Once in a blue moon

The Fishing Party

Fitz Hugh Lane

1850, the year of a blue moon

When a calendar month has two full moons, the second one is called a "Blue Moon." Tonight is a blue moon, and there won't be another until summer 2015.  The popular expression (meaning a rare event) started with a 1946 Sky and Telescope magazine article written by James Pruett called, "Once in A Blue Moon."   But the earliest English usage of the term "blue moon" was in a 1524 pamphlet attacking the English clergy.  It went something like this:

If the say the moon is belewe

We must believe that it is true...

I like the expression.  It covers the entire range of unusual events, from happy and quirky to sad and inexplicable-- the things which fortunately only happen "once in a blue moon."  Sometimes they even happen on the same day.

Having a sunny, warm Labor Day weekend in Seattle is "once in a blue moon."  August has gone down as the driest month ever recorded in Seattle, without a drop of measurable rain at SeaTac Airport.  Amanda and little Nova will be here later today and we're looking forward to a weekend at home.  New pictures soon of our sweethearts. 

Quiet

Glad sight wherever new with old
Is joined through some dear homeborn tie;
The life of all that we behold
Depends upon that mystery.
Vain is the glory of the sky,
The beauty vain of field and grove
Unless, while with admiring eye
We gaze, we also learn to love. 

William Wordsworth

Hatch peppers

Hatch peppers are grown near the small town of Hatch, New Mexico. The Hatch Chili Festival is an annual event on Labor Day weekend that attracts upwards of 30,000 chili lovers. This farming community is known world-wide for raising excellent chilies.  For just a few weeks, we can buy them fresh at some Seattle grocery stores for about $2 a pound.  They're worth every penny, not to mention the work it is to prepare them.

Hatch, New Mexico

Unlike green and red bell peppers, chili peppers have a tough, papery skin that can't be peeled off easily.  They first need to be charred under the broiler or out on the grill.

The grill works great-- and keeps most of the black mess outside.

The hot charred peppers are covered with a cloth to steam.

After they cool, the fun job of scraping skin begins.  The seeds and the stem ends are thrown away. 

And you finally have a nice pile of recipe-ready chilies.

I cooked some onions until soft, and then added the sliced chilies and fresh tomatoes.

Back to the grill with some thin-sliced marinated steak...

Open a can of pinto beans, and you have a once-a-year and very delicious southwest supper.  

Good morning to you, too

This morning there was a big thump out on the deck when I went in the kitchen to refill my coffee cup. Oh. Some bad things have been happening around here in the early morning hours.  Should I grab the phone and run out the front door in my pajamas?  I peeked out though the blind.  Nope, just a couple of teenage raccoons banging the gate.  So insolent and entitled, they didn't even mind having their picture taken.

Wine World

St. Michelle Winery, Woodinville

It hasn't rained for the last 36 days.  This morning the weatherman said the record is 54 consecutive dry days for Seattle.  We might break that.  There's a "slight chance of showers" on Wednesday then back to sunny weather for Labor Day, a weekend notorious for being cool and damp. Ever heard of the Bumpershoot Festival at the Seattle Center?  Still, there's a  feeling of summer waning and the first leaves are starting to change color.  Like spring, autumn is a long and relatively warm season in the Pacific Northwest.

We packed a sandwich and drove to the St. Michelle Winery for a picnic.  They have some tables set up around a small lake with a bunch of begging ducks and we've been going there for years, although not recently.  We actually had some trouble getting our bearings in Woodinville-- it has changed so much since John lived near there a few decades ago.

This big guy on the shore let me get close enough to zoom in for a nice portrait.  We had the picnic area to ourselves before folks in the St. Michelle "Reserve Club" started arriving early for a private evening concert and soon we felt like we were getting the bum's rush. 

On the way home we stopped at the new Wine World store in the University District.  You may know (if you even care about such things) that Washington voted to close the state controlled liquor stores this summer. If so inclined, you can now buy a gallon of vodka along with a carton of milk at the grocery store, or with your shampoo at the drugstore. Or with your clothing at Target.

Wine World

The store is an immense California-style liquor warehouse with a terrific selection of wine from all over the world.  I sat and read drinking magazines while John browsed labels and prices.

