Multnomah Falls and a time-out

Surely Multnomah Falls is one of the most beautiful sites I've ever tried to photograph while keeping track of four children.

The water comes crashing down into a pool below that footbridge and then cascading further to just below the level of the first viewing point.

We didn't think it wise to take the Danger Girl up there.

She wouldn't stop climbing the railing so she had to sit down. Look how happy she was about that. And while we're checking out that time-out moment, let's consider my children's wardrobes. If there were any more stripes someone might've mistaken them for a short chain gang on the run. Barb once told me that she liked to dress her children (when they were younger) in a manner approaching clownish. I replied that I completely understood, that my kids do that all on their own. Remembering of course who buys their clothes, I am hesitant to lay blame.

Laura finally got over not being able to swim in the frigid water when later that day Daddy let her sit on a life-sized Clydesdale built out of barbed wire. Notice my six-foot-tall husband not even visible behind the horse. That's his hand holding the happy Danger Girl in place for a photo.

It was a cold, cold October day up the Columbia Gorge. Our stated mission was to visit a rescue center for Maine Coon cats, and maybe to come home with one.

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On the way there we drove right around Portland -- Powell's was calling my name -- and stopped at Multnomah Falls for a picnic of roast beef and cheddar on homemade oatmeal bread. Yum! We ate in the car though, because our clothing was fall-appropriate for our valley temperatures but not adequate for the biting wind at sub-40 temps. In fact durin our visit to Timberline Lodge at Mt. Hood the thermometer registered 30 degrees. Brr.

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Note to self: Bring warmer coats next time. And maybe a leash for Laura.

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(Perfect spot for a parenting moment. I know those leash things are popular and intended to keep children safe. I realize parents are doing their best to keep track of active babies. But they bug me. (The leashes, not the families who use them.) No matter whether they have a monkey on them (talk about a weird metaphor -- a monkey on your baby's back) or Elmo, it's just odd, disturbing, even, to see a leash with a mother on one end and her child on the other. Feel free to discuss. Unless you're going to tell me I'm cracked, in which case, feel free to, you know, go visit Katie's blog.)

One of those Gilligan trips

We did drive up the Columbia Gorge to Hood River, up and around Mt. Hood, and back home again yesterday.

We saw a lot of orchards. A little fall color.


Some hardier-than-me windsurfers.

Some amazing WPA history at Timberline Lodge and Multnomah Falls.

... but did we get a cat? ...

Stay tuned.

Hardscrabble life

Our beautiful fall weather continues this week. The air is clear and cold while the same sun of summer lights up autumn leaves just turning to look for clouds.

The forecast calls for storms next week. But that's next week, and in true Scarlett O'Hara fashion we'll just worry about that... tomorrow.

Ooh! Guess what we're doing today? Go ahead and guess. You'll NEVER GUESS.

We're driving up the Columbia Gorge to see if there's a rescue kitty waiting to come home with us!

We have heard rumors ("rumor" is my word for October) that there are Maine Coon kittens at a special shelter there. In fact my husband has been corresponding with one of the staff about a certain cat, huge and furry and orange and not such a kitten anymore.

So we're going to go meet him and see if he's our family.

Meanwhile, on the three-hour drive, we'll just likely pass a few fall displays of color and possibly a couple of photo ops. Hurray for the country drive on a cold clear day in October! Three cheers for the cooler packed with roast beef sandwiches and thermoses (Thermi? I crack myself up.) of soup! Best of all it's family time.

It's a hardscrabble life but somebody's gotta live it.

Sawmill Ballroom, open your gates

Not too far from our little homestead is a fantastic place called the Sawmill Ballroom. They sell only lavender.

All the lavender you see in these photos is my very own beloved lavender hedge. The plants are probably 40 years old and super fragrant.

It's all I can do to harvest my thirty feet or so it before the rain starts in earnest.

