Bits & Pieces

I just saw this wonderful article by Michael Pollan in the NYT. An intriguing vision.

Also, was so happy to see that the amazing work of Geoffrey Canada is part of Obama’s poverty program.

I just finished up a terrific book that dad sent me: Anticancer: A New Way of Life by David Servan-Schreiber. A quick read. Apparently well researched. I loved learning the actual chemical mechanisms that influence cancer growth and retardation. Inspiring. I drank my green tea today. Yoga-ed. Jogged. Feeling quite virtuous at the moment.

But closer to home, Ch.t and the girls planted a bunch of seeds today. We’ve been NOSHING on MACHE and learned that it should be a good winter crop, so we’re planting bunches. I don’t know what will really come up, but we’re fiddling about with the garden still. Had yams, mache, goat cheese, zuchinni, seared scallops (much talk of Tata), red bells (again), for dinner. El yum.

A couple of weeks ago, we went out to dinner with some friends from school. One family is Pakistani, so we met at their favorite restaurant - in culturally-appropriate dress! We had so much fun. See flickr pics.

On the house, I took the second structural engineers’ recommendation and pulled together the official architectural plans. Had it all printed on 18×24 paper. I met with the planning dept down at the city offices hoping for a signoff from planning (as I’d precisely explained in my email preceding the meeting). While my planning contact didn’t appear to have read the email so as to understand the purpose of our meeting (I wrote that the engineers wanted a planning sign off before they started structural calcs), she fully approved the plan, but won’t SIGN anything until she sees the structural calcs & plans. Why am I feeling dizzy? I also met with the plan checker and went over everything. He mentioned that the first engr. we’d been working with was well thought of at the city - and they’d never heard of engr #2. I went home & found the quote from engr #2 (2x the verbal quote of engr #1). Called engr #1 - told him that if our job was too small, uninteresting, if he was too busy, etc. - pls let me know & I’d stop awaiting his official quote (5 wks now since our meeting). No, no. He wants to quote - but he’s in the middle of a big job - maybe in 2 weeks. So we’ll see.

Was very glad that Kit’s MRI was clear. Hoping her vertigo can be resolved with more tests.

The choocks are starting to dial back their laying. We’re easily eating everything they produce. But we’re about to become a chicken spa again until late Jan or so.

Can’t wait to see everyone on turkey day!

 

Sweet Potatos & Politics

Okay. Okay. I know I’m supposed to update the blog. But what unfinished, unfocused, unformed part of my life should I describe?

Maybe… the lack of action on the house front. Called structural engr #1 back (gave him 2 weeks to get a quote back to us on the work) - he says, “Oh, RIGHT! Sorry. I have to type that up and get it out to you right away!.” Still haven’t seen anything. Contacted to other (locally recommended) structural engineers today. Left messages for people “in the office.” No return calls yet. I can’t believe with the state of the economy and housing market that all these people are hugely BUSY? Yeesh.

Maybe… the really awesome dinner I cooked last night and how happy I am (for this moment) to see my kids eating great food (and WHY is this SUCH an issue for American moms?). But analysis aside - baked yams, mache (lambs lettuce)-based salad, red bell peppers, Michelle’s chicken schnitzel (which Beck helped me make). The girls TORE into the food and loved everything (almost unheard of). After dinner, the girls helped me clean the kitchen & then had more red bell peppers for dessert. I was a smiley girl. I get so tired of their constant begging for sugary treats. It’s so nice when that urgency leaves them and their real food desires rise up to the surface.

Maybe… the sadly hateful woman I spoke to at the LDS ancestry center yesterday. I feel like I’m the last person to join this party already in progress. And I know I’ve said stuff like this before. But I rarely get to interact with these folks face to face. Here is a woman. A Christian woman, I assume, as she is volunteering for her church. She came over as soon as I sat down at my microfilm station and started bemoaning the state of the nation. I bemoaned right along with her - yes, these bailouts are frustrating - so much for the wealthy, so little for others. Which I guess wasn’t quite her line. And then she starts in on the damn mus|ims and their flag with that “sickle thing.. I don’t know I won’t even look at it” and how (and I quote) those “damn mus|ims made us get rid of our flag in the schools and put up theirs and made us stop saying the pledge of allegiance and having Christmas decorations.” Whoa. Whoa. I try to back her up - can’t fly the flag - theirs instead? Really? Where? I just can’t imagine. And the pledge - honey that’s a separation of church and state issue, not a reaction to pressure from the mus|im community.

