25 Acres

The Kitten Twins

2012-02-03T22:45:00.002-07:00

Another book from my childhood is The Kitten Twins.

My mom suggested we write my name in the book. In her perfect teacherly print she wrote it at the top left of the hard inside cover. I must have liked the idea because I followed suit and wrote my name on the opposite inside page.

This was back when I spelled my name with a "y". I remember exactly where we were when Mom suggested to me that we change the "y" to an "i". I didn't know you could change the spelling of your name. I was curious why she suggested it and asked her. She said it would make "Judi" more of a true nickname for my full name, Judith (bleh!), because it would simply be dropping the "th." OK. I was in fifth grade.

But back when I loved this book, I spelled my name with a "y" and proudly wrote it with a crayon on the cover page. I even wrote my brothers' names.

And then proceeded to write my name on every single page thereafter.

(Thank you, Blogger, for turning another photo on its ear...)

This story is about two little kittens, Twinkle and Boo, who get into trouble all day long.

They get into plants, lunch plates, glasses of milk, Grandma's yarn, ink,

and finally, Mother's hat.

Oh no!

Now, who today would ever use the word "pell-mell" in a children's book?

"They couldn't see why they had caused such alarm

For they never intended to do any harm.

But kittens are kittens and what would you do

With two little mischiefs like Twinkle and Boo?"

The Little Ballerina

2012-01-29T16:58:00.000-07:00

Recently I came across some childhood books of mine. I remember them so well.

This was one of my favorites.

The inside cover is my favorite drawing.

It's the story of little Carol whose legs were weak and she couldn't play with the other children.

(Pardon the rotated photo. Don't know why it does this now and then.)

Carol went to the doctor and he suggested ballet lessons to strengthen her legs.

"Ballet! Oh, Mother, may I?" Carol was thrilled.

Her lessons began. Her legs grew strong, and wouldn't you know it, she was chosen to be the star of the ballet. She got to dance around and awaken the sleeping flower dancers.

And dance with the boy.

Her parents were proud. She was their Little Ballerina!

Time For More Snow Photos!

2012-01-21T21:30:00.000-07:00

These were taken back in December after one of our weekly snowstorms. By the time Christmas came, we'd already received our average yearly snowfall. Even a little more. About 40".

Our driveway road. (I'm thankful for 4-Wheel Drive.)

The whole landscape seemed to be under a heavy shroud of grey snow clouds

while all the trees below were freshly flocked from the overnight snow.

The snowplow had been by but still the road was icy white. The cabin on the right is one of my favorites.

Though this snowy photo doesn't show it, the roof is of a rusted corrugated metal sheeting. (There I go again, finding beauty in corrugated metal and rust!) But the cabin isn't old. I watched it being built. From the moment it went up, it looked like it'd been there for decades. The wood was rugged and aged looking. The sheet metal roof was even rusted. I love it!

After all these years of admiring this new-old cabin, I finally had a thought that might explain why it looked old when it was brand new. There is a beautiful lake in this region. It's on Indian land and at 9000 feet elevation. The trees are gorgeous. Huge. The whole area is stunning and ultra desirable. Though the Indians owned the land, they allowed 100 year leases to non-natives who built cabins and enjoyed the lake for summer retreats. Several years ago, the natives suddenly terminated all the leases. Needless to say, cabin owners were furious. They'd invested a lot of money in building their cabins under the assurance that they could have them for 100 years. It's the kind of thing that would be passed down to future generations. Everyone was outraged over the breaking of the contracts. Suspicion swirled that one of the motives behind it was to inherit all the nice cabins built around the lake. Cabin owners weren't about to let that happen. Many of them hired companies to dismantle their cabins, transport them to new land, and re-assemble them. Other cabins were sold and the new owners did the same thing.

So, maybe, this instantly old cabin that I love is one of those lake cabins. And actually IS old. Hmmm.

Anyway, back to the photos.

Our little community was pretty iced over that December morning about a month ago.

Trees were sagging with heavy snow.

The road was icy and white. Even the power lines stretching high across the street

were covered with snow.

Indian Frybread - A Home Attempt

2012-01-19T19:31:00.001-07:00

OK, so I took the massive-quantity, very vague "recipe" I learned from my expert Native friends and tried to make my own mini batch of Indian Frybread at home this weekend. Other natives we've talked to -- like at frybread stands at festivals -- have told us they use self-rising flour, so, rather than trying to figure out how much baking soda to use for my tiny batch, I figured I'd try this shortcut method.

Like I mentioned in my last post, I didn't figure out I needed to knead the dough until after I'd made it and wondered why it looked so different from my friends'. It must be because I arrived late to the frybread making session and the dough was nearly ready by the time I got there. Knead the dough. DUH.

MINE

THEIRS

I went ahead and made my dough balls, still not putting together the obvious.

MINE

THEIRS

Traditional frybread is huge, about 10"-12" in diameter. I made mine much smaller, like frybread-ettes.

Even though I tried to make a small batch, I still ended up with about a dozen too many.

Of lumpy weird dough balls.

Because I didn't knead it, my dough was "short", not very elastic. I had trouble stretching my frybreads without breaking them and they wanted to drip and flop all over the place.

Also, they didn't produce the pretty bubbles like those of my native friends.

I don't know if it's because of the self-rising flour or the lack of proper kneading.

MINE

(about 5" across)

THEIRS

Beautiful. Giant. Bubbly.

And I don't think my oil was hot enough. I had to cook them longer than seemed right, just to get the color somewhat right. But they still tasted great! We drizzled them with honey, making an awesome dessert!

(And there's my two holes from the fork!)

Though mine lacked the beautiful bubbles of the professionals, the inside came out

soft and wonderful just like it's supposed to.

YUMMM!

A funny side note:
When I was "helping" make all the frybread for the work crew, I said to my native friends, "Ooooo, I bet these would be good with some butter and cinnamon sugar! Do you ever do that?"

They looked at me blankly and slowly said, "No-oooo", almost with a question in their voice. (Weird white woman!)

P.S. I don't suppose I feel too badly about my awkward first attempts at shaping frybread with the pros. They told me, "They say you have to make 1000 of them to get good at it." I suppose practice makes perfect with the dough, too. (Just keep repeating to yourself, Judi: "Knead the dough. Knead the dough.")

The Rez

2012-01-17T19:41:00.001-07:00

I really like living here in the mountains with a Native American tribal nation close by. I love seeing the old women coming into Wal-Mart in their native dresses. Their greying hair is either in a long braid or folded up on the back of their head clasped within a barrette. Some of them wear the beautiful jewelry we've grown accustomed to associating with Indians, squash blossom necklaces, or beautiful turquoise, coral, or heishi strands.

