Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone!

Today's been more tricksy than treatsy for me, but we all have those days, don't we?!

So far, the hive-cozy we built for the bee box fell completely apart and was rescued by the liberal application of duct tape.

My bee hive has wasps, and no evidence of a queen. There's little hope that the colony will survive the winter.

I can't take a decent shot of the last batch of soap I made, not even to save my life. Luckily, Mr. Boom stepped in so you can get a feel for the real-life gorgeous color of the hemp-oil soap. There are two batches on the drying board, one ivory one grass green. I hope this is visible on your monitor, since the difference is imperceptible on mine.


I think I might try building a light box to get some nice photos. But not today.

Definitely not today!

The stripper

Uh, remember the other day I used the brand new pressure washer to rinse off our house?

Well, uh, errr, um--I kinda goofed up....

So now I get to strip ALL the paint. I'm a stripper!

Oh joy...

You can be luckier than me, just enter our one year anniversary give-away!

Newsflash! It's winter!

Chirp-chirp is in the dining room, sorting through her new school binders and paper, pens and pencils, getting her gear ready for the start of school tomorrow.
Suddenly I hear...

"OH MY GOSH!"
"IT'S WINTER!!!"

It's only 3:40 and she needs to turn on the light to see what she's doing.
The summer sun is gone.

I bought a few rust-colored mums at the hardware store today.
When did I start buying old lady flowers? Am I entering my own winter, too?

Autumn is my very favorite season. Why am I so reluctant to welcome it this year? I usually revel in the cooler weather, I'm like a happy little aster awakening after the heat and heaviness of the summer. But this year, autumn just looks like winter in training.

Maybe making an apple pie will turn my spirits around. Too bad I don't have any apples. I do have some marshmallows left over from camping. They'll go stale soon, so I guess I'll make some Rice Crispy treats instead.

Nope, just not ready for summer to end.

What do you mean I don't have a choice?!!

Musings from the middle of the night

I've been leading a very uninteresting life lately.

Per doctor's orders, I'm laying off using my right hand as much as possible. The splint was removed last Friday, just in time for the weekend, and just in time to leap into doing all the things that hadn't been getting done while I was laid up. Obviously, my right hand was jealous of the way my left hand and I were beginning to get along so well, because the first thing my right hand did on Saturday morning was cut my left hand rather severely with my newly sharpened Global chef knife while lopping off beet tops.

Ooouuuch.

Chirp-chirp starts eighth grade on Wednesday. She and her classmates are the top dawgs on campus this year. She's sad that she only has one friend in one class only this year. Hopefully her lunch period will jive with more of her friends' schedules. Better yet, maybe she'll add to her circle of close friends. They're a good bunch of kids, but it's always good to branch out, I think.

Today was the opening day of grouse season. Mr. Boom took the day off, and after my almost-daily doctor appointment, we headed to the hills. Grouse are abundant around here, and dumb as heck. But maybe they're not quite dumb enough, as we didn't see a single one today! We did find an enormous round of wood we managed to hoist into the back of the car and bring home. Mr. Boom wants to make an outdoor table from it.

The most exciting part of the day was toward the end. We'd given up on grouse and decided to follow another road that leads to a nice patch of boletes from which we've harvested some great fungi in years past. We drove quite a distance down the road, only to have it suddenly end in a quasi-parking area. Beyond the turn-around area the road had been decommissioned. "Well, okay" we thought. This isn't a bad thing. We can still hike in to the spot, and maybe there will be fewer people looking for mushrooms.

As we were getting out of the car, a gi-freaking-normous elk crossed the path in front of us. I scrambled to find Mr. Boom's camera (mine died and has yet to be replaced) but couldn't find it before the elk passed. A moment later, though, a second and even larger elk appeared in the same spot. This guy was at least a 6x6 (meaning six branches on each antler). He too paused and gazed at us, then moved on into the thick trees on either side of the decommissioned road/path. We were quite breathless, and looking at each other in amazement when a third gi-freaking-normous elk appeared. Again the pause, the gaze, and the eerily silent passage into the trees.

We eventually got ourselves together and started down the path. Just as the car was out of visual range, and just past where the elk had crossed the path, we heard the cougar. The very loud and angry cougar. The cougar that yoyled and yelped and screamed. The cougar that was between us and the car. After it quieted down and our pulses were back in the normal range again, we decided to continue on. Neither one of us really wanted to get closer to the source of that sound, even though the safety of the car was on the other side.

We had walked a few hundred yards further when the rumbling started. Mr. Boom's advice of "GET BEHIND A TREE" sounded good, so I did. The sound of a hundred bison (or maybe just three large elk?) stampeding toward us grew louder, but then veered away.

Our best guess is that a cougar had a relatively fresh kill still near the original road. The elk, which were removing themselves from our presence, must have then entered her presence and pissed her off. The elk eventually took off and were looping back around to the decommissioned road ahead of us when they heard or smelled us, at which point we didn't hear or see them again.

We continued on to where the mushrooms used to grow, only to find it all logged out. Instead of Ponderosa Pines and boletes, there were a few scraggly tamaracks and pile after pile after pile of slash.

