Back to Clackamas ...

 

Colton's summer extended into September this year, but it was time to head back to Clackamas. To school, and basketball, and a little closer to his girlfriend (at least in the same state!) Haley had flown in to spend a few days in Utah, and then keep Colton company on the long drive back. They left early Wednesday morning on September 3 and arrived safely that night. 

Keeping in touch with a few texts, an email update (below, Sept20) and fun photos ...

Adjusting to life back in Oregon has been pretty easy, it was really nice not having to set up the room again and just being able to come back to the apartment right as we left it.

Haley met her mom and made it home, but hasn't been able to get back up to Oregon City since then as she's been pretty busy with working and getting ready to move herself to her house in Corvallis. I've still gone down to Lebanon a couple times, one time we went and watched her brother's football game, he's the head football coach at a high school called Scio. I'm heading back down to her house later today because we made little "boo" baskets for each other filled with little gifts. But I'll have to head back home early tomorrow morning because we have a workout with Coach Scott at 11:00, he's bringing up another group with lots of class of 26 kids and some returned missionaries.

Basketball's been going well, practices look a little different with Stamme running them. We have been going pretty hard everyday, and we have some new faces. Starting with the returners, there's Connor, Sam, Lincoln, Reggie, Jkari, Kobe, and Brooklynd. So no Nick, JB, or Miles. The new guys' names are, Jayden, Tremayne, Luke, Shea, Brody, Bailey, Jace, Warren, and Omar. Jayden and Tremayne are both from Vegas, they came and visited last spring. Luke is from Utah, came up with Coach Scott in the spring, although I never played against him in high school or anything. Shea and Brody are from local schools, Brody actually being from the same high school as Connor and redshirted last year at Portland CC. I'm thinking Jace, Bailey, Omar, and Warren are probably going to be redshirts this year. But I am liking how the team looks, Jayden and Tremayne are both really good and Tre especially since he is a good big man, about 6'6 and is actually pretty good in the post. Right now I would think the starting lineup would probably look like me, Jayden, Connor, Luke or Lincoln, then Tremayne at the center.

We went to Coach Weg's celebration of life last Saturday just at the college. There were lots of former players there so it was fun to see everyone. Gray even flew in from South Dakota. Vitaliy, Mason, Nick, JB, Miles all came as well. A bunch of us went and got tacos after, although I forgot to grab a picture.

Still a little over a week out from school starting, not looking forward to that. My only in-person class this term is going to be a lab on Thursday nights, similar to what I had last spring. That will be a fun class though since a bunch of us all got it together. I'm pretty sure it's me, Connor, Brody, Lincoln, Sam, and Brooklynd.

Men's Basketball (1 Credit)

General Accounting (3 Credits)

Principles of Microeconomics (4 credits)

Intro to Environmental Science + Lab (4 credits)

Elementary Statistics (4 credits)

 

It's been nice having extra time to get shots up outside of practice these few weeks.

I did apply to a few places to work but haven't heard back quite yet.

I had been trying to eat healthier this year, even counting all my calories and macros using this app that Steven showed me. I have kind of given up on the app already as it is kind of a hassle to always be inputting everything, but I am still making sure I'm eating better than I was last year. Not using my food stamps to just fill up my snack shelf again haha. Been eating lots of ground beef, but trying to make tastier meals with it. I've been commonly doing taco bowls and burger bowls. Usually at the beginning of the week I've been cooking up a batch of either chicken alfredo or stroganoff. I use a whole box of protein pasta when making them so they have a bit more protein in it. Although I couldn't find any protein egg noodles, so I just used rotini instead.

That's about all I have for now. I'll try and take some more selfies to send back haha. I love you!

 The basketball schedule is out ...

 I'm hoping I make it out to see some games this year ...

Last year, I kept a running record of Colton's Correspondence 2024-2025. I created a new page for this second year, and I'll and add any updates as they come along, attempting to include/copy some text conversations too ...  Colton's Clackamas Correspondence 2025-2026

Keaton and the Crew Leads/Moab Getaway

Keaton (and Cal's) work, Camson Electric, initiates some employee getaways. A "Crew Lead" retreat. Keaton took some pictures on one last year, and this year, took some photos (although he didn't catch Cal in any) AND did a write up!