So many wines, so little time...

Blackberries

If you've ever picked wild blackberries, then you know the best and biggest are always at the top of the bramble, just out of reach.  Blackberries grow rampant here in western Washington and they're considered invasive weeds along the highways and vacant lots.  Tons of perfectly good fruit rots on the ground each year.

Blackberries have an abundance of antioxidants and nutrients. Anthocyanins give blackberries their dark color, and this concentrated pigment supposedly decreases the rate of memory loss. Blackberries contain salicylic acid with medicinal aspirin qualities. The ellagic acid in blackberries has been proven to kill certain cancer cells. Pectin helps lower cholesterol. Blackberries are low in calories and high in fiber. How many good things can you say about one fruit?  Well, they do have those annoying seeds that stick in your teeth, but even those are full of healthy things omega-3 oil. 

Here's a bit of folklore from the United Kingdom. They say blackberries should not be picked after Michaelmas Day (October 11) because the devil has claimed them by leaving a mark on the leaves by spitting or urinating.  Like most legends there is some truth behind this. Cool, wet weather allows the fruit to be infected with ugly molds that may be toxic.

When we ride around the barn in the summer, we're always pestered by the long vines crossing the trails and grabbing at our jeans.  Horses have such sensitive skin and one fly can make them crazy with irritation, but for some reason they push through the thorny canes without a visible scratch.  Those of us who are not too bright try to grab the ripe berries off the vine as we ride along. After we put the horses away on Friday, I went back on foot and picked this nice batch in about 10 minutes.

Sylvia Plath once wrote a poem called Blackberrying.

Nobody in the lane, and nothing, nothing but blackberries,   

Blackberries on either side, though on the right mainly,

A blackberry alley, going down in hooks, and a sea

Somewhere at the end of it, heaving. 

Blackberries big as the ball of my thumb, and dumb as eyes

Ebon in the hedges, fat

With blue-red juices. These they squander on my fingers.

I had not asked for such a blood sisterhood; they must love me.

They accommodate themselves to my milkbottle, 

Flattening their sides.

From, Blackberrying

Sylvia Plath 

1960 

Congratulations, Amanda

Today Amanda finishes her LPN school program after a full calendar year of classes and hard work.  Not to mention the hundreds of hours in all weather (from 100 degrees to below zero) driving long distances to the college and clinics. And kudos to Tom, because his support and wonderful parenting helped make this possible.

We'll soon have the first registered nurse in the family. And as each day goes by, John and I are thinking what a good thing to have our own private 1-800-NURSE hot-line.  :-)

Hats off to the new nurse (lower right corner) and her graduating class.  Hooray!

Vintage Disney

If you have 7 minutes to waste, here's some charming Disney-style violence from 1932.

A few tomatoes

The tomato pots are about to topple over, not from the weight of the fruit but from the overgrown foliage that's crawling up the side of the house and into the bedroom window. Last night I stuck my head up in the jungle and managed to pick a nice bowl in a few minutes. My nose was filled with that wonderful smell from all the leaves and stems that I broke off and trampled in the process.

Nice local tomatoes are in season at the produce markets and can be bought for much less trouble and expense than it took to grow these.  Still, as any old hippie will tell you, it's not quite the same as growing your own.

It's difficult to think anything but pleasant thoughts 

while eating a homegrown tomato.

Lewis Grizzard

A turning point

Yesterday at 6 am I was sitting in the kitchen having a stirrup cup with Roger and Candi. Sophie had a morsel of leftover bacon and we drank strong Starbucks. They were headed back down the road to Missoula.

The pace of summer slows. When John left the house earlier at 5:20, it was dark. As in really dark and cool and quiet. The season is changing.  We had our little Seattle heat wave last week when everyone suffered nobly for a few days, but it won't even hit 70 for the rest of the week.  Or probably for the next 9 months. 

This is the Season of the Dahlia and Begonia.  Late bloomers. Planted in February, poked at constantly, new sprouts knocked off by an impatient gardener digging down to "check," exasperatingly slow to start growing but now in the prime of floral glory-- just in time for the first cool rain to wreck the plants.