Then she starts in on the Mexicans and how her home value is going down with the rif-raff moving in and not mowing their lawns and leaving cars on their lawns. Mmmm… I try to see her point… imaging if I felt uncomfortable walking in a neighborhood I’d lived in for 30 years, etc. But I offer that one of the things I love about ancestry is how it humbles me to uncover the road my ancestors walked and better understand the path that every new cultural group faces as it enters our society. Maybe I’m not fully comfortable seeing a particular immigrant group - insular, not mixing much - but then I remember how MY ancestors did EXACTLY the same thing when they came to this country. I try to remember this and work through my discomfort. Well! She says - what about those stupid people buying loans they can’t afford. Well, yes, I say. There’s ignorance and poor decisions, but there are two parties here - a buyer and a seller. Shouldn’t we look to both for blame. Well! What about those people taking advantage of welfare. Mmmm… Sure, I say, there is corruption in any system. Let’s say that welfare abuse is a 100M$ problem (I have no idea). But I’m much more concerned about what we as a country have bought for the 3 trillion dollars we’ve spent in Iraq or the 700B$ for the bailout. I don’t like how many leaders use these little problems to distract the population from these bigger issues. Well! I watch Bill O’Rei||y at night and… it went on and on. Finally the phone rang, she answered, and I got to work. But oh, my! I must say memories of Nannie came to mind - the racist things she’d sometimes say. Is it a generational thing?

Sometimes I just can’t understand how a religious person can be so full of hate, with a heart so closed, and a mind so open to these inaccurate, hateful media personalities. Isn’t God supposed to be about LOVE? Where does being our “brother’s keeper” and “loving my neighbor as myself” fall within religious values these days? Its one of the things that pushes me further and further away from organized religion. Are there any pastors (priests, etc) out there warning and guiding their parishioners away from inaccurate hate spreaders? Shouldn’t there be? Well, it was real wake up call to me. Shocking. Sad. So very scary.

 

Apfelmus

We are processing apples. Many, many apples. It is fall-ish here. Still having morning fog and warm afternoons, but the days & nights are getting cooler. We have a regional park nearby that was once a family farm. There is still a huge apple orchard with 144 varieties of apples - none of which I’ve ever heard before (not that I’m an apple expert). Every color, size, taste you can imagine. If the crop is good, they’ll open the orchard to the public one day each fall. They had a bumper crop this year. We picked four five-gallon buckets of apples. How much is that in bushels? Lugs? I have no idea. It is a lot of apples - at least for us. This year I got crazy and chose big round apples. In previous years, they’ve limited each family to one bucket, but this year there was no limit & I chose nice big fruit instead of the wormy ones I’ve taken in previous years.

The apples sat a few days while I finished the basement plans and met with the structural engineer. Then I started digging into them. A neighbor and the girls joined the fun last night and today and we’ve gotten through a little under half the apples. We have 14 quarts of applesauce, one apple crisp, and plenty of apple slices in our bellies to show for our work. I’m about to go back to it after this sit down break.

Canning always makes me think of Nannie. Especially making apfelmus (that’s applesauce for you non-German speakers). We kids used to torture Nannie by complaining about the texture of her applesauce - if it was smooth, we’d whine that it was too slimy. When she’d make it chunky the next time, we’d complain that it was lumpy. Poor Nannie.

At some point this morning, Catey decided to stop slicing apples and clean the bathrooms. I can’t explain this. I can just hope the floor doesn’t rot out from all the water she uses before we get to remodeling that room. She finished the front bathroom & moved to the back bathroom where she filled the tiny sink (which was recently lovingly decorated with fingernail polish) with warm water. The temperature of the water so delighted her that she made everyone put their hands in it to feel the lovely water.

Becky was helping me wash mason jars while Catey cleaned. For some reason, she too found her rinse water of a perfect temperature and asked me if she could climb into the (rather small) sink. I told her she was too small & that she hadn’t bathed in the sink since she was nine months old! After I loaded the jars into the water bath to sterilize, I went to the office to down load pics. When I went back to the kitchen, I found that Catey & Becky had both quietly undressed & were sitting in their respective sinks. Happy as clams. These kids are so weird - must be their father’s genes.

