This is yet another category of "things that fascinate me". All these photos (except one, taken a week earlier) were snapped on the day after Thanksgiving when the kids and I went hunting on our property for mushrooms. It had rained on T-Day, so conditions were perfect.
Some are so tiny (like pinheads so I couldn't get good shots) and then you'll see one of the monster mushes we found with Rachel's hand in the picture for scale. Those grow next to the house every year under an oak. It's great fun to go looking for them all. So many kinds!! I didn't count the number of varieties, but there were more than a dozen, for sure. There are new discoveries each season, so far.
As I mentioned in the T-Day post, we have a big mushroom-ID book, but it's still almost impossible to be sure which are which--too much similarity. There are some that, we were pretty sure, were edible, even delicious ("choice" in the book), but were not brave (or dumb) enough to put them to the ultimate test. The huge ones were labeled as "choice", we think. A few days later, they were completely gone--eaten by deer. My guess is that they were, indeed, quite delicious, since I found not one sick deer anywhere in the yard.
The winds have dried many of them out, now, and the big season is over until late spring, when it warms up enough. Still, I walk slowly, eyes to the ground, scanning for more more more. I think it will take a big snow event to break my little obsession.
Wish I was a better photographer, but here's the best I could do with these marvelous little fungi (mag up on these to get the best view)...
Seriously? It's like I blinked in August and suddenly it was Thanksgiving.
The bright reds, oranges and yellows are fading, now. We've had quite the wind storms this week, which are nature's way of separating the leaves from the trees so that the snow doesn't break the branches onto our power lines and make Tom grumpy. Only somewhat effective, I must say.
By way of hanging on to the awesome colors just a little longer, I'm just going to post some pics I took of our patio last month.
Since we moved here, I've been planting some fall color both near the house and a little farther away so as to get some of our own fall festival each year. I know--most of the trees are still quite little, but they're showing great future potential if the deer don't eat them. The patio is coming along nicely with the American Tulip tree (already here when we arrived) as the sunshine-yellow centerpiece. The Japanese maples (I can't ever have enough of them), turn different colors, depending on the variety. We have a bit of each--red, orange and golden yellow. The Japanese barberry is the flaming shrub in the corner of the patio. I didn't care for it and almost pulled it when we moved in, but it shows an amazing range of color from spring to fall. So, in spite of the stickers, I let it stay.
One of the things I love about the color up here is how it all shows against the dark green of the pines, firs and cedars. The shock of it!
Anyway, the photos:
Hm. I just can't seem to get back into the rhythm of blogging like I used to. Part of the reason, is that I've been extra busy with one thing and another--Hospitality House activities (making signs, etc.), pre-winter yard work (more on that in another post), a little re-decorating, bit of travel, blah blah and more blah. We'll catch up later. For now, we'll pick it up with our Thanksgiving time with the kids:
The plan was for Rachel, Mike, Dylan, Emi and Emi's parents, Doug and Michelle Hofmeister (who live in Boulder, CO) to come up for the weekend. But life (or, in this case, death) gets in the way of the best plans, sometimes. Sadly, Doug's father passed away Wednesday evening in Kansas, so Doug and Michelle had to change their plans on the spur of the moment (they had planned to fly into SF Thurs. morning).
So, we were a little band of six (Emi will fly back for the memorial service at a later time).
It was a wonderful weekend, none the less, and we'll look forward to another time to get together with the Hofmeisters.
Rachel and Mike arrived early Wed evening. My best intentions to go to choir practice no-matter-what quickly melted away. Tom drove to Sacramento to pick Dylan and Emi up at the Amtrak station the next day.
The weekend had some distinctive texture, besides the activity around a fancy meal. For one thing, Mike and Rachel were one week into a boot-camp-type fitness program and commandeered various locations in the house or deck to work their tushes off for an hour plus every day (including Wed evening). This program makes Jane Fonda's routines (OK, I heard that) look like lolling on the beach. It's called P90, or something, and it's serious. Video trainer, Tony-the-hulk, is forever screeching "bring it!". So I tried to. Actually, I was afraid not to, even though I'm not in the program. You can see that Dylan couldn't escape Tony's reach, either.
