Hero’s Homecoming!

He’s baaacckk! Even if it was just for a short visit, Hero’s coming over to our house was fun! Most of my friends remember Hero, our little fox terrier who needed a new home.
After the guy from Arcata adopted Hero I tried to warn him. I told him that if a tall, beautiful brunette gal came running across the Plaza screaming the dog’s name that it would most likely be my daughter. Well, as fate would have it, the ever-courageous, outgoing, socialite Reebs, decided she would like to follow up on this handsome dude who adopted our little Hero. No, she didn’t see him in town or on campus, so she decided to just take matters into her own hands. In her charming, sweet way she sent a friendly email to this certain single, tall, handsome new owner of Hero asking if it were possible for her to visit the dog and he very promptly replied to her inquiry with a resounding yes. Since both of them are single, tall and very outgoing, they began spending more time together…… with the dog, of course. Before too long they were hanging out fairly regularly. A few weeks have gone by now and I had been anxious to know if I was going to get to visit with the little bugger. Admittedly, I really have missed him. When Reebs & Cam came over to go horseback riding, they brought “Rex” with them to see us. I really am stoked that I got to see him again. And he looks so good. Cam keeps him in really great shape. They spend alot of time outdoors doing all sorts of activities. Rex was excited too! He wriggled and squirmed and licked and jumped and tore around the yard with Tilly.

As you can see from the video, even Tilly was happy to see him. They wrestled together on the floor, then later on that afternoon they ran along side the horses on the beach for hours. I kept thinking about the story of Black Beauty when he and Ginger are separated but then they get to see each other again. Kind of the same sort of feeling… sort of. Anyway, I think it’s a cool story. Hero and Cam were definitely two faces that I never expected to see again! Would I have ever thought this kind of thing would happen when I adopted Hero out? I don’t think so. It’s definitely been an unexpected pleasure. I still get to love on him and see him and that’s pretty special to me. It makes the adoption a little easier to cope with. Truly this is an even better ending to an already great story.

Cherries – Pt. 3

I saw an old friend today. We used to see each other frequently as our children were growing up. She has seven, I have six, so we always had a lot to talk about whenever we were together. As we stood there in the middle of the grocery store, I realized that nothing had really changed in either of our lives except that our kids had gotten older, we each had a few grandchildren now and our marriages are still healthy and vibrant. That was refreshing. One thing that had changed was the amount of heartache each of us has endured as we have raised our children and as they have flown the nest. Our stories were laced with excitement as we recounted how many of them are married now and were raising families of their own. Or how our homeschooling days are numbered now as our younger children have reached Jr. High school age. Sprinkled within the dialog, though, was also a measure of sadness as we each revealed a subtle disappointment now and then from some of the choices our children have made over the years. After a time we realized that through it all, our children are and always have been a tremendous blessing to us despite the ups and downs. I know there are times when the dark clouds seem exceptionally dark, but nobody said it would be easy. My mom told me today, “When they’re young, they step on your toes, When they grow up they step on your heart.” I know now how that feels.
One thing that amazes me most as I trust in Christ and the promises that His Word ensures, is the ability to reach for and grasp joy in any and all circumstances. These little victories that I obtain despite what is happening around me keep my heart glad and my face aglow. I feel very blessed to be called one of His children.
When I have alot to think about, I like to keep my hands busy and create. So I made soap….lots of it.

Then I made a cherry pie.

It took me several tries to make the crust, but I finally got it.

Yummy….a quick walk to the grocery store for some vanilla ice cream to put on top of my slice of pie and my cares were quickly forgotten! Funny how food helps!

Cherry pickin’ – Pt.2

As I mentioned before, preparing all the delicious cherries I have been……pardon me, WE have been picking would be another post. Today I got the 3 boys out there to help out with the harvest and we finished the task.

Jo tried to help, but she just couldn’t quite get the hang of it. She kept getting all messed up in the branches and stuff so we told her to get lost. She did help pit the cherries, though.

We have been picking, washing, pitting, and canning all the cherries I/we could possibly want! Oh yes, and eating them also! They are so yummy! The tree is so tall and so loaded with fruit it is amazing. I have heard from other people that this has been an excellent year for cherries. I canned 12 quarts in total and DIL canned 3 quarts. That will make some super good pies over the winter. I want to try and make turnovers as well. My hands are stained a grossly dark purple from all the juice.
Canning is such a rewarding activity. I have always been intrigued by the concept of “putting up” fruit and vegetables. Nowadays our food is commercially canned, but it has not always been this way. Many women have spent many long summer hours harvesting and canning their own food. When I was growing up, my mother never canned at all, so when I moved here to Humboldt, a close friend who was a few years older than me taught me how to can. We started out with something simple, I think it was blackberry jam. She showed me how to pick them and then transform them into lip smacking jam. Once we tried making “Ouince honey.” That was taking this weird fruit called a quince, cooking it up and using only the juice to make a jelly. It was mostly sugar but very pretty to look at. Just about the color of honey. Another time she taught me how to make applebutter which is a personal favorite of mine. Since that time I have canned tuna, green beans, salsa, peaches, applesauce, pears, marinara sauce, dilly beans, lots and lots of wild grape jelly and other stuff. I get a great sense of accomplishment when I look at the jars lined up neatly in the cupboard.

