THE GENTLE ART OF TO AND FRO

We drove back to the farm this morning. On our way out of town we stopped for a geocache near the bottom of the Lewiston Hill. The name of the cache was “a better mousetrap.”

 

It’s lovely here at the farm – about 80 and breezy this afternoon. It rained some over the weekend so the garden is in good shape. I picked two cups of strawberries, with which I made a pie for supper.

 

When I retired six years ago we began to travel between the Lewis-Clark Valley and our farmhouse more frequently –and to stay longer at the farm. Keeping two places is a challenge, you know, and so is going back and forth.

I have to consciously adjust to leaving one place for the other. I have to think about what I want to accomplish while I’m at the farm and pack whatever I need from town – patterns, fabric, yarn, supplies, etc -- whatever. Then I think about what books I want to take with me and pack them. But those things are the frosting on the cake – the fun part.

Next is the food. Usually I have a list to help me with that. It’s just time-consuming to pack it and I always overlook something. Oh well, I say – it’s make-do time because even though there’s a grocery store about ten miles from the farmhouse, it’s a tedious drive to get there, and we adjust our recipes and menus – and our attitudes -- rather than make that trip.

Of critical importance are the electronics – the phones, iPad, iPod, laptop, camera – plus cords. Most of the devices are mine, so I am personally responsible for ALL of them whether or not they are mine. Add to that list Mike’s glasses, his medicinal oat bran muffins, and his reading material.

In order to simplify all this, I have begun to think in terms of not carrying so much back and forth. I plan meals so that we’re eating up the food regardless of where we are. Leaving produce and dairy products at the farm unless they will spoil has also worked to advantage. And this year we actually had garden produce.

Last year I bought another sewing machine so that I have one in town and one at the farm. Mike and I agree that that was a good move – really simplified things.

But, having a double supply of sewing notions wasn’t practical, nor has it worked to have separate projects at each house. I decided that a certain amount of carrying back and forth really does need to happen, but my existing sewing box, received as a Christmas gift in 1973 (a long time ago), had seen better days even before Bess chewed the corner. It needed to be replaced.

 

And so, as one of my “staycation” rewards, I bought the “Creative Options” unit.  It’s not perfect. I’ve been amazed at how little is out there when it comes to portable units for sewing supplies. But – this will do for now – maybe forever. KW

Life Elevated – Day 3

We enjoyed a delicious continental breakfast served by the Guest House and welcomed pleasant 70 degree temperature to begin our journey a little before 7:00 am.  We actually retraced our tracks to begin as we went past Linda’s and Bob’s house heading up Emigration Canyon road.  We saw lots of bicyclists on the road as we had the evening before.  The road makes a gradual (probably not so gradual on a bicycle) climb up the canyon with lots of curves.  The surface is not particularly great but still a fun ride.  After a few miles of climbing we came to a tee and took Highway 65 toward Morgan.  This is somewhat open mountainous terrain with lots of sagebrush. 

As Geocaching goes, this was not a particularly good day.  We began with two DNF’s and as I had only four lined up for Morgan County I was a little concerned.  The first DNF was along the old Pony Express and Mormon trail.  After this failure we backtracked a short ways to take Highway 66 to Morgan through Porterville.  The next DNF was at a rock “Welcome to Porterville” sign.  I succeeded in accidentally pulling a piece of loose concrete cap off the sign as I was trying to climb up to look on top.  I tried to replace it as best I could but we thought it was a good time to give this one up.  After arriving in Morgan Yancey quickly snagged a couple so we were safe. 

From Morgan we took Interstate 84 a short distance before exiting to find a cache hidden on an old railroad bridge in Summit County.  We continued on this same winding old rural highway to find another one on a graveled trail next to a reservoir. 