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The girls and I made some lavender bags at the sewing machine late Sunday night. We stripped the dried flowers off the cut stalks and poured them into flannel pouches before stitching them up and heating them for bedtime. My favorite to make and use are the "headache" shape -- like nighttime sleep masks only with weight. Here's a place a picture would serve. Anyhow they make me feel like the farm girl version of a glamorous (can flannel be glam?) movie star who's resting from her last scene enveloped in the soothing scent of lavender.

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At the Sawmill Ballroom they have dozens of varieties of this gorgeous plant. They know the names but I just know you've never seen so many different forms. White and dark purple and French and Italian and braggart ruffly and barely visible and so on. The lavender scent invites you in to their quaint farm as you drive by. It's some sort of pre-engineered sales tactic. I'm sure of it.

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Even though I have an existing heirloom lavender hedge (lucky, lucky me) I did dabble a little in planting more lavender -- just six or so new plants in my herb bed and flower beds -- once I discovered my wonderful neighbors.

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But then I heard a nasty rumor that they were going wholesale, or, gasp, out of the business.

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Say it isn't so. Or at least say you'll still let your hometown farm girl shop retail with you.

The pressure! The pressure! And the sweet life.

Yesterday before dinner I was immersed in the tub and reading a magazine.

Yes, I said a magazine: glossy page after page of unattainable projects (er, inspiration).

Madeleine and Sarah were upstairs practicing clarinet and flute. Grace was using every possible medium from the craft box in creation of a card for Daddy. Laura was playing with her bead track toy on the bathroom floor. How did this happen? A moment of (near) solitude and (absolute) relaxation in the midst of a crazy busy week? It just happened.

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All told my bath took 20 minutes but felt like a week at the spa in contrast to the hectic days we've been leading. Hundreds of miles on the Suburban showing property and picking up horse feed and running to lessons and and and....

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Let's not forget the grocery store or the never-ending Great Food Preservation Season or my husband's birthday dinner (which, by the way, was salmon and stuffed potatoes with steamed brocolli followed by homemade carrot cake; Rachel, watch out for this farm girl's 30-minute meals).

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So my 20-minute time-out was short but sweet. And I'm glad. Prolly like yours, my days are hectic but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Birthday Fairy? Are you there?

My niece Kayla told me there are no fairies. She's 9 so I suppose she knows.

But just in case? This greenhouse, cute as a bug and Earth-friendly as all get-out, would surely fit in the southeast corner of my garden.

How many fairies would it take to deliver that, do you suppose?

(Just your everyday side note: Do you think anyone likely noticed me as I trespassed my big red Suburban onto these nice (completely unknown to me) people's front drive to steal a photo of their newly delivered beauty? I'm not sure because I sped away quick-like when their big (huge) dog came charging out.)

Seasonal stress and the phone call. Also some fruit leather.

The weather has mercy. Or a sense of humor. I don't want to stretch this personification too far, but I'm feeling rather grateful to Mother Nature for this week of intermittent sun and rain in the Pacific Northwest. Had we faced October with less sunshine and more mud I can't say how well I might have done with the stresses -- non-weather-related -- I faced. Or not.

Stress in itself is an interesting word. Quite possibly the word has become less meaningful as the stressors proliferate in our modern lives.

Sort of like the word "awesome" that inspires and describes no awe, "stress" doesn't seem to carry strong enough connotations of being pushed, bent, pulled beyond one's limits. Stress is just omnipresent and thus diluted or accepted as the norm. Peace, or a state of not being affected by stress, is the anomaly. It becomes remarkable to be without anxiety.

When I think about stress I think about metal and its stress points. I think about steel and how hot it must get before it bends without melting altogether into a puddle of liquid.

That's the alloy point I'm seeking. The one where I'm stressed enough to be flexible but not broken.

So I'm grateful for the gentle weather transition in the midst of this season.

The fields around us are all greening up again for fall. At first it looks a little like a tapestry that's half-woven as the green perforates huge stretches of fallen gold and brown grass.

The girls and I festooned the front porch with six 75-pound pumpkins and a half-dozen sunflower heads that are bigger and heavier than most of the sugar pumpkins I save for the oven.

Birds subsequently have been busy on our front porch to the extent that we'll have to re-think the sunflowers as decoration.