When I moved into the old house, I was tickled to find that whoever built the shelves in the pantry made them just the right size to store pint jars and quart jars. Every single shelf was exactly the right height. I also discovered several hand drawn diagrams of the previous owner’s garden plot pasted to the back side of the cupboard door. When I remodeled the room I couldn’t bring myself to throw them out, so I kept them. I don’t know why I couldn’t and I don’t know what I will do with them, but nonetheless, I kept them. One day perhaps I will make a collage of all the old items and the old wall papers that I have found since restoring this old house. But that sounds like another project!

The Humboldt Road

Even though the smoke is thick in the air and the sun is pressing down hard upon us, I just had to get out on my bike. I have always enjoyed taking a good long bike ride to get my blood pumping. Today I went about 10 miles down the highway, visiting some lonely cows along the way.

I traveled along on my vintage Raleigh 10 speed. Gus bought this bike for me when we were first married 28 yrs. ago. I have put infinitive number of miles on it and it still sails along like it did the first day I got it. I have had to have it re-built a couple of times, but usually just a tune-up is all that it has needed.
I cruised along taking the time to enjoy the sights. We live in such an incredibly diverse area. There is so much to see and do in Humboldt. Some days the adventure can be traipsing through dune grass out at the beach, another day it could be taking the kayak out to the river, and the next hiking under the canopy of a grove of 300 ft. old growth redwood trees. I have yet to see even a fraction of what this county boasts in the way of recreation.

This is a farmer putting up round bales.

The rodeo is coming up in a couple of weeks, so there are some bulls in this pasture that are used for the bull riding competition. They seem to live the good life most of the year and then they have to work real hard for a couple of days. What I thought was really funny was that these humongous animals were actually afraid of me! I could hardly get close enough to take a good photo. I told this guy that I wouldn’t ride him even if someone paid me $10,000. But then I started to ponder that….could I? Would I? I don’t know….maybe if I didn’t actually have to go outside the shoot!

Best part of my ride? Stopping in to see the grandbabies playing in the pool. They thought Grandma looked pretty silly in her bike helmet.

The power of the will

Tis the Set of the Sail — or — One Ship Sails East

Ella Wheeler Wilcox 1916

But to every mind there openeth,
A way, and way, and away,
A high soul climbs the highway,
And the low soul gropes the low,
And in between on the misty flats,
The rest drift to and fro.

But to every man there openeth,
A high way and a low,
And every mind decideth,
The way his soul shall go.

One ship sails East,
And another West,
By the self-same winds that blow,
‘Tis the set of the sails
And not the gales,
That tells the way we go.

Like the winds of the sea
Are the waves of time,
As we journey along through life,
‘Tis the set of the soul,
That determines the goal,
And not the calm or the strife.

Cherry Pickin’ in Humboldt

So incredible! E’s tree is just LOADED with sweet, dark red cherries just waiting to be eaten! The tree is about 30 yrs old and one of the biggest cherry trees I have ever seen!

Nick trying his best to rediscover his inner child and climb this tree!

DIL takes her cherry picking very seriously!

One for me and one for the bucket! That’s about how it goes when you’re pickin’ fruit this delicious! I think we all had stained teeth and hands by the time we got done!

When we finally finished gorging ourselves we wound up with a HUGE bucket filled with cherries.

Lucky for us I had a cherry stoner which made the job of pitting the fruit super easy. E & Kate sit down on the job and really make it look easy!

E set out all the ingredients for making a cobbler; her first one she’s ever made. Actually, they picked enough cherries to make three! DIL and I took home enough to make 3 more! After all this hard work, the rewards are sweet and delicious! We are going to return again this week to pick enough to preserve. Should be good, but that will have to be another post!

Humboldt Honey Bread

Several years ago I wanted to learn how to make my own bread. I began by searching recipes and reading about it and talking with others who had this same passion. After much trial and error I finally found a mixer, a recipe and a supplier to provide me with all that I needed to succeed. Wheat berries, a wheat grinder, a bread mixer, dough enhancer, quick rise yeast were all I needed to accomplish my goal. Very quickly I became what is know as an urban homemaker. Now let me tell you just what that is. An urban homemaker is one who loves to cook from scratch, uses as many natural or organic ingredients as possible, obtains all such ingredients from the best possible sources (which may or may not come from ones own garden) and does all of this from home. I don’t live on a big ranch or grow my own wheat or raise all my own food, but I do admire all those people who do. What I do like to do is obtain my food from known sources so that I can discern its nutritional value and substance. Basically I want to know what it is that I am eating and where it came from. Over the course of this life experience I have now become a proficient bread maker. My friends and family have become accustomed to the rich smell of freshly made bread wafting through my house. It all starts here…with hard spring Montana wheat berries and a good wheat grinder. In go the berries and out comes some vitamin rich freshly ground wheat ready for baking.