We had even more trouble with Wasatch County.  We turned south on Interstate 80 and then Highway 40 exiting to Highway 32 where we made a short ride up to Jordanelle Reservoir and State Park.  We did get off to a good start in this county because we found the first one overlooking the beautiful reservoir.  We turned back down the hill and got back on Highway 40 heading south taking the southwest fork on Highway 189 which borders the eastern edge on Deer Creek Reservoir and State Park.  In retrospect we spent way too much time stopping and looking unsuccessfully for three caches along this stretch.  I’m pretty sure they were missing.  Realizing the time we had wasted we decided we had better cut our losses and settle for just one cache in Wasatch County.  

After leaving Deer Creek Reservoir and State Park we began a beautiful curvy hilly ride continuing west on 189.  It’s too bad we didn’t have a helmet cam on this trip because we just didn’t have time to stop to take pictures of all the fantastic country we saw.  In the bottom of a canyon we turned off onto another twisty uphill road to get our first Utah County cache.  It was a difficult place to park our bikes because there was no shoulder and it was gravel and not level just off the road.  Nevertheless, we managed to park and found the cache after a short hike through high weeds. We shortly picked up another cache and called it good for that county. 

We skirted the north end of Utah Lake on the Interstate and Highway 145 before continuing west on Highway 73.  Now we were in desert country and it was hot.  At our next cache I told Yancey it was almost in the middle.  He didn’t bite so I guess he knew I meant the middle of nowhere.  We stopped at another cache just west of the middle and in spite of having no shade we sat on someone’s 4-wheeler trailer and had a bite to eat.  These caches were in Tooele County and reminded me a lot of Nevada.  Juab County just south was much of the same.  We stopped at a Rest Stop with no shade but two caches.  As I was bending over to get one located on a bush next to a barb wire fence I heard a rip and it was the skin on the top of my bald head. Luckily I had some band aids along.  This motocaching is a dangerous game.

 

We soon passed into Millard County which was much the same and tried to find a micro sized cache with no hint and scored another DNF.  The next cache was classified as a “small” but the description said it was a “micro” but with no hint.  We had to hike a ways across high dead grass and some railroad tracks and I was about to give up when Yancey found it in a sage bush.

We were on Highway 6 and at Lynndyl we turned east on Highway 132 toward Nephi.  We stopped at Leamington and found a cache at a tiny post office.  We stopped for gas at Nephi and noticed a thunderstorm approaching. [Speaking of gas – my Triumph Street Triple R (675cc) got better than 51 mpg for the trip and Yancey’s Suzuki SV650S (650 cc) got 2 or 3 mpg better than that.  The elevated and thinned Utah air improved my mileage 2 or 3 mpg.]  At Nephi we continued south toward Ephraim and Yancey grabbed a quick one in a sprinkler pipe almost before I got off my bike.  I think we may have gotten a drop or two of rain but that was all. 

We stayed at the Iron Horse Motel in Ephraim which appeared to be the only one in town although Yancey thought he saw another one.  I soon because fast friends with Leonard, the 89 year old gentleman who helped us get settled.  He was tuning an old Ford truck and we established an instant rapport.  Leonard located a fridge for us and we were set.  The Iron Horse didn’t look like much but I thought it was nice enough.

There was a Super Walmart across the road from the motel and after dinner we strolled over and got a few supplies.  No one seemed to know the population of Ephraim but research shows 6,000 which seems hardly believable.  However, Snow College with an enrollment of 3,000 is located there.  We also walked a short distance down the road and picked up our last cache of the day.  (To be continued)  M/W

VISITORS

August is the time of year when the gap between the days’ high and low temperatures begins to widen. At the farm yesterday morning it was 54 at 6:00. The afternoon high in town was 100 at our house. (Of course, it was probably only 90 at the farm.)

Mike and I drove to the farm Monday, August 19, for a brief stay. On our way, we picked up a geocache in north Lewiston to comply with the August challenge.

Wildfires seem to abound – some small, some large – and some fires are field burns. At any rate, the smoke sits in the canyons and valleys and even rests on the hilltops. Mike stopped briefly on Gilbert Grade to check the dogs, and I hopped out to quickly take these pictures above Orofino.

