Weekend roundup

 

That wild tree required quite a bit of wrangling...

Then the girls created a Christmas masterpiece.

Speaking of beautiful things. A dear old friend made me a handmade quilt several years ago. I've enjoyed it very much, but unfortunately, never had enough wall space to display it until now.

A true work of art...

 John, what a trooper, spent his Sunday morning mounting it on the living room wall in Twisp. And quite a tricky job, getting it perfectly level against that slanted ceiling. The Boeing technician comes through again with a precise home engineering project.

Honestly, it just makes the room and finally gets the attention it deserves. I can lay on the sofa and lose myself in the meditative design.

Go figure, after a dark and gloomy weekend, the sun finally broke through the clouds as we left the Valley yesterday.

We stopped to rest as always at Lone Pine Fruit and Espresso before tackling the first mountain pass. The holiday rush was over, although there were many trucks driving hell bent for leather carrying all that stuff we want for Christmas. They don't bother John, but I find them unnerving.

It was warm and dry the entire way home, also a bit unnerving for late November in Washington when the mountains should be cold and snowy. It looks like temperatures will finally cool down later this week. But as far as the driving conditions went, we were lucky dogs. 

The remains of the day

 

We had a wonderful turkey dinner on Friday. No one gave a hoot it wasn't actually Thanksgiving.  In fact, it's nice not having the pressure of celebrating at an exact time, especially when travel is involved.

My kitchen range here runs on propane, which is weird because the furnace and everything else in the house is electric. I'm not complaining-- all cooks prefer gas and this model really throws out the BTU's.  

The convection oven made a beautiful brown turkey and the furnace didn't run all day while I was cooking. We've found that the house is also well insulated, much better than our drafty old house in Seattle.

It's actually been warm here by Twisp standards for late November. That saying, the weather has been downright unpleasant.  Grey skies with periods of cold rain and drizzle and hardly a peek of sunlight. I've hardly left the house in three days.

The Valley residents are getting antsy for snow and the start of winter sports. Tomorrow will be a wet drive home, which is fine with us. If we come back in December, the world will be white.

The wildlife viewing changed completely with the season. No sign of the turkey family flock, but we watched a big turkey roosting in a tree for hours. He became the afternoon's entertainment. Life is quiet here.

Several bald eagles fly by the window each day. Woodpeckers. An occasional water fowl. No deer herd, but a big, healthy looking buck jumped in the water right in front of the house and swam to the other side. Why does the deer cross the river? 

This head cold hit me like a train wreck, but I finally turned a corner and slept well last night. Of course! Now that the holiday weekend is almost over. John is sniffling but hopefully nothing worse than that.

We stayed home, but the kids cut their Christmas tree yesterday in the high mountains. The picture is on the (closed) North Cascades Highway. 

Tonight we'll decorate and eat leftover turkey. Back to the big city tomorrow.

A winter scene

 

Hope you had a nice Thanksgiving. We are just getting started on the food part today.

We opened the door and everything was just as we left it. What a nice feeling. Amanda had soup going in crock pot so the house smelled like home. So thoughtful.

Fewer people on the roads yesterday so we made good time. It's always a odd feeling traveling on the actual holiday, through quiet little towns with everyone tucked up inside. 

John and Dave enjoying some fine tortilla soup. Cloudy and cool for us (about 32 degrees with drizzle) but that’s almost record high temperature for here. Everyone is wishing for snow but it can wait until after we leave Monday.
 

Thanksgiving past

 

Nova and Maya helping me cook in 2018. How the girls (and the world) have changed in three short years. Aother reminder how every precious moment goes by too fast.

We're still planning to leave early tomorrow morning for our slightly postponed Thanksgiving gathering. I'm starting to feel better and up for the drive. Mostly just annoyed with myself for the bad timing. 

Wishing you a happy and especially healthy holiday!

Really?

That's my first Covid test during this long and wearisome pandemic. Fortunately, one pink line means negative. 

But I can't remember having a worse cold. It started Saturday with a typical sore throat and thought I'd shake it off. Ha ha.You hear about these bad colds now-- maybe our immune systems got lazy from all the masks, social distancing and hand sanitizer.

