I love Halloween!

Nova (Cleo-Cat-Tra)
Maya (Unicorn) of course
Adelina (Cleopatra)

 And you are never too old...

 Namaste.

Happy Halloween

All houses wherein men have lived and died

Are haunted houses. Through the open doors

The harmless phantoms on their errands glide,

With feet that make no sound upon the floors.

We meet them at the doorway, on the stair,

Along the passages they come and go,

Impalpable impressions on the air,

A sense of something moving to and fro.

There are more guests at table, than the hosts

Invited; the illuminated hall

Is thronged with quiet, inoffensive ghosts,

As silent as the pictures on the wall.

The stranger at my fireside cannot see
The form I see, nor hear the sounds I hear;
He but perceives what is;while unto me
All that has been is visible and clear...

From "Haunted Houses"

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

A Methow Valley house with stories to tell.

Treats and tricks

I'm late to my computer this morning-- busy decorating cookies for John to take to work tomorrow. Halloween already, where did the month go?

Speaking of things slipping by, I'm kicking myself because I missed the October drawing class I registered for back in July.  The community college cashed my check, so I was signed up, but they didn't mail out a confirmation or anything to jog my memory. Long story short, the dates didn't get written on the fridge calendar. Being somewhat brain dead from jet lag in late September, I simply "forgot."  The way of things to come?

None of that, of course, is any real excuse for someone who carries around a fancy iPhone with sophisticated calendar features. A scribbled paper calendar is pretty lame, but I still like seeing the whole month, and not have appointment reminders popping up the day before.  Some old habits are hard to change.

Well, speaking of simple tricks, it's hard to beat a baked apple this time of year.

These are Roman Beauty apples I bought this weekend in central Washington.  Cored, peeled halfway and "stuffed" with a mixture of brown sugar, chopped nuts, cinnamon and currents.  Baked covered with foil until fork tender and almost falling apart.  Scoop of vanilla ice cream.  Comfort food for dark times.

Lil' hams

A couple more cutie pictures taken by Amanda, these on a Sunday hike at Pipe Stone Canyon. 

We missed the fun, since we were headed home in our own jalopy yesterday afternoon.  The first snow (which can be pretty dicey on the roads) was predicted in the high elevations, so we took the same safer route home again over Snoqualmie Pass.  It rained...and rained.

We enjoyed one golden fall day in the Methow Valley. Now rain is in the forecast, every day for the foreseeable future in Seattle.  The fall spigot turned on.

Weekend snapshots

View from our room at The Twisp River Suites

Arts and crafts

Sticker book concentration

Newest family member

 Out for Italian food at Tappi's in Twisp

 Morning trail walk

 Pearrygin Lake near Winthrop

 Local fauna

 Maya sets a holiday table

Delicious soup and salad dinner by Amanda. 

Back to Seattle today after a nice visit...

Over the montains

We haven't seen our little Twisp family since August, which seems an eternity ago. The fog is gone and the rain back in a big way, so it looks like a wet, misty trip over the mountain passes. Fortunately, no snow in the forecast quite yet.

Should  have some cute new pictures for you soon.  Have a great weekend!

Hola

I bought this cute guy at RiteAid for $5, and hung him at the back door to scare off spooks. It almost feels like Halloween is over, all the decorations are on clearance sale to make room for the onslaught of Christmas.  The world should collapse under the sheer weight of so much STUFF.  And I've bought my share of it over a lifetime.

Yiwu, China, is Santa's real workshop, home to 600 factories that collectively churn out over 60% of all the world’s Christmas decorations. The “elves” are mainly migrant laborers, working 12 hours a day for about $100 a week. At least they get paid-- there are horror stories about help letters tucked into Halloween decorations from Chinese Labor Camps.

Places like Walmart import billions of dollars of cheap goods, and the prices of all of these items are supposedly going to skyrocket under this trade war with China. Who knows?

Mulch time

To mulch, or not to mulch,
That is the question...
Whether 'tis nobler in the garden
To bear the winter weeds of outrageous growth,  
Or to take arms against a sea of green,
And by opposing, end it. 

(Sorry, Hamlet)

Anyway, the leaves are falling from the maple tree across the street, and this is the first time in years I haven't run back and forth with my cart and rake.  Leaves are an excellent mulch in the Northwest, keeping the weeds down organically, and making a nice winter home for worms. The only problem is, I need so much to cover all the flower beds. A person gets tired, and raking them up by a school is a drag (think gum wrappers, plastic straws and dog walkers.)

