Matt says: Hurdy gurdy progress! I have boards that have been cut. A few. Not many, but a few.
Kyle says: We moved a greenhouse over. We tried to do it with manforce but we had to use fossil fuels and Elizabeth Rescue Squad force. I built it myself at my old house which is nearby. It is to the left of the shed. I am going to start some seeds, I'm going to grow some lemon grass (or in the ground). We're going to grow salad greens and maybe some pees, sucka. The greenhouse has a roof made out of salvaged storm windows and the rest is two by three construction. That's it!
Here are some pictures of the epic greenhouse move-


Taking off the glass
Putting some 2 by 4s and some rods through it to make a framework to carry it with
Crossing Center st! Right after this picture was taken, our friend Preston came screaming around the corner, delivering a pizza in his beat-up old car with a Doors sticker on the fender, and almost ran into Kyle and Matt. Of all the people in Salem to almost run them over, it WOULD be Preston. He rolled down his window and yelled, "You motherfuckers almost made me get in an accident!" and then sped away. He is our worst friend but he is still one of my favorite people in the world. So it goes.
They only got about another two blocks before realizing that it would take all night to carry the greenhouse all the way (1o more blocks?) to our house, so I had to go back and pick them up in the truck. Then we all went back to the house and got some tacos! I learned from my cousin Trask recently that in order for these tortillas to be delicious-
YOU HAVE TO FRY THEM!!! YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO FRY THEM!!! First you heat some oil in a frying pan, then you throw a tortilla in. Let it sizzle for a bit, then flip that shit over. Then, once both sides are fried, use some tongs or something to kind of bend one side up and hold it for a minute so it forms into a taco shape. Then fill it with refried beans, spinach, chopped tomato, plain yogurt/sour cream, shredded cheese, and sliced avocado as quick as you can while it's still hot. This makes the tortillas crunchy. I realize that probably a lot of people already knew that but it was news to me and I was delighted by the prospect of never eating another nasty bland, cold, mealy tortilla ever agian in my life.
And here are some other pictures.

Here is a delicious rainbow cake that I made! I got the recipe from this excellent site . This cake offered undeniable proof that our oven runs much too hot. The top edges of the cake were black before it was done in the center. I had to chip off the burnt bits before frosting. My friend Zach Bendt is modeling this cake for me. I also made a batch of cupcakes with the leftover batter, two of each colour. Using Sprite instead of eggs, oil and water in cake recipes works like a damn charm.


Here is a piece of pizza made by Kyle, who used to work at a certain very fancy pizza joint in Portland, with a birthday candle on top to celebrate Elizabeth's birthday! It was wonderful. Next time we're going to make the pesto fresh, though. Speaking of pizza, if you have never been to Christo's pizza in Salem, SHAME ON YOU. It is delicious. Go tonight.

And here is a bruise on Elizabeth's knee which was from falling off of Kyle's bike trailer, drunk in the middle of the night, as he went around a corner. The thing to remember about bike trailers is that even if Sarah Killion or Brooke Pukerson can fit onto them safely- Elizabeth is much larger than Sarah or Brooke! Probably larger than Sarah+Brooke! Thus the late-night tumble resulting in a headache, a boo-boo on her knee and injured pride. Aside from that she is uninjured.

My God, look at all of this firewood! This is from cutting down an entire fucking orchard. This isn't even probably 1/5 of all of the firewood. Elizabeth was in charge of using the long pruning shears to turn a brancy-ass tree into a bunch of logs, and then Elizabeth's dad was in charge of taking it down into component pieces with the chainsaw. From there, Kyle hacked the logs to bits with a chopping maul and loaded it into the truck. Matthew Moore and our new friend Logan Dunn were waiting at the house to unload the wood upon our return. It worked out very nicely. Some of the wood is still too green to really consider burning anytime soon but some of it had just been laying around for a while already, so we had a nice fire last night, most of the wood I think was cherry but there's some elm too.

Kyle put some toast in the toaster oven and forgot about it and burnt it so black it set off the smoke alarm and filled the whole house with smoke and it still smells like burnt-ass toast in here. He also learned that it is almost impossible to cook the cheap-ass flounder from WinCo into anything edible. He tried twice. Elizabeth discovered that the chocolate-covered pomegranate candy in the bins is SO GOOD that she had to hide the candy dish in the coat closet and only put it out when company is over or else she'd weigh 5,000 lbs.

Yesterday when Matt and Elizabeth were on their way to Christo's for DATE NIGHT they ran across a pile of freecycle! On 14th St across from North Salem High School someone had put out an ironing board, an old mini charcoal grill and a mirror! We didn't take any of it since we already have all of those things, but it was wonderful to see someone putting use-able items out on the sidewalk for others to take, instead of straight into the trash.

Which brings me to dumpster diving.
I (Elizabeth) have never done this. But I'm going to.
I've got a flashlight, a pair of gloves, some superglue, and an unquenchable thirst for free cool shit. Also a guilty conscience from living in this wasteful society, in a thing so wasteful as a house in a city.
I've been mentally taking notes about places I'd like to hit up, and here are a few of them-
Florist
Bakery
Toy store
Natural foods store
College campus (behind the art building and behind the science building)
Bookstore
etc etc etc! Any other ideas?
AND THUS
Stay tuned. Maybe tonight or the next fine warm night we've got I'll go out and see what I can find. Of course I'll put it on the internet because what good is free cool shit if I can't brag about it? Also I intend to recycle all the recyclables I can find. I read that for every seven pounds of recyclables you can pull out of the garbage and recycle you save one gallon of gasoline, or, you know, prevent/offset one gallon of gasoline being burned and put into the atmosphere, or whatever. SEVEN. that's the important part. SEVEN.

Leaving for Costa Rica in... 14 days!