Anyway, awful timing. The living room is piled with food and stuff we were planning to take along this morning. The plan now is to leave early Thursday instead, and have our turkey dinner a day late. Less traffic, less snow, and it's OK.

Nighty-night garden

 

Mr. Nguyen's workers did some light pruning and spread 2 cubic yards of compost on flower beds. It's Cedar Grove municipal compost and fingers crossed, it looks clean. Meaning, not laced with plastic shreds and glass chips, like that load I got in 2013. I'm picking out bits to this day. 

City compost is sterile. The process must be hot enough to kill pathogens, seeds and insects and break down the disgusting things we throw in our yard waste bin. In Seattle, that's everything from greasy pizza boxes, fast food containers, bones and used paper towels.

Not a single bird track on top, because there's nothing in there to eat. Leaf mulch is better, homemade compost better yet, full of worms and healthy microcosms.    

But I'm just relieved to have something organic covering the beds this winter. November was so warm and wet the forsythia thought it was March. So did the weeds. Another garden season ends with lessons learned in a changing climate.

In other good news/bad news. What a pretty sunset on Saturday. The external framework for the school addition is up, and now we can see the outline of what will be the finished building.  

I thought that high roof line would extend all the way over to the left, blocking our evening light. A nice surprise when it stopped there.

The picture makes more sense, looking at the finished building from the opposite side.

That white box on top is the open framework in my photo. The main building is basically below the hill, so we might not see much from our house. Yea.

What a world

 

$1.77 a pound for asparagus flown all the way from springtime in Peru. It's a strange world, when our local produce is so expensive. Once you get over the weirdness of eating fresh asparagus in November with a roasted yam. No problem here. These are weird times.

John hears me complain about prices whenever I come back from the grocery store. Shopping and cooking seem to be my main hobby these dark days. I've never seen food prices rise so fast.

We're lucky and can eat just about anything we want, but I draw the line at this. A whole cooked Dungeness crab at the Pike Place Market will set you back $84.99.  Click HERE if you don't believe me.

Most of that critter goes in the trash for a couple cups of succulent meat. 

Enough of that. On to other food talk. I had a wonderful bowl of pho (inside a restaurant!) yesterday. Made especially delicious, because it's first time I've been out to lunch with a friend in almost 2 years. Such a simple and lovely thing that I'll never take for granted again. Great seeing you, Nancy.

Well, up and at em. Mr. Nguyen is coming later this morning with my compost. Full report on Monday. Have a good weekend.

The eyes of a hundred flowers

 

 

"You think I am dead,"
The apple tree said,
"Because I have never a leaf to show-
Because I stoop,
And my branches droop,
And the dull gray mosses over me grow!
But I'm still alive in trunk and shoot;
The buds of next May
I fold away-
But I pity the withered grass at my root."

"You think I am dead,"
The quick grass said,
"Because I have parted with stem and blade!
But under the ground,
I am safe and sound
With the snow's thick blanket over me laid.
I'm all alive, and ready to shoot,
Should the spring of the year
Come dancing here-
But I pity the flower without branch or root."

"You think I am dead,"
A soft voice said,
"Because not a branch or root I own.
I never have died, but close I hide
In a plumy seed that the wind has sown.

Patient I wait through the long winter hours;
You will see me again-
I shall laugh at you then,
Out of the eyes of a hundred flowers."

Edith M. Thomas

 
 

Cold and dry

Skagit River Mt. Vernon

 

We have a welcome break after days of almost tropical wet weather. Yesterday was the first completely dry day in November. The worst flooding since 2006 in western Washington. Bellingham, 90 miles north of Seattle, was in the bull's eye of the Pineapple Express. Unusual, because it's typically drier and colder near the Canadian border.

The Skagit River drains the west slopes of the Cascade Mountains and it came within a few feet of flooding downtown Mt. Vernon. A double whammy of heavy rain and snow melt.

Well, that's behind us and winter returned in the mountains. But it was beautiful in Seattle yesterday, almost like an early spring day and so warm the Dutch iris and alliums are confused.  Hopefully I'll get the compost mulch spread on Friday and can forget about the garden for a few short months. 