I've lived here for over ten years but had never visited the reservation town. I never had a reason to go there until the recent work weekend to help get their new crisis pregnancy center building ready for move-in. Sometimes Indian reservations are ugly arid pieces of earth, testimony of how "generous" our white-man ancestors were to the Indians they rounded up and "gave" land to. But this reservation, in the pines and mountains is beautiful country.

The mountain below stands as a guard over our nearby reservation town.

I love laundry on a clothes line. These Indian blankets caught my eye.

Broken windows and graffiti are common sights. It seems that many of the buildings on "the rez" fall prey to vandalism. In fact, the original pregnancy center was a victim of idle arson. Nothing better to do one night. The fire didn't completely consume the building and the plan was to repair and rebuild on the original site. But a short while later, on another idle night, someone set the remains on fire again resulting in a total loss. The center has been housed in a suite of rooms at a nearby motel for two years. Building on a new site has been slow, relying on donations of labor and materials, but they're finally ready to open in their new building this week.

There are many problems on the reservation but there's one I enjoyed seeing. Wild horses. Based on my experience, this seems to be a common thing on many reservations. We saw it in the northern part of Arizona when driving to Alaska a few years ago. Driving north we saw flashing lights headed south on the wrong side of the road from us. A tribal police SUV was driving on the wide shoulder of the highway, chasing a small herd of wild horses away from town.

On my work weekend, I saw horses just wandering around grazing in the area of the center.

I pulled into a small parking lot to see this fellow.

At the end of the day, on my way out of town, I decided to go into the parking lot of the local community college campus for another photo of the mountain. "Hm, what are these bright yellow triangular pieces of steel stretched across the entrance?" As I rattled over them, I thought, "they must be like cattle guards. Something to keep the wild horses out maybe."

They don't work.

The evidence was everywhere. On the paved driveways, the gravel parking lots, and grass.

Wild horses and reservations just seem to go together. What an interesting problem to have to deal with.

I got my late afternoon photo of the mountain, but it's obviously not as good as my earlier one.

And then, driving on I noticed the moon rising. Parting views of my weekend on the rez.

Indian Frybread

2012-01-15T19:31:00.005-07:00

A local treat in Arizona is Indian Frybread. It's a big hit at festivals and fairs. I've been wanting to learn how to make it for years now. Last weekend I had the privilege of joining some Native American friends in making frybread for a work weekend we were part of. It was so much fun and those ladies are so good they can make frybread in their sleep!

While I had hoped to come away with a recipe, I realized quickly that this idea was a laugh. Like when I asked The Fisherman's Grandma for the recipe for a peach cobbler she whipped up in my presence, I got a similar response. Grandma grew up in a "holler" in West Virginia. When I asked her for the recipe, she said, "Ohhhh, Honey! I've been cookin' since I was nine years old; I don't use recipes!"

So it was with my expert frybread friends. Their "recipe" used their hands and bowls as measuring devices. They're used to making it in large batches for large family functions. A bowlful of flour, a handful of salt, etc. Hm.

I think I could approximate their batch of 40 but I'm still working on calculating that down to a batch of four.

This batch produced about 20 large frybreads.

This is how they kneaded the dough. Right in the bowl. Ingenious.

I didn't figure this out until I tried making my own at home. And didn't knead it. While in the presence of the pros I thought they were merely mixing it. After all, they didn't take it out and knead it on a floured counter like I'm used to. I think it's pretty neat that they've mastered the art of kneading it right in the bowl. I love the beautiful consistency of her dough. This photo and my memory of how the dough moved in her hand will be my guide.

Nice smooth frybread dough balls. Aren't they pretty?

Three batches, each made by a different woman, produced a total of about 70 dough balls.

Next up was flattening them out. This is where their experience really shines.

First they flatten out the ball, making it a disk.

Then they run their hands around the outside edge, letting the dough disk hang down from their topside grip. This stretches it bigger still.

Then they start flapping. That's the best way I can describe it. They pass the dough from one hand to the other, flapping it back and forth. Occasionally they stop and do a little shaping.

I was a total klutz at it, but my first attempt came out pretty good. I was using my palms and fingers but they do it differently.

When I tried to learn their way, I was a dunce. They actually lay the dough across their thumb and wrist, rather than across their fingers. This stretches it nicely without the pressure of fingers creating weak spots. These ladies would stand in the middle of the kitchen, or lean with their backs against the counter and just flip-flap away. I was in such danger of losing control of my dough that I had to stand over the counter. I flipped my dough right off my hand several times while they were just flap-flap-flapping away.

I wish I had a sound recording of their handiwork. They were so fast! It was like their hands were clapping together. Since the dough mainly lands on the lower part of their hand and their wrist, they actually were clapping. Back and forth, back and forth, they'd flip one hand over the other and back again. It made a pock-pock-pock sound. A clap-clap-clap. Dozens of time for each frybread. I was in awe.

Finally, it was time to fry up my very first frybread.

Instinct told me to lay it into the oil starting at the front of the pan and move away from me. That's not how they do it. They start at the back and lay it down toward them. And they do it perfectly. My first attempt folded under the edge. I learned that in the superstition of native tradition, this means my husband is cheating on me. We all laughed. It seems that "Traditional" has become a religion among Native Americans. The value of their heritage and traditions seems to have evolved into a religion, one full of superstitions. My friends are all Christians, though, and worship God rather than the traditions of their heritage.

When you put the dough into the oil, it bubbles up with pretty bubbles. Note the odd shape of this frybread. It's one of mine. When my friends put theirs in the pan, it perfectly fills the pan. Perfectly round, perfectly out to the edges of the pan. Amazing.

When it first goes into the oil, you're supposed to poke a couple holes in it. That's so it won't over puff. Some of them stretch some holes in the dough before they put it in the oil and others just use the fork to poke holes once it's in. See my folded under edge? Wait, where's The Fisherman, right now?

The bottom of the frybread looks entirely different. No bubbles to speak of but the rim and the center seem to stand out and get brown while an inner ring stays pale.

Taa Daa! My very first Indian Frybread.

Making frybread is quite a social experience, at least when you're making it for a big party - or work crew. We stood around talking, flapping, and frying. We'd each shape a dough ball and wait our turn to fry it up, chatting together all the while. Sometimes we'd get ahead in flip-flapping the dough and let them set till time to fry.

In the end we had several fine stacks of beautiful frybread.

