Over the river, etc.

 

We left Seattle before dawn yesterday and had a surprisingly easy drive with light traffic. The snow was following right behind us, but we were tucked in at Twisp when the storm moved over the mountain passes in the afternoon.

This morning, the first pretty snowfall along the river. Winter arrives! Friends Karen and Bruce came over for dinner last night (I love how things are so impromptu here) and we had a nice visit over soup and wine.

Making a pumpkin cheesecake this morning with Maya, and we'll gather at the orchard farmhouse tomorrow for a country feast. 

Have a peaceful holiday, and let's give thanks for all the unknown blessings already on their way.

 

 

Sad news

 

 Dan Terrible
October 26,1948-November 22, 2025

John's brother Dan passed away in Ohio this weekend after a long illness. 

He and his wife Rebecca, married 55 years, enjoyed an active life and made many friends around the world. They traveled widely and were always engaged in art activities, in particular, the glass making and glass blowing community. 

For many years, Dan and Rebecca enjoyed spending winter at their condo in Mexico and summers at their home in rural Ohio. Despite heath challenges, I admired how they always lived life to the fullest. We will all miss Dan's big and generous personality. Rest in peace. 

 

The eye of the tiger

 

 

Maya made this painting in art class at school. Nana bias aside, it's better than many things we've seen hanging in expensive galleries. 

It makes me think of William Blake's famous poem, "The Tyger," and his illustration from the book "Songs of Innocence and Experience." 

 

The blooming Fatsia japonica sure looked pretty in the November light yesterday. It's been been a wet and warm fall so far. 

 

That's about to change. Winter arrives next week with heavy snow in the mountains. Oh boy. Just in time for Thanksgiving travel. 

 

Gifts from the desert

 

 

"O for a beaker full of the warm south!" 
John Keats, Ode to a Nightingale

A welcome gift this dark time of year-- my sister in La Vegas sent pomegranates from her backyard tree, a generous gift. Mailing anything is so darn expensive! But these homegrown fruits are much superior to those from the grocery store.  

I once made a balsamic salad with yams, pomegranate and carmelized shallots, which was perfect for Thanksgiving. We're slowly gearing up for the holidays. Wasn't it just Christmas a couple months ago?

In other news, you've heard me moaning about being one of those unlucky people who always gets a strong reaction to immunizations. I had the flu shot yesterday, and surprise, nothing! Not even a sore arm. The only effect was sleeping for 8 restful hours. My upper limit is 7.  Maybe I should get a flu shot more often. 

Speaking of flu, apparently a nasty new variant popped up this summer after the vaccine was formulated, and they don't expect the shot to be very effective. Still, any protection is better than none. Eat healthy fruit. 

Fee fi pho

 

Food is apparently the main topic of interest this week before Thanksgiving. We went to the Fred Meyer in Burien yesterday, a long trek just to "save money" on a turkey and groceries, but at least we had a good pho lunch in White Center along the way.

Fred Meyer (Kroger, actually) gives a 10% senior discount on Tuesdays, and there was plenty of company from our demographic puttering around. An elderly man came up and gave me a handful of coupons, saying "his doctor wouldn't let him eat these things anymore." (Maybe I still looked healthy enough for Haagen-Dazs.)

Anyway, Fred Meyer is one of those vast and awful everything stores, where you can throw some jeans or can of paint in the cart along with the food.

It is considerably cheaper than grocery stores up here on the north end of the peninsula, but I go mostly because they carry products you can't find anywhere else, like Hungry Jack pancake mix. 

What a boring post, I can't believe anyone is the slightest bit interested. 

Blue plate special

 

Sometimes, it's just a meatloaf kind of night. 

The happy woodcutters

 

The farmhouse is already starting to look like home. What a beautiful view from those living room windows, especially compared to downtown Twisp. 

 

The family that cuts wood together, stays together. Ha! They went on a work outing up at their property, and the looks on those teenage faces say it all. 

We were having a different sort of fun yesterday. 

 

This cheerful looking gentleman is the Austrain Anton Bruckner (1824-1896) an oddball and obsessive man with a number of unhealthy interests, including death and teenage girls. 

His 11 symphonies are now considered "monumental" romantic period masterpieces. When I hear that word describing a symphony, the first thing that comes to mind is "long." 