Not much else is new. The days, quite frankly, blend together this time of year. We're looking forward to Thanksgiving next week. We haven't been to the house for over a month and feels like forever since we saw the girls.

New bird friends

 

We haven't had pigeons in the yard for years. They came when the winter bird feeder went up. At least they eat the seed the messy little birds throw on the ground. 

The latest storm blew through fast yesterday, and suddenly we were blinking like moles in sparkling sunlight. I almost forgot what it looked like through splattered dirty windows. 

Things finally dry out today, good news with the river flooding in Western Washington. However, the damage is already done in some communities. Owning a house on a river gives you pause for thought. How quickly things can just be...gone.

Today is a long overdue yard cleanup day. That's about all the news fit to print.

Stormy weather

 

We had a short break in the rain on Saturday while the Pacific reloaded with the next storm. My gosh, we are sopping wet up here in the left corner. The Northwest rain totals are between 15-30 inches for the first half of November.

Seattle usually gets about 7 inches in November and we've already blown past that. It's safe to say the drought is officially over. All this moisture is up from the topics, so it's too warm to snow in the mountains. So far. Probably waiting for Thanksgiving weekend, just when everyone wants to travel.

And it's windy, too. What to do stuck inside on the weekend? Only so much time a person can spend in a semi-prone position watching football or reading. Those pandemic hobbies have lost their charm. 

I went out to Ross and Marshall's on Sunday looking for little gifts. The stores were jammed with other bored people and Christmas in full swing. There's a feeling that if you want something, better not wait. Last year this time, those stores weren't even open. Christmas was lonely and subdued for many of us.  

Another day of rough windy weather until it finally settles into the usual pattern of rain in the lowlands and snow in the mountains. Mr. Nguyen says he's coming on Friday with my compost.

 

 

Amanda and the kids walked to the river house yesterday and took this picture. A brown winter view, with the Cottonwood leaves down along the Methow. 

 

The Snoqualmie River and others are flooding dangerously right now, but those are on the west side of the mountains. As the storms barrel in from the Pacific, they hit up against the Cascade range and dump most of the moisture. Not much rain carries over to the dry side of the state.

Flood risk for the Methow comes when the snow in the North Cascades melts. Recipe: heavy winter snow followed by a sudden spring warming. In other words, climate change. Hang on to yer hat.

Remember this view last June, when the river was running fast and high.  Just a typical spring run-off.

When the going gets tough

 

Clean out your desk. It's nice how the non-profits send us those free cards and address labels, but they do pile up. Especially if you just toss them in your desk. I have such a stack of pretty Christmas cards from the World Wildlife Fund. No need to buy any this year.

I didn't leave the house at all yesterday, the weather was so miserable. Not healthy. Today I'm going to the Senior Center Thrift Store to work for a few hours. It's the first time back in almost 2 years. The work is dull, but in the company of other people. Between the weather and Covid precautions, life becomes socially isolating, giving too much time to obsess about mostly non-existent problems.

All of us are struggling to some extent with getting back to normal. Check out this article in the New York Times about how the pandemic ends. When life's rhythms should finally return to normal. 

In a highly vaccinated city like Seattle, the hospitalization rate for vaccinated people has been slightly above 1 in a million. In places like Seattle, Covid already resembles just another virus, with a lower hospitalization rate than the flu.

Obviously everyone doesn't live in Seattle.  Everyone has to decide on their comfort level, but eventually the costs of organizing our lives around the virus exceeds the benefits. Covid now presents the sort of risk to most vaccinated people that we unthinkingly accept in other parts of life. Like getting in a car.

The 11th hour

 

Today is Veteran's Day, originally called Armistice Day. WWI came to an end on November 11, 1918. The cease fire took place 5 hours later on “the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. 

Canadian military surgeon Lt. Col. John McRae wrote a poem about the sight of the brilliant flowers growing on a bloody battlefield, and the poppy became the symbol of remembrance.  

I woke up late (for me.) There didn't seem to me much reason to get out of bed so I lolled around for another hour. Another sopping wet morning with incoming warmish Pineapple Express rain. That will raise the freezing level to 9,000 feet in the mountains and melt most of the snow, for now. Sorry, skiers.

