Look up

 

 

Oncoming Storm, by Eric Sloane

Eric Sloane (1905-1985) was an American painter known for his landscapes and beautiful depictions of sky and clouds. Art for the window seat lovers. 

 Bright as Day at 10,000 Feet

He was fascinated by weather and aviation, and during WWII concentrated on illustrating military aircraft. 

 Clipper Ship at 7,500

The United States Army took notice, and Sloane contributed to aviation training manuals.

 

 

His teaching style tended toward the comic and graphic, perfect for the new pilot recruits, many just out of high school.

Speaking of young fliers. Oh, what a heartbreaking accident that took the lives of two Canadian pilots. And the list of airport nightmare stories this week! It is a terrible time to fly. 

It's also a terrible time to fill your tank (gas over $5 around here.) Never mind that, I'm heading over to Twisp tomorrow for a short reset. 

Recipes

 

 

I get the NYT cooking newsletter delivered to my inbox every morning, mostly for inspiration. Unless the recipe says "quick and easy" or "simple ingredients" I rarely try them. 

Those NYT food editors like to turn ordinary dishes into complicated projects with unusual ingredients no one keeps on hand, like curry powder made from scratch. 

Having said that, I've run across some keepers in the NYT cooking section, like a pizza dough I make over and over, and that honey garlic shrimp (above.) 

 

It's impressive, for being so quick and easy. The raw shrimp is marinated in soy sauce, honey, garlic and ginger, then patted dry and seared in a hot skillet.

The remaining marinade gets thickened slightly with corn starch, making a quick sauce.

And it's not often you can say this, but mine looked as good as the dolled-up photo on the Times. Except I pulled the tail shells off because we don't like wrestling with them. 

 

Pruning time

 

 

Spring pruning time arrives at the Carlton pear orchard.

 

Tom is an excellent pruner, but this isn't some little weekend project for folks who also hold down full time jobs.

Fortunately, they found someone (above) experienced with the their orchard to help out, especially with the older, larger trees. Amanda said Fernando is a nice guy and a super hard worker. He showed up on Saturday morning before the sun was even up. 

 

But...it still leaves behind a massive clean up job. The clippings need to be gathered and burned at a safe time. 

Are we having fun yet?

 

Maya, with an old granddaddy of Russian Thistle, a noxious weed for the burn pile. No chemical herbicides and pesticides were used on this organic farm for decades. 

 

Over here in the tropics, we've been busy too. The recycle, trash and yard waste bins are all stuffed, so that tells you something. 

I worked in the garden, cleaned the inside windows and de-cluttered the house. Well, one closet to be exact, but it feels good to consolidate two boxes of life mementos and souvenirs down into one. That was a trip down memory lane. My goodness, the things we keep "forever." 

 

John also did the first mow of the season-- one of my favorite outdoor days because it suddenly looks so nice after winter, even though the "lawn" is mostly moss and weeds. 

Correction: John says $300,000 of car parked on the street, not a half million. Still a bunch of money.

Our new cars

 

Psyche! As Amanda used to say in middle school...

Some brave (hopefully well insured) guy has been parking his yellow Porche on our street for the last few weeks. 

It's hard to believe a person who owns a car like that doesn't have a garage, but car garages are few and far between in this neighborhood. Most are too small and/or crammed with other stuff. The new apartment buildings only have a few tiny parking spots for rent. This is to encourage people to "take transit." It doesn't work. Everyone around here has at least one car, so they get parked on the residential streets at night.

Anyway, if I was still young and cute, I'd ask him to take me for a ride. It makes a wonderful sound when he starts it up-- not so much noise, but power vibrations you feel in your bones. I admit it-- I like nice cars.

As for the Rivian, that guy lives nearby also. John figured about a half million dollars of vehicle sitting out there. I remember when you could buy every house on the street for that.

 

 

Young scientists

 

Maya participated in the Mid-Columbia Science Fair yesterday with a few others who were nominated from her 7th grade class. 

This is the oldest science fair in the state, held in Richland, Washington, about 8 hours round trip on the bus from Twisp. (Yes, everything is far from Twisp.) 

So quite a long day-- good for you, Maya. Her complex project relates to the effect of climate change on plants.

Happy first day of spring! The fire hose from the south Pacific is finally shutting off. I'm looking to cleaning up the front porch. It's finally time to kick the Jade plants outside for the summer. They're tired of the house, and I'm tired of looking at them. 

Have a good weekend. 

 

Photographs and memories

 

 

Digital has taken over so much of our lives, but I have two banker boxes stuffed with old papers, one work related, random stuff saved from my Microsoft career, the other full of letters and personal diaries written over 50 years ago.

There are many letters from our mother, on page after page of plain notebook paper. She was such a prolific and frequent writer, most are just "dated" with the day of the week, no month or year, which is a shame. She wrote dates on the back of every photo, but not her letters. 

Anyway, her kids are probably the only ones left who can decipher her distinctive cursive. It's hard to believe this is how families once shared news. Only the best and worst events merited an expensive long distance call. 

As for my diaries, these should be a place for deep, private reflection, but most entries are in the category of "what happened today" and make no sense now, even to me. I was very young! But they are stuffed with mementoes like ticket stubs, post cards and random funny things that give some idea of what I was doing at the time.

These are rainy day projects. There are also piles of photographs to go through, the redundant and bad ones thrown out. The goal is to get everything consolidated down to the few things that might have some meaning and context to others. 

Speaking of rain. Go away. I'd rather be working in the garden that shuffling through dusty closets. 

A sweet song...