Bruckner's 4th Symphony, which we heard yesterday, runs about 70 minutes. Like listening to Mahler and Wagner, you have to set your brain to a different Bruckner clock. 

Trying to give something undivided attention is surely good for us, especially in these days of being "distracted from distraction by distraction." T.S. Eliot, The Four Quartets.

And at least we got out of the house on a truly dreary afternoon. It hardly got light yesterday! Bruckner beats sitting on the couch watching the Seahawks lose. 

 

If Winter comes...

 

 "If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?"   

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Amanda sent this grey and drear early morning view of the orchard, looking toward the lights of their house in the distance. I look forward to pictures in every season, the orchard soon blanketed with snow, then covered with spring bloom-- magical. 

Speaking of snow, it is late in the valley, which has been good news for the moving. They finish up at the old house this weekend, and can concentrate now on getting settled in for the winter. Needless to say, this has been a big adjustment for everyone in the family. 

You can take the dog off the ranch, but you can't take the ranch out of the dog...

Born and bred on a ranch, Nica was never much of a city dog. Now in late middle age, she's finally back in her natural element. 

As a puppy, she was thoroughly socialized by the girls into a gentle and devoted family dog. She loves the house cats and is afraid of the chickens, but has always been reactive to strangers. This is a good thing, and if any wildlife shows up, the chase is on. She is fearless to the point of stupidity, what can you say? 

It's been a quiet and soggy week here. We have a Symphony concert Sunday afternoon. Fortunately the Seahawks are playing out of town, so we won't hit the stadium traffic this time.

Have a good weekend.  

 

Make the days count

Yesterday was a gorgeous gift of a day, and probably the last dry one in Seattle for a long time to come. 

I got in some yard work, then gathered up this scrappy fall bouquet of odds and ends. In the mellow afternoon light, it looked like a Dutch master painting. 

 

And why wait for a cold, damp day in December for this chore? 

The new arbor isn't as tall as the old one, much less, crumbling to pieces, so the job was easier. I also put blinding white LED lights in the greenhouse window, so we are lit up like Las Vegas when we eat our dinner in the kitchen. Let's just call it cheerful. 

That's about all the November news. 

Pear creativity

 

 

In a nutshell, that's how to make spiced pear butter, an unusual and expensive treat. I found a online specialty store selling little jars for $10.

Made just like the old fashioned apple butter, except this recipe is spiced with cardamon and nutmeg instead of cinnamon, along with ginger and lemon juice. (An Indian spice, I know our Grammy never heard of cardamon!)  

John did the milling, then the pear puree gets cooked down like jam to the tricky gel point (my job) making a nice mess of the stove top as it blurps away. But well worth the trouble. Think apple pancakes (above) or toast or cornbread or biscuits or even ice cream.

Hopefully the first of many delicious pear concoctions from the family orchard.  

Gettin' it done

 

It took eleven strong lifters (good friends all) to get this heavy chicken house hoisted up on a borrowed flat bed truck yesterday. Then the hens made the six mile trip over to the new farm in the back of Tom's truck. 

Their next door farm neighbor helped get it situated on the property with his tractor. How kind and helpful people are-- just a tiny rural community on the edge of the wilderness. 

As of last night, the hens were settled and apparently none the worse for wear. I don't know about the humans! This last moving crunch has been really tough on everyone.

But look at that perfect fall weather-- a real blessing how the snow is still holding off this month. Which probably means the first blizzard when we go over for Thanksgiving. 

Marching along

 

The middle of November is already in sight and we're just over a month away from the winter solstice, that happy day when we slowly tip back to more light. Speaking of light, after the deluge yesterday, what a surprise to see an actual sunrise this morning and a bit of blue sky.

Snow is falling in the high mountains but has fortunately held off so far in the Methow Valley. Amanda and Tom are on the final countdown to get everything out of their old house in town, then cleaned up and ready for the renters on the 15th. That last stage of moving is always such a mess on both ends. 

The cats are now moved (one happy, one not) but the chicken house with its inhabitants is still a big looming project. Those 12 hens are worth their weight in gold, laying a dozen or so perfect eggs every couple days. They're useful not just for the food, but the amount of kitchen scraps they consume daily. Anyway, I hope they can get them safely settled for the long upcoming winter. Maybe Amanda will send some pictures this weekend. 