This was the fourth or fifth crew lead trip I’ve been on. I’m starting to lose track at this point. The start of the trip is always fairly similar: work a half day on Wednesday, meet up at the shop in Riverton, load up and head out. I rode with Cal, while Marko and James were in the back seats. We went to Moab this year, so it was about a three hour ride with one pit stop on the way. Nothing too exciting on the way there, but I was pumped to hang out with the boys, go on some rides, and eat a ton of food.

When we got to the air bnb, we all picked our beds and decided to chill for the night. Sometimes we’ll go on a night ride the first night, but work was pretty busy that day so we were all slammed. Marko and I went outside to look for rocks and scorpions with a black light. We didn’t find much, but we took a bunch of funny pics. For food that night, we had Beto’s. Always a classic for the first night.

The plan for the next day was to hit a couple trails on the razors, with an optional night ride. In the morning, Brock had breakfast covered. Brock is the breakfast king. I always look forward to what he offers. Bacon, sausage, hashbrown, eggs, toasted tortillas, sliced fruit, juice, etc… I was looking forward to breakfast, but I had a rough morning... 

Sometimes I wake up in the middle night. It’s fairly random and I’m not bothered when it happens. On that first night, I woke up, sat up, and slammed my head on the bunk bed on top of me, where Marko was sleeping. I remember laying there in agony wondering if I had a concussion. I was looking around for a second to see if I woke anyone up, but it didn’t seem like it. I’m not sure how no one woke up because it was so loud. I just went back to sleep, and when I woke up, I had a major headache. I stood up to go to the bathroom and look in the mirror. Basically, to make sure I wasn’t bleeding. All clear, no blood. Then I headed to breakfast. I found Marko and told him about it. 

I said “dude did I wake you up last light?”

He said “no why?”

I said “I slammed my head against your bed in the middle of the night.”

He laughed and said “again??”

I said “what do you mean again?”

He said “dude you did that last year.”

I completely forgot about that. Marko started telling me about it and then I remembered. I did hit my head in the middle of the night last year. Only that time, Marko said I did wake him up. He checked on me a minute later asking if I was alright, but apparently I was already out cold. I guess that time I literally knocked myself unconscious. So the lesson I learned was that when I wake up in the middle of the night, apparently I also sit up. So when I go to bed, I need to make sure I’ve got a few feet of head clearance.

After breakfast, we started to load up for the two rides ahead of us. We had plenty of razors so no one had to squish in any of the vehicles. Marko and I started to head out in one of the razors but within a few seconds we heard a rough clicking noise. We stopped and asked Brock if he knew about it, to which he replied “shoot. Thought we fixed that.” Five minutes in and we already bagged a razor. It was alright though, there were still enough seats for everybody. On one of the trails, one of the razors tipped on its side. Everyone in it was alright and we tipped it back over pretty quickly. After some funny pics of course. That night we had a team meeting, followed by pizza and ice cream. The air bnb had a pool and a hot tub and I was all for it. I was first one in and trying my very hardest to convince everyone else to do the same. Eventually some of the guys started jumping in, and at one point there were six of us in the hot tub. If that’s not team bonding then I don’t know what is.

The next day, after waking up in a different bed, one with much higher head clearance, we had breakfast and loaded up for two more rides. Little did we know, what lied ahead. The first trail was nice and easy, then we had lunch and headed for the second trail. It was a long one. About halfway in, we tried clearing an obstacle with one of the Jeeps, but something broke and it would no longer drive in 4 wheel. Luckily it still drove, but there were a ton of obstacles ahead that required 4 wheel. Without it, we had to tow the Jeep through, which was a lot harder and longer. We cleared one or two more obstacles, at which point the razor that tipped, broke down. It wouldn’t start. We jump started it and were able to get it going for a couple minutes, but then the same thing happened. Now we had two vehicles that needed towing out. One Jeep was towing the other Jeep, and one razor was towing the other razor. We quickly learned that towing with another razor wasn’t the best solution. Mitchell was able to get us pretty far, but after a few hours, Spencer came to tow us through the next few obstacles. Spencer was driving the Jeep that was towing the other Jeep. He went ahead a few miles, dropped them off, then came back to tow us. In the hours while we waited, there was a lot of hacky sackin. I probably wouldn’t have survived without the sack. We were in the sun, in the open desert for hours. I was losing my mind. Eventually we did get out. By then it was dark, and everyone was exhausted. We found some more rocks with the black light and did manage to find a couple scorpions. On the way back, we grabbed Wendys, everyone crashed on the couch, then a bunch of us got in the pool again.

