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Blackberries and Bicycles

Moscow Sunsets

Southeastern Summers

My parents' pond at sunset

Johnson Farm at the Peaks of Otter on the Blue Ridge Parkway

Otter River

I grew up in the Southeast.  As a teenager, I was involved in a summer tennis league.  Our practices were from nine to eleven in the morning.  I would bike home from practice and turn on the garden hose and soak myself in the freezing water to cool down prior to going in for a shower.  It was that hot and muggy.

When we traveled back east to visit family last week, the weather was unbelievably well-behaved.  It had rained all summer, so everything was verdant.  The temperatures barely reached into the 90s at their worst, and in the mountains, the temperature one morning never exceeded 70.  Perfect.  While I can't say I have any regrets about moving to the Northwest and having dry summers with cool evenings, I will say I do occasionally miss the lazy, warm summer evenings.  And it goes without saying I miss the trees and the flowers and the abundance of water.  I also had forgotten a lot of things about southeastern summers.  For instance, I had forgotten that if you take a hike in the morning, your sneakers will be soaked with the morning dew.  Your feet and ankles will be covered with fresh cut grass snips or leaf bits.  The same dew also makes the really outrageously ginormous spider webs visible.  Except when it doesn't, and you walk right into them and spend the next 30 minutes trying to pick off bits of sticky, hoping against hope that the spider wasn't home at the time you crashed into its domicile.  And gnats.  I had completely forgotten that gnats existed, until they made their presence known via kamikaze runs into my eyes.  But I loved the streams bubbling in late summer, and the squishy ground, and the moss covered trees.  I loved the butterflies and the hummingbirds, and the fact my mom's rosemary looked like a sequoia compared to mine.  Yes, the northwest is home now, but what a lovely southern visit!!  

A Better Way to Travel

Earlier this week, I took an Amtrak passenger train for the first time in my life.  It's true.  Even though I'm from a train-crazy family, I had never been on a passenger train (outside of subways) in the United States.  

It was a mistake.

I have traveled extensively for work the past few years and I have my airline routine down--what I put in my carry on, what I wear, and maximizing outfits out of a minimum of clothes and shoes.   I am used to the drama of delayed flights and middle seats and short layovers.  No problem.  But I hadn't really realized how far airline travel had deteriorated with respect to comfort until this week.  Until the train.

Admitedly, my sample size is small and I traveled a relatively short distance on a non-holiday.  But the absolute ease of the boarding process, followed by the roominess of the seats almost instantly won me over.  And I could go on and on from there!  No worrying that the DVD player will run out of batteries before your child runs out of movie, no "seat belt light" preventing you from taking a trip to the (much larger) bathroom, snacks and drinks any time you want...well, you get the idea.  Three hours on a train with a small child is much shorter than three hours on a plane with or without the child.  As one of my friends put it, it is a more human pace of travel.  Our collective love affair with automobiles and airlines have relegated the trains to the poor stepchild of travel, but we have been deceived!  Those of us in my generation, who have so little experience with trains, did not know what we were missing!  No more!  I am already planning my next trip!!

Rain in Culpeper, VA

The Crescent Line:  New York to New Orleans!

Union Station in Washington DC

The Potomac River in DC, at sunset

      

Solo Rides

I've taken some solo bike rides lately.  I enjoy them much better than I thought I would.  The only drawback is that I have no judge about how fast or slow I am going.  Wait a minute, is that actually a drawback??

Summer Knitting Obsession

Queensland Pima Lino

More Pima Lino, in a different colorway

The Mackinac Tank, from the summer edition of Knit Scene

Layout, just started in the Pima Lino (pattern here)

Plain and Simple pullover, 2/3 done (pattern here)

Usually my knitting tapers off in the summer.  But as our summer road-tripping has increased, as well as my work related travel on long airline rides, I have had a need to knit. But I couldn't knit in wool!  Too hot for car rides!  So my "Plain and Simple Pullover" has been tabled until fall, and I knitted up a sexy-back tank from the summer edition of Knit Scene in Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool.  I think every woman over 30 should have a sexy-back tank of some sort.  In fact, I may knit another in a different pattern (with a lace panel in back).  This is my second Silky Wool project, and I have to say I love the yarn!  Light enough for summer, but warm enough for summer evenings in Idaho.  

The Pimo Lino though--I have to say I am in love. I bought two grab bags of "Lovely Linen" from The Yarn Underground, my LYS, and then immediately had to buy more skeins to get sweater, (or at least tank), quantities.  Well, extra skeins and a third grab bag.  Because that's how obsessed I was.  But it's knitting up quick!  If I hurry, I may be able to wear it on vacation this summer!

In other news, we did about seven loads of laundry today.  After a week with no washing machine, the laundry was starting to get restless.  

Summer Bounty

Last of the raspberries

Overripe currents

Bounty!

  

Love my August sunflowers!

