My favorite season is off to a fantastic start, with misty mornings burning off into warm, clear afternoons. Sadly as the days are growing shorter and cooler, this week also marked what will likely be my last big harvest of the year from the veggie garden. I’m already looking forward to planning out next year's garden, learning from some of my mistakes and making improvements where I can. After seeing just how parched my open, sunny backyard became this August, the most important improvement I have planned is installing drip irrigation. I’m hopeful that going in to next year with a reliable watering system in place will improve my harvest, especially for my water-loving crops like squash & cucumbers. Because, let’s be real, even working from home with constant access to a hose to keep the garden happily hydrated, my efforts were inconsistent at best. I'm also planning to grow corn next year, and to avoid providing the deer with another snack, I'll need to come up with a cover for that bed tall enough to accommodate towering stalks of corn. Lots of prep and planning to keep me busy through the winter!
Read moreLife: Week 38
Fall is my absolute favorite season for hiking. I know I've said it before, but right now it feels especially true. This year, it may be in part due to the fact that it took most of the summer for me to feel comfortable venturing much beyond my own backyard. As though the Cascades were conspiring to lure me back the their fir scented embrace, the condions this weekend were my absolute ideal for an early fall hike. Even the drive to meet my Alpine Trails Book Club friends at the trailhead was stunning, with low swirling clouds and vibrant fall color. I even surprised myself, managing to both hike all the full length of our roughly 6-8 mile hike (no one’s distance tracking device seemed to agree once we were back at the trailhead). Happily I also had plenty of time to pick enough of the tiny but oh-so-sweet alpine blueberries that lined the trail to fill the Nalgene bottle I brought specifically for that purpose. Those now wait in my freezer as a treat for those long winter days when I need a reminder of sunny days in the mountains.
Read moreLife: Week 37
Another week of burning eyes, a scratchy throat, and constant worry that these could be symptoms of COVID-19 I'm feeling and not just the effects of the toxic air. By midweek, being trapped in our sealed up house had me feeling mentally and emotionally exhausted. Obviously that meant it was a great relief when a fall storm blew through late Friday evening and finally wiped out the lingering smoke. Over the two weeks we spent shrouded in smoke, summer gradually shifted towards fall, and Sunday afternoon, under blindingly blue skies we pulled pound after pound of perfectly ripened apples off the larger of the two trees in our backyard. Now that I don’t have to worry about the possibility of further contaminating the already stagnant air inside our house by baking, I’m now very much looking forward to experimenting with all things apple - pie, sauce, tart, muffin. If you have a favorite apple recipe you'd like to share, I'm open to suggestions for using up our bounty!
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