As if that wasn’t odd enough, a little later we found an apple worm crawling on one of the canvas bags the apples we sitting in. I asked Beck to go throw it to the chickens, but she decided that it was her new pet. She put it (not kidding here) on her tummy to crawl around and DANCED AROUND THE KITCHEN WITH IT. It later got a ride on her upper arm. I think it must have expired by now.

We’re moving on to make some apple butter next. I’ll let you know if the crazies do anything else notable during the process.

 

This Ol’ House - The Saga Continues

I’ve been reluctant to post ANYTHING about the house until something actually happened. At last, I have a tiny bit of news to share. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been working on detailed drawings of the foundation work, window wells, entry doorway, and new stairwell for the house. After countless iterations, I got a set of drawings together at 1/2″ scale that fully showed our intent for the basement work. And today we met with the structural engineer. He’ll put a quote and contract together for us. He’s going to do two footing designs - one for a scenario where Ch.t and I do the excavation & build a parallel foundation structure in sections. One for the scenario where a contractor comes in and lifts/supports the house, rips out all the structural stuff, and builds a new foundation.

I am still working on the full set of plans to submit to the city (Title 24 stuff, electrical, roof diagram, elevations, etc.). As the structural engineer does his stuff, I’ll add it to my stuff and at some future date (hopefully in a month or so), I’ll meet with the city to see if anything is missing, fix that, then submit the package to plan check.

Did I say WHAT we’re planning to do? I don’t remember. Well, the plan now is to minimize ANY changes to the outside of the house. All changes need to be designed so that they can be hidden behind fences or landscaping - or basically - invisible to any public right-of-way. (This because of our historic resource status.) I have a verbal OK from the top two people I was working with in planning (just TRY to get these people to put ANYTHING in writing - they just ignore all requests for ANY form of confirmation of their decisions - but I have saved a voicemail from the top dude agreeing to my proposal - for what that’s worth) to do the following: drop the floor in the basement to enable 8′ ceilings, add a parallel perimeter foundation inside the old foundation, add window wells and egress-approved windows in the basement, and replace the stairs into the basement with an enclosed stairwell that starts at the pantry, descends toward the back yard, turns 180deg at a landing that has a door opening to the back yard, then descends the rest of the way into the basement. Because these stairs will go right through the area where our washer and dryer sit, the laundry stuff will move to the basement. They also agreed that we can replace current windows with in-kind modern windows, but that will happen later.

Our intent is to firm up our cripple wall area and get a better foundation under us for seismic reasons. We also want to drop the basement floor level so that someday we have the option of building out some of the basement for living space — or so that more space is available for resale purposes. Some day in the not too distant future the girls are going to stop sleeping with us and start demanding their own room. We intend to be prepared for that and one girl can either have my office or move downstairs.

Once the foundation is done, we plan to move on to replacing windows and painting the outside of the house and then (or concurrently if our buddy Barry does the painting) do the landscaping. My goal is to have a house party in a decent goshdarn yard in 2010 to celebrate the 100th birthday of the house.

So there.

I hope I will be able to start posting more updates as the year concludes.

 

Small Town Values

Great post at the daily kos on small town values.

 

Becky HIKES!

With so much going on in the world, I hesitate to post such a self-centered posting. But I can’t say I have any appropriate or coherent thoughts to offer the greater conversation, so here is a report on what I did with my summer vacation.

The short story is that Becky hiked! And have you ever seen a cuter little backpack - bought at FULL RETAIL price from REI. I simply couldn’t resist. And she carried it. Our goal this trip was to go through all the basic steps of hiking in the smallest way in hopes that we can get the girls used to walking and carrying weight and continue to hike with us. I feel like I’m training horses. I’m sure there is a bad mommy award in this somewhere for me.

So we hiked about 2-3 miles per day. Beck has done FAR more than that without complaint in parks near home, but knowing that this was a Backpacking Trip, she decided it was a perfect time for the Becklebeast Power Play — and decided to take a “break,” oh, every TENTH of a mile or so. That was SO much fun and a great opportunity to practice my patience and acceptance. Then when we reached camp, she’d announce that she wanted to hike more!

