Annual performance review

We've had the GE gas range for almost a year so it's had a good workout with a full round of holiday meals. Sometimes I still miss my old muscle car, the commercial Viking, although for my home cooking it was like driving a Ferrari to the store for a carton of milk. Overkill and over-powered for our little kitchen.

Once I got used to it, the GE performed fine, especially when it comes to baking, not my specialty, except for Manhattan-style cheesecake, which John said was the best I ever made this Christmas.  The GE has a timer and sensitive oven controls, and the Viking was just a blast furnace.

But the mighty Viking had the edge with stir-fries, cast iron skillet steaks and of course the thrilling, searing hot, infrared restaurant broiler that charred meat beautifully. I loved that broiler, even though it almost burned the kitchen down last year.  But the GE broiler is fine for easy things like garlic toast, and I'll wait until summer and do my flaming steak outside.

The GE convection oven also bakes a pretty good pizza pie.

More of the same

The month is passing in a pleasantly boring way-- neither of us caught the awful cold that went around with the holidays.  I sprained my ankle slightly last week showing off to other ladies in yoga class while doing the "eagle pose."  We all know that ego and pride are never part of yoga practice (ha ha.) 

No, this fellow isn't in our class, or I would have been really showing off.  What else is going on? John pruned the fig tree without mishap, also good.  For evening entertainment, there is Season 3 of Downton Abbey.  When will something nice ever happen to poor Lady Edith? Last night she got jilted at the altar, but thank heavens the family won't need to move to their tiny mansion.

The only real news this morning is our unusual January weather.  We're in the middle of a long streak of dry days, but it's about 15 degrees colder than normal. The bright western sky made a quick and pretty sunset last night.  The entire west coast is cold and they are panicking in Los Angeles.  Here's some clips from the local news down there that will make you laugh.  This is from Scott Sistek's KOMO TV weather blog.

Over

Even the loyal 12th man fans must feel like Popeye today. About an hour into the game I had to take an escapist nap.  When I woke up, there were 30 seconds left to play and the Seahawks had just made a touchdown. Woo-ho, we couldn't possibly lose now. As John likes to remind me,  it isn't over until it's over.   I took a walk outside after the game, and it seemed like a great sad hush had fallen over our neighborhood.  But as they say...there's always next year.

Frosty the Mountain

Here's some pictures of magnificent Mt. Si in winter glory, seen from the Snoqualmie barn yesterday.

It was too cold to ride more than a few minutes, but we'll take the blue sky and crunchy mud over sloppy rain-- anytime.  I think the horses agree, especially the part about short rides.

We're headed for a nice stretch of clear, cold weather in Seattle.  As usual, I spoke too soon about those geraniums making it through the winter.

This weekend is all about the Seahawks playoff game.  We heard on the news that some local churches were canceling services tomorrow morning to spare people the guilt of not attending. So it goes.

"Rarely do I attach guilt to something pleasant. Life's too short."
 Robin Gibb

Happy Birthday

Happy birthday to our Great-grandma Wilda.

Have a wonderful day.

Love from, 

Nova, Maya

and all your Washington family.

P.S. It's so cold out here in the Methow Valley my dad loaned me his hat!
(Thanks, Amanda for the fun pictures of the girls.)

"The inside of joy"

It took me over a month to finish Barbara Kingsolver's novel Flight Behavior, which might be a new personal best for slow reading.  I've been busy during the day, and you don't get very far in 15 minutes before you fall asleep and the book flops over.  But it's also one of those novels that deserve close reading, with excellent writing and a multi-layered story.

Barbara Kingsolver wrote The Bean Trees (1988) and The Poisonwood Bible (1998) read by every 1990's book club, so she has many fans. She was a biologist long before she became a writer, and her novels often have themes about community, biodiversity and climate change.

In the first chapter of Flight Behavior, an unhappy young wife heads up the hill from her farm in Appalachia for a tryst. There she sees the forest below her "burning" like a lake of fire. The color is actually millions of Monarch butterflies.  Needless to say, the insects are far off track up in the Tennessee woods.

Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve- Mexico

She describes the sight like this:

It looked like the inside of joy, if a person could see that. A valley of lights, an ethereal wind. It had to mean something.

And so, it does. This strange event sets in place big changes in her life and for the community.  She becomes a celebrity and the hardscrabble farmers encounter scientists, journalists and sightseers for the first time.  The "butterfly miracle" sparks a host of explanations from religious leaders and the media.  Great characters and a good story follows.

The story of butterflies wintering in Tennessee is fiction, but in Mexico it's estimated that up to a billion butterflies arrive in any given year.  The butterfly reserve (now a World Heritage Site) is 60 miles NW of Mexico City in a small belt of oak and pine forests in the mountains.  The Monarch butterfly is the only species to make a long north-south migration like birds. In Mexico they fill the sky like clouds and their beating wings look like rain.

Even more incredible than a billion butterflies in once place is the fact this area, so close to a major city,  wasn't even discovered by scientists until the 1970's. Some of you may still remember the almost unbelievable National Geographic article and photographs published in 1975.