Hawthorne Boulevard used to be Asylum Avenue

Mary Phelps Montgomery moved to Portland from Missouri in her 20s with her husband James. Jeff and I moved here in our 20s from Wisconsin. She came west on the first stage coach. Jeff and I came west with a U-Haul. She built the Phelps-Montgomery house in 1907 before the Hawthorne Bridge was completed in 1910.

In the late 1800s, the Oregon Hospital for the Insane was down between 9th and 12th on then Asylum Boulevard, later changed to Hawthorne after Dr. Hawthorne who ran the hospital. Eventually everyone was moved to the Oregon State Hospital, where Ken Kesey's One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was filmed in 1975. 

For more info on Hawthorne: http://www.oregonlive.com/history/2015/07/past_tense_oregon_se_hawthorne.html

First Veggies of the Summer

I must admit, I enjoyed digging in the dirt to plant the seeds, and enjoying our first salad of micro-geens was amazing, but nothing compared to the first potato! 

Our beets, kale, and chard survived, but we were hit with the white blight on the leaves and needed to trim them aggressively back.

Happy Spring

Although the second gardening season, the first for us. After manually removing stones left from the below the original park lot (thanks Kathy), we added six inches of compost and Jeff tilled them in.

Happy Second Anniversary

Two years ago today, on a soggy, chilled-to-the-bone Tuesday in December, the Phelps-Montgomery House landed at 1:15 PM. The original one-day estimate stretched into three, stress-filled days; including inner dialogue with our naysaying demons.

"Will she make it?"

"I hope she makes it."

"What have we done?"

"She's gotta make it."

"What were we thinking?"

After all the prep and hands-on involvement to reach this point, all we could do during the move was watch. In the cold, in the rain, with the smell of bacon, VooDoo donuts and diesel in the air. We were surrounded by hundreds of people: friends and neighbors, supporting strangers and people driving by on a Sunday curious about all the commotion. Sprinkled throughout the crowd were those waiting for the house...to fall.

By day three, the mansion's 100 ton body was nudged along by a well-worn, trackhoe bucket partnered with hydraulic jacks and transport dollies. A dozen drenched Emmert guys, in sweaty work clothes and dirt-covered gloves, hard hats and yellow reflector safety vests, methodically repositioned fir wood cribbing...one at a time...over the last thirty-five feet for five hours.

The house unceremoniously came to rest on top of three rows of hundreds of giant Jenga blocks criss-crossed fifteen feet high in a hole dug for the foundation; water pooling from the rain despite the eighty yards of extra gravel. The crowds from the weekend were gone. People needed to get back to work, Jeff included. I stayed behind to photograph, kept company by my friend, Roxanne, holding an umbrella so my camera wouldn't get wet. People walked by with their dogs, and the neighborhood homeless gawked, grateful for a distraction.

We signed a Dangerous Building Stipulation Agreement - we had six months to secure the Phelps-Montgomery House to her foundation or the city would tear the structure down. A new character, Weather, entered as we readied for the next act - preparing to pour the foundation and secure funding. Nothing like jumping in with both feet before we knew we had financing secured.

As for the book? Sixty thousands words into my first draft with my FBI plot-wall below. I've never written a book before, but we didn't know how to move a house either.

http://ahousefallsfromthesky.com

Happy Birthday Phelps-Montgomery....Game On....(again)

Ultimate in Sustainability - PCC video funded by National Science Foundation

August 29, 2014

The video was perfect...only one little tweak was needed...

We have three daughters: Kalah, Rachel and Amanda. Kalah wasn't listed in the credits, but she is now.

Kalah came up with the concept of naming the living spaces after seven Portland Bridges. The other submissions were:

• seven dwarfs
• seven days of the week
• seven books of Harry Potter
• the seven deadly sins. 

Bridges seemed perfect. Who would want to say they lived in: Grumpy or Gluttony? Lust and Dopey may have had some takers, especially if Oregon legalized pot, but we'll stick with bridges.