Fruit leather is the hit of the party just about every day. It couldn't be easier with my schmancy new dehydrator (thanks, Mom!). The only bummer about it is that we are using up all the homemade applesauce I canned. One quart of applesauce with a few frozen berries added in the blender, spread on special trays and dried for about six hours, makes three huge rolls of delicious, sugar-free fruit leather. This equals about 12 generous servings. Which my children can mow through in significantly less time than it takes to make more.

However. It does keep them quiet when it's raining too much to send them outside but I must take a phone call. No doubt dealing with one of those stressors.

Trials and the trike

Carefully place your right foot on the pedal.

Wait.

Does your left foot still reach?

Honestly it's half empty

Don't give me any of that mumbo-jumbo about the sunny side of the street, the glass is half full, the grass is always greener (okay, maybe that one's true).



I read yesterday an AP story in which it's predicted that the economy will recover in the next nine months, indeed has begun recovering, but that consumers may not begin to act differently for decades.



No shirley Sherlock.



I think this predicted reluctance to return to our spending ways may be because consumers have recognized our greed and Westernized sense of uber-entitlement and sent those qualities (a-hem) to a good long time-out (if not the sweat box it belongs in). These "consumers" are overfed, overfull and overly exhausted of being defined by how much they do or do not purchase at Home Depot on any given weekend.

Ready or not

We hit a season low at Farm Suite overnight. Thirty-six degrees.

I'm not ready!

This autumn I have reorganized (the "re" part maybe not so much... but hey, we've lived here only three years) my kitchen cupboards and pantry shelves. My husband defrosted our big freezer (whyohwhy do I still have a frosty freezer?) and I organized that too.

There's not much garden cleanup to do since most of the flowerbeds succumbed to the Big Drought already. The summer vegetables I nursed carefully with buckets of water are likely done now. It's still dark outside so I'll have to check later.

I'm sure the winter veggies are fine. Except for the chard that the deer grazed. I have a new attitude toward this: Share and share alike. Too bad the deer don't seem to "share" my thoughts on the matter.

I think my usual attitude about the changing of the season is positive. I think. After all, I love to spend rainy days inside folding laundry and reading. Not necessarily in that order. I love the way our Oregon landscape is orangy rain forest in the fall.

There are lots of things to be happy about with the passing of the summer. But change caught me unaware this year. Sort of like the grasshopper enjoying her sunbathing while the ants prepared for winter.

Idle minds

We've been outside a lot this weekend. The grapes are ripe on the vine and the leaves are starting to fall. My kids are happiest when they're outside and so am I (er, I'm happiest when I'm outside too. Because I wouldn't want you to think I was one of those moms. At least not today.)

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Of course behind all this autumn fun in the sun there's the bittersweet knowledge that soon -- too soon -- the rain will begin and the paddock gate will be ankle-deep in mud. The grapevines will be bare and the garden will be deep under mulch.

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This year I'm excited to grow more winter veggies. Spinach, more peas and carrots, cabbage and kale and chard. I'm not sure how or when we'll get our garden gates to keep those hungry deer out. The dog is useless as anything other than a doorstop. Okay, that was unkind. I did try to explain to him that a dog must have a job in order to be fulfilled. He shrugged and turned around on his carpet by the door. Maybe his job is supplying insulation for the air leak under the door.

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Anywhat.

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Other than the disappointment of the watchdog conversation (it was so one-sided, you know?) I am just in love with this part of fall. I love the freshly sharpened pencils and the way I need a cardigan in the mornings. I love a new pair of Keds, maryjane style, and new socks to go with them. You have to wear socks with your Keds in the fall, you know. There'll be none of that summertime socklessness.
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I love that my bed and breakfast neighbors have their place back on the market. It's so hopeful. So past-the-real-estate-crisis.

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I love that I heard a widely spread rumor about myself that was so utterly untrue that I laughed out loud and shook my head in disbelief for 40 minutes and then felt like a celebrity on the cover of a gossip rag all day.

