Calm before the ukulele storm

 

 

 

For months now, I've done a weekly Zoom session with some players from our old group called The Ukes.  5-10 smiling faces usually show up in the little boxes after I launch the meeting. It feels like inviting people to your party, then sitting back and waiting to see if anyone comes.

Unfortunately, Zoom wasn't designed for group music. If we all play at the same time, it just sounds garbled. So we take turns doing solos, which was scary at first, but turned into a confidence building experience for some of us. Being a "good singer" is totally optional in the world of ukulele playing-- just watch some ukulele YouTube videos. Ha ha.

Anyway, now we're vaccinated and the weather has warmed up, so I invited everyone over to the backyard this afternoon for our first in-person sing-a-long in since February 2020.  At least six people are coming, and possibly more will show up.  I'm really excited. After listening to other people's noise, I figure it's our turn to make some in the neighborhood. Maybe I can persuade John to take a few pictures before he goes into hiding for the afternoon!

National Hamburger Day

 

Just in time for Memorial Day weekend. I picked up a small package of good hamburger and a bag of whole wheat buns yesterday at Metropolitan Market yesterday. Gee, I could have bought a steak! But there's no substitution for a burger cooked outside, topped with grilled sweet onions on a toasted bun. If that doesn't say summer, nothing does. 

Looks like another grey and chilly morning here (the furnace is running again) but weather should brighten up by Sunday. It won't be as warm as we hoped, but we'll take it.  Hope you have some fun weekend plans in the works.

Out with the old

 

This is where we sit outside in the afternoon sun with a glass of wine before dinner.  The front of the house is completely private, and you can listen to the world go by on the other side of the hedge. It's fairly peaceful, at least until the school addition construction across the street starts up. Noise is just a part of life on a busy corner smack in the urban village.

Anyway, John ordered that beautiful new teak bench online, and it showed up on the sidewalk yesterday in a humongous box.

Been sitting on this splintery, wobbly thing for years-- way overdue for an upgrade.

So this morning, new bench gets the first of many Seattle drenchings. Eventually the teak turns silver grey, but it sure looks pretty right now in the rain.

This rain is a real gift, and when the sun comes out this weekend the flowers will go crazy. Roses, at last!

Flower friends

 

Rose "Joey" comes back to visit every year like a reliable friend.  If we ever moved (which seems increasingly unlikely) how much would I miss these old flowers?

From Wiki:

Rosa Just Joey is an apricot blend hybrid tea rose cultivar, bred by Roger Pawsey and named in honor of his wife, Joey. The plant was introduced into the United Kingdom in 1972. 'Just Joey' was inducted into the Rose Hall of Fame as "World's Favorite Rose" in 1994.

The deep peach color looks especially vivid in the diffused grey light, which is great for photography, but not so great if you think summer should be here. It's been the coolest May in Seattle since 2012.  Another day of 50's and rain tomorrow, then we finally break into warmer weather just in time for the holiday weekend.

Banks Lake

 

 

That's Amanda and Tom's sweet little trailer on the shores of Banks Lake last weekend. This is an annual May event with a group of other Methow families. They've done it together since the kids were babies, and now they're nudging the teenage years. Oh boy parents, hang on to yer hats. 

Banks Lake is a man-made reservoir near the Grand Coulee Dam in central Washington. It was a dry coulee, formed by the Missoula floods about 15,000 years ago. That's the origin of those cliffs in the background.  

Banks Lake is first come, first served dry camping (bring your own water) but that doesn't bother them a bit. When the weather cooperates, everyone has a great time. In the Columbia Basin, May can be either blazing hot or quite chilly. Looks like the weather was pleasantly in-between.

 That's Nova cooking up a big skillet of home-grown scrambled eggs.

Why go out?

 

Margherita Pizza from the home oven. 

I get annoyed with myself when I get sucked into those Internet click bait lists. Like "The Ten Menu Items You Should Never Order in an Italian Restaurant." A waste of time!  But I remember Margherita pizza was on that list. Not because it's unhealthy, but in terms of value, you should go with the rich sauces, lasagna, or slow cooked meats like osso buco.  

Margherita pizza is a restaurant money machine: the little blob of white dough, smear of red sauce, a few tomatoes and a stingy portion of fresh mozzarella. A few basil leaves scattered on top and people are happy to shell out $20. At least in Seattle.

It's simple and delicious though, especially when made generously at home with decent tomatoes. I bought a little bag of pear tomatoes at Traders Joes, and a package of fresh sliced mozzarella. 