I zoomed in on Orofino and snapped this picture. I discovered later that I had captured the image of our old family home (a white house with dormer windows) in the center of the shot. I cropped the picture to bring the house out even more.  The picture below shows smoke in Little Canyon.

Many people vacation in August, and the traffic on Highway 12 bears this out. Brother Chuck and wife Joanne from Utah are a case in point. They are here this week and spent the two days with us on the farm. I've always thought that having company is such fun, just another kind of "staycation." We kept our activities low-key, except for one or two chores. Mike and Chuck helped me cut back the spent hollyhocks. “Many hands make light work,” Mother used to say, and I was pleased to have the job finished so quickly. 

Chuck and Joanne hope that when they return to Utah the worst of the summer heat will have passed. Poor Chuck's voice got pretty gruff and we wondered if he was having a reaction to the smoke.

Chuck and Joanne brought squash and eggplant from their Utah garden, and I had peas, beets, carrots, lettuce, and a cucumber. I pulled out the peas – and now we’ll just have to wait and see what happens in the garden. Maybe the beans will bear – maybe not. Maybe we’ll have a new crop of leaf lettuce. I still have carrots and beets to harvest.

We had a great second yield with our day neutral strawberries. I picked more berries every day, fighting the yellow jackets for them. With what I picked and froze last week, we had strawberry shortcake for dessert Monday night and Tuesday I thickened the sweetened berries and poured them over cream cheese filling in a graham cracker crust.

 

With each trip to the farm I expect the hummingbirds to be gone, but we still have three or four visiting the feeders. Unusual.

So, we came back to town on Wednesday. This is the weekend for Lewiston’s “Hot August Nights” celebration. We no longer take in the concerts as neither the music nor the party format interests us, but Mike likes the car shows.

Someone told Mike that The Butler was a good movie, so tonight we ate early and headed out to the cinema. There were two other couples watching with us. KW

Life Elevated – Days 1 & 2

Utah’s tourism slogan is “Life Elevated”.  I’ve just completed my mission to log at least one geocache in each of its 29 counties by motorcycle.  It was a fantastic journey seeing unbelievable and unworldly like terrain traveling many first class motorcycling miles with the tremendous bonus of having my son, Yancey, riding along with me.

I began my journey Friday, August 9^th, leaving the town house a little after 6:00 am.  I headed south toward Boise and decided to take Highway 55 through McCall rather than Highway 95 through Weiser and Payette.  I stopped for a couple of geocaches before stopping in the park at Riggins for a longer break.  By this time it had begun to get very hot.  Anticipating the hot weather I was wearing a mesh jacked and mesh pants.  Each morning I would begin the journey with a sweatshirt and bicycling windbreaker under my jacket.  As the day heated up I would first remove the sweatshirt and then the windbreaker.  This system worked pretty well.  However, this first day I was wearing some light nylon cargo pants under my mesh motorcycling pants.  That did not work well.  I soon felt like I was wearing screen wire underwear.  For the rest of the trip I omitted the cargo pants and the situation was much improved.  There was a lot of traffic from McCall south but most of it was on coming so it wasn’t too bad.

My destination this first day was Gooding, Idaho, where I would spend the night with son, Clint.  I arrived at his house around 4:00 pm having logged 376 miles, tired and hot from the Interstate ride from Boise.  It was great to get a shower and clean up a bit.  As usual, Clint showed me great hospitality and had a chicken ready to grill.  After a delicious dinner and good night’s sleep I was on the road the next morning before 7:00 am (I was now in Mountain time and would be for the duration).

The first part of this day wasn’t much fun because it was all Interstate and a lot of it right into the rising sun.  After a little over an hour I took a break with a cache just after my turn southeast toward Salt Lake City.  Further down the road I stopped at a very nice Rest Stop where two caches were located.  These were my last Idaho caches heading south.

My first Utah cache was in Snowville which is a fuel stop as well.  This was my only cache in Box Elder County because I had logged other caches in this county on other trips.  I got a couple of neat caches in Cache County and had lunch where one was located at a park with a fishing pond in Wellsville.  This was a little side trip from my Salt Lake destination so I had to retrace some miles back to the Interstate.