This stuff is so simple but so yummy. Just flour, baking soda, salt and water. But so, so tasty. To keep them warm, we layered them into an ice chest, ironically. We took them over to the work site along with pinto beans, lettuce, cheese, tomatoes, and salsa for Indian Tacos.

(Now, I know my English friends are going to cringe at the sight of these mashed-up, ugly-colored beans, but they are a delicious staple out here in the Southwest. They're so normal that it's hard to stand back and imagine seeing them for the first time. But trying to do so, I can understand how they look absolutely gross. Trust me, they're not.)

They were a big hit. And I was thrilled to learn how to make them from Native American Indians, sweet Christian women who I am privileged to work with and call my friends.

(In case you're wondering where we were while making the frybread, and why there were racks of clothing nearby: we were at the temporary office of a crisis pregnancy center which also sells clothes and baby items for "internal" money earned by clients taking parenting classes. The work weekend was one of the final pushes to bring their new center on the reservation to near completion.)

2011 READING

2012-01-08T14:01:00.004-07:00

Trusting God, Book and Bible Study by Jerry Bridges

Black Heels to Tractor Wheels, by The Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond

Running Blind, by Shirlee McCoy

More Than A Dream - Life With Jesus Christ, by Muhammad Al-Hallaaj

Anointed, Transformed, Redeemed (Bible Study on David by Priscilla Shirer, Beth Moore, Kay Arthur)

The Fisherman's Quilt

When The Soul Listens, by Jan Johnson

Leota's Garden, by Francine Rivers

1000 Blessings, by Ann Voscamp at A Holy Experience

Out Of The Overflow, compilation

Under A Desert Sky, by DiAnn Mills

Redeeming Love, by Francine Rivers

Unplanned, by Abby Johnson

STILL READING

The Genese Diary, by Henri Nouwen

Savoring God's Word, by Jan Johnson

My Favorite Winter Trees

2012-01-08T13:27:00.000-07:00

In a neighborhood of our sleepy community there is a line of trees that I love. I love them best in winter because their squiggly, curvy branches are bare.

After another big snowstorm in mid-December, I went into work late because of the snow. I took my camera a captured these twisty branched trees with a thick layer of snow.

They line the street in front of a little old house with a big yard.

They're my favorite winter trees, made all the more beautiful to me with a layer of snow upon each branch.

Dancing Christmas Lights

2011-12-22T20:39:00.002-07:00

There's an insurance office in town that has quite a Christmas light display.

The thing that's so special about this display is that it's linked to the music playing on a particular radio station. There's a sign outside the building that says to tune in to the specific frequency and enjoy the lights as they flash to the music.

We discovered that there are three songs playing in a loop. I can imagine how complicated it would be to program such a thing. One was the Tchaichosky piece from the Nutcracker, redone with the rock energy of Trans Siberian Orchestra. (At least I think it's one of theirs. Love their Christmas music with that screaming guitar. What a different take on traditional Christmas songs!)

Another song in the production is Feliz Navidad, sung originally by Jose Feliciano. Candycane striped tree trunks blinked in sync to beat of the chorus, "Feliz navidad! Feliz navidad, prospero ano y felizidad"

Thanks, Insurance Company People, for putting on this fun Christmas treat for everyone in your communties! It's been a lot of fun for everyone.

Snowy, Frosty, Icy Town

2011-12-21T20:28:00.003-07:00

For several days when I'd drive in to work, the temps were so low that all the trees were frosted over.

Temperatures surrounding the actual storm produced these giant icicles that dripped all over the little decorative pines below. Then the thermometer took a dive and we didn't get above freezing for a week and everything stayed iced up.

The snow was so heavy during that first storm that trees all over town suffered broken branches. This one's outside our backdoor at work. After some emergency chain saw work, we can get in and out but we're still waiting for the rest to be removed.

Bleh.

The creek that runs through town has looked like this all month. There's a spot I found behind some businesses that gives me this close up view of the creek, which otherwise runs through private property. From the road you can only see tiny glimpses of the creek in a meadow. This spot runs on the far side of the meadow as it disappears into the woods again.

Back there at my spot is a tiny corral with a horse.
He always comes to the fence to have a look at me.

He seems like a lonely horse. I don't even know if anyone lives in the
old houses near his corral.

Lonely Horse's little shelter.

Love these icicles!

These are the longest icicles I've ever seen.

Almost touching the snow below!

We went into town for our favorite Chinese food one weekend night
and we took a camera.
We stopped at some cool icicles and snow hanging from a bank building.
Because it was night, the photos came out really orange,
which makes them kind of neat.

The Fisherman ventured underneath the hanging snow and
took the next photo from the back.

I can hardly believe all that snow was just hanging there, icicles still in tact.

I took this photo with the flash, giving it a totally different look.

A nearby building had a bare tree bending in toward the building.
It got frozen in by icicles.

Lower branches of the captive tree had some interesting ice patterns.

While taking pictures of the amazing icicles and snow,

we enjoyed an amazing moonrise.

A not so amazing photo shows that big, bright circle is the MOON!

Before we even made it to town we came upon some beautiful scenes.

The antelope have been hanging out near the fence lately. It's fun to see them close.

On the way in to town we saw a pretty sunset.

The Fisherman took this picture for me because I wanted one of the

juniper trees with their half clumped, half green branches.

The gentle colors of the clouds were a beautiful bonus!

After another snowstorm, the temperatures stayed really low again for a few days.
On one morning commute along the highway, everything was frosted up.
For miles in every direction all was frosted over.
The pastures, the hills, tall pines, short junipers.
Everything everywhere was frosted.
The ground was covered with snow and trees showed their green from underneath a layer of frosty white. Along the highway, I noticed the south side of the trees were frosted while the north sides showed more green.
The odd thing was, a couple miles outside of town it switched. The frost was now on the north side and trees showed their green on the south sides. Weird.

Snowy Town

2011-12-20T19:49:00.001-07:00

It seems we've had snowstorms every week here "on the mountain." The first one dumped about 18 inches on us over the first weekend in December. The second one was roughly a week later, dropping another 8 inches. Then Sunday night we got another 8". The weather has been mostly below freezing in between storms but occasionally getting into the 40's.

During one frosty week when highs remained in the 20's, I took my camera to town with me. Icicles hung all over town. Thick snow remained on roof tops, sliding down slowly. Infrequently driven cars occasioned the streets with 10" of snow riding on top. The creek running through town is actually frozen over, or at least "slushed" over.

First thing I did was stop for some bunny tracks near our home.

Then I found these icicles and shadows on a cute white log cabin church.

In town the remaining snow took many forms. There was Clumped Snow, hanging around in the trees.