Food talk: Turkey (all 22 pounds) was moist through and through. The method this year: no stuffing inside (first time for me); let it sit 24 hours in the fridge all naked to let the skin dry out; took it out to bring to room temp with ice packs on the breast (so white meat would cook more slowly than the dark meat); started at 425 deg for first half-hour; and cooked it upside down (always do that).
In addition, Rachel prepared delicata squash in a fabulous recipe using white miso and sriracha sauce. Incredibly tasty. And who eats delicata? We do, now. Emi, anticipating her parents' presence with us, made wonderful cookies. They are traditions for her family: tiny (diam. of a nickel) cream-filled sandwich cookies and peanut butter blossoms. We couldn't keep our hands off of them, even before the meal, their being such a nice bite-size and all. Other dishes included part-cornbread dressing made with pecans and mushrooms, roasted-garlic mashed potatoes 'n' gravy, roasted green beans w/almonds (squeaky to chew), fresh herbed rolls, homemade cranberry sauce and roasted sweet potato cheesecake.
Crazy meal that six adults can keep eating all weekend with no more cooking. Our leftovers had leftovers.
Another fun thing was a mushroom tour we took on our property. Spring and autumn always produce quite a few kinds of fungal activity around here, but this is a bumper crop. I'll post photos of our faves in the next entry. Anyway, different subsets of us at different times went mushroom hunting and found upwards to twelve to fifteen distinct varieties. Even consulting my comprehensive mushroom manual, we couldn't be sure which were edible, and which not. Mike had a gut-level eat-o-meter pronouncement for most of them, but was not willing to back it up with action. Neither were we.
On Friday evening, we drove over to Grass Valley for the first (of five) Cornish Christmas Fair. Nevada City starts their Victorian Christmas celebrations this week on Wednesday. That's one photo of us (taken by Tom) taken in GV.
Otherwise, we amused ourselves around the house by playing cards, watching TV, and eating, sometimes all three at once.
They all left Saturday evening to drive back to SF together. On Sunday, they had tickets for the Chicago/SF football game (Chicago is home town for both Emi and Mike). Christmas schedules look a little crazier, this year, so this time together was savored as the nice, laid back (well, with the exception of Tony), retreat from the every-day routines that it was.
Yup, I'm lazier about blogging these days partially because I'm busier than I used to be with outside activities. I have to remind myself about why I've been doing it.
Blogging serves a few different purposes for me, one of which is to post enough information about our lives here to make it a little easier to keep loved ones far away somewhat up to date with us, should they so wish. I'm so bad with the phone calls. And though I wouldn't elevate this to "journal" status, it still serves to help me and my lame memory from losing so much of our passing lives in the thick fog of forgetfulness.
So more in the spirit of the second reason, we did take another drive into the back country weekend before last and hit the aspens just about right, this time (as opposed to two weeks previously when it was merely gorgeous without the yellow of the aspens). This time, we drove a beautiful and familiar loop, heading east up 20 to 80 and over to Truckee for the first leg.
I don't know if I've mentioned it before (that fog I'm talking about), but I've taken hundreds of photos of Colfax, a town on the railroad about 1/2 hour south of us for a friend of my dad's who, with an amazing group of model-railroad enthusiasts, needed the pictures to create a perfect recreation of that town for their enormous construction.
They're about finished with Colfax and now need the same treatment for Truckee. In July, Tom and I drove up there and took photos until my memory card was full, about 250 pics. This latest trip to Truckee served to help me continue with that project. After roughly 450 pictures, I'm still only about 2/3 through the buildings they need. I'll try to get up there one more time before the snow gets too deep.
Anyway, from Truckee, we hopped onto 89 North through the huge and majestic Sierra Valley to 49, which brought us back to Grass Valley through Sierra City and Downieville along the north fork of the Yuba.
Yeah, it's a beautiful drive. Here are some of the views. The last picture is that of our front patio area where our American tulip tree is an astonishing yellow at the moment.
Friday was fun! Kathy (nee Swanson) and John Waters joined us for lunch at our house. Kathy and Tom knew each other from college but hadn't seen each other since. She and John have had fascinating careers with Wycliffe Translators in Africa, mostly. They've lived in Dallas for eight years working for Headquarters, but still travel extensively for their various duties. It was great fun visiting with them. Of course, we only scratched the surface of all the amazing stories they have to tell!
