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Just some easy, quiet beauty to carry you through the rest of the weekend.
A Handful Of Quiet Beauty
September 7, 2013 by
Backcountry Tea Bag Advice
September 6, 2013 by
While in the Sawtooth Range of Idaho, at the end of a long day of walking and fishing, my sweat had cooled on my skin and clothes and I was taking on a chill. I sat down on the edge of the lake I was camping beside, put on my down jacket and set up my stove to make a pot of hot water for tea. I carefully tore open my tea packet, looked down at the little paper label stapled to the tea bag string, read the word there, laughed and spoke aloud to myself, to God, to the lake, to the stones, to the wind, to the coming stars and thin crescent moon, to the dogs who were sitting by my side, to all the night peepers and wolves and wild ones, “Well. Doesn’t that beat all?“
From The Road:
September 6, 2013 by
I’m just home from a ten day blitz through Idaho. As I drove, I often found myself singing that wonderful old Johnny Cash song to myself, “I’ve been everywhere, man…” It was lovely to be in my home state. I began in Boise where my younger sister and I spent an evening hanging out with Willie Nelson. Before I left the city, I bought a dress, some truly scrumptious kombucha and hopped up the highway up to McCall — a fire town nestled on the ever picturesque shores of Lake Payette. There I stayed with a fire wife friend of mine, helped take care of her wee ones while she got out of the house for a short while…we are nearing the end of the fire season now and everyone is tired, myself included, but to be perfectly fair, I think it’s different when you have a couple of babies and your man is out jumping fire. That’s a real game changer. To all the fire wives out there who are raising families solo half the year, you have my utmost respect. Hang in there, gals. The winter is coming.
From McCall I cruised over to the Sawtooths for a few days of sweating and sunning in the backcountry, and a bit of hotspringing, naturally! After the Sawtooths, I sprinted down to our home in Pocatello where my friend let me crash on my parlor floor (it’s a strange experience, being a guest in your very own house, but I didn’t resent it, not at all). I went utterly berserkers at the farmers market in Pocatello, so rattled was I by the shockingly low prices for organic garden grown produce in my home state I bought more than a bushel of tomatoes, a double-dozen bell peppers, sweet corn, onions and then I lost my mind canning in my very own kitchen on a four burner gas range. Praise God from whom all blessings flow!!! I just sang that aloud in my opera falsetto. I ate a few brilliant peaches from my very own peach tree in the backyard — my mouth is watering as I recall those peaches, there’s no peach like your own home grown peach. I picked plums and canned some plum jam. I showed my friend how to make grape nectar with the grapes from our five ancient, fruit producing grapevines that line the fence of our jungle yard. I ate raspberries from my raspberry patch. Our yard at the Idaho house is incredible, it was wonderful to travel home while it was at it’s peak of fruit production.
Oh.
It was a great trip.
I saw pronghorn, a perfect blaze orange harvest moon, a handful of perfect trout, so many of my Pocatello girlfriends (miss you, you beautiful, strong ladies), effervescent constellations pivoting the night sky, many a spectacular sunset, thunderheads criss-crossing the interior, forest fire smoke, the milky white of the South Payette River cutting away at the flanks of the Sawtooths, grouse, aspen on the edge of yellow, a dipper! I saw a dipper doing its diving work in an outlet creek while in the Sawtooths! My first one ever! What a cutie. I was everywhere, man. I saw it all. I felt it all. And now it’s good to be back. I hope you’ve all been better than well.
x
Smile. You’re alive.
August 22, 2013 by
[whilst paddling the Methow River last night: it was rapture]
I was stressing about something a few weeks ago, I can’t remember what exactly…oh, it was probably the broken water pipe at our Idaho house. The broken water pipe that had been broken for a month and a half (and wasn’t noticed by our friends who are living in our house), the broken pipe that sprayed approximately 120 000 cubic gallons of water into the foundation of our home (amazingly, there’s no damage to the house), the broken pipe that created a $650 water bill in the month of July. Yeah. That’s what I was stressing. Fret not, Robert was miraculously boosting the Pocatello satellite smokejumper base at the time and was able to deal with the issue in person! How’s that for providence? I was so thankful I didn’t have to deal with the situation. So thankful.
I was telling one of our best friends about the broken pipe and some other life stuff and at the end of a long dialogue he gifted me with these three, tiny words:
Smile. We’re alive.
Thank you, Sam.
After receiving that text, I shut off my phone and walked into the Pasayten Wilderness of Northern Washington and I did smile and I was alive and I am alive and it is beautiful…and everything else I could generally say about life that is good and true and honest and courageous at any given moment welled up out of my heart onto the tip of my tongue. Things like: God is always good, my heart is beating cosmic music that joins me with the rest of the planet and the galaxy and the universe, I am alone but I am not lonesome, I am tiny and important, these raspberries are delicious, the trout are leaping for joy and I’m going to catch them one by one…and so on and so forth…I said all those true things, spoke the words into thin air until I was filled up and surrounded once again with light instead of shadow. Once you let a simple truth resonate in your spirit, play you like a horse hair bow plays a violin, the seeds of joy and gratitude grow like wildfire.