Trees all over town were adorned with thick clumps of snow throughout otherwise completely bare branches.

Sagging Snow

Swagging Snow

This is the back of an indoor archery range. Isn't it beautiful?

What I love is that you can find something beautiful even in the ugly. Just zoom in and take a look.

Granted, I may be one of only a few who can find corrugated metal siding and rust beautiful.

More Icicles

Picnic Snow

Curling Snow

Crowning Snow

Stuffed Snow

Organized Snow

Blanket of Snow

Posted Snow

And Icicles

Bull Elk #2 Even Better

2011-11-21T20:48:00.001-07:00

In my post I've Waited 11 Years I wrote about how it took 11 years for me to see elk up close on our very own property. I'd seen them running across our driveway road up ahead and I'd seen them from a distance but I'd always wanted to see them walk right past the house. Sometimes I'd even wake up in the middle of the night hearing a funny noise and wonder if just maybe I was meant to get up and look out the window because my elk would be there. After that amazing experience of watching a cow elk drinking from our water trough literally right below our window my next big desire was to see a bull close to the house.

Well, I got my wish. It was a couple weeks after my really fun sighting of a bull elk just 30 feet off the highway. I was waiting for a visiting friend to call me from a couple miles away so I could direct her back in to our place. It was October so the elk were bugling every night. I'd had a few conversations with them from time to time, doing my personal rendition of a female elk call. Before my friend called I thought I'd water my plants on the front porch. Upon opening the front door I heard a loud bugle of a bull elk. I thought, "Wow, he sounds close." So I called to him. Immediately he called back. Usually they wait a bit to respond. Not this guy. He called instantly. I waited, playing coy, and called again. Immediately he bugled back.

"Wow! He sounds REALLY close." I took a look from the front porch back behind the house. I could see his legs through the trees! I kept up my calling and very soon I could see his head and long antlers bobbing up and down as he grazed on the grasses. He was only about 40 feet from the back of the house, another 35 feet to me.

He nonchalantly grazed, stopping now and then to bugle. He was with some of his ladies making their way from the woods, where they spent the day bedded down, out to the meadows for their night time grazing. He was getting closer. I was so excited. I began to think, "What if he sees me and gets mad that I'm an impostor?" Bulls can be pretty ornery when disappointed during their rut, or breeding season. I also began to think about my friend who was due to call me at any second. I didn't want my phone ringing while I was outside.

So I snuck back inside and managed to shut the door silently. I went right to the dining room window at the back of the house and got a great look at him. It was so awesome! He grazed and sauntered just 20 feet from the window. A great big bull! I got to watch him for several minutes before my cell phone rang. When it did he stopped and looked toward the house. I whispered to my friend what I was watching. The bull began to angle away from the house and move on with a little more determination. I let go of the marvelous experience with him and focused on directing my Alaska friend down our dirt roads and to the house. When I opened the door and heard her car crunching on the gravel I went out back and waited for her to drive in.

I knew the elk was still pretty close, out beyond the opposite corner of the house and walking farther away, but I didn't want to scare him into running full speed away. I wanted to see if I could get him to bugle for my friend. When she pulled in we greeted each other and I tried not to instinctively whisper. This was, after all, a reunion and a first ever visit and it warranted expression of the enthusiasm we both felt. Again I tried to let go Mr. Bull and enjoy the greetings I exchanged with my friend. But as soon as the initial ones were complete, I told her I wanted to try to get him to bugle for her. I did my call, wondering how far away he would be and if he'd be onto me and ignore it. Bam! Immediately he bugled loudly! Apparently he'd moved on quickly past the house and then resumed his relaxed grazing. I was so glad she got to hear him. "Do it again!" she said. I did. And he did! IT WAS SO FUN, again! And even better than the last time!

If you've never heard an elk bugle, check out this incredible YouTube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=794wEIbHlDc) of a BBC story about the yearly elk invasion of Estes Park, Colorado.

Bull Elk

2011-11-20T21:43:00.000-07:00

Living in the country I'm privileged to see quite a bit of wildlife. Every now and then, on the dirt roads around home we see elk grazing or crossing the road, all of them females, or "cows." Very rarely do bull elk show themselves. So I was pretty excited when I saw a "big ol' bull" on my way home from work about six weeks ago. He was just off the highway behind a barbed wire fence. Right there in broad daylight!

This was too special; I just had to turn around. When I did, it seemed all other cars vanished from the highway and I got to slow down to a crawl as I came to him. He walked right along with me, about 30 feet away, still on the other side of the fence. It was so cool. I watched him and he watched me. I could tell he wanted to cross the road; he paced the fence waiting for an opportunity to cross.

Since I was now going the wrong direction, headed back toward town rather than home, I turned around again. He was still there. It is so rare to see a big bull elk from the highway. It's rare to see them altogether. And there he still was; I just had to prolong this incredible sighting. So I went up aways and turned around again. This would make my fourth pass. This time, a delivery truck had come by and gotten in front of me. Mr. Bull had jumped the fence wanting to cross the highway. The truck had to brake and the bull turned back, pacing and biding his time. I'd pestered him enough so I slowed way down to give him ample room. He crossed up ahead of me. The last I saw of him was his cream colored rump jumping over the fence as I passed by. IT WAS SO FUN!

Sap Rising

2011-11-18T08:00:00.000-07:00

Before the church service ended, she began sobbing. Her husband reached over and enfolded her in his arms. Her soft wails could be heard over the service. A final prayer, a final song, still she cried. It was the Sunday following a powerful week at our church. It was our first 24/7 prayer event and God was moving. Prayer team members and artists had developed creative and inspiring prayer stations. The beautiful, tranquil setting invited resting in God's presence and meeting Him in new ways. He was doing business with us all.

The service over now, people made their way outside. But I remained, captivated by this dear woman and her loving husband. The pastor approached them for a brief moment but then let them be. “God is doing a sacred work,” I marveled to myself, “right here, right now.” I was moved at the wisdom of people who knew not to interrupt it. Rather than rush in prematurely with noble attempts to make it all better, everyone seemed to know that God was doing business with her. Sacred business. Life-changing business.

Transformation is God's sacred work in us. It's a process. God's in it for the long haul with us. His work sometimes comes in spurts where He does huge business all at once, but generally, transformation comes about slowly as we spend more and more time with Him. It doesn't often happen on our time table. I'd prefer that it happen much more quickly in me than it is. In fact, over the years, I've often tried to hurry it along with what I think are the right things to do. All good things and good disciplines, but I was doing them for the wrong reasons. Without really knowing it, I was expecting them to change my heart from the outside in. I'd created a burden of expectations and became tied up with guilt over all the things I should be doing and what I thought I should be like as a Christian.