 

Skimpflation

It's been so rainy, so blustery, so truly awful weather in Seattle I put my cheerful battery deer on the window sill. Found it at Ross in Las Vegas and pretty sweet for $4. Sure miss seeing my Twisp deer walking through the yard like they own it.

We enjoyed a Google Meet call yesterday with Rachel, Janice, and Dan, John's siblings. How the Internet brings us together so easily from far flung places. Something in the plus column. 

Entering the dark times, dinner becomes the highlight of the day. Look at these perfectly diced vegetables, like a machine cut them. Not done with my hasty paring knife. 

Yes, you could say "fussy" or you could also say, this is why Boeing built airplanes are flying all over the world. Attention to detail, skill with tools. Unfortunately for the company, that old guard is fast retiring. Now their wives put them to work in the kitchen. 

I made lettuce wrap sauce with a mash up of Asian condiments from the fridge. The ginger and chili seasoned ground chicken came from our quality local sausage maker, Isernio's. A package of 4 Italian sausages will set you back $7. 

Everything is so much more expensive. We're lucky, but it's still jarring to suddenly pay more for the same old things and get less at the same time. No turkey bargains this Thanksgiving. 

Have you heard of skimpflation?

"Skimpflation is the hotel that no longer offers daily housekeeping, or the restaurant that subs a QR code for a paper menu. It’s also the bank that doesn’t employ enough phone operators, leaving you stuck on hold. Or it’s the airline, such as American, that can't hire workers back fast enough, so a weather issue in a hub city throws the lives of thousands of people into chaos."  Washington Post

However, there's also suspicion that these corporations are skimping out on services/products and blaming Covid-- a good excuse to decrease quality while charging the same (or higher) and exploiting employees.This was already going on long before the pandemic.  You know, how a half pound of coffee suddenly becomes 6 oz.?

"Let us go on, cheerfully enough"

 

 

Maxfield Parrish, Autumn Woods

 

In the Days of Descending Darkness

Every year we have been
witness to it: how the
world descends

into a rich mash, in order that
it may resume.
And therefore
who would cry out

to the petals on the ground
to stay,
knowing as we must,
how the vivacity of what was is married

to the vitality of what will be?
I don't say
it's easy, but
what else will do

if the love one claims to have for the world
be true?

So let us go on, cheerfully enough,
this and every crisping day,

though the sun be swinging east,
and the ponds be cold and black,
and the sweets of the year be doomed.

Mary Oliver

Time change blues

 

I was wide awake at 4:30 this morning, thank you very much. Not one of those lucky people who can just roll over and take advantage of the "extra" hour. Changing the clocks, such a stupid thing. Gave up, got up, pushed the button on the coffee pot.

The first snow of the season fell this weekend in the Methow Valley. The view is from Amanda and Tom's hill property-- that's the yurt on the left. The snow didn't stick around on the valley floor, but it soon will. It snowed heavily on the mountain passes. This of course adds a new dimension of excitement (if you want to call it that) to the drive. We need to watch the forecasts and road conditions, so the days of jumping in the car and taking off whenever are over for now.  

We had a good time at the Symphony yesterday, a lift to the spirits on a dark rainy afternoon.  Ray Chen, a young violin virtuoso, made the diabolically difficult Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto look easy. Not only is he a brilliant player, he has an engaging personality and a presence on social media. Check him out on YouTube. A classical celebrity with a big following and the audience was younger than our usual Sunday matinee crowd.

From the milling around and looking for seats, you could tell it was the first visit to Benaroya Hall for many. Another dead give-away was all the applause (even a standing ovation) between movements. In the snobby old classical world, interrupting the piece for applause was an ignorant breach of audience etiquette. Here and now, no one cares, in fact the performers seemed to welcome the enthusiasm. 

The last concert was sparsely attended by die-hard season ticket holders, a subdued affair. It was nice to feel some energy in the hall again.  Almost like old times, except proof of vaccination and masks are required, which is starting to feel almost normal. At least in Seattle. 

Soup weather

 

I'm not a gnocchi connoisseur, but these packaged ones are edible when you don't have time to make the real McCoy. 