Yancey’s wife, son, one daughter and my oldest son, Murray, visiting from Philadelphia were accompanying him to Salt Lake for a visit with his mother and step father.  Yancey had planned to trailer his bike to Salt Lake but it was too tall for the trailer so he ended up riding from Denver.  His trip wasn’t too pleasant as he encountered a lot of high winds in Wyoming.  My ex-wife, Linda, graciously arranged lodging for Yancey and me at the University of Utah (where her husband teaches) Guest House and gave us a nice dinner at their house in Emigration Canyon.  The family visit was a great send-off for our adventure.  Yancey and I got a couple of caches after dinner on the way to the Guest House so he would have Salt Lake County out of the way.  I had traveled 329 miles that day.   Pictures 1-Clint and his new lawn, 2-lunch in the park, 3-the Hobbit cache, 4-dinner with family, 5-Yancey at the Guest House (To be continued)  M/W

STAYCATION: FINAL DAYS

Thursday morning I arose knowing it was time for the dogs and me to return to town. Wednesday night was warm and muggy, and we didn’t sleep well. Time to return to air conditioning.

After our morning walk, I watered the gardens well, packed boxes and coolers and began the arduous task of loading the pick-up. By the time I finished, the sweat was rolling off my brow and down my cheeks. How unladylike! It promised to be another hot day.

Then it was time to load the dogs. “Come Bess!” I called. Bess was lolling on a dog pillow on the porch and just looked at me. I tried several more times before resorting to a proven method – leading her with a dog treat. That got her up and out to the Dakota where I could lift her into her crate and firmly close the gate.

“Here Nellie!” I called. “Come on, girl – time to go back to town.” It looked as if she was going to comply, but what did she do? She crawled under the Dakota! Some firm coaxing got her out and she jumped onto the tailgate. With the dogs secured, we were ready to leave.

It’s always a little bittersweet, this traveling back and forth, but this time I felt ready to leave. Mike will be back tomorrow. I'll see family and friends in town. And there’s always the trip to Jo-Ann Fabrics.

Upon arriving at the town house, I checked the garden. My corn plot is truly pitiful, but my five tomato plants look decent, perhaps because they are somewhat shaded by the pitiful corn patch. I see that some nice tomatoes have set on.

As I fixed supper in the evening, I glanced out to see Bess gnawing on a green apple. I wondered to myself where she got that apple. Next time I looked out, she had another green apple, and I left what I was doing to investigate. NO! These were not green apples but my prize tomatoes. Bess had pulled green tomatoes from the vine and was eating them! I was angry and let her know it. Not that anger will deter her. Is nothing sacred?! We have no wire fencing here to prevent this mischief.

It was 70 when I rolled out of bed at 6:00 Friday morning. Another hot August day. Nellie and Bess were eager to go for our walk. It’s not as easy to walk them here in this development as it is in the country, but it must be done. It’s routine for Nellie and me, but to little Bess everything is new, and she revels in it. Quail on a fence caught her attention, and she went hunting all by herself. Nellie and I stood and watched as she went through brush and climbed deer trails on a fruitless venture. She was curious and she checked it out.

We were all three relieved late this afternoon when Mike pulled in. Nellie was especially happy to see him, and Bess said, “Oh yeah! This guy again. Howdy! Where ya been? Well, any friend of Nell’s is a friend of mine.”

We visited while Mike unpacked his gear. He had a wonderful time motocaching Utah with son Yancey. I guess the scenery was spectacular. Nothing bad happened. He didn’t lose much – just his tin cup and the five-dollar Walmart camera case.

Seems like a “Colorado motocache” is in the planning stages for another year – maybe trailering the motorcycle and taking the dogs and me. I’ll insist on taking my sewing machine, my AG doll(s), patterns and fabrics so that I can play with Emmy.

Happy birthday to my dear mother-in-law, Bennie Warnock, who turned 99 on Friday, August 16. KW