No grouse, no fungi, no pics of wild animals. Just a big round of wood. Still, it was nice to get off the couch and get out of the house. Just don't tell the doctor. Also, I'm not really typing this, because that would also be against doctor's orders. Time to tape the hand back up and behave, I guess.

BORING!

And then there were two (by Kat)

I'm trying so hard to get over this pneumonia, but for some reason I haven't quite got it kicked yet.

So many things are falling by the wayside, including this poor little blog! But, due to a series of tragedies, I have time today to post something of an update!

I really needed to go to work today, and by 8:00 I'd managed to haul my body out of bed and was debating the energy expenditure required for taking a shower. Chirp-chirp was well on her way to getting out of the house and to school on time, judging from the sounds in the kitchen below, so in I stepped. I came downstairs and poured dry cereal into a bowl just as she was stepping out the door. Then I poured on the milk and collapsed into my chair.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

Oh joy. Mr Boom's cousin attempted suicide (again) last night, and we were part of the frantic calls trying to find him and rescue him. We hadn't heard whether he'd pulled through last night, so I figured the pounding on the door was related to that whole fiasco.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

When I opened the door I saw Chirp-chirp, tears streaming down her face, sobs issuing from her gut, and one chick in her hand. On her way out of the yard on her way to school, she discovered this chick out of the pen. When she went to return the chick to the pen, she found another chick mutilated. No sign of the third chick. The deceased was Black, of course, her favorite of the three.

We eventually found the missing chick, who appeared to be physically unhurt, if not totally mentally traumatized.

Obviously, turning around and heading back toward school was out of the question, so I had her come inside so I could finish my (now very soggy, grrrr) cereal. Then we designed and built a new coop for the chicks.

I suppose you'd like pictures. Well, I'd be happy to give them to you, but I can't. The dad-gum coop is stuck mostly-upside-down-but-kinda-at-an-angle between a rock wall and a wood fence. There it will stay until Mr. Boom comes home and helps me get it into place.

A friend called just a few minutes ago. She wants to go morel hunting. It sure beats heading to the psyche ward in the big city this evening!

(I really don't want to get too close to one of those places in case they realize I'm on the wrong side of the wall!)

Port Townsend suggestions? (by Kat)

We're heading off to Port Townsend later this summer with Mr. Boom's brother and family.
Four adults, two teens, and one pre-teen.
Any suggestions of good places to stay? Eat? Play?
Has anyone stayed at Fort Worden State Park?
Do you know a good house to rent?
Is the Dungeness Spit worth the trip?
Help me out here, folks.

In other news, I just baked the first rhubarb crisp of the season. I'm the only one here who likes it, so I felt justified in eating most of it in one sitting, right out of the dish. The dish was nice and warm, which helped allay the shivering.

The dish has since cooled, my tummy is warm and full, and I'm heading off to bed.

Guess I shouldn't have gone to work today. Today's wind is less than yesterday's, but I think any wind is really detrimental to this whole "getting over pneumonia" thing I'm supposed to be doing.

Over and out.

Wind and whine (by Kat)

Lord oh lord am I ever tired of being sick!

I was doing better by the end of last week, but then Saturday found me outside from 8:30-2:30 engaged with the public in an outreach event. My little town has a reputation for it's breeze, and, true to form, the breeze showed up to the big event adorned with all her bells and whistles. She celebrated in style, did our blustery friend, with sustained breezes of 18-39 mph with gusts up to 50 mph.

The hardiest of the bunch, the archaeologists, stuck it out the whole day. I threw my exhibit into the back of my work rig a little early so I could hear their final lecture. The snake biologists packed it in quite a bit earlier, much to the dismay of my daughter and her friends.

After a so-called "slumber" party the night before to celebrate Chirp-chirp's 13th birthday, Mr Boom brought the truckload of adolescent sleep-deprived girls to the park so they could participate in the scheduled snake sneak outing. When they discovered the trip was canceled, Mr Boom (my hero!) put the girls back into the truck, drove them down the canyon, and took them on their own private snake sneak. They only found one rattlesnake, but they called it a triumph since the "professionals" said none were to be found.

Anyway, Sunday morning found me nasty sick again, but with a tremendous urge to be...

ELSEWHERE.

I wanted out of the wind that's been howling around our house, I wanted out of the shrub-steppe despite the previous day's extolling of her beauty. I wanted trees and water and stillness and beauty.

I got it.

I love this tiny little pond nestled high in the hills.
It's not always this color blue, usually it's even blue-er.

I started meandering down the old road, but hacking as I was on the way down,
I realized that coming back up would likely kill me.

Something to look forward to...

PS Right now our local breeze is 40 mph with little gusts of 60 mph. I wonder when the real spring winds will hit? Hah!

PPS Beaufort Scale I recorded an "8" on Saturday, today's land conditions indicate a "9," although that's higher than the weather report says.

PPPS Sick people are boring. I apologize.

A toast to you

It's Friday evening and I'm sitting at my desk with a glass of Beaujolais in hand, wondering why I haven't posted one. single. time. this past week.

It's been a hard week, but not that hard. No deaths, no illness, nothing over the top. But everything has been struggly this past week.