I'm a fan of TJ refrigerated pizza dough (plain or garlic herb) for only $1.29. Homemade pizza dough isn't worth the time and effort for one small pizza. I also picked up a beautiful basil plant for $3.99 and the pizza made itself. Well, sorta. 

It was a depressing weekend, not because anything bad happened, but the oppressive layer of cold grey marine clouds. This morning it is finally raining. Yea. Despite all the cloudy weather, we've had a too dry spring.

And what's this?  Yes, a corned beef dinner made with a brisket I had stashed in the freezer since St. Paddy's Day. Perfect thing to cook on an Sunday afternoon that felt more like March than May.

Friday

I dug out my old flower press yesterday to dry some new cuttings. Ferns and pansies turn out especially pretty, and when the girls visit this summer they can make flower collages. They are both talented little artists and love projects like that. 

Speaking of budding artists in the Methow Valley, I bought these watercolor prints at the Twisp market done by Maya's second grade art teacher.  In second grade, we learned how to make paper chains with construction paper. No such thing as a special art teacher in elementary school, or even in high school for that matter.

 

I'm running out of motivation for home projects. We've had a basket of toys in the basement since Nova was a baby, and I finally cleaned it out. Maybe I was in denial they are growing up, but no doubts after seeing them last week. It's been 18 months since they were even here. I saved a few favorite things for sentimental reasons. Neither of them were ever into dolls, but they both love stuffies and they're good readers, thank goodness.

Summer is certainly taking its own sweet time getting to the Northwest.  This week, we had the coldest weather anywhere in the continental United States and that trend continues next week. Cold and gloomy in the mornings, with high temperatures only in the 60's. So much for the roses of May.

Have a good weekend.

 

Mexican brown rice

I found this recipe on the Internet and modified it slightly. The rice is baked in a covered Dutch oven that stays warm for a long time, so it would be perfect for a busy dinner party. (What's that?)

Anyway, if you want the recipe let me know. It's healthy and vegetarian, although a few slices of chopped bacon could be substituted for olive oil. Extra yummy. We only eat brown rice if we can help it, and this is the Basmati style that turns out nice and fluffy. 

 

It starts like so many Mexican recipes with a saute of onion, jalapeño, garlic and red pepper flakes. Nice chopping, John.

Then add the rice for a quick light browning.

With 2 cups of rice, a can of chicken (or vegetable) broth and a small can of Mexican style tomatoes is just about right for liquid.

Then it bakes covered in a 350 oven for an hour. So easy. Finally, top with fresh chopped cilantro and serve with lime wedges. Best of all, the leftovers freeze well. Hearty enough for a main dish with tortillas and salad, but we had it as a side with turkey enchiladas.

Soggy thoughts

 

A droopy view of the garden this morning.  It was so chilly last night the furnace came on and it rained hard. (Of course it did, I watered everything yesterday.)

I went to Marshalls to buy some new shorts, just in case the weather ever warms up. Everyone was wearing a mask, in fact they're still required to enter the store. I found that reassuring.  After all these months, it feels brazen and scary being bare-faced indoors with a bunch of strangers.  Shopping at Hank's in Twisp was rather jarring.

I drove the long way home along Alki Beach to kill some time, also check out places to ride my scooter. People were out enjoying the chilly sea air, most with their faces uncovered.  

Nice to see that sensible first step back to feeling normal. We know the chances of catching the virus outdoors through casual contact are extremely low. And once vaccinated, they must drop to about zero. 

So I look forward to walking around the neighborhood without that chokey neck gaiter. If people cross the street (or cross themselves) when they see me coming, no hard feelings. That's enough said on the matter.

 

Real smiles are back?

 

Not so fast. I suppose in places where masks were never mandatory, the new CDC guidelines are no big deal. But in western Washington, chucking the mask is a fresh dilemma. I was at Safeway yesterday morning, and didn't see a single unmasked face, customer or employee. In our zip code, about 80% of people are vaccinated! 

Compare that to Hank's grocery store in Twisp, where everyone working in the store was unmasked, in a community where few people (by comparison) are vaccinated.  The vaccine map looks a lot like a map of how different areas of the country vote in presidential elections. You get the picture.

But putting things into perspective, in "blue land" it seems like we focus more on bad news and negative data. Gloom and doom. The vaccines are superb. Yes, they happen, but breakthrough cases are incredibly rare out of the millions of doses given. A NYT article said crossing the parking lot to the grocery is statistically many times more dangerous. Maybe time to start worrying about something else?