One day I realized that what I was doing amounted to trying to tape fruit onto a tree. I was starting with the fruit and trying to make it real in my life by adding on all the “proper” Christian behavior. Pass me the tape, I'm going to be a good Christian!

We can get it so backwards sometimes. We look out there into the future and ask, “What's my goal? What does Christian maturity look like?” Wanting something measurable, we easily think of behaviors pertaining to things that are right and good. A “mature” Christian would... fill in the blank. And then we focus on adding on all those things to our “outside,” taping on the fruit of what we want to someday be.

But taped on fruit falls off. Taped on fruit withers and rots. It doesn't last because it's not connected. It hasn't been grown from within. There are no fruit factories where fruit is assembled or manufactured. Behavior can be taped on; qualities form. Fruit forms. Real fruit is a result of sap rising within the tree, flowing through the branches and out to the ends where there emerges a blossom, then a bud, then the fruit. God forms His fruit in me. The more I am with Him, the more He works in me to produce His fruit. The more I bring my very truest self to Him and trust Him with who I really am, the more genuine my relationship is with Him and the more He can work in me. He can work with my junk and my ugliness, my bad moods and selfish desires, when they're honestly brought before Him. What He can't work with is pretense, my manufactured efforts covering up a hiding heart.

He is the vine, I am the branch. By abiding in Him the sap rises, so to speak, and He brings about fruit in my life. (John 15:4) “Abide in Me and I in you,” He says. “As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me.” (John 15: 5) Taped on fruit doesn't transform me. God transforms me. It takes trusting all of Him with all of me. As I spend time with Him, leaving my tape behind, wanting simply to know Him more, He changes me. From the inside out.

Connecting With God

2011-11-16T21:00:00.000-07:00

Our devotions teacher at the CLASS Christian Writers' Conference was Jan Johnson. If you don't know Jan's work, I highly recommend you get some of her books. They are worth devouring. Her message is that of slowing down to connect with God in deliberate and meaningful ways, rather than applying our hurried modern attitude to our Bible reading, prayer, and our relationship with God in general. For over 20 years she has been studying, practicing, and writing on how to incorporate spiritual disciplines into our lives for the purpose of connecting with God, not out of a sense of obligation or as another To Do List item we can check off when done. Her books include, When the Soul Listens, Savoring God's Word, Invitation to the Jesus Life, Spiritual Disciplines Companion, and Abundant Simplicity and more.

Jan was a wonderful devotions speaker. She pointed us toward “hanging out with Jesus” and investing in our spiritual formation in ways that meet us personally, being intentional about our spiritual formation. She gave us an example of an area of difficulty for her, getting grumpy at airports. As a national speaker, she spends a lot of time in airports traveling to and from retreats and speaking engagements. “Lord, help me find something to change my attitude at airports,” was her prayer. Now, at airports her mind is on helping others whenever she sees a need. If someone drops something, she picks it up for them. If someone is struggling with their luggage, she helps. Instead of being grumpy, she's now looking for ways to serve people, hoping to brighten their day. Beautiful! I have never seen or heard of that kind of detailed intentionality in one's spritual life.

My “take-away” word from the daily teaching lab I'd selected was “intentional.” As I mentioned in that post, this word comes with a warning. To use Jan's loving words, the warning is simply this: “Don't you dare do this out of a sense of obligation!” The purpose is not to add on a bunch of dos and don'ts to a spritual regimen. The purpose is to deepen our connection with God. Here is where the challenge lies: making sure the outward activities of my intentionality always begin on the inside, in my heart, and move outward, rather than starting on the outside and expecting them to transform my heart.

Transformation was the topic of our 2011 conference book project. (Last year's topic was "Out of the Overflow.") Those who wanted to participate wrote a short article about transformation to be included in a compilation book published by WinePress, due out around Christmas. The piece I intended to include is all about this “from the inside out” process of transformation. Since I didn't include it for publication in the book, I'll publish it here in a couple days in order to continue my thoughts on intentionality from the heart.

Intention

2011-11-12T16:56:00.001-07:00

At last week's writers' conference, I attended the teaching lab titled "The Spiritual Journey Of A Writer". It was taught by Jerome Daley, a Leadership and Writing Coach from North Carolina. We met every morning in the cozy Gathering Room furnished with a fireplace, couches, tables and beautiful art. Throughout our meetings, Jerome asked pointed questions and required us to answer with single words. I loved this exercise. Being a lover of words (as are all my classmates) I really enjoyed simplifying things down to a single word.

One of the questions was, "What is your favorite kind of writing?" Some of our answers were: reflective, formational, healing, unapologetic, vulnerable, and hoping.

Another question was "What one word describes where you are in your spiritual journey?" What a thought provoking question! It's surprising how powerful a single word can be. Reducing a description to single word makes that one word very, very significant. Some of the words our group used to describe their spiritual journey are: deep, deepening, quiet, crippled, assaulted, resistant, desperate, growing, transformed, content, doorstep, worshipful. Wow.

We zeroed in on some key things for our spiritual journey and our writing journey, and then merged the two together on the last day, aiming at understanding our personal needs for either structure or spontaneity so we can better create a "map" for these journeys.

We talked about being intentional in class and again, Jerome asked us to use a single word or a phrase to describe the word “intention.” Some of the things we contributed were: on purpose, aware, directed, tenacious, deliberate, slow down, focus, not getting steam rolled by life, and choosing.

At the end of our three sessions, we were asked to select a single word reflecting what had impacted us most. The word I chose was "intentional." When asked, as we all were, to explain why, I shared the disappointing truth that "The things I long for in my life are not a part of my life because I have not been intentional." This conference for me was all about becoming more intentional in both my spiritual journey and my writing journey. It was a message "coincidentally" repeated throughout the workshops I chose, the group devotions time, and my personal time with God at Ghost Ranch the day before the conference began.

But this word, intentional, comes with an important warning. I'll write a little about it in my next post.

Writers' Conference

2011-11-12T10:55:00.002-07:00

Last week I attended another CLASS Christian Writers Conference. It was SO good! Like last year it was held at Ghost Ranch just outside Abiquiu, New Mexico. The beautiful and isolated setting of the ranch always adds so much to an already inspiring week. CLASS does such a good job at putting on this conference. There are valuable workshops and continuing teaching labs throughout the week. The faculty are "real" people genuinely interested in our lives, our writing and helping us become better writers. The spiritual emphasis of the program is so grounding, keeping us focused on what matters the most: our relationship with God. After all, He is the reason we want to write. He has put in each of us the love of writing, the desire to "write for Him" and His purposes. It is our desire to let Him use what He has put into us, both the skill and the messages.