The next day was Saturday, and we were headed home. We didn’t want to do anymore trails after that last one. Within that one trip to Moab we had four vehicles break down (Spencer’s truck went in limp mode as soon as we got there). That’s got to be a new record. But it’s all part of the fun and I can’t wait for the next one.

Monarch Summer

I've posted about monarchs a couple of times before on the blog ...  Monarch Memories 2021 and Monarch Release 2019 .  We've kept milkweed and flowers in the yard in hopes of attracting the elusive orange winged beauties ... and it paid off again this year. 

The milkweed in the front yard (featured in the 2021 experience) would grow so large and ungainly, I wanted to eventually eliminate it. I'd shifted some seeds/starts to the backyard, as milkweed will also grow in shady, low-water conditions, where I don't have a lot of other plants. While we still had some of the milkweed in the front, we now had three patches in the backyard as well. 

I was sitting at my computer, positioned behind a window, looking into the backyard, when I saw a flash of orange ... I dropped what I was doing and grabbed my phone to double check (I had thought I'd seen a monarch earlier in the season, but it was so quick I hadn't been sure). But this time, I got photo proof, and happened to snap the shot right as Mrs. Monarch was laying an egg ...

There is some debate about "raising monarchs" in captivity ... but it's a wonderful experience, being able to see the amazing process close up, and 90% of eggs/caterpillars in the wild don't survive. We still had our enclosure from our experience a few years ago, so I pulled it from storage and brought the little egg into the house. Like the 2021 egg, if I hadn't SEEN it laid, I never would have found it on my own. So tiny!

We got to experience it all ... the emergence of the tiny caterpillar, the transformation into the chrysalis, the beautiful butterfly ...

It wasn't all without drama. I was a little worried the cooler temps in the house (I like my air conditioning) and thought Pilly might benefit from some natural exposure. I moved the enclosure out to the patio. I was sure to tell those who lived at home (Hubs, #4, #5) so that they wouldn't think something bad had happened, but #3 walked in without that info and exclaimed "oh no, Pilly! Where's Pilly?" I assured him Pilly was alright, just outside instead of on the kitchen table. But then ... Pilly was NOT in the enclosure. Really? There were a couple holes, but they were small. Of course Pilly was tiny, but still. There was a batch of milkweed three or four feet away, on the other side of the porch stairs, but that seemed like 1000 miles to a tiny caterpillar. No milkweed in any other direction. While I hoped maybe he'd somehow make it to the milkweed, I didn't hold out much hope. 

There was a family text thread following all things caterpillar ...

A few days later, I glanced at the milkweed by the back porch and ... there was Pilly! He'd grown, had eaten a few leaves, left behind little poop pellets (that's actually the first thing I noticed). It was close to chrysalis time, so I moved him back into the enclosure in the kitchen, so we could keep an eye on him. 

The whole family was over on August 31 (Keaton's birthday) when Pilly climbed to the side of the enclosure, right on the zipper (was he trying to get out again?) and formed the "J" ... I was trying to watch, as the transformation is pretty amazing, but I missed it. One look he was still a caterpillar, then next, he was a green blob. Still squirming, missed it by a minute! Over the next couple weeks the chrysalis continued it's transformation ... due to the placement in the enclosure, I wasn't able to get good pictures (and couldn't open it up either, good thing we only had one caterpillar in there, as I wasn't able to replace the milkweed). 

Friday, September 12, Keaton stopped by again and noticed that the chrysalis had darkened. He came over again Saturday morning, hoping to witness the emergence. He and Coop went to a movie and while they were gone ... it happened. I was home, peeking at the enclosure every time I walked into the kitchen. One time I glanced over, I saw a larger shape, newly emerged, wings still wet. Once he (I do think it was a male, dots on the wings) moved, I was able to put a couple flowers in just in case he wanted to feed, but mostly he was just recovering, getting fully filled out. Keaton came over the next morning again and we let him handle the release. 

While Pilly was in the chrysalis stage,  I was in the kitchen and again, I saw a flash of orange out the window! I ran outside, and we had a monarch visiting, and again, we got a single egg ...

... as our enclosure was  occupied, and we'd already been lucky enough to experience the monarch cycle, I decided we'd leave this egg in the wild, watching where we could. Unfortunately, the egg never hatched (non-fertilized?)

Will we see monarchs next summer?