Costco, Trader Joes and other retailers have already lifted the mask requirement for vaccinated customers. But much as I miss wearing lipstick and seeing real smiles, I'll mask up in those crowded places for a while longer. It's been nice not catching colds.

Speaking of cold, what happened to the weather? The sky is blue, but it's a windy, cold morning here with temperature topping out in the 50's.

A few more pics

 

 

Methow River spring runoff through Twisp City Park

 

Hanging out at the Twisp Saturday market

Funny Maya with her kettle corn (and fake glasses)

Tom grilling kebabs in the back yard

View of the Methow Valley from the property

Planting vegetables in the hill garden 

The best seat in the house

Waking up to a very quiet and cloudy morning in Seattle. We had perfect weather this weekend.  The highways were crazy busy driving home yesterday (why is everyone in such a frantic rush?) but fortunately no big delays or problems.

Sweet reunion

 

Together at last! Doing the town in Winthrop yesterday, including mandatory stop at the ice cream stand and Trail's End Bookstore. 

We got out of Seattle quite early, and had the North Cascades Highway mostly to ourselves. Whew. By afternoon, the highway was roaring with a steady stream of cars, trucks and motorcycles pouring into town. How things have changed in the Methow Valley, from the old quiet days. The waits were hours long at the few restaurants open, so we opted for an outdoor pizza restaurant dinner and everyone enjoyed it. 

The weather is lovely, chilly this morning, but up to a pleasant 80 or so later.  Seattle marine air has a touch of dampness even on our "hot" days, but the mountain dryness over here makes for a soothing warmth, especially this time of year. 

We have a beautiful room at a hotel we've never stayed before in Winthrop, with a sunrise view of Mt. Gardener in the distance. Time to get moving-- Maya just sent me a text message. Busy day ahead. 

A little henhouse drama

 

Maya and "Lemon" 

"Rosie" the hen died last week. Nova found her on the floor of the coup after she didn't come out in the morning with her friends. All five were amazingly healthy up to now, laying eggs even through the cold, dark winter. 

The big fear was that "Rosie" had succumbed from some contagious chicken disease. After all that work and care and love, how heartbreaking to lose them to some mystery illness! 

Amanda tried to get professional advice, but there aren't any "poultry vets" in the Methow Valley. The ranch doctors doctor livestock. The small animal vets doctor dogs and cats. 

I suppose chickens are considered somewhat disposable over there. In Seattle, you can bet there are bird vets happy to diagnose your pet chickens (for an exorbitant charge.) Anyway, the worst didn't happen, and as of now, the hens are all fine. They are funny, winsome creatures with much personality. When you come out the back door, they come running like seagulls begging for kitchen scraps.

We're looking forward to our upcoming weekend trip to Twisp. We haven't seen the family (off a computer screen, that is) since last October. Incredible. We haven't visited inside a house, sat around a table, or even celebrated a holiday together since Christmas 2019. The awfulness of the past 16 months for so many families hits me like a rock sometimes. But when all is said and done, we're still here and healthy, the only thing that really matters.

Wordless Wednesday

 

 

The Great Wave off Kanagwa, Katsushika Hokusai, 1831

Weeding in the sun

 

 

My herb pot took off like gangbusters. What to do with a bushel of parsley?  Everything looks lush and green, but it's amazing how fast the soil dries out as we approach the Solstice. At our northern latitude, the sun is extreme, giving us extra dark winters and blinding bright summers.

We're having a nice stretch of weather and it's finally starting to edge up toward 70 degrees. Another big weeding session yesterday, still clearing out the early bulb foliage.

The beds are also overrun with Spanish Bluebells, which sounds like a nice problem until they choke out everything else.  I saved some bulbs for Amanda, but not sure if they like central Washington climate.

 

Many weed problems are of my own making, like alliums that go to seed. These sprout into dense mats of skinny green stalks that never bloom, and they smell like onions as you rip off the tops. There are worse things. The teeny bulbs stay deep in the soil to torture you fresh next spring. 

But I'm not really complaining. I'm thankful I can still get down on my knees in the dirt on a beautiful spring day. Every day is a gift. An old and tired but wise cliche.

This morning I have an in-person meeting with the volunteer coordinator for CHI Franciscan Hospice.  Incredibly, everything up to this point has been phone, video training courses, or Zoom sessions. 

After a year long process, this is the final, final screening, where you sign paperwork, take another test, get a photo badge and receive your PPE. (We're required to wear both mask and face shield to visit patients.) Am I ready after all that training? I have to admit quite honestly-- no idea.

Are you havin' any fun?

