Squirreling

It's that time of year again.  Time seems to rush by sometimes.  The first hard freeze of the fall was this past week.  We lucked out that it came so late (for us) since the growing season seemed to be rather late, too.  But now the garden is officially dead and done.  It's time to pull out the plants and put away the hoses.  

Then we start raking the leaves.  We have a LOT of leaves around our place.  Every year I waffle between waiting a little longer for more to fall and starting earlier to get them off the lawn.  I end up somewhere in between.  This is what I got done yesterday...

and this is what's left on the cottonwood.  Sigh...  
Many of the leaves go into the compost bins.  Many more make a thick layer on the garden beds to be added to the compost in the spring.  



It's time to prune back all those lavender bushes.  And chip the dried cornstalks, raspberry canes and those lavender clippings into the compost, too.  

The burn pile went up in flames.  A load of wood is coming soon and the energy logs are stacked in the basement.  This is a busy time of year;  the last flurry before the real flurries start.  

But there are still a few lovely surprises even among the dead leaves.










I like getting things ready for winter, packed up and put away, whether it's garden or wood or food in the freezer.  I call it "squirreling."  It's a satisfying feeling.

Stitching

I must confess to a small addiction.  I always have a cross stitch project going.  I find it a rather calming hobby.  I enjoy coming up with ideas for new projects.  I like the challenge of getting the stitches in the right place even though I sometimes end up pulling out stitches because of a miscount or some such thing.  It is the perfect winter pastime.  I suppose I could be reading more books and expanding my mind but I prefer stitching.  It's easier to put down at a moment's notice for conversation or whatever.  

I just finished another pillow.  It is a design called the Three Hares.  The design itself is quite old.  The first finding of it occurred in cave temples in China in the 6th-7th centuries.  It shows up in sacred sites from the Middle and Far East to England, in Christian churches and Jewish temples.  I find that rather amazing and intriguing.  When I first saw the design, I decided it had to be a pillow.  

I've been doing cross stitch for a long time now.  I honestly can't remember the exact year but I would say somewhere around 1995.  I've done more projects than I can count including this rug copy for Paul that took three years to finish!   It's actual size is 22 inches by 33 inches.  Paul has a rug fragment from around 1550 and he wanted to see what the rug might have looked like.  So he extrapolated the "cartoon"  from the fragment and pictures of similar rugs.  It was an amazing design feat.  That was the beginning of our working together on cross stitch designs.

Here is another favorite.  I originally found this saying on a bathroom wall in a small cafe in Salem.  I loved it and sat there on the commode copying it onto a piece of paper from my purse.  I had it painted on my kitchen wall in California.  When I moved here, I had to make it into a pillow so I could take it with me. 

Collaborating on designs with Paul is really fun.  I will come up with an idea and he will sometimes help figure out the design or, as in this one, create the design entirely.  This was for our dear friends, Christina and Roger, for Christmas last year.  The letters look like the Book of Kells and the adornments reflect their creative outlets, painting and jewelry making.  I love this pillow.



Now that the Three Hares is finished, I've started another pillow.  This one is a challenging design of fall leaves using 14 different but very closely related colors.  I may go cross-eyed but it will be lovely when it's done.  And I have at least three more ideas brewing for future projects.  It's good to have a hobby, right?

The Pick-up

When my late husband, Mark, found out he had terminal cancer, he decided to do a few of those bucket list things he hadn't done.  One of them was to own an old pick-up.  He had read The Bridges of Madison County and, being a bit of a romantic, thought it would be cool to have an old rig to tool around town in.  So, he bought himself a 1957 Ford pick-up.  Since it was white, we called it "Whitey Ford" after the old baseball player.  It was in pretty good shape and ran well.  Mark loved it.  Trouble was, he only drove it a few times.  Then it became mine.  I drove it to the Farmer's Market on Saturdays, a distance of about 1 mile, but that was about it. 