I ran across a recipe in the NYT for a quick chicken soup made with gnocchi instead of noodles, and we threw a pot together yesterday with diced vegetables and leftover roast chicken from the freezer.

Tasty and hearty, although I don't know how well those gummy things freeze. We'll find out on Sunday when we come home from the Symphony and have a late supper. At least it will seem late, going off daylight savings time. 

Why? Changing clocks is tremendously unpopular around the world, but about 70 countries still do it. The ones near the Equator don't bother because the hours of light and dark are almost equal-- a lovely and healthful way to live. 

On the news this morning, I saw our Democratic Senator Patty Murray was teaming with Republican Senator Marco Rubio to pass a law and finally end it. A example of some useful bipartisan cooperation for a change.  

Have a good weekend wherever you are.  

Hitchhiker

 

The yard is a soggy mess, now gone full circle from beautiful to quite nasty looking. It would help if I raked up leaves and rotting apples, but it's too depressing in the rain. 

I found a last lonely dahlia blooming and a perfect little snail popped out of the petals in the warm house. He's was still there this morning munching so I put him back outside.

Good weather for snails, slugs and ducks. We have a parade of storms lined up and not a single sunny day in the long term forecast. This is typical for November, although as I've said before, our weather patterns seem more persistent and extreme than in the past. 

It looks especially messy because I didn't mulch with leaves this fall. Mr. Nguyen needs a dry day to spread compost, hopefully that happens before January when things start growing again.  At least we can look forward to an early spring. We just have to get through the next two very dark months.

Well, anyway, time to turn our attention to indoor activities. After being cooped up at home all last winter, puzzles have lost their charm. The hospice program hasn't got going yet, so I'll look around for another volunteer activity in the meantime, a job that gets me out of the house for casual social interaction. I am one of those people who enjoys small talk. 

Dry to wet

 Seattle is wet in November.  End of weather news.

Yesterday was travel day. Marji and I had the morning to catch up before my afternoon flight so we made good use of it talking non-stop. Hopefully a little more overlap next trip, but it was a wonderful visit with Dad made even better by that heavenly stretch of weather.  

Fortunately, no big delays coming home, although everything takes longer as air travel roars back. If you venture out again, pack your patience. Las Vegas is typically a really efficient airport, they are good at moving people through fast so they can start emptying their pockets on the Strip. 

I'd never seen such a long security line at McCarran, so once again, it pays to be early. We hear about the labor shortage and supply chain problems and here it was, in living color. The nicer restaurants were closed and Burger King had a line snaking down the concourse. I have not sunk that low (yet) so I bought a wildly expensive semi-stale sandwich and found an empty gate to sit and eat it.

 Despite all the hassles, people were nice and generally well-behaved. Suddenly I'm offered help more often from strangers.  I might not be feeling my age, but apparently I'm looking it.

 Here's wonderful quote, from a blog I follow called The Owl Underground:

“The great secret that all old people share,” wrote Doris Lessing, “is that you really don’t change in seventy or eighty years. Your body changes, but you don’t change at all. And that, of course, causes great confusion." 

I asked Dad how it feels to be 97, and he just said "I don't believe it."

It's catch up around the house day, although John was a good housekeeper and even washed the towels and  sheets! Which goes to show, old dogs can learn new tricks.

 

Fall in the desert

 

A spectacular morning at Floyd Lamb Park in North Las Vegas. More desert weather perfection.

A Halloween Marathon was in progress, but Dad and I got in a short walk near the lake. 

The smiling face of age 97. What is the secret? Lots of good living, good attitude, good care and a big pinch of good luck. 

"Sorrow in the face of aging would be a poor response to such good fortune." Margaret Renkl

That's a quote from a wonderful column in the New York Times this morning. Here's the link.

Meanwhile...back in the wild Northwest.

Who are these small town uptown girls? Decked out with finery they've been collecting all summer from the thrift store in Twisp. 

That's Maya, checking out the Headless Horseman riding the streets of Winthrop on Halloween eve. The whole community turns out for the festivities. They sure know how to have fun.   

Last but not least, a great  picture of my sister with her Oregon boys.  She has four handsome grandsons, I have two beautiful granddaughters.  How lucky can one family be?