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I love that after living in this little rural village for three years, I finally feel at home.

I think maybe I'll paint the kitchen to celebrate. But I'll wait until the rain starts. For now I think I'll go outside.

Messing around in the kitchen: A cry for help

An artist's rendering of my hardworking (read: cluttered) kitchen. Also please note that I am afflicted with that dread disease called "open shelving." So attractive in Country Living the magazine. Not so desirable in country-living-in-the-real-world.

Summer squash in my low-tech "food processor." That thing (called a Merry Go Round) is a bonafide triceps workout. I'm telling you, I will have earned all the pineapple zucchini bread I can eat.

Is there anything more cheerful than a zinnia?

That scented geranium taking over the landscape is called "Sweet Miriam." I didn't even make that up. Also apparent in that picture: Someone needs to wash my windows. But I'd rather have a cup of tea and scheme on how to get a master cabinetmaker on the cheap-to-free.

Beans: pinto, navy, lentil, split pea. Brown rice. Flax seed. Popcorn. Cornmeal and oatmeal. Place settings for 24. Hey, it happens.

I have a dream. I have a dream in which I have cupboard doors on my upper cabinets and my countertops are home to only a vase of zinnias. (Okay, and maybe the coffee pot.) In that fantasy life I have a walk-in pantry and a root cellar. AN APPLIANCE GARAGE. Holy Mother of all Organization, an appliance garage (with seventeen bays) would revolutionize my life. In reality, however, my countertops house the dehydrator (at the moment, two of them humming happily), a coffee pot and bean grinder, my iconic Kitchenaid stand mixer, a monster-size glass canister that holds 20 cups of homemade baking mix (too big for the shelves), a toaster. A breadbox. The blender still out from fruit leather prep. A mug full of paintbrushes from yesterday's (alright, it was three days ago) watercolor session. A radio playing oldies, mysteriously now of my high school era (when did that happen?).

So my husband told me he got all stressed out reading my last post. You know, the one about band and equitation and ballet and, oh, yeah, graduate freaking school. (Actually so named in my handbook. Well, in the handbook in my head. I have to amuse myself somehow, people.)

And while we're at it, I have to apologize for being stressful in this here blog about the beautiful life. Yar-hah-hah-harh. I promise I didn't mean it to be that way. Sometimes the stress just overflows a little. It's because, I believe, there's ever-present conflict between my love of simple living and my contradictory-I-know hectic life.

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Did I mention I own and display two handpainted "simplify" signs? I might need another that says "Embrace the irony." And while I'm ordering signs, Heather, could you make one that says "Will work for cabinet doors"?

Not exactly a wagon train of thought

Autumn lettuces, kales and chards are all in. Except where the deer have discovered them already. It's just like In-N-Out (California burger chain. Anyone?). Only rural. And no burgers. Our garden is limping to its summer finish after severe water shortages. This is exciting, however, because it has my husband dreaming up lots of innovative (never say over-engineered in his presence) water solutions. My vast collection of homesteading books, newfangled and vintage alike, are helping with the planning process. Gray water recycling. Rainwater collection. Water, water everywhere. And still enough to do the laundry.

Ratatouille anyone? It's time for comfort food again chez Suite. Tonight for dinner: Homegrown corn on the cob with homemade butter and salt. Homemade biscuits. Who needs a main dish at this point? I have been experimenting with an iconic 1970s "make your own mix" cookbook and updating it for our family's organic bent. Substituting coconut oil for the hydrogenated fats specified in the recipes is working out pretty well. Madeleine's been having fun with our quick biscuit, cornbread and pancake "mix."

Grace and her friend Fidget (some names may be changed to protect the innocent) love to play Little House. Or, Little House Plus Plastic. Because I'm pretty sure Laura and Mary and the gang didn't have these wagons with the cup holders and seat belts. But if they did, they certainly would have played just like this fearsome duo plays... gathering sticks and rocks and fallen leaves... hauling them to the shadiest spot... stacking them just so for log dolls' houses and mossy bird nest offerings. Nevermind that the birds aren't building nests now. They're flying south, you say? Well, maybe they'll need some moss and horse hair on their way.