More interestingly, we explored the idea of mental toughness and self-fullfilling prophecies. We practiced changing our feelings from tired to energetic by saying things like, “I’m a strong hiker!” “My legs are so POWERful!” “I could hike all DAY!” “I want some more JELLY BELLYs!”

My secret (well, not so secret) hope is that the girls will want to hike the JMT with Ch.t and I for my 50th birthday. Beck will be 8.75 yrs and Catey will be 11.25 yrs. Probably a disaster waiting to happen. But I’m making plans and staying optimistic. We’ll see what the coming years bring. No, I haven’t spreadsheeted our gear list (yet), but I have made a detailed itinerary of 8 mi or so per day - makes 27 days of hiking. Nothing like planning ahead.

Overall we had fun. We saw some new trail… and a beautiful new lake (Lake of the Woods). Saw Lake Aloha at low levels (all previous sightings were at full levels). Met BUNCHES of friendly dogs. Got our feet covered with tree SAP at Triangle Lake. Made up a song (with a million verses) called “Little Chippy” (to the tune of “Going Courtin’” from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers) about the chipmunks we saw along the trail. And did I mention… BECKY HIKED!!

 

Palm Tree Haircut

We finally had the palm tree pruned. This is a massive 100-yr old palm in the front yard next to the electrical, cable, and phone wires. It likes to drop 20-lb fronds onto the sidewalk. So far no small life forms have been harmed. Last year a family of owls lived in it. Every storm knocked some fronds out, but we didn’t want to bother the owls so we didn’t have it pruned.

This year, it started dropping hundreds of pounds of fronds in one go (dry weather? squirrel nests?). When the big fronds fall it sounds like a bomb going off. One of the falls took out our telephone line and pulled a gutter off the side of the house. It is getting dangerous and with school, the huge flea market (where the sidewalk is occupied by shoppers for two days straight), and storm season approaching, we decided to get it pruned.

I don’t particularly like the tree. It shades the garden and is costly to maintain. It messes up our fence line. But it is a historic tree and our neighbors like it. And we like happy neighbors. So.

We tried PG&E (but they said NO - the fronds were interfering with LOW volatage lines and they don’t care about that). We tried the city, but they said no - even though it is on city property, it is 10′ or more from the curb and therefore (by law) our problem.

We got three quotes that ranged from $2800 to $1100. We decided to go with the $1600 bid. They guys came this morning and took out a huge quantity of fronds. Huge. A monstrous pile.

At one point a very frightened squirrel literally FLEW out of the tree and landed with a loud thump on the front porch. It scampered up all the walls and finally fell over the railing and fled toward the street. The girls didn’t think that was funny, but I did.

The girls had a great time watching the men at work. They brought in a 60′ lift inside the yard past the walnut trees, cracked up a bunch of concrete, busted a water line, and dug up a bunch of dirt. The fence was broken in two places. I don’t think we’ll have the lift brought in the yard again (hopefully by the time this big tree needs a trim we’ll have landscaped the yard). We shut off the water main and fixed the broken fitting. We kludged a fix to the fence. The guys removed the broken concrete. There are still trenches in the yard I thought they’d smooth out. But they didn’t put the lift through a window or hit the house with it so that’s good.

I wish the above could have been more humorous, but it’s not. Still packing for the hike. I think we’re in good shape. We’ll pick up Ch.t at the station at 8am tomorrow morning & then head for the hills.

 

Beach Camping Trip

Well, we’re really packing in the trips here in August. We returned from the mountains. Ch.t worked a pile of days, then we decided to head to the beach for some beach camping. Ch.t was working a 72 hr shift in the days preceding our planned trip, and then got nabbed again, extending it to a 96 hr shift and shortening our trip from 3 days to 2. Fortunately, another guy phoned in and offered to take the fourth shift so Ch.t could come home and leave with us. At 2 days the trip would have been hardly worth it. Getting that 3rd day back made a big difference. Thanks other engineer guy!