I invested in a heavy duty mixer that will make a large batch of dough. The recipe that I use will make 5 loaves of bread at a time. (I have a big family, so we use it!)

Here it is in whirling action.
Once the machine is done mixing and kneading (yes! this machine even kneads the dough for me) I can shape it into whatever it is that I want to make. Loaves, rolls, pizza dough, cinnamon rolls, bears, whatever!

This is one big lump of dough! Today I made the entire batch into rolls. The recipe make 75 rolls.

The rolls as they begin to rise. This takes about an hour.

Sweet, golden deliciousness. With a little butter or peanut butter and some homemade jam, these babies will be gone in no time!

The Heat is on in Southern Humboldt

Did I ever mention how much I love sunshine? I am truly a sunseeker. So why did I move to Humboldt County? Well, that’s another blog…. But seriously, I do like the heat, which is why I like to go down to SoHum every chance I get. I love to find a quiet spot next to the river, plant my chair in the sand with a good read and just soak it up. The kids and the dog run and swim and play while I effortlessly but vigilantly perform my duty of childrearing via my lounge chair. Hey, somebody has to watch the kids all summer! Mommy duty doesn’t have to be all hard work.
On a side, with the Solstice thunderstorms and consequential fires that followed and then the big marijuana raid by the FBI, our little neck of the woods has been a-buzz. Lots of activity and lots of rumors! Some of the blog comments have been absolutely hilarious. It seems that there are a lot of people here in Humboldt County that are more than just a tad bit paranoid. The comments range from the surprisingly accurate to the outrageously absurd! From the looks of the posts, the dates of the arrival of the 300-400 DEA , FBI, IRS, & Postal investigators was dead on. Someone did a little research to discover that most of the local motels and hotels had been booked for this week by various federal agents and one of the local conference centers had been booked all week for a “training exercise” for law enforcement. Absent were the accuracies of just where they were going and whom they were going to target for their busts. By mid-morning yesterday, most of the blog sphere was furiously reporting everything from cannabis club raids to 215 patient home invasions to Arcata grow house break-ins to Guantanamo Bay-type mass arrests of hippies with dread locks in orange jumpsuits!
What amazed me was the types of comments folks were posting. The anger and the verbal lashing out being expressed by these supposed mellow pot smokers was downright vicious. Considering the promoted assurance that marijuana doesn’t make people violent just wasn’t evident. Preserving their right to smoke pot seems to be right up there with the Bill of Rights and the pursuit of happiness. Life is short, eternity is long, perspective is necessary. Get serious, really. There are other things in life that deserve more energy and attention than promoting and protecting the inhalation of a small amount of grass rolled between a thin layer of paper. It just seems so ludicrous. Just some passing thoughts………

Turquoise Day in Humboldt

How’s this for an amazing sight? Clouds casting shadows over other clouds. I don’t know that I have ever seen that. We had quite a thunder and lightning storm Friday night. We don’t often get aerial shows that are this dramatic. Some of the thunder felt like it was feet above the house. Next morning, the sky continued to unveil its majestic abilities by offering this glorious sunrise.

My daughter had a test to take in Eureka, so I tagged along with her to run errands and do some grocery shopping while she took the test. I walked along the waterfront in Old Town on this most amazing morning. This is the Pacific Northwest and the mornings are most often either rainy or foggy, so to be able to experience a morning like this is pretty monumental. Notice that there are no white caps on the surface of the water here…. still as can be.

I had to take a photo of these flags because I don’t know that I have ever seen them lying flat against the poles!

Sometimes I would like to have a sign like this in my bedroom in the morning.

Humboldt Auction

Mark & TJ called us to head on over to the auction yard to keep an eye on their heifers that they had brought in to sell. They were on their way but weren’t sure they would get there in time to see them come up for bid. So Jo and I walked over to check it out. It’s been a long time since I’ve been to the auction yard. My first mistake was to walk around and look at all the cute sheep and goats that were there. Last time I did this I came home with a little ram lamb that I paid $20 for! When we were kids (teens) we used to go to the auction yard and we would often times come home with some cute little something or other; piglet, lamb, or kid goat. My dad would pitch a fit, but we felt good about saving some poor little darling animal from a most tragic ending. Eventually, though it seemed like they met that fate anyway! They do grow up!

I had to remind Jo of this yesterday as she lured the little drop calf over for a scratch.

The beef prices were decent but not great. You’d think with the price of everything going sky high lately that cattle prices would follow as well. Unfortunately for farmers it doesn’t always work that way. After the sale, we all went out to lunch. I just couldn’t bring myself to have a hamburger though, so I had fish and chips instead!