The weather here is that perfect fall of made-for-TV movies: crisp foggy mornings and clear sunshine in the afternoons, overnight rain and woodsmoke. My only complaint is that the days are indeed getting shorter (it's not just my to-do list getting longer?).

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Indeed my list is getting longer as I start to plan (panic about) my return to graduate school. Homeschool for Madeleine, Sarah and Grace is going so very well this year. Their eagerness is contagious. But keeping up with all three of them -- kindergarten, fourth and fifth grades -- is a full-time job. Of course we can't forget Laura, who at 20 months appears to be following in the big girls' early reading footsteps. Today she was making good use of her crayons when she drew an "H" (accidentally? who knows) and named it. (I just couldn't resist the tiniest little moment of heart-bursting pride and accompanying blog brag. Please forgive me.)

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Madeleine and Sarah will start "band" next Wednesday. Madeleine's leaning toward the clarinet and Sarah the violin. Ballet is also on our list but Sarah's been having some challenges with pain management. I'm having corresponding struggles with mommy anxiety. (Who me? Anxious? Never.) Madeleine's still busy with her twice-a-week horseback riding lessons. I have a few deals in escrow promising to close any moment and somehow needing a little attention as well.

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And then we can't forget our everyday chores: chickens, horses, rabbits, laundry, dishes. Food preservation? Yes, that too. I "put up," as my grandmother would say, 30 quarts of tomatoes and 10 quarts of applesauce (just starting on the applesauce). We also grated and froze enough zucchini for nine months of zucchini bread. We have made pounds and pounds of fruit leather and dried cherries, pears (still two weeks of pears coming), apples and peppers. We froze corn on the cob and diced summer squash and onions for freezer bag saute kits. I still want to can salsa but I'm worried about flavor loss; I'm big on fresh salsa. Anyone have any good canned salsa recipes for me?

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Oh. And while we're at it. I have guilt. I have guilt because Amy of the Hundred Acre Woods sent us a beautiful package that I haven't acknowledged yet. To tell the truth I haven't opened it. I told the girls we couldn't until I sent our package in return. It's on its way tomorrow, Amy! Thank you! We can't wait to see what's inside!

Random but farmy

Three cheers for our Araucana pullets! The aptly named Hot Dog was the first to graduate to laying hen. And I am so excited. It even (if you can believe it) brought out a little dorky in me. I had to call my husband at work, where he was engaged in VIEM (very important engineering meeting) and couldn't be disturbed. So I left a long, detailed message with one of the other guys.

Like this:

"You see, Hot Dog is just barely five months old. And we've been waiting for these blue-green eggs since she was two days old. And I can hardly contain myself. Please have him call me." All the while the rooster was literally crowing in the background since I called from the henhouse and it was messing with his morning routines. So it sounded like this: "Cock-a-dooodle-doo. She's a brown and red hen with hints of gray. Crock-a-doodle. She's so much bigger than the other pullets -- are you getting all this? -- and I'm sure she cock-a-doodle is a few weeks ahead of them. It's tiny and perfectly robin's-egg blue! So you'll have him call?"

The message he received read: "Call your wife. New egg laid. She's a proud mama hen."

Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, Madeleine's cat was watching over Flo the fish.
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You don't keep a betta in a Mason jar? Oh. Well, we don't usually either, but someone-who-won't-cop-to-it added an actual seashell to our tank. The salt residue killed our two aquatic frogs but we saved Flo. Out of the frying pan into the fire, it would appear.

Where did I put that?

Now, if you look around my farmhouse of little to no storage, you will see that I have made many attempts at "everything in its place."

But some days I lose my coffee cup enough times to become a math lesson (probability and estimation) for the bigger girls. "Let's see, Mom lost it [the cup, the cup] three times before 8 a.m. She drinks coffee from 6 a.m. until, oh, 8 p.m. If she lost it that many times in two hours...."