OOC beanstalk

First of the hollyhock

We are decidedly more relaxed around here.  While we are not through major transitions, we are through major decisions.  And that brings its own form of peacefulness.  There's still a bit of anxiety in the air, as the summer has seemed too rushed.  For instance, this summer does not seem to be the summer I get out to pick huckleberries.  Or even pick the currents in the back yard.  But I am content in that the huckleberries and currents will be there next year, as will we.  So I can let that go for now, and just enjoy the bounty from my garden that I have been able to capitalize on this summer.  Like lettuce--for the first time ever we have been able to keep up with production.  And garlic scapes.  I discovered garlic scape pasta (recipe here) and have made three batches, to much success and acclaim.  I've also been knitting...a lot.  The most summer knitting ever.  Hopefully I will have pictures to share soon!

Oh, and we broke down and bought a new-to-us washing machine.  Because laundry is somewhat important in the grand scheme of things!

Summer Rains...

...are weird if you live on the Palouse.  The first few days of August were unseasonably cool and RAINY!  I'm not sure what to make of it--volatile weather patterns to say the least!  But rain when it's been so dry is much appreciated, even as it disturbs you with its unpredictability.

Yesterday I did something that I hope will become a more regular habit--solo bike ride!  So lovely to ride to Troy and smell the ripening wheat and the pine trees!  Even the spring wheat is turning golden, so summer is truly winding down.

Things are still a little unsettled around here, much like the weather.  Hopefully we will have more certainty and "settledness" once I start to feel the chill of fall in the air.  The drama of the day was that our washing machine died--mid load, if you can believe it.  Lovely.  We made ourselves feel better by completely reorganizing our son's room, to much success.  I guess you win some, you lose some!

Garden Beauties

Relic of a railroad age on the Latah Trail

Made it to Troy!

Moscow Mountain

 

These Are the Days

Just some shots from around the house and garden this week.  The weather cooled down to be just about perfect this weekend.  We spent the afternoon hiking at Phillip's Farm Park, followed by ice cream and a ride in a horse drawn carriage at the McConnell Mansion Ice Cream Social downtown.  An old-fashioned Moscow Sunday afternoon.  

I said a while back that May and June are the most beautiful months on the Palouse.  July isn't bad either! 

Hot Summer Nights

We are in the hot days of summer here.  After my stint in D.C. last week though, it doesn't seem too bad!  I forgot what 90/90 was really like (90 degree heat in 90% humidity).  Last summer was so jolly and lazy; this summer has been fun, hectic, and with an undercurrent of change.  Change can be a good thing, but it is also, well, a bit unsettling.  We're taking the time to count our blessings:  our family, our little house and gardens, our friends, our town.  Reaching for santosha--contentment.  Finding sharp points of decision making.  But still reaching.   

My Love/Hate Relationship with Technology

This weekend I received my first smart phone.  I'm struggling to get used to the dual bonging of my tablet and phone registering a work-related email.  One of those bongs has got to go!  To make up for all this technology, we had a "no drive" day.  No need for the car!  The bikes can get us to the pool just fine, thank you, and isn't a day spent harvesting goodies from your garden about all you need for entertainment?  We think so! 

On the other hand, I am sort of falling in love with Instagram.  I know I'm a late comer to the ap; I usually am, but I'm having fun with yet another way to take pictures of my gardens!

Happy and Tired

The irony of summer...we wait and wait for it to get here and we fill our days so full of fun and adventure and trips and busyness that we exhaust ourselves.  What a fun filled Independence Day weekend we had!  Parades and bike races and friends and fireworks!  I was so tired last night, and just wanted drift off to sleep and forget that today would be Monday.  Sadly, it was not to be.  The sound of thunder woke up the little one and we all had a sleepless night. 

Even still, I treasured this weekend.  It is so, so achingly lovely on the Palouse right now.  The spring wheat looks like velvet and the winter wheat is fading to pure sunlight.  Hay is being baled and put up for the long, cold winter ahead.  We were so stressed in June, though we tried to hide it with all our trips, as we waited to see if my husband would have a job in the coming months.  Thankfully, he does, and we shall stay here a bit longer, it seems.

Oh Palouse, when I think it is time to leave you, you find a way to keep me here a bit longer.  How is it that you do this to me, year after year?  Every passing year, I love you more.  You don't have the hardwoods and the wetness of my childhood home, but you have the sweet scent of pine and grass.  You are the place I am raising my baby, his happy home.  My happy home! 

May the Fourth Be with You

We made the traditional July 4th pilgrimage to the Johnson, WA parade.  You never know what you might come across...

Han Solo, giving new meaning to "this thing is a piece of junk!"  Ok, well maybe not actually, but it is made of a trash can!

Han Solo, frozen in carbonite, accompanied by the green skinned dance hall girl.

Whoever came up with this AT-AT idea deserves a medal!

Aren't you a little short for a stormtrooper?!?

Being a Jedi Master is hard work, and sometimes you need to take a little cat-nap when being toted around by Jedi's in training.

In addition to what I felt was the most creative group in the parade, there was the usual mix of classic cars and restored tractors.  Some were quite impressive!  Altogether, I felt it was one of the better Johnson parades I'd seen in a while!