Lately, I’ve been saying those easy, steady words to my friends when I think they need to be reminded of the simplest truth…they are alive and life is beautiful.
I’m saying to you, today, right now:
Smile. You’re alive. And it’s beautiful. Even I can see that from way over here. Put on your high beams and shine your light.
X
The Humble Pickle
August 21, 2013 by
I feel a great affection for pickles. At home, in Idaho, where we have a regular sized fridge, I usually keep about 6 various jars of pickles open and ready for consumption. After a long day in the studio, I walk into our house, kick off my shoes, open the fridge and pull out a pickle jar, spear one with a fork, and sit down to eat one of the chilly little guys. They are so wonderfully refreshing. I prefer a pickle to a piece of chocolate. I prefer a pickle to a cold beer! Robert cannot comprehend it, but doesn’t question it since it leaves most of the chocolate to him. The beer too.
In point of fact, I like pickles so well that Tater Tot has the honorary nickname “PICKLE WART” — did you know that?
This year, at the Little Cabin In The Woods, I have been canning. I didn’t think it was possible to can with an electric hot plate (with really only one burner) so I didn’t attempt any preserves last season which I grew to deeply regret over the course of winter. In addition, there was the marinara kitchen carnage of 2012 at the smokejumper base mess hall that some of you will recall. It sort of put me off my preserving projects for the year…to say the least.
This year I’ve made more peach jam than we’ll be able to use (which means I get to give jars of it away to friends), peach lavender jam too, 30 jars of marinara sauce (so far), zucchini pickles, pickled beets and regular old cucumber pickles. I’m just getting started! Once canning season begins, I’m like a tornado in the kitchen. It’s utter madness. Delicious madness.
I wanted to share with you the three pickle recipes I have been using these past few weeks. They’re all easy peasy lemon squeezy. Buckle up, buttercups:
BEET PICKLES
This is my favorite pickle recipe, by far. I eat these babies straight-up, chopped up on salads, on steamed rice — throughout winter…
10-15 small fresh beets
2 cups cider vinear
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup water
1 cup peeled small whole onions
2 tsp pickling salt
2 tsp caraway seeds
1 tsp mustard seeds
[If your beets are medium or large, it’s fine. A beet is a beet.]
1. Cut the greens off your beets. If you are using small beets, you can use the greens in a salad!! Pop them in a pot, cover with water and boil them over high heat for about 40 minutes or so. Check to see if they are finished by stabbing them with a fork. Drain and rinse under cold water and rub them gently to remove the skins and the stalk stumps. If you are using larger beets, cut them into smaller pieces (whatever size you prefer).
2. Combine vinegar, sugar, water and salt in a pot, bring to a boil, stir occasionally to dissolve sugar.
3. Remove your squeaky clean jars from your canner! Divide onions, caraway seeds, mustard seeds evenly among your jars and then pack in your beet pieces.
4. Pour your vinegar mixture over beets to within a 1/2 inch of the rim of the jar. Screw on your lids and submerge the jars in your canner bath. Boil for 35 minutes.
*If I have more beets than I have vinegar mixture, I just whip up another batch of vinegar mixture or I eat the leftover beets. No biggie. I usually do four batches of beets at once to make it worth my time.
DILL PICKLES
*I like this recipe because these cucumbers don’t need to soak in brine overnight.
16-20 small pickling cucumbers
2 cups white vinegar
2 cups water
2 tbsp pickling salt
1 tbsp granulated sugar
a handful of fresh dill heads (the yellow blossom part) — I like to put about 2 in each jar because they are delicious and beautiful
4 cloves of garlic
2 tsp mustard seeds
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1. Cut a thin slice from the ends of each cucumber.
2. Prepare your brine by combining vinegar, water, salt and sugar in a pot — bring to a boil.
3. Remove your clean jars from your canner and place 1 or 2 dill heads, 1 or 2 garlic cloves and 1/2 tsp mustard seeds in each jar, pack with cucumbers and pour boiling vinegar mixture over top of jar contents. Screw on your lids and boil for 15 minutes.
Zucchini Pickles
*I know! Unheard of! This is a great recipe to use if you’re overrun with zucchini in your garden, which, is usually always.
2 lbs zucchini (ish)
1 tsp pickling salt
1 3/4 cups white vinegar
2/3 cup water
1/3 cup sugar
2 tbsp chopped fresh dill
a handful of dill heads (for beauty, of course)
2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper and dried thyme for EACH jar
1. Cut zucchini in strips (it looks nice if you cut them the length of the height of your canning jar), sprinkle with salt and let stand for 4 hours. Drain and rinse twice.
2. Mix vinegar, water, sugar, dill, parsley, pepper and thyme in a small pot, bring to a boil and stir until your sugar is dissolved.
3. Remove your clean jars from your canner where they have been boiling, pack your zuchini spears in the jars and pour the boiling vinegar mix over the jar contents to within a 1/2 inch of the jar rim. Screw on your lids and boil for 20 minutes.
*These turn out kind of sweet and spicy with an interesting texture that is quite different from a cucumber pickle.
There you have it!
Now that you know how I feel about the humble pickle, if you have a killer recipe please do send it my way!
Bless your little beets,
XX