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And some days I just plain lose it over a lost item. Last week we were having spaghetti for dinner (sans pasta for the ever-carb-deprived mommy). Where-oh-where did the parmesan (stinky cheese in Suite talk) go?

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We searched high and low. The refrigerator and the top of the microwave where odd things go to hide and the dark and depressingly crammed innards of the antique icebox I use as a pantry (remember: no storage here). Parmesanless we sat down to the dining table. Two bites into the meal my five-year-old gets a visible lightbulb above her little pigtailed head.

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"Oh!"

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Beat, beat, beat while she pauses to consider whether she'll be rewarded or in big trouble.

"It might be in my play kitchen."

So upstairs she trots and downstairs she returns with the empty parmesan tub. Yes, she ate approximately a cup and a half of grated parmesan with a spoon in order to "clean it out" to use in her kitchen.

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These weeks are busy with homebody homesteading and homeschooling. Say that five times fast. Today I am taking care of tomatoes and peaches. I am loving my dehydrator this year and hoping to buy my own pressure canner too. Tomatoes in a pressure canner take just one-quarter the time of a water bath, so for that I'd be willing to confront what essentially looks and sounds like a homemade b*mb on the stovetop. (I had to put in that asterisk after my good friend KL got a cybervisit from the Fibbies over her use of the word "b*mb-b-q." Homesteading blogger mommies by day, revolutionaries by night? I don't think so.)

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The girls are flying through their formal studies in about two hours a day, which leaves the rest of the day for fun and, let's face it, chores. Yesterday the farrier was out to trim Two Spot and Dolly's hooves. He brought his lovely wife with him, which I had to take as a hint that my incessant jabbering slowed him and his usual (large, cowboy-rough, male) assistant. His wife, though, was a kick in the pants. She entertained us with stories of her adventures in raising meat birds (don't go there) and learning the loathe bloodthirsty neighborhood dogs (again, been there).

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We pulled about 10 pounds of carrots out of the ground before I realized (duh) that I could have stored them in the ground.

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The new hen, Talullah, is laying one perfect white egg per day. We are told by our chicken guru that she's a leghorn. No foghorn. The established girls are all brown-egg layers: two red hens of indeterminate heritage and a beautiful speckled girl. Our "baby" Ameracauna laid her first tiny blue-green egg yesterday. Now our egg cartons will be so colorful! There are four more Ameracauna pullets who will contribute soon too.

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Against my better judgement I answered some questions this week from a school district representative about why we homeschool.

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Our good friends moved to Kentucky last week. Kentucky.

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I had a visit from another friend who moved away -- just 10 miles -- yesterday afternoon. Her baby, let's call him Johnny Danger, is nearly as big as Laura. He's four months of flirty and gorgeous. But he's not stealing the peanut butter lid. Yet. And of course I had Katie's kids to play for a while yesterday before the big Duck game brought their whole family here to cheer on our team.

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That kept me up a little past my farmgirl bedtime. So if you'll excuse me, I have to go find my coffee cup.

Keep horses off grass

I don't know why this was so funny to me.

Maybe because it was at the Humboldt County Fairgrounds. All the horses in the barns there were stumbling around, laughing at the most inane jokes, scarfing down their feed.

Only in Northern California do you have to keep the horses off grass.

A Powell's pilgrimage

What could possess me to wake up at 4:45 on a foggy August morning? Further, to rouse five sleepy girls (mine plus one sleepover pal) just 15 minutes later? To bundle up for the still chilly air, to buckle into the Suburban fortified only with a cup of coffee in the pre-dawn moments? To drive three and a half hours on the Interstate? Oh, my. What could be worth that?

Downtown Portland is nice.

Waiting for the train with strange silent umbrella guy, equally nice.

Oh! Powell's famous independent bookstore. Covering one full city block on seven levels of near-heaven (I'll have to ask them if they designed that many levels purposefully) is tailor-made for a perfect day for a bibliophile and her bookworm brood. Totally worth the pilgrimage.

Madeleine stood mesmerized in the young adult mystery aisle and caressed the vintage Nancy Drew collection.