So I thought I'd treat myself and have a load of compost mulch delivered instead. Which turned out to be more complicated that I thought:

What kind?
How much?
How deep?

Oh my, is that a midget lady?  I'm tired just looking at that giant pile, and I need about 6 yards to cover the beds 2 inches deep!  However, as John pointed out, for less than the cost of having it delivered bulk and spread by hand, the blower truck can bring in a whopping 10 yards, which is their minimum. 

Once I had Cedar Grove municipal compost blown in by truck, and then spent years picking out bits of plastic, trash and even chips of glass. Never again.  I'm going to try a wood based product this year called "GroCo." It looks and feels like very fine bark, which it is, but supposedly full of plant nutrients that leach down over the winter.  I might not be able to use the entire 10 yards, but I'm sure I can find a place for most of it under the trees and along the fence borders.

Temperature inversion

Inversion:  Atmospheric condition where a layer of colder air near the ground gets trapped under a layer of warmer air.  The pollutants ( which normally disperse over a wide area) remain locally confined due to inversion. 

Really, one of the more unpleasant weather patterns we get stuck in.  The weak October sun couldn't break through the murk yesterday.

Meanwhile, up at Paradise (literally) near Mt. Rainer, a blue bird day with almost empty parking lot.  My brother Dave drove up there yesterday and took this picture. 

That's the rising full moon, giving a nice Halloween effect last night.  Anyway, rain comes back on Thursday, bringing us a fresher sort of grey.  In the meantime, hazardous driving conditions and flight delays at SeaTac.  Good day to stay close to home and revive some neglected winter hobbies.

Atmospheric condition where a layer of cold air nearer to the ground gets trapped under a layer of warm air. The air pollutants (which would normally have dispersed over a wide area) remain locally confined due to inversion. In cold countries, morning school openings are often delayed to protect school children from this concentration of polluted air. Also called temperature inversion.

Read more: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/inversion.html

Atmospheric condition where a layer of cold air nearer to the ground gets trapped under a layer of warm air. The air pollutants (which would normally have dispersed over a wide area) remain locally confined due to inversion. In cold countries, morning school openings are often delayed to protect school children from this concentration of polluted air. Also called temperature inversion.

Read more: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/inversion.html

Atmospheric condition where a layer of cold air nearer to the ground gets trapped under a layer of warm air. The air pollutants (which would normally have dispersed over a wide area) remain locally confined due to inversion. In cold countries, morning school openings are often delayed to protect school children from this concentration of polluted air. Also called temperature inversion.

Read more: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/inversion.html

Pea soup

The mornings turned gloomy and chilly, with dense fog in the lower elevations. Up above 1500 feet, just another sunny day, but closer to the water, it suddenly it feels like the season it is. We've been spoiled by weeks of beautiful weather and don't like it.

Our friend Mark came for a visit this weekend to brighten things up. We had lunch at Alki Beach, followed by a short walk at Jack Block Park on Elliot Bay.  This has become the new de rigueur for out-of-town house guests, or maybe just an excuse to have fish and chips at The Sunfish, our favorite restaurant. 

In the park, I took a picture of this stunning purple berry shrub:

The American Beauty Berry is a wonderful native shrub that has small light purple to white flower clusters in the summer and striking bright purple fall/winter berries. In the early fall, the berries begin to cluster around the stems of the shrub and create a very unique effect that mixes with the green of the leaves. These shrubs are popular among landscapers because they are native and can be used in hedges or single plantings. The American beauty berry is also a favorite of songbirds and wildlife. 

We visited the Log Cabin Museum and peeked in the door of the adjacent museum annex (i.e. storage room) where I'm working on a project, organizing a mess of neglected records from the Southwest Seattle Historical Society.

All spiffed up

A haircut for the palm tree.

Seagull approved...

Some expert trimming on the cypress.

The start of a (relatively) low maintenance 10-foot hedge.

My new tree company was here at 7 am! yesterday and finished by 10. That must be a record. It's always a relief having that job done for the year.  They brought a giant bucket truck with a crane and a big wood chipper, along with four strong men with chain saws, hedge cutters and ladders. That might sound like overkill for a suburban yard, but they hauled out an astonishing volume of vegetation. 

All good things must come to an end-- by that, I mean this unprecedented stretch of fabulous fall weather.  The high pressure ridge that's been dominating the weather pattern in the West is slowly breaking down, opening the back door to a series of wet systems lined up the the Pacific. But that's for next week.

We have another sunny weekend to enjoy (after the fog burns off) and are looking forward to seeing our friend Mark, who is driving up from Portland for an overnight visit.  Maybe one more dinner on the grill before I get out the cover for the winter.