Speaking of fowls. John is excited this morning because I gave him a WHOLE chicken to cut up. He's been watching YouTube videos and I'm sure has the perfect knife to break it down with surgical precision. A yucky task I've done hundreds of times, just because whole chickens were once much cheaper than cut up.

Have a good weekend. 

 

  

 

Drawing in

 

"The nights are drawing in." That's an old English saying, meaning the days are getting shorter.

Good reading weather. I'm looking forward to Irving's new novel, hot off the press. The last full price hard cover novel I purchased was Irving’s "The Last Chairlift," and it was a big slog at 912 pages. 

Well, hope springs eternal. Supposedly Irving "gets back to his New England roots" in this one, whatever that means. I've been an Irving fan since the 1970's, and during the pandemic, reread just about everything he wrote. The violence (and downright cruelty) in some of those early books took me by surprise once again. Irving is famous for the long "story within the story" plot, which drives some readers crazy.

I haven't read any "Esther" reviews yet and don't intend to until I finish it. There won't be a publicity tour either. John Irving, longtime resident of Vermont, lives in Toronto.  Quote from a recent interview he did with the NYT:  

“I could not, would not, in good conscience go to my birth country,” Mr. Irving said, “when there is such an authoritarian bully in the White House, and when the craven Republicans in the House and the U.S. Senate are complicit in their silence.”

OK then. Still opinionated at age 83.

Not much news here, just one atmospheric river after the next drenching the northwest. I haven't been to ukulele for a few weeks but will go today, out of practice of course, but no one cares or notices. In the winter we meet at The Bridge restaurant on a covered outdoor patio, where the temperature is something between warm and cold. 

 

Wordless Wednesday

 

 

Portrait of Dora Maar, Picasso, 1937

Sore thumbs, etc.

 

 

The afternoons suddenly start to drag when we go off daylight savings time. I'll look up and think how can it be only 2 o'clock? 

I been working on this piece of embroidery forever. Really more tedious than fun, but relaxing to focus the eyes on something other than a screen. 

Not to mention, good for the hands. I thought "texting thumb" came from writing messages with your thumbs (I peck everything out with my index finger) but actually it's a pain at the base of the left thumb caused by clenching the phone for hours on end. Pitiful thing to admit. 

How did we amuse ourselves before we had phones and computers? 

Cleaning out bookshelves, I found this battered old Norton Anthology of English Literature, saved from my English major undergraduate days in the early 70's. 

Speaking of patience, not to mention visual acuity, the tissue thin pages are covered with my intense pencil notes. 

Does anyone even read Chaucer anymore? I would be hard pressed to still decipher it. But I'm grateful for that cheap and excellent liberal arts education at San Diego State. Young people want more practical degrees now, understandably, when you consider the financial investment. 

  

Weekend update

 

 

Well, well. The first taste of delicious organic pear from Amanda and Tom's new backyard. 

 

A food mill seemed like a good investment with an orchard in the family. Ordered from Amazon and not cheap, but I like OXO Good Grip products. Anyway, if the pears I brought home all ripen at about the same time, I'll cook up a batch of pear butter. John can do the "milling" part which looks tedious even with a fancy new gadget. 

The big move is moving ahead full steam this weekend in Twisp. Nica and Millie here know something is up, and taking no chances being left behind. Amanda says as they move things in, the new house becomes more bright and inviting as the old place looks more dark and chaotic. That's how it should feel! Everyone is excited for them starting this new life. 

It absolutely poured rain on Halloween night, but we still had 75 or so trick-or-treaters at the door. The kids were polite and the parents said "thank, you ma'am" which made me feel old. 

It's true-- we're the senior citizens who have lived in the same house on the corner since before many of those parents were born.

People are friendly, but this has never been a neighborhood where we socialize, at least not inside. I guess Halloween is an excuse to get a little peek into houses that people walk and drive by every day. Folks are always very interested in ours. Like I say, been here a long time. 

What did you do with your extra hour today? Sleep? I made a cake and John a final lawn mow for the year. That's about it for outside, other than leaves still to rake. Yard, see you in February, we're about to hunker down.