Laura happily read Eloise Wilkin as we walked and shopped. Literature and reference sections for Mommy. Curriculum for the school year. Maritime fiction for Daddy (who had to work but was with us in spirit). Forensics for the big girls. Oops. Gory. Let's move on from that to see if they have any age-appropriate references on crime solving. Well, of course they do! It's Powell's famous independent bookstore, the City of Books. So the girls chose some books that detail how to make and use fingerprint powder and how to tell (without a polygraph) whether a suspect is lying. That should make life in our little town interesting.

I visited my old stomping grounds in writing and literature but didn't dare take all five girls into my favorite haunt: the rare book room. You can peruse that ever-changing collection at Powell's online, but it's not the same as being there, breathing in the particular scent of centuries-old hand-decorated volumes nestled up next to signed copies of first edition Ursula LeGuin.

So in lieu of the rare book room we had lemonade and sandwiches in the coffee shop, which is not as funky or fun as it was in my pre-mommy days when my husband and I used to close down Powell's like some 20somethings close down bars. But it's probably cleaner. I'm alright with that tradeoff.

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Sarah kept a notebook close to her chest. What was she writing all day? A list of "strange" things she witnessed. The dog in a "wheelchair" to support its paralyzed back legs. The men with "inappropriate" piercings. The woman with no apparent disability in a designated seat on the train really offended Sarah's sensibilities. Green hair, blue hair, business suits and tall buildings that reflect everyone passing alike. Someone wrote on that window with a diamond. Someone didn't buss their plate. "City people are colorful," she concluded in her notebook. I just love the little editorial journalist in her.

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I successfully navigated city traffic in the Suburban -- so much different than in my Volkswagen! The kids played highway bingo and catalogued nine different state license plates. We stopped at the Northwest classic Burgerville for real ice cream shakes (none for me, thanks, Carb Police) and drove along the river through Oregon City and meandered back roads all the way home.

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We were back by dinner, bags full of books and hearts full of memories.

Fermentation, shots and one day at a time

It's not what you think. The seeds and pulp from two heirloom tomatoes attempting to ferment in my sunny (slightly schmutzy, it appears) kitchen window. Saving heirloom tomato seeds is easier than I had thought. This year I spent a small fortune on organic heirloom plants in four-inch-pots. Next year (Lord willing and the creek don't rise) I will start these seeds and have some to share as well.

The worst part of the experiment (outside of having my shot glasses otherwise engaged for three days) was the scummy disgustingness that develops as a byproduct of fermentation. It's important to ferment the seeds before drying. I understand that it helps to prevent next year's plants from developing any diseases too.

But gross nonetheless.

After scraping the bubbly gooey crust off the top of each shot glass (stir each container one time per day; remove fermentation crust approximately three days later) I rinsed the seeds very thoroughly and laid them on wax paper to dry. In our climate it took just a day and a half for them to skitter around, dry as can be on wax paper.

Then I labeled them in little envelopes and put them to bed in my seed catalog file.

Elsewhere on my kitchen windowsill: sprouts. This is very, very easy. Also easy to forget. It seems my chickens are getting my sprouts with regularity this summer. I don't have a hard time rinsing and draining them every day. It's the remembering to harvest (which just means eat the dang things) that's my apparent downfall. So one morning they're just perfect, and I mean to put them on top of some salad or in a pita for goodness sakes, but then by nightfall they resemble a tangle of full-grown invasive vines and I have to send them out to the henhouse. Sigh.

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I'm still dieting. Will this never end? Sixteen pounds down and one size down. I do think the low carb lifestyle (I just gagged a little on that phrase) is big in Hollywood for a reason. But what, my friends, will I do about bread? My lovely homemade loaves of egg bread. The crunchy crusty French bread. The homemade pasta.

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I can see myself now at a CA (carboholics anonymous? it must exist) meeting. "Hi. My name is Miriam... I used to think I could take just one bite. But now I'm taking it one day at a time."

Sideways like that

Honestly.

If I were to upload that photo one more time in an effort to get it to NOT be sideways, I think the little wires and etherwhatever that transmit all the intergook would just disintegrate. Disintegrate, y'all. As in "fail to integrate."