So I procrastinated my way through packing (one of my least favorite things to do, right next to shopping and cleaning) for the trip. We brought a full car camping set up. It is amazing that we can llama pack with much less gear than we can car camp. We have to put the box on top of the car to car camp and it just seems like so much stuff! Having just come off a backcountry trip, the girls were a little confused… “So mom, we’re going to sleep here? Next to the car? Like in this parking lot?” They thought it was ugly and boring and I must say I don’t blame them. Once we hit the beaches and got to play with rocks they enjoyed it more.

We headed north and explored the Sonoma Coast, mostly Sonoma Coast State park, Stillwater Cove Regional Park, Salt Point State Park, and Goat Rock Beach. We were very impressed with the Sonoma county regional parks - hot showers, flush toilets, small campgrounds with trails and reasonable space between sites. We were also interested in the state parks, which, while they had fewer facilities, were linked to miles of cool trails.

It was a foggy, cool trip. I brought cozy clothes for the girls but for some unknown reason (early onset senility, perhaps), brought a sun dress and tank tops and shorts for me. I threw in a cozy top at the last minute and then wore it for three days straight - night and day. We had a campfire both nights and roasted MOONMALLOWS. I fear that the girls have lost any sense of decorum regarding the “M” word. They think it is hilarious to yell it right out loud.

So we visited the beaches in the vicinity and hiked a beautiful redwood grove trail near our camp. The fog was relentless and we only saw the sun for a couple of hours in the late afternoon. We tried not to think of Jan Ten beach in Paa Mul. Sigh. We saw lots of touring bikes along Highway 1 - which got Ch.t all excited for a Pacific coast ride.

All in all a nice trip. Next time, we might head for Wright’s Beach Campground or Bodega Dunes - or maybe even southward where we might see more SUN.

Next week we’re heading to Desolation Wilderness for five days of hiking sans llamas. We’ve got tiny backpacks for Catie & Becky and they might carry a pound or two. Chet and I have stuffed our lightweight packs full to 30-40 lbs. Yikes. Rather over the weight limit for those packs, but not quite enough to move to our old heavy duty packs. After a couple of days on the trail, the weight will come down into a better range for the (largely nonexistent) suspension system. We’re looking forward to being more independent and hope Beck will agree to hike the itsy bitsy mileage we’ve planned. You’ll be the first to know!

 

Home from Hiking - Six-Day Emigrant Wilderness

Hey! We’re back from our hiking trip. Very sad that Michelle & family and Maud & family couldn’t come with us, but we figured out a different trip and went anyway. We found a great area for large family groups and will be all ready with a plan if the stars align and Michelle &/or Maud are able to join us in a future year.

We went into Emigrant Wilderness via the Burst Rock / Gianelli Cabin trailhead. Camped near Powell Lake on night 1, Whitesides Meadow on night 2, wonderful Upper Relief Valley on night 3, Y Meadow Lake on night 4, and Chewing Gum lake on night 5.

The llamas were fine (if a little bored by our tiny itinerary). Catey was a star and hiked every mile beautifully. About 75% of the time I wouldn’t have wanted to go any faster. I wore a pack with emergency stuff in it - so that allowed me a better workout.

We came off the trail wanting more and felt really pleased and happy as a little family which (if you know anything about our parenting journey to date) is a really, really good thing.

 

Livin’ Small

Some folks might be livin’ large, but we are staying small. Do I even want to try and explain where we are on the house? It is agony enough to go through it - still worse to write about it. Suffice it to say we won’t be livin large.

We’ve been loving tooling around town on our bikes doing all our errands. It is such a simple, slow, peaceful way to go. Trader Joes, the bank, the dentist, Dale Hardware, library, post office, tax lady, even play dates. We haven’t tried REI or CostCo on bikes (family style) yet, but it will probably be next. It’s so nice to just hop off the bikes at a park and let the girls play around while we lounge in the shade. Yesterday, Beck & I stopped at a park while Ch.t & Catie rode a mile or so to a local farmer’s fruit stand to pick up a snack. They came back and we noshed on nectarines, peaches, apples, pickling cucumbers (Catie’s pick), and green beans. Eventually we rode home for dinner. Somehow, it is much easier to say “yes” to a park stop when traveling on bikes. In the car, it seems we’re Going Some Where Important And Cannot Stop.

And how about Carlos Sastre and CSC!??!! The just BURNED up Alpe d’Huez today! I can’t wait for the time trials to see how it all works out.