WHAT HAPPENED TO SEPTEMBER?

It brought me up short to realize that September is over. I should have known because the days grow shorter by leaps and bounds, or so it seems. Summer has been singing her swansong, giving us some hot afternoons to remember her by, but it turned cooler and rained half an inch yesterday. Unlike the East Coast, we here in the West needed that rain.

Bess and I enjoyed a brief staycation while Mike and son Clint participated in a group ride to Thompson Falls, MT. I can be philosophical about Mike’s absence, but Bess misses him terribly. Sometimes she’ll be rather offhand toward him when he returns, but when he arrived this afternoon, she let him know she was glad to see him.

So, how did I celebrate this short staycation? Mike and Clint were barely out of the driveway when I hopped in the little GTI and headed to Walmart for printer supplies. I also looked for towels in Halloween colors to embellish with machine embroidery. The local market doesn’t offer much, but I found gray towels at both Walmart and Dollar Tree. I would have preferred purple and orange. The towels at JoAnn’s were already decorated.

Back at home, I continued to work on the Grinch quilt. And that’s the way I spent much of my time except for Bess’ care and feeding. Oh – and I also crocheted on the “Spiderweb Blanket.” I started this last fall in black and white but didn’t care for the stark contrast. I tore it out and started all over using an off white.

Spiderweb afghan & towels

And then yesterday afternoon, I shut my laptop down and it wouldn’t restart. I tried everything I could think of or that my children suggested. I was set to take it to the laptop clinic this morning, but before I did, I tried once more to reset it, this time holding that button down for more than a minute, and that did the trick. Whew! Was I relieved!

Well, it was nice visiting with you. Mike is here. Time to get busy. KW

BEAUTIFUL AUTUMN DAYS

“Even though it’s just Thursday, I’m going to change the bed,” I announced to Mike. (Changing the bed is a Saturday chore.)

“Oh good!” Mike remarked. “I was wondering when I could change to warmer pajamas. My knees have been cold.”

Isn’t that silly?! He could change pajamas anytime – I certainly do – but his habit of frugality dictates that he waits until I change the bed. I guess there are worse things than frugality.

Two mule deer -- almost camouflaged 

We had a nice soaking rain on Thursday (Sept. 22), and now we’re moving into the “season of layering” when we don a light jacket in the morning that we can easily remove as the day grows warmer. Next week will see some hot afternoons, and then the temps will drop by ten degrees or so, if the weatherman can be believed. No sign of a freeze yet, but the mornings are decidedly chilly.

Could they be twins?

The photos here were taken on a recent evening in town. As I ran an errand to my little shed, I startled three mule deer doe apparently gnoshing on the bank. Two ran up to the flat while the third hid on the other side of the pick-up. Apparently deer have a pungent aroma because Bess noticed their presence from inside the house and came out to stand beside me. By that time, the third deer had joined the other two, and we all stared at each other. When Bess finally lunged at them, two ran off while the third continued to stare at us accusingly, as if we were the interlopers! Come to think of it, maybe we are.

Could this be mom?

Back at the farm, Mike and I transplanted eight silver sage (wormwood) and several other plants from the town garden to the orchard / meadow behind the house.  I plan to bring more plants from town as the season progresses. If they don’t make it, we’re out nothing but some effort. Oh! – and I have all those daffodil bulbs that I planted in town to dig up and plant here. I hope I can find them!

I picked half a dozen tomatoes and enough strawberries – beautiful berries – to make shortcake for dessert. The zucchini is just disgusting – only two small squash. Good thing I bought one or we would have no zucchini bread.

And lastly, little Bess was so tired after yesterday’s hunt and the drive to the farm that she had trouble finding a good spot for her nap. She just couldn’t get comfortable. But as tired as she was, she still insisted on the customary game of fetch before dinner. KW

 

THE OLD HOMEPLACE – 1950 AND TODAY

Taken by Kathy, September 2, 2022

My uncle, Earle Dobson (my dad’s brother), was a good amateur photographer, specializing in scenery shots. I think the challenge of using the light meter to set the camera appealed to him. On the back of a photograph, he would note the place, the date, and the camera settings.

The photos on this post are those he took when he visited the farm in the summer of 1950. I think he took them because he recognized that life on the farm had changed and would change even more. Grandpa Julian was gone, and my dad had become the farm manager. Grandma would live at the farm another seven years, but she was in poor health. Uncle June and Aunt Bertha on the adjacent homestead had both died and their place had been sold. The livestock was gone. It just wasn’t the same place where he and his siblings had grown up. This happens, and we all know it.