Which is pretty much where I am for the moment.

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The septic tank is fixed and thus we can flush that worry away. The well is producing enough water to shower. Well, to be precise, it's adequate water to bathe half of our family per day. It's putting a crimp in the girls' style. Not. In fact one of our children announced she wanted to set a record. A personal worst, as it happened. A record for number of days not showered. Ew.

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Real estate is booming in case you didn't notice. Or at least I'm working the hours as though it were. It seems to take the work of ten deals to cause one to close these days. Underwriters and appraisers and general everyday folk alike are cautious and prone to reverse their decisions. Realtors are prone to shave their heads and go into mourning over the fruitless time spent away from their families. (Just kidding about that last one.)

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We had a little round of the flu go through the Suite clan. It fell at the best possible time. Of course. It's always a good time to have one's limbs too heavy to move when one's children need to be carried up the stairs and served extra PediaPops in the middle of the night. Let me know when it's not a good time for that. Especially when the well is not able to support enough bleach loads to clean all the household bedding in one night.

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But hey! We rescued a chicken last week. The poor little leghorn was reportedly "charging" people at the village store all last Monday. So of course the clerk (the store owner's grandaughter-in-law and a lovely dental-hygienist-in-training) called up to Farm Suite, where we'll take in all manner of three-legged cats and apparently loco chickens.

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The girls named her Tallulah for her spirit. She's a gorgeous little girl who wasn't "charging" at all. It appears she is a lost or abandoned pet because she will leap into your arms like a lap dog seeking a cuddle. After a few days inside a chicken cage inside the henhouse (to help the others get used to her without the typical "pecking order" fights), she is one of our regular flock now, laying an egg a day.

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I have been reading about everyone's back to school anticipations, and in a few cases your children are already back at it! This has me freaked out. I mean, inspired to get my homeschool act together.

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And. On another up note (and I do mean up) I am back on the diet. My total loss is 14 pounds. I spent the last week on a "maintenance" phase in which I still had to weigh every day but couldn't "diet" and "shouldn't" lose weight. It's all too complicated for little (hah) ol' me. But now I'm back on all protein, all the time. Watch out for flying egg whites and falling scales. Or something like that.

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How was your weekend?

Life is just a bowl of chevre

The great homesteading adventure continues with an enormous, and I do mean beyond believably huge, gift of cherries. I spent the better part of a day dealing with approximately 60 (sixty, six-zero, I-know-it's-a-lot) pounds of cherries. I did this job without benefit a "pitter," which is some sort of appliance my farmgirl friend offered to lend me when she saw my purple (all-natural) manicure after the fact.

I dried nearly all of the cherries in my dehydrator. There is nothing as delicious as dried cherries! Well, the pears may compete, but there's another month for the cherries to stand alone on the platform of perfection.

And here's my favorite recipe for dried cherries (works well with fresh cherries too, but of course those are only around a couple of weeks a year):

Cherry Chevre Salad

One head red-leaf Romaine lettuce

One cup (or so) baby spinach leaves

One cup fresh chevre, crumbled

Half-cup toasted walnuts

Half-cup dried cherries

Balsamic vinegar and olive oil dressing with orange juice and minced garlic

Toss it all together right before serving

That's it! I know, it's not really a recipe. But it's so good.

We'll have no trouble using the cherries in salads, trail mix, muffins and granola. I have heard some people freeze cherries. And of course there's always cherry preserve.

Any other ideas for me?

Hovering around

I was in town last night when this stealthy (nearly silent) medical helicopter landed on the school track up the hill from our homestead.

No one was hurt; it was a demonstration. The kindly fire chief gave my husband and the girls a proper introduction to the "ca-coppa" (Laura's pronunciation just for you, Barb). And then he took this photo on his phone.

Today no one will stop talking about the experience. According to Sarah, "it hovered an inch" above their heads as it landed. "No," scoffs Madeleine, "it was at least a car length."

Pretty cool deal for us country kids.