It was a great week. Here are a few of the photos I took.

This Cottonwood tree was stunning. I arrived on Tuesday at the Ranch and spent Wednesday alone on kind of a personal retreat. I took photos, read and journalled in the morning and wrote in the afternoon.

Ghost Ranch is nestled up to these beautiful mountains.

The buildings of Ghost Ranch run alongside and at the end of The Alfalfa Field. In the background is Pedernal Mountain, which Georgia O'Keeffe was so fond of painting from the ranch.

Thursday and Saturday were stormy days for us. We ate breakfast to a blustering snow outside the windows of the dining hall. This photo was taken on Saturday after the storm had passed over us. The dark storm clouds moved behind the mountain and the sun came out to shine brightly on the rock face. It was breathtaking.

I love this formation with all its holes and crevasses.

Last year I stayed in the Bunkhouse. The rooms were very small and bare, with a dormitory style bathroom outside and down the row. I was happy to find myself rooming again this year with the same roommate, Connie, with whom I earned my rookie merit badge by staying in the Bunkhouse. This year's accommodations were a giant step up, comparatively. Our room was so much larger. It was carpeted and we had an actual closet, bookshelves, two chairs and an end table. We had a sink in our room and we shared a semi-private bath with the room next door. It was rustic, with a bare and worn concrete floor in the shower - but compared to last year, it was heaven. This is where we stayed last week in Poplar.

These giant poplars are in front of the Dining Hall. The Bunkhouse is seen in the background, the only buildings on that side of the Alfalfa Field.

I am so drawn to all the Adirondack chairs on the property. Our busy program kept us bustling from one workshop to the next event, leaving these chairs empty the entire week. One of the faculty and my friend, Ron, asked the insightful question of this photo:

Why are empty chairs so compelling?

Always interested in detail, and to the exceptional, I was drawn to take this photo of the turquoise chair.

Again this year I was captivated by the thousands of fallen poplar leaves. Last year I took a photo of a heart shaped stain left by one of them on the sidewalk. This year I found an impression on a plate in the dirt. I thought the plate was made of steel but when thinking about it I can't figure out how a lightweight leaf could leave an impression in steel. It must be stained concrete or something.

I loved this bike rack loaded with fallen leaves.

And then there were the golden leaves still on a few trees. Wednesday was such a clear and sunny day I was able to get some photos of the sort I have longed to capture for quite some time.

This giant poplar was so pretty! I loved the dripping clusters of leaves.

I had such a fun time taking photos of this tree. I must have stood under it for half an hour.

Wednesday's blue sky and sun were a gift. By the end of the week, after two cold storms, this tree had lost many of it's leaves and what remained had turned brown.

Truly Meeting Trouble

2011-10-21T22:10:00.001-07:00

8:00 p.m. last night I was driving down the mountain to Phoenix in my Mom's old Buick. I'm two thirds of the way there, in the pitch of dark. In the middle of nowhere. Coasting down a hill. As the road leveled off, I needed to give it some gas to maintain speed. Nothing. The engine revved but didn't accelerate. What? Foot off the gas. Hm. Let's try that again. Foot on the gas. Vroooom! No acceleration. Holy cow, I'd better pull over.

Thankfully, this portion of road had a decent shoulder in which to pull off (Blessing #1). Unfortunately, it was littered with broken glass but I had no choice. I had to pull over. When I did, it looked like the engine was smoking. Great. Hmm, but before I came to the glass I heard the tires crunching a whole lot like there was gravel. Maybe it's just dirt catching up to me. So I let off the brake, coasted about 15 feet and stopped again. Still smoking. Definitely smoking. Great.

Opening up the hood confirmed what was already obvious; the car was smoking. Mom's car has a hood light so the engine compartment was entirely lit up. Very nice. Thankfully, I also had a big flashlight with me. (Blessing #2) I've gotten in the habit of taking the big flashlight with me to work every morning just in case I need to stop at the store after work and I get home after dark. I have about a 50 foot walk to get to the back door. In the woods without a flash light, that's kind of scary. Thus the flashlight. Yeah! Thank You, God. I was able to see my way around the car, watch my footing, flash into the brush off the edge of the road, and feel safe considering I was in javelina and rattle snake country. That flashlight also enabled me to see the problem. My mom's car was bleeding. Red transmission fluid was running downhill out from underneath the front. I was in big trouble.

I pulled out my cell phone and wondered if I could get any service. Yes! I was in a pocket with service! (Blessing #3) Since no one was stopping to help me, and I'd feel a tad nervous if they did, I was SO glad I had service. And an almost full battery, having just recharged it the night before. (Blessing #4) I called my brother, where I was headed, and remembered that he was at the Jimmy Buffet concert. He answered and gave me some direction. I called my other brother, who was at work in the Emergency Room and didn't hear his phone. I left a message he never got. (He told me today there was no message so he thought I just "butt dialed" him.) Then I called The Fisherman who was even farther out of town than I was, in the other direction.

All in all, I placed over 20 calls in 90 minutes. Both brother and husband said to call them back after the next task was accomplished. It was a telephoning circus. Since brother was at a concert and The Fisherman, and his evidently equally-internet impaired friend, couldn't get me a number to the nearest Highway Patrol (what a scene that must have been), the settled upon advice was to call 911 and tell them it's not an emergency but I'd like to have a DPS (Dept. of Public Safety) officer come give me some support and protection while I figured out what to do next. Piece of cake; they patched me right through. Of course, there was no visible mile marker so I couldn't tell them exactly where I was. But I could tell them sort of where I was, because (Blessing #5) just minutes before the car trouble I'd wondered where the heck I was on the journey and decided I had not yet reached the hill before Sunflower. "Somewhere between Payson and Sunflower," I told them. That was enough; they'd send someone right out.

I had no idea who to call next or how to find their number to call them. Did I want it towed all the way to Phoenix? Back to Payson? How much is this going to cost, for crying out loud? I'd cross that bridge when things settled down a little.

OK. DPS called. Officer on the way. Call The Fisherman and update him. Done. Hang up. Decide I'll call my co-worker and ask her to pray for me. Thumb is hovering over the Send button, and ... wait, what's that I see out of the corner of my eye? Someone's pulling off the road in front of me. Relief and concern simultaneously present themselves. I look up the road at them and see it's.....a tow truck! No kidding! I couldn't believe it. (Blessing #6!!) My jaw literally dropped. It had been about 7 seconds since I'd hung up with The Fisherman. I called him back, saying, "You're not going to believe this..." I stayed on the phone with him while the driver approached and handed me his card.