Sunday, we felt like getting out for a drive. It had been a couple of years since we'd followed Hwy 49 north-ish very far. Thought we might see some fall color (hinted at by an article in the Bee that day), since it's just beginning at our altitude. Alas, it was only gorgeous in greens. We'll have to check back for yellows and oranges in a couple of weeks.
Driving 49 (which ambles alongside the North Fork Yuba), we come to Downieville in a little over an hour. Tiny, quaint. It's nestled beside the Yuba at the junction of Downie Creek. We hopped out for a little stroll. Downieville is a mountain-biking mecca.
About a half-hour farther, we gain a bit of altitude and end up in Sierra City, where there's a cute little restaurant we like that has a multi-level patio with a creek running through. You can see it on the left side of the street in the last photo. We sat at the table made of a flat rock next to the water (there under a yellow umbrella in the photo). It would be very difficult to beat the setting anywhere.
Thinking we'll do this drive and on beyond later in the month, we decided to turn around and head for home.
Hm. Bonsai or art next time. And where's the Blotter been?
It's raining outside. Ahh. First real rain in four months up here. A good time to cycle through the 180-or-so photos I took (!) at one of my favorite events of the year--our local Celtic Festival, held at the Fairgrounds this last weekend.
I attended on Saturday as Tom preferred to hang out at home doing Tom Stuff. It's OK. He did the home tour with me on Sunday.
I love it all. There's the theater of it all--a morning processional with all the crazy-elaborate costumes and bag pipes, little guild tent villages set up and occupied by reenactors, and the folks, like me, who just come to enjoy, but, unlike me, are decked out nearly as well as the professionals, but with a heavy preference for wood-sprite outfits. The royal encampment busies itself all day knighting people and sword fighting and such. The apothecary guild is busy apothing, or whatever they do. And so on.
Then there's the music. I flit around, listening to umpteen groups performing beautiful Celtic fare from any of, oh six stages set up all over the place (more than one audible at any one time). Some is raucous and jiggy, others are soft and melodic. I often lurk near the large, always-changing group of musicians who jam all day playing the classics.
I peruse the crafters and other booths selling anything from hand-hewn wooden kitchen tools or tea to Celtic garb or a massage. I watched a stone carver awhile, and then tried it out for myself on both sandstone and marble. Big "aha". A bit of insight into sculpture I've seen all my life. Love the tools!
In one of the guild areas, I chatted with a guy who makes (and, indeed, was busy fabricating) chain mail (ring by ring) and plate armor. Armor made completely of mail can weigh up to 200 pounds. There's a workout for both the soldier and the horse, I think--and that's without picking up shield and weapon and trying to wave them around a bit. Plate armor weighs less, but, of course, not so flexible. Just one of the trade-offs in the armor game: Comfort or life.
Lots for kids to do. Blowing monster bubbles was a hit. Hopping on hay bales, climbing through a plywood castle and making art in under the canopy were popular, as well. I watched as several little winged girls walked the labyrinth to write their wishes on Post-its and slide them under the elastic band wrapped around the tree in the center.
Enormous Irish Wolfhounds. In this picture, the larger (two years old) stands over 36 inches at the shoulder. The smaller one is only 6 months old and on track to be taller than his companion. The Wildlife Rehab and Release folks brought some of their gorgeous critters to show off. Great horned owls, kestrels, a harris hawk, and Tecumseh, this red-tailed hawk I've seen several times before. I think he likes me.
I watched giant men and some impressive women participate in Highland games, heaving 22# blue stones (think shot put), hammers (ball-on-a-chain) and cabers (think telephone pole), among other weighty objects. There's a group on a constructed ship's deck (with sails and rigging) and, naturally, sailors shouting stuff like, "six bells and all's well" and that sort of thing.
Lots of food. Dancing, spontaneous and otherwise, everywhere.
A huge percentage of attenders, as mentioned earlier, come in costumes of all sorts. The women seem partial to the fairy-queen or pub-wench look. Men sport kilts of traditional tartan as well as the popular, more contemporary, khaki. Utilikilts are often in evidence in this area, Celtic Festival or no, but they're ubiquitous at this event. I think they are catching on. Kinda cute, I think. Think cargo kilts.
It was an all-engrossing day's wallow in a Celtic bubble and I loved every minute. Perhaps next year, I could don a monk's cowl and bring my pens and some ink...