My dad was born in this cabin.

My quest was to take a picture from the same spot on the hill east of the house where Uncle Earle stood 72 years ago. So, I went to that hill, but the maple tree my dad planted 50 years ago has grown large and obscures the house. I could go back and try to position myself a better, but there’s really no point. 

And today, just the house and barn remain of the old buildings, unless you count the woodshed. The henhouse was gone sometime in the ‘50s. We razed the old house in 1971. The cold house – they called it a cellar – was crushed when the big pine hit the house in 1996. I know there were several more outbuildings, including, of course, the outhouse. KW

SOUPER RICE

 “Remember ‘souper rice,’” asked my stepson Yancey.

Yes, I do remember, now that he reminds me. Yancey was an adolescent in our home when I was learning to cook for a family, trying to develop my own repertoire. I was always open to an experiment, especially if it was easy. I remember making “souper rice.”

“I love it,” continued Yancey, “but the recipes I find aren’t the same. How did you make it?”

“It was a can of cream soup and a can of instant rice,” I said, “and I think it was a soup can of liquid.”

“Well, I can’t find that recipe online,” said Yancey.

So, I looked. And he was right. Recipes abound for “souper rice,” but they aren’t the same as the simple recipe we were remembering.

“Think!” I said to myself. “What can you remember about that recipe that might lead you to the original?”

And then I did remember. It was a magazine ad or maybe a TV commercial, probably in the ‘70s. So, I searched “souper rice, ‘70s ad,” and the 1979 TV commercial for Minute Rice came up on YouTube (here).

To make the original "Souper Rice:" make any can of cream soup according to the directions. Bring to a boil. Pour one soup can of Minute Rice into the boiling soup. Remove from heat, cover, and let stand for ten minutes. Serve.

I had success with that recipe when I first made it, as Yancey remembers. Then it got so it didn’t work for me – too soupy. What happened? Was I doing something wrong? Did the soup can shrink? Was the rice processed differently? I don’t know. But evidently, I wasn’t the only one that noticed a problem because today’s internet renditions show the proportions of this recipe have changed. The beauty of the original recipe was that the basic measurement was the soup can.

“You might have to adjust the amounts,” I advised Yancey. He assured me he could do that. I take pride in knowing that I taught him some of what he knows about cooking. KW

“Reunited, and it feels so good"

Smoke in Little Canyon

Sometimes something happens that makes us feel out of step with the universe. I expect these things happen to all of us. Perhaps you’re ready for a bike ride and discover a tire is flat. Or you misplace something you need. Or you leave a bag of groceries at the check-out stand, and to make matters worse, the shopper behind you quietly takes it instead of turning it in. Maybe you find you only have half enough fabric to back the quilt you’re making. OR – you leave your phone at the town house when you go to the farm and have to endure a week without it. I’m sure there are other examples. These things are not the end of the world, but it sets you back, and you wonder how you can do better.

Hazy

So, yes, I left my phone in town last week. I didn’t discover I had left it until we were at the farmhouse. If it had been Mike’s phone, we would have had to go back for it, but I don’t have that many calls. Nevertheless, I missed it and was glad to be reunited. Mike and I often “call the roll” of important items as we drive away from whichever house. “Do you have your phone?” one of us will say. But we didn’t last week.

Mike & Bess, hunting

And I had looked forward to making progress on the Grinch quilt but discovered I had purchased only half enough yardage for the backing. It was not the end of the world – just an inconvenience. A trip to JoAnn’s rectified the situation, thank goodness, and as you know, I don’t mind going there.

Looking over north field -- smoky

We had a brief shower yesterday morning which might have dissipated some of the smoke, but it’s still hazy and Teakean Butte and Little Canyon are obscured.

It’s cooler now. The windows that we opened last week to capture the fresh air are now firmly closed.  

Mike has trained Bess to ride in the box on the back of the 4-wheeler. I guess you really can train an old dog to do new tricks. He trained her by putting a shotgun on the gun rack, and slowly driving off. She got the picture. “If I want to go hunting, I have to ride in the box.” Her love of going with Mike overcame her timidity. Well, sort of. She's still nervous about it.