Good advice from The Fisherman to his far away and vulnerable wife: call DPS back and ask them to verify this guy's legitimate. I was relieved to hear them say, "Oh yes, we know him. He's on our rotation of guys we refer to in cases like yours." (Blessing #7) This guy was so patient and understanding. He simply waited for me while I did all this checking right in front of him. He even shined his flashlight on his business card for me when I needed to tell The Fisherman and DPS who he was. (Blessing #8)

He hooked me up and pulled the car onto the flat bed of his tow truck. (Although it's really not a "tow" anymore, is it? It's more of a ride.) DPS arrived, giving face-to-face confirmation that this man and his tow service is reputable. (Blessing #9) Good thing because I had a 70 mile ride with him to my brother's mechanic's shop. We had nice conversations about his family and living off the grid, as he does, too.

I arrived "home" to my brother's at 11:00 p.m. and $360 poorer. But...all in one piece and safe and sound. (Blessing #10) Blessing #11 is that during this whole ordeal, I was not afraid. I can honestly say that I was actually trusting God the whole time, calmly dealing with the unknowns and trusting that it would all get worked out somehow. That's amazing for me. And a huge blessing indeed.

Blessing #12 is kind of silly, but when you think about it, it's not. I debated, driving through Payson, whether I should take the time to stop for a restroom break. I realized I could probably make it the 90 minutes to Phoenix, but eventually decided to go ahead and stop. Given the long delay, I'm certainly glad I did. That could have been a problem.

The next blessing is that I was actually going down to Phoenix at all. I was disappointed that I had to go, given the fact that I have much to do at home in the next 10 days and couldn't really afford the time to make this trip. But, the registration on Mom's car had lapsed and couldn't be renewed until it went through the Emissions Test. The car is registered in Phoenix; my county doesn't require emissions tests and therefore has no testing stations. In 10 days I'm headed to the CLASS Christian Writers' Conference and really needed to get the registration up to date before that trip. I've been borrowing Mom's car from "the estate" for most of the summer because of it's air conditioning, and have been hanging onto it for this upcoming trip. There was no way around it: I had to drive all the way to Phoenix to get the test so I could renew the tags. Blessing #13 is that I had to make this trip. If I didn't, this serious roadside trouble could have happened on my trip to New Mexico in unfamiliar territory where many segments of road have only a 3 inch shoulder. If it had happened then, it would have been much more dangerous, much more costly, much more upsetting and I wouldn't have made it to the conference.

So, all in all, and crazy as it sounds, that whole awful ordeal last night was a blessing itself and was full of other blessings. I came through the other side of it with a deep sense of God's protection, provision, and favor.

P.S. Sorry for these incredibly long posts of late!

Meeting Trouble

2011-10-19T22:56:00.002-07:00

Half a mile from the highway, driving home from work and errands about 8:30 p.m., on the pitch dark road leading into our little community, the road up ahead looked kind of funny. I strained to see better but all I could make out was what seemed to be a light patch in the road beyond the full reach of my headlights. I slowed down and as I approached, I saw that this lighter patch was moving. Slower and closer still I realized it was a white dog running in my lane in the same direction ahead of me.

Stray dogs always wrench my heart. The town where we actually live is very, very small, with only a couple streets, a couple churches, a school, library and fire station. At the highway is a post office and general store. This dog was too far from "town proper" and way to close to the highway in the dark blackness of the night. At least it was running in the right direction.

Going only about 5 miles an hour now, I saw that the dog sped up as I passed it. Not like it was chasing the car, but like it was trying to get my attention. I slowed to a crawl and she trotted beside me curiously looking up into my window. She was a white pit bull with perky flopped over ears. As soon as I stopped the car, she put her front paws on my door and looked in. With window rolled mostly up I talked sweetly to her, not sure I could trust her. I had no clue as to her temperament yet, I just knew she was very interested in me. As I watched her responses to my constant sweet talking, I incrementally rolled my window down farther and farther. Before long, the window was rolled all the way down and she was leaning in, tail wagging and totally lovey.

I knew I had to do something. But what? I couldn't take her home because I was dog sitting for my friends and already had a dog at home. Our outdoor kennel was not escape proof and had a big gaping hole in the chicken wire where a previous canine visitor had squeezed his way out. Even if I fixed it, I couldn't take this dog out of town the other direction and closer into the woods only to have it escape in the night and be even more lost. I didn't know what to do. But...I had to do something.

I wondered if she'd get in the car with me so I could try to find her house. I got out and before I could open the back door, she jumped right in the front seat and started to settle in. I called her out and into the back seat where she sat right down like she'd just paid her ticket and was waiting for the ride to begin. I drove to one house with a long gravel driveway. I honked the horn and called out "Hello!" hoping to rouse someone in the house. The rule of the country is that you don't get out of your car because chances are there's a very protective dog loose on the property somewhere. When a couple finally came out, they said they didn't know where the dog lived but thought they'd seen her down by the library a few times.

With the dog now sitting up in the front seat beside me, I drove down two of our six total streets, watching her closely for any signs that she saw her home. Nothing. She just sat there observing everything as if thinking, "Oh boy, isn't this fun!" My next attempt led me to a house, with a German Shepherd and a couple of kids running around. I asked if they recognized her and the handsome young Indian boy said, "Oh, hey, that's Trouble. She lives over that way." He then proceeded to give me the most confusing directions I could imagine, especially since our town is so stinkin' small! I set out to the road he told me of. Nothing from Trouble helped me figure out if I was on the right track or not. She was just enjoying her ride, sitting up looking around, and sometimes laying down on the front seat like she was going home with me.

Next up, the Fire Department. I left the car running as I went inside and asked a firefighter if he could come out and possibly identify a dog for me. "A dog?" he asked, wondering what the heck I was getting him into. He came out with me and another firefighter followed along.

"Trouble! How're you doing, girl?" It seems I had the town celebrity in my car. Everyone seemed to know Trouble. She reached her head out the window and wriggled her whole body as she greeted her firehouse friends. From them I learned that Trouble is indeed trouble. She's an escape artist who's owner has ultimately given up trying to contain her. Trouble makes her rounds visiting folks in the tiny little hub of our town that contains only the library, firehouse, and churches.