Struggly? My blog, my vocabulary!

I made some good food and some great food and some bad food for Easter at my in-laws. I took great photos during the process, but didn't get any photos of two of the three completed items. The one item I did get a "finished" shot of tasted terrible. You can't tell that from the photo, of course, but I would know. Oh, how do I know. Is there anything worse than a room full of people politely picking over the visually stunning but crappy dessert you made for Easter dinner? Yes, there is. What's worse is finding out that your mother-in-law's mother-in-law (did you follow that?) is famous (so why didn't anyone tell me this?!!!) for her version of the dessert. Mille Feuille, aka Napoleons, were my Easter Waterloo.

Let's see, this past week it has also snowed every day. I really love my job because I get to be outside a good portion of the time between April and October. But when you're lugging tractor batteries through the wilds and the snow starts falling as you're wiring up loggers and sensors and you discover your chest-waders don't seem to fit anymore (they shrank, I swear!) and now it's hailing and what else could go wrong and then you realize you forgot that one part you needed to complete the circuit and then you think you might have a tick crawling up the center of the back you might just want to start crying a little bit but you can't 'cause scientists don't cry, well, then, you might not like your job so much, just then. Just sayin'.

I did get a nice cheery note this week from my parents. They wanted to know when their granddaughter's birthday is (or was?)... Said grandchild responded to said e~mail. Said parents of mine then sent the e~mail back to said daughter with spelling corrections and asked for said daughter to please write more often.

And, it's snowing again...

More Beaujolais, please. 'Cause y'all know I need a little more "whine," right?

Company coming in the morning. Need to finish cleaning the house.

Thanks for listening.

Egads! A tick! Help! (by Kat)

I would have written about the fantastic hike we took this evening, but I just found a tick in my clothes.

The brain--it has ceased to function.

Doing laundry on hot. Hot!

This really was going to be a very lovely post with photos of wild turkeys and deer.

Shuddering, shuddering, shuddering.

Soon to be showering, showering, showering.

I really hate ticks.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day (by Kat)

Well, looky-see what came to me,
a vision of purple from St. Patty.

These johnny-jump-ups are very first flowers in our yard, and a most welcome site this evening.

"Boo" and "Hiss" to the doctors in the big city far away who changed my grandma's appointment from 8:30 to 11:30 without notifying us. We were finally seen at 1:00, and didn't get home until after 3:00. Too long a day for my grandma, and for me, too.

Pass the green (labeled) beer, please. I need it!

By the way, we have a batch of IPA home-brew fermenting in the closet even as we speak. I can't wait to taste it. If the smell is anything to go by, this is our best batch yet! For now, pass the Broken-Halo.

Cheers to St. Patrick! This round is on me!

I'm not dead (by Kat)

No, really, I'm still alive....

Bet posted! Did you see that? If any of you were thinking she was just my invisible friend, I'm sorry to disappoint. She's real, she's wonderful, and in my eyes (and her kids' and her husband's and her student's etc.) she really is a superhero, in spite of her protestations and other bemoanings.

So, we finally fixed the leak in the roof. That was fun. Every vacation should find you safe and sound back at home in a puddle of water in the kitchen. Yep.

Planted our spring seeds...and the chickens promptly flew the coop and ate them all up. That was fun. Yep.

Been fighting dizzy spells and fevers for the past two weeks. Fun. Yep.

You see why I haven't been posting? I'm a whiner. I'm in a big fat whiny mood.

OH! Best mood enhancer of late? The Good Life! You can watch it instantly on Netflix. A solid middle-class couple decide to give up on traditional commerce and values. They decide to become self-sustaining on their little lot in the suburbs of London. It's a British series, shot in the early 1970's. I can't tell you how much I love British TV. The actors look like real people. Paris Hilton couldn't make it in British film--hooray!

Other mood enhancers? Bet's mom has crocus blooming in her yard. Mine aren't up yet, but the hops are poking through the soil, as well as some bulbs. I planted a ton of free day lilies last fall (Freecycle rocks my world!) and those are coming up. I'm glad to see they survived this winter.

Of course, it did snow a bit this morning, so they're not out of the woods yet.

I'm taking Friday off from work, so I'll try to post something nice a wonderful and heartwarming then. In the meantime, chins up! Solider on! Hup two! Land ho! Steady as she goes!

G'night!

Hangin' on...(by Kat)

If I just make it through the rest of this week I'll be happy.

3rd.
Day.
of.
Migraine.

Finally ate a bit for dinner.

Important meetings every day this week.
They're trying to take my funding.
They won't get it.
But still...

Christmas in two weeks?!
So much candy to be made!
Presents to be wrapped!
The sound of tape peeling off the dispenser is loud enough to make me die.

The cats are cuddly and friendly.
My room is dark and warm.
Tomorrow will be better.
If I don't die tonight.

I've made a new tag for this post.
Sheer outright whining.

I hope you have a glorious day.
I hope someone makes you smile and laugh.
I'm sorry that won't be me.
But if you find a nice person to make you smile, will you send them my way?
On tip-toes, in the dark?
I'll be under the covers.