Hedge

Today is the dreaded, annual hedge-cutting day. And not just "Hedge Day," but also "Palm Tree Day" and "Leland Cypress Day."

I'm victim of my own green thumb, although I can't take credit for the laurel that was thriving here 40 years ago.  But the palm tree towering over the house, and the Leyland Cypress towering over the back yard-- my doings.  And fairly recent doings, at that.

An arborist once told me that "palm trees grow very slowly in Seattle." Not in this yard.  Those lower fronds are 20 feet up, way too high for me to trim with a ladder anymore.  

August 2015

September 2018

And how about this success story?  Of course I knew Leyland Cypress trees "grew fast" that's why I planted them, to block the view of new apartments and houses. But three years later, it's already time to cut off the tops and start shaping them into (you guessed it!) another high maintenance hedge.  

On the bright side, after so many hedge-cutting fiascos I finally found a company I like.  Blooma Tree Service is expensive but professional, and you might remember last year they brought out a giant bucket truck and chain sawed four feet off the top of the hedge.  This year is should be more of a maintenance trim, I hope. 

However, when their arborist gave the bid, he took one look at the Leyand Cypress, turned to me with a grim look on his face and asked, "Have you ever SEEN these trees once they get out of CONTROL?"

Tomorrow, the after pictures.

National Pasta Day

Pasta is surely one of the top comfort foods in the world. Thomas Jefferson "discovered" macaroni in Paris and brought sacks of it back to the United States. Like an American Marco Polo. The Italians each eat about 60 pounds of pasta a year; Americans average 20 pounds.  

Pasta comes in hundreds of shapes and can be made into thousands of different dishes, so saying you "don't like pasta" is really saying something.  Spaghetti is only 6th on the list of top ten pasta shapes, even though meat sauce is the favorite.

I don't dislike pasta, but I never really crave it either. Perhaps because I've cooked so many thousands of boring pasta and red sauce dinners. I like the thinner shapes if I'm going to splurge on carbs. Good old Barilla has expanded their product line and makes whole-grain along with a vegetable-based greenish spaghetti. Sometimes I'll make that separately for myself because John doesn't consider it real pasta (it isn't.)

Anyway, he never gets tired of plain old dried penne or rigatoni out of the bag, and when I ask him what he wants to eat, pasta is always the answer. Why even ask?  I still cook a big pasta dinner with homemade sauce once a week, so he isn't suffering starch deprivation.  :-)

Forget pasta-- looking at those food pictures this weekend made me hungry for the bangers and mash I had at The Minories Pub in London.  What made that particular meal memorable was the ambience, not to mention, a pint of beer, starvation and exhaustion from walking seven miles that day. Being of the German breed, sausage is always more my idea of comfort food.

I bought some artisan British bangers at our upscale Thriftway grocery store, I don't know how they will compare. The weather is still nice, so maybe I'll make a pasta salad (in honor of National Pasta Day) and cook them on the grill tonight.

We've never had such a dry, warm October in Seattle, and today might break a record at 70 degrees. It is just beautiful with all the fall colors. We took another nice ride yesterday on Vashon Island, what a gift.

London and Paris slideshow

I have a problem centering my videos on the blog.

Anyway, if you couldn't view the entire screen below,  Click here for a direct link to YouTube.

Getting it uploaded was a fun weekend project, even though I yanked out some hair in the process. 

Thanks for the comments!

London and Paris Adventures

As promised, this is a slide show I put together with pictures from our September trip.

It runs about 7 minutes. The great memories are often the best part of the trip.  Enjoy!

Count your blessings

Mexico Beach, Florida

If you really think economy is more important than environment, 

try holding your breath while you count your money.

Dr. Guy McPhearson

Unfortunately, we've become almost immune to the parade of natural disasters on the evening news, but the ferocity and speed of this storm set it apart from the usual lumbering hurricanes.  Hard to comprehend solid houses not just wrecked, but completely obliterated from the face of the earth, people's possessions scattered to the winds. Just imagine returning home and finding nothing but bare ground?  It sure puts those run-of-the-mill complaints (like light bulbs) into perspective.  The climate scientists say we can expect more of this, with poor Florida ground zero. 

It was a rough week on Wall Street, too. And speaking of counting, many of us have a little less to count in our 401-K's.  That didn't stop me from splurging on a bag of frozen sea scallops at Costco-- the giant, delicious kind. Of course they'll be doled out over several meals.