And on a final note for those inquiring minds that wonder what will be planted in our fields this year, it’s wheat, and they will plant in about two weeks or so. KW

THE GREAT SEGUE INTO FALL

Mike and I couldn’t wait to return to the farm on Tuesday, Sept. 6, to escape the heat in the Valley, where temps were again in the triple digits.

“I wonder if I should wash my swimsuit and put it away,” I said.

“No!” said Mike. “We’ll have more hot days. We’ll go to the beach again.” Hmmm. I wasn’t so sure. As unreal as it seemed at that moment, autumn is on the way. I remember how it goes. Suddenly it’s not so hot.

And that’s what happened. Earlier this week at the farm, it was still 80 outside as we retired for the night and in the 60s (or even 70) when we arose, a continuation of “hot August nights.” However, I was mindful of what my mother said every year. By the 9^th of September, it was necessary to turn on the furnace in the morning to take the chill off the house, and if she didn’t, one  of us would take cold. That seasonal change just comes upon us, and often it’s first noticeable on or about the 9^th of September.

And lo and behold, the morning of the 9^th, the low was 46 while the high was 75 or so. The segue to autumn is upon us.

So, I changed the bed, pulled up the blankets, and pulled out my winter pajamas. And I haven’t been sorry.

And it’s fine. I’m a little tired of the summer drill. Of course, it’s not over yet. Questions loom. Will the blooms on the zucchini plant turn into edible squash? Will the tomatoes ripen? How much longer will the strawberries produce? Stay tuned for answers to these intriguing questions. 

I removed the hummingbird feeders on Sept. 6, and – wouldn’t you know it? – as I was lifting it down, one little fellow came up for a drink. “It’s time for you to move along,” I said firmly, and I guess he did because I haven’t seen him or his relatives.

And now that it’s cooler, we can actually bake in the oven. Mike made a batch of oat bran muffins. I baked cookies and a rhubarb crostata.

This post would not be complete without mention of the smoke from regional wildfires. Visibility is worse now than yesterday when I took these pictures. It’s not better in the Valley, and daughter Hallie says it’s smoky in Seattle, and they even see falling ash. KW

NORTH TO ALASKA - FINAL

The next day we got our usual early morning start and proceeded southeast down Hwy 6 to New Denver. Here a somewhat obscure Hwy 31A runs east to Kaslo. Sam had chosen it because it looked like it might be a fun motorcycle road. We almost didn’t take it because a log on a geocache said it was a “bad and dangerous” road. Fortunately we ignored that advice. It was the best road of the trip, running through a canyon along a stream with lots of challenging turns and NO traffic. I even saw a bull moose in the stream.

Funny cache container

At Kaslo we turned south on Hwy 31 along the western edge of Kootenay Lake down to Balfour. We stopped for a break there at a boat launch parking lot where the Kootenay River dumps into the lake. Here we turned west on Hwy 3A along the river and over to Nelson. What could have been a fun road was dampened because of the traffic, particularly slow moving trailers. At Nelson we took Hwy 6 south through Salmo and down to the border crossing north of Metaline Falls, WA, where the road changes to Hwy 31 in the US. The last 5 or 6 miles of Hwy 6 in Canada and Hwy 31 in the US down to Metaline Falls was some of the best riding of the trip. We stopped in Metaline Falls for another break and to gas up. We continued down Hwy 31 to Hwy 20 which veers south and then west over to Colville, another great road. At Colville we turned south of Hwy 395 for about 20 miles before turning right on Hwy 231. At Reardan we jogged west a short way on Hwy 2 before picking up 231 again all the way down to Hwy 90 where it merges into Hwy 23. Although 231 takes you through unremarkable farm country it was a surprisingly fun riding road that we thoroughly enjoyed. Hwy 23 continues southeast past St. John and all the way down to Steptoe at Hwy 195. At 195 we took the familiar route back down to Lewiston. At the top of the Lewiston hill Sam proceeded on down the regular highway but I turned off on the Old Spiral Highway which was a longer route because I wanted to get 2,700 miles for the trip and I needed to add a few to get that. After reaching the bottom I rode out Hwy 12 to Evans Rd to add a few more miles. When I got home I had 420 miles for the day and 2,701 for the trip.

In spite of the few weather problems and tire problem it was a great trip. I was most impressed by the vast unsettled area and thick woods in Canada and as on previous trips the friendly folks. M/W