the 5^th wheel trailer we are living in and the last one with a very overloaded pickup and a U-haul trailer. At just over 5700 miles and all of our belongings I had a friend tell me I was nearly qualified at a Teamster! Ha! Oh, and add in towing a newly purchased 5^th wheel for my nephew and I’m probably pushing the 6,000 mile range in the last 6 weeks! No wonder I’m tired of driving! Good thing I Love my pickup and have a good supply of podcasts on the I pod to listen to! Great company and good conversations with my son helped pass the time as well, so it was not all bad.

The weather held off until we were about 100 miles from Pendleton and greeted us with varying amounts of snow and ice for the last little bit into town. Cars in the ditch to the right of us and cars in the ditch to the left of us, but we kept trundling along until we made it in!

Lynn had her first day of work on Saturday, and thinks her new route will be an Okay route. For those that know Pendleton, her route is on the north hill, above the high school. Not the steepest hill in town perhaps, but not flat by any means. The next week will see things smooth out and soon she will have the routine down.

I’ll try to get back to my normal routine of updating my blog once a week now and keep everyone up to date on how things are progressing on the house hunt.