I told John he would get "three or four" tonight, depending on the size and how extravagant I feel after the stock market closes. Ha! Scallops are easy to cook and you can do all kinds of creative things. But I like them simply pan-seared with a bit of butter/wine reduction sauce. With some saffron rice, maybe.

Speaking of weird (but wonderful) weather, it looks like our nice stretch continues for a least another week. We go to the Symphony on Sunday, but no other plans for the weekend.  I need to stop messing around with horse friends and tackle my moldering garden before it starts raining again.

Have a good one. See you Monday.

Fog

That's an old picture of John on a foggy beach somewhere.

We call this month "Fogtober" in Seattle because when it isn't raining, the mornings are likely to be foggy. Visibility is about nil right now, but by noon it should be another spectacular fall day. After I get the morning chores done, I'm planning to drive out to North Bend and see my friend Dolly and her horses. 

I've been so busy lately, but I can hardly say doing what?  October is a foggy month in other ways, as the body and brain adjust to cold temperatures and less light. At least that's my excuse.

The holidays are "just around the corner," but c'mon! I was at Costco yesterday and it seemed like half the warehouse was Christmas. I'm sorry, there is something creepy about side-to-side Halloween and Christmas decorations.

Anyway, not much news this morning from the blessedly quiet Northwest.
Have a good day wherever you are.

Waffle House Index

I'm looking forward to the next week of perfect fall weather in Seattle-- bright sunny skies and high temperatures in the 60's to really show off the turning leaves. But I feel a little guilty, as yet another dreadful hurricane hits the south. This one seemed to come out of nowhere.

A few years ago, we went to a lovely October beach wedding in Destin, Florida, on the panhandle, close to ground zero for this storm. I'd never been in that part of Florida, and was amazed at the solid wall of fancy new houses and condominiums just a few steps from the surf.  They say Hurricane Michael is the strongest storm to hit that area in a century, and you can bet there weren't any McMansions there 100 years ago.

On the boring drive back to the airport in Pensacola (the Panhandle is not particularly scenic, to put it mildly) we passed the time by counting Waffle Houses. The familiar yellow sign popped up every few miles.  If you're not familiar with Waffle House, it's a southern breakfast chain opened 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We have nothing even remotely like that in the Northwest, unfortunately. You are out of luck here if you want cup of coffee and a simple cooked breakfast at 3 am.

Anyway, Waffle House restaurants are known for staying open in storms so FEMA coined the term "Waffle House Index" to measure the effect of a natural disaster on an area. If a Waffle House shuts down or limits its menu after such hazards, federal officials conclude the community took a major hit.

Not a good sign: a Panama City beach Waffle House just pulled out the storm shutters and locked the doors.

Let there be light

Did you catch the depressing report on climate change in the news cycle yesterday? We only have a few years left to avoid "disastrous levels of global warming."  To do that, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says, would require "rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society."

Some of those changes include: Less travel and more use of ride-sharing and hybrid vehicles. Consuming 30% less animal products would help, since livestock is responsible for almost 15% of greenhouse gases. Finally a shift to more sustainable behavior in our buildings. The poorest half of the world’s population - 3.5 billion people - is responsible for just 10 percent of carbon emissions, despite being the most threatened by the catastrophic storms and severe weather shocks linked to climate change.

Americans are spoiled, and here's an example. There are millions of people who would be grateful for one electric light, but I still miss all those flattering, soft, old-fashioned incandescent light bulbs we used to take for granted. Our house is pretty much switched over to energy efficient bulbs so we've done our small part, but it's been a painful process.

John has the thankless job of keeping the place stocked in light bulbs. For such a small house, we use an astonishing variety of different bulbs. I would have replaced the precious old ones as they slowly burned out, but he's a cold turkey kind of guy, and switched everything in one weekend.  Leading to pitiful cries of "What HAPPENED to my lights in here?"

The packaging for energy efficient bulbs tout the "natural bright light." It's a lie. The "warm light" ones have a greenish or yellowish cast. I'm getting used to looking slightly jaundiced now in the bathroom. But those were even worse in the kitchen, making it look like an aquarium, so we switched out "warm" with "bright white." More of a bus station kind of harsh light that casts shadows, especially when it is dark outside, as it is for most of the winter here. Yes, I am spoiled.

Seattle City Light sends a shaming report along with the monthly bill that compares your usage to your neighbors. I guess a better report card will be some consolation. 

Happy Birthday, Maya

October 2012

Where has the time gone?
Six years old today.

March 2013

June 2014

August 2015

May 2016

January 2017

February 2018

June 2018

 September 2018