I've never bought myself an impractical-crazy-fun-kind-of-mechanical-toy. That is, until Levy the Electric Scooter arrived on the front porch this weekend.

"Scooty" is pretty slick. He weighs 27 pounds and folds down into a neat package for storage. You can remove the lithium battery, a nice feature for inside charging. He goes about 10 miles on a charge. A LONG way to travel on a scooter.

I know, I know.  I'm a senior citizen, for heavens sake! So what brought this on? Well, pandemic boredom. And all those tempting rental scooters as I walk my daily loop, thinking wouldn't that be fun? 

And it is fun, and easier to ride than you might think. In beginners mode setting, he goes up to 6 mph, which feels plenty fast for someone who typically plods along under 3 mph.  (Yes, I'll be careful and it's unlikely I'll ever graduate from beginners mode.)

You can't ride scooters on the sidewalks in Seattle, and of course I'm not going to ride on the streets. The next order of business is finding a path where I can tootle along in peace in the right lane, without annoying too many bikers.  Maybe Alki Beach on an early summer morning?

Is it possible?

 

How much these girls have grown up in the last year? In the fall, Nova starts 7th grade at Liberty Bell High School, and Maya will be in 3rd grade. They are wonderful kids, both great readers with all sorts of artistic talent. And that’s not just the grandma bias talking.

Well, here's another Friday with no plans, but hopefully we're going to Twisp next weekend so that's something to look forward to. Incredibly, we haven't seen the family in person since last October. Looking back it feels like the vanished year. 

Have a good weekend.

Old friends

I drove to North Bend yesterday to see my friend D. and her two horses.  I hadn't been out to that barn for over a year and a half, which is serious horse deprivation, so we got caught up on over a year's worth of news. Unfortunately, she's had awfully bad luck. 

Despite the best care and light use, both of these beautiful Quarter horses somehow sustained leg injuries serious enough to require surgery. The end result is they are unrideable for the foreseeable future, and perhaps permanently. 

In the meantime, they require the same expense and attention as any working horse. What to do? Our horses don't just carry us around, they're beloved pets that take a tremendous investment of time, emotion and money. The great mystery and heartbreak is how an animal so strong and majestic can also be so fragile. 

But for now, "Spanky" and "TC" look like happy campers living a life of ease and plenty.

I kept my horse Sizzle in North Bend for years, and went out several times a week to ride and care for her. In the before time, it didn't seem like such a big deal, and the 40 mile drive was usually under an hour. 

Yesterday, the bridge detour took an hour just to get out of West Seattle and reach the freeway. And it was a bumper-to-bumper, twisting, white-knuckle route, filled with trucks, angry drivers, construction, hairy quick merges and stoplights. 

And yet the development goes on, cramming more people into dense housing on this little peninsula, with the impractical idea that somehow they will give up their cars and ride a bicycle or take transit to places like North Bend.

There's even a plan in the works to develop the pay parking lots at The Junction (our cute West Seattle shopping district) into more high rise, low income apartments. Those tiny bits of "open land" are too valuable for something as mundane as parking. 

Wordless Wednesday

 

Bird Day

 

May 4th is Bird Day, first observed in 1894, the oldest of the days set aside to recognize birds. A mind-boggling 3 billion North American birds have vanished right beneath our noses since 1970. That's 1 in 3 birds gone due to climate change, pollution, wildfires, loss of habitat and other causes.

Our yard is full of birds, but nothing like the variety of species we saw 20 years ago, when I first started my life list. I can't even imagine seeing an Evening Grosbeak now. We must content ourselves with mostly sparrows, juncos and chickadees. Bless their hearts.

Weather is a bit chilly up here the left hand corner of the county. I don't think we'll get out of the 60's for the next couple of weeks. The garden is looking nice though after a bit of rain. I already cleared out the unattractive tulip foliage to give the young lilies some breathing room.  High hopes for all those fancy new bulbs.

Lilac Land

 

The poet Longfellow said, “I shall not go to town while the lilacs are in bloom.”  Meaning, he would not miss the once-a-year bloom on his farm. And that's the only bad thing about lilacs. Over too soon, and for the rest of the year they look like a rough shrub. 

They aren't popular landscaping plants in Seattle. I certainly don't see homey lilacs (or camellias) planted in front those big box houses going up, where there's barely room for a postage stamp lawn.

But we still have old lilacs growing on almost every block in West Seattle, and they can live to be over 100. As you walk along, the strong but light fragrance is evocative of every spring you can ever remember. Lilacs are associated with getting rid of negative energy. The scent is calming and used to ease anxiety in aromatherapy.