Six years ago, when I to moved up here to marry Paul, I decided to bring the pick-up along.  After all, now I would be in a more rural setting and a pick-up might come in handy.  So, Whitey came to Palouse.  Most of the time, it sat in the barn gathering dust and bird poop.  We would charge up the battery and take it out every fall to haul logs for the winter fire and then back to the barn it would go.  Not a very exciting life for a pick-up.  Finally, about a year ago, we decided it really should be with someone who would fix it up and take care of it.  Someone who would give it a life more befitting a wonderful old pick-up.  But other things kept taking precedence over selling it.  

Then, about a month ago, Whitey had a chance for  fifteen minutes of fame.  Bookpeople, our favorite bookstore over in Moscow, ID, was having a book reading/concert for Josh Ritter and wanted an old pick-up to use as a stage.  We volunteered and Whitey made the front page of the paper!  It also had a blow-out on the way to town though, which is how we discovered that the tires were no longer safe.  So we bought four new tires and made the decision that we really needed to sell that pick-up.







So, this weekend we took it downtown in Palouse and parked it on the street right on the way to the Palouse Days Car Show in the park.  People come from all around the state to this car show.  We put a sign in the window and hoped for the best.  And it happened.  A gentleman called on Saturday, came to drive it today and loaded it up and took it home.  He is someone who fixes up old cars and trucks and takes them to car shows.  He just loved Whitey which confirmed what we already thought, that it really was a cool old pick-up.

I have mixed emotions today.  I'm really glad that someone bought the truck that appreciates it and will take good care of it.  On the other hand, I'm a little sad to see it go.  But it was time to turn that page.  So long old pal.

Birthday Cake

I don't know about you but I think that when you're a kid, your birthday cake is a big deal.  I remember a doll cake made by Mom that was beautiful, or so I thought.  My Mom is a professional cake decorator.  She's been doing it for over 40 years!  She's made some gorgeous cakes in that time.  So cakes were always kind of a thing when I was growing up.  And there were always scraps of cake to be slathered with a bit of icing to eat!  Funny thing is I don't even like cake that much but I can't resist it that way.  

This week was Peter's tenth birthday...double digits for the boy now.  Because he is into all things related to airplanes, especially WWII airplanes, I suggested an airplane cake for his birthday.  He was very excited about the idea.  I think I made a few stepmom points for that one.

Paul has a great artist's eye so he started designing the structure.  After the pirate ship cake fiasco a few years ago, he's now more aware of the limitations of the medium.  (The back end of the ship collapsed at about midnight the night before!)  He decided on the appropriate plane and sketched out a pattern for getting all the pieces out of two 9"x13" cakes.  Here is the beginning of the cake structure.

Once the basic structure was figured out, I crumb iced the cake.  Crumb icing gives the cake a thinnish layer of icing to catch the crumbs and keep them from getting into the decorated cake. 









Next we had to create just the right color for the airplane.  Something drab green without being unappetizing!  I iced the cake and then worked on smoothing out the icing and adding the details.

 

Finally, Paul added the propeller and tail, red for the Tuskegee Airmen, and the P-51B was finished.  (Click on the photo for better detail.)

Thanks to Mom for all the cake decorating skills-by-osmosis.  By the way, Peter was absolutely thrilled!  That's a good thing to be on your 10th birthday.

Sweet Success

 
I am a farmer's daughter...a farmer who grew sweet corn, among other things.  I have many memories of moving irrigation pipe through the maybe 6 foot tall corn field, early in the mornings. The corn would be wet and the sharp-edged leaves would slap me in the face. 


Imagine walking through a field of this at about
5 a.m.  It is not one of my most pleasant childhood memories.  But we had lots of fresh corn on the cob to eat, which I love.





So an entire bed of our garden each year is devoted to sweet corn.  Paul grew it before I got here but the expectations were high when I started planting the sweet corn, given my heritage and all.  Well, the first year was a disaster.  I'm not sure why, but the corn patch was spotty at best and, maybe, produced a couple of ears.  When my Dad saw it, he said (kidding) he couldn't believe I was his daughter.  Thus the challenge was on.  I found corn seed that was supposed to grow in areas with a shorter growing season (that's us).  No offense to my Dad, but everything will grow in the Willamette Valley! 