Speaking of rain, no precipitation in Seattle now for over a month. I've poured so much expensive, metered, city drinking water on the flower beds just so we would have a few fancy, useless things to show off in late summer. Enough extravagant clean water to bathe a Sahara village for a year, but this is the unfair world we live in. How lucky can two people get? Beautiful flowers and beautiful friends.

Catch a falling star

Liquidnight

Duy Huynh

These are fragrant acres where
Evening comes long hours late
And the still unmoving air
Cools the fevered hands of Fate.

Meadows where the afternoon
Hangs suspended in a flower
And the moments of our doom
Drift upon a weightless hour.

And we who thought that surely night
Would bring us triumph or defeat
Only find the stars are white
Clover at our naked feet.

Clover
Tennessee William

A perfect afternoon

Teamwork gets the job done early

Come and git it!

Dueling pots of pulled pork waiting

Digging in

Old friends make new friends

Paul, Betsy and John

They lied about the forecast-- no rain!

A little chilly for a Montana dog, but Sophie agrees-- a perfect day. 

Montana comes to town

Life doesn't get any better than this.  Relaxing in the garden last night with old friends on the hottest day of the year.  Today Candi and I are busy in the kitchen cooking up 15 pounds of pulled pork for our picnic tomorrow.

And the weather forecast?  

Roger says: who cares?

What to eat in the heat

John could eat penne pasta with red sauce and Italian sausage and meatballs on a 90 degree evening, no problem. I've made countless dinners like that, but in the summer I'd much rather have a meatless pasta dish.  Especially when I have real, grown-in-the-dirt Yakima tomatoes from the produce stand, and basil growing outside.

 Pulling this together is so easy you don't really need a recipe. Boil the pasta, any type.  I like spaghetti, John likes the tube things. Saute some garlic with red pepper flakes, add the chopped tomatoes and cook gently for a few minutes.  Add a handful of Greek olives.

Toss in the cooked pasta along with the fresh basil.  Black pepper. Grate some nice cheese for the top. Make a lazy salad with iceberg lettuce. Put a bread stick in the toaster. Pour the cold white wine.

Over the top

These lilies are so beautiful I almost have to look the other way.  Speaking of over the top, we're in for a heat wave in Seattle and lilies do not like temperatures in the 90's.  That means water, water and more water to keep them going.  When John gets the next water bill, I hope I'm not in shouting distance.

It has not rained in Seattle for 25 days.  As you can see on the extended forecast, the only day with a chance of precipitation is Saturday, the very afternoon we are planning an outdoor party for our visiting Montana friends.  On Friday the lilies will be burned to a crisp, on Saturday we could all be drenched. I'm not in a good mood this morning. 

 

.

“The roses had the look of flowers that are looked at.”

from, Burnt Norton, T.S. Eliot

Open Library magic

They found a naked child upon the sands

Of dark Dundagil by the Cornish sea;

And that was Arthur; and they foster'd him

Till he by miracles was approven King.

Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale (1871-1945) created this illustration for Tennyson's long poem Idylls of the King, published in 1913.  It was written as allegory of social conflict in Victorian Britain. The twelve stories retell the legend of King Arthur and his tragic love for Guinevere.  The mythical Arthur tried and failed to create a perfect kingdom.   

I don't know who has the attention span to read Victorian poetry these days, but if you click *here* the link will take you to the original book Idylls of the King including the beautiful illustrations of the knights and ladies. Clicking on the arrow in the bottom right corner of the "page" lets you thumb through and read in a natural way. Very slick, not to mention free and public domain.

Open Library is part of the Internet Archive, a nonprofit digital library with the grand mission of "universal access to all knowledge."  The goal of their Open Library project is to create one web page for every book ever published, and they claim to have 20 million books already digitized.

Illustration for Enid

Yniol's rusted arms
were on his princely person, but thro' these
Princelike his bearing shone.

Illustration for Vivien

O master do you love my tender rhyme?

Illustration for Enid

They rode so slowly and they look'd so pale.

Illustration for Elaine

Elaine

 Illustration for Guinevere

It was their last hour,

A madness of  farewells.

 Illustration for Guinevere

The sombre close of that voluptuous day

Which wrought the ruin of my lord the King.