The next year was a little better but not much.  The third year the patch looked really good and the ears were starting to look like they were getting ripe when a flock of blackbirds came in and decimated the entire patch in an afternoon.  I was so mad I could have spit nails.

The next season, quail came in and ate the little corn sprouts as they poked up through the soil.  I replanted and put bird netting over the entire bed until the corn got tall enough to fend for itself but it didn't really do well after that.

Last year, I covered the bed before the sprouts came up and I covered it again to ward off the blackbirds.  But in all my efforts to keep the birds out, I neglected to check the corn often enough.  We had ears but they were really over-ripe, in my opinion anyway.  

 
Now this year it appears as though I may have  finally succeeded in growing a nice patch of corn. 










Today I picked the first ears and they look perfect. 

There are many ways to eat corn but nothing is better than picking an ear, shucking it and dropping it in a pot of boiling water for about 5 minutes.  Slather it with butter and salt and take a bite.  Pure heaven for this farmer's daughter.  I think, this year, Dad would be proud.

A Room of One's Own

Everyone needs a space of one's own...someplace to relax surrounded by things you love.  I was a little concerned moving to this house that Paul had been in for 14 years.  I wondered how I would fit in and where that space of my own would be.  Paul has the studio, his sanctuary. Peter has his bedroom, his sanctuary.  Our bedroom belongs to both of us, our sanctuary.  I voiced my concern to Paul and he immediately said that the space at the top of the stairs could be mine.  At that time, it was fairly unfinished and a blank canvas.  The only parts that were done were the floor, the drywall, a large window and two skylights installed but not trimmed out.  We talked about what I wanted and needed in my room and Paul went to work.  And work he did.  The room needed so much done that it's taken him about three years worth of time to finish it.  But finish it he did, today, in fact.  It is indeed beautiful.  
 


An amazing bannister of maple and fir leads up to the room.  That in itself took an entire summer!  

There's a shelf at the side of the stairway that holds pictures and treasures.  There are banks of the old bolt cabinet drawers that appear in the kitchen, too.  








 

There is a bookcase to hold my books and stereo and the TV we never watch.  My comfy couch is just waiting for me to sit and read or stitch or sip a beverage and contemplate my next project.  

The knee wall is covered in lovely maple and fir with doors for access to storage.  My desk is there for working or setting up the sewing machine.  

It is truly my space and I love it.  Paul promised me when he started that he would make it beautiful for me and he did.  There is love everywhere I look in that room.

Purple Passion

It's lavender season...finally.  I love lavender!  In fact, there are two plants that I always plant in my garden, no matter where I live.  One is a Cécile Brunner climbing rose.  The other is lavender.  

Lavender has an interesting history.  It is known for it's soporific and medicinal properties.  The smell of lavender blossoms will relax you.  We have lavender-filled bags to put over our eyes during savasana at the end of yoga class.   It is so soothing.  

Lavender is also known as an antiseptic and anti-inflammatory.  I read that essential lavender oil was used during World War I to wash down hospital walls and floors.  A bit of lavender oil on the temples is said to help a headache.

The word itself comes from the Anglo-Norman French lavandre, which, I think, means to wash.  It was often added to bath water or water used to wash linens to add a sweet scent.  At any rate, lavender is a pretty amazing herb.

When I moved to this place six years ago, there were two lavender plants here.  They were given to Paul by a friend.  They are the most prolific lavender plants I have ever seen.  There are now around fifty lavender plants growing on the property and they are all from seedlings started by the existing plants.  This doesn't count all the baby lavender plants I have given away.
 
And now that they are all blooming, the plants are abuzz with honey bees!  When I walk out to the garden, it sounds like a little freeway humming out there.  Bless those honey bees and more power to them.  I just wish I knew where to find their lavender honey!