I finally got specific directions to where Trouble lived. "Right behind the church" would have been a good sentence the young boy could have said to me, but no. I'd gone way past the church into eery territory unknown after talking to the boy. Now I went back where I'd slowly passed before and carefully observed Trouble's demeanor. Right back to where we'd heard the little yappy dog barking in a yard -- her yard -- but Trouble seemed to pay only passing attention to it. Back at her house, I stopped the car and opened the back passenger door. (She was back in the back again, having made herself quite at home jumping around my car.) I opened the door and she just sat there, looking at me and the house as if she didn't have any intention of going home. She was having too much fun driving around with her new friend.

With a little coaxing, she got out and walked a few feet down the driveway. I wasn't entirely sure she would go home. When I drove away she was back out into the street again, looking at me, apparently wondering why our little party was over. But I'd done my best and was happy to have taken her home.

She probably would have eventually made her way back home from where I'd first seen her. But I'm glad I picked her up. I'm guessing she was farther away than she'd ever been before and she was much too close to the highway for a dog with such a wanderlust. Especially at night. I figured if she stayed out all night after I dropped her off, at least she was back in her own neighborhood.

The next day on my way into town, I passed the little white log cabin church on the other side of the main road. The parking lot was full of cars and a few people were milling about. And there was Trouble. Right in the action, saying hi and making her rounds.

She's a funny, happy and friendly dog, that one. I'm glad I met Trouble.

My Grey Story

2011-09-17T13:02:00.000-07:00

Long grey hair. Powerfully influential voices in my head resound with the notion that:

"A woman shouldn't have long hair after 40," and

"A woman over 40 should especially not have long grey hair."

I have kept my hair long or longish for many years now. When we first moved up to the mountains it was really long. Then I began wearing it just below my shoulders.

My grey began over 20 years ago. Early greying runs in my family. In fact my first grey hair came at age 19. Thankfully it staved itself off for more than a decade before too many more showed up. Twenty some years ago, my then fiance, bless him, recommended I not dye my hair as it grew increasingly grey. At first I was a little leary of this image-threatening idea. But, I also kind of liked it. I don't recall actually ever making the decision not to. Once he said those loving, supportive, and encouraging words, I just didn't really think directly about it much. I've always been on the more "natural" side. A touch of laziness probably had something to do with it, too. That, and I don't think I was too keen on all those chemicals...and the trial and error...and the cost...and the time. But his most outstanding commentary on the matter was this: "What do you do when you get sick of the hassle, the chemicals, the expense and the time, and you just want to stop? By then you'll be way more grey than when you started and it will be a huge shock, not to mention a challenging process, to go back to natural." What a blessing his advice has been. (I just don't think he expected me to go this grey this early. Oh well. HE said!)

I confess, I had an advantage though. My grey started in full force in the back of my head. I had a touch of the skunk look. A subtle skunk. But, hey, it was in the back and I just don't look at the back of my head that often. Around my face retained more of my natural brown. So, with a touch of oblivion and a touch of that no fussing laziness, I actually forget how grey I really am! What a dope, right? But it seems to serve me well as I still get to appreciate more brown in front. When I look at my face in the mirror, I am deceived into thinking I'm less grey than I really am.

This is me last September (2010) with some of Martin Buser's Iditarod sled dogs. He allowed us to go on the "free run" with them. While my hair looks pretty darn grey here, wait till you see the next one of me walking up the trail.

Now there's a lot of grey!

While that denial and oblivion is a mystery in itself, there is, however a greater mystery. There is one feature of my particular pattern of going grey that can get me pining for my youthful brown tresses. The very undermost layer of my hair - about a half inch worth - is completely and utterly my original dark brown color. (Thanks, thanks, couldn't have been the top layer, huh?) Occasionally I take out the mirror, swoop my hair up and gaze upon what used to be. I sigh and I pout a little. And then I go back to marvelling at the completey, utterly, and thoroughly grey patch next to the rest of my hair that is almost totally grey.

I'm glad I've never dyed my hair, though. It has been freeing to let it be what it's going to be. I'm glad I didn't embark on the maintenance commitment that dying it would have involved. AND, I am enjoying the encouragement of the many comments I receive in praise of such a move. More and more women are coming up to me saying how they like my grey and that I have given them courage to let theirs go back to natural. That blesses me. Who'd a thunk it?

But now...another dilemma. Short or long? I'm voting for long. Why? Probably a mix of reasons which might include, a touch of unconventionalism, a touch of rebellion maybe, some of that funky artist thing, a secret bit of hippie inside me, and...I find it beautiful. Just take a look at some of these photos.

http://brightonwoman.blogspot.com/2009/02/long-grey-beautiful.html

Old Books

2011-08-12T23:32:00.000-07:00

I love books.
I love old books.
I collect old books. Or at least I did for awhile.

It all started when I went into a used bookstore and came across an old copy of Laura Ingalls Wilder's, Little House in the Big Woods. I paid $6 for it that day and had no idea I'd embarked on an antique book collecting phase of my life.

I began collecting old books before it became popular and I found them in little antique shops all over town. I rarely ever paid more than $10. Many were under $5. I have some beautiful ones. I have some homely ones. Some I bought because I liked the cover. Some I bought because I wanted to read them. Some I bought because I like the author. I have several Louisa May Alcott books, including Little Women, Little Men, Jo's Boys, and Good Wives. Some are classics, like Ben Hur, Robinson Crusoe, and Paradise Lost. I have books of poetry, books of short stories, old Bibles, and old song books. I fell in love with a little leather book inside a case at one antique store. It was only about 2" x 2.5". It was $15. I hated to pay that much and debated a long, long time. It was a book of hymns. It was only the words, no notes. I didn't recognize the name of the writer/composer but I finally caved in and bought it. Turns out it a book of compositions by the man who wrote the famous Christmas hymn, Joy to the World.

I bought a book for my sister-in-law because of its simple one word title, which was her name. She loved it. One day I found a book I knew I just had to buy for a friend. Long ago he and his wife gave each other hillbilly nicknames. He's Willis (Willis You Killus) and she's Edna (Edna Mae Knot). When I found a book titled, Edna, His Wife, I just had to get it for him. Little did I know he also collected old books. It was a hit.

When we bought our land up here in the woods I began noticing books with fun titles pertaining to our new adventure getting back to nature. Thus began a miniature "collection within a collection" of books with nature titles. I have some of them together on a special little book shelf.

The Rock and the Wind has a funny meaning to me. We bought our property in the month of February. Winter was beginning to fade away but Spring had not yet come. Two things I have found most annoying in my life are wind and rocky terrain. This piece of property was beautiful and was the best thing we'd seen for the price. We were thrilled. It was our dream come true. We were so happy. It wasn't until after we'd bought it and spent a few weekends up here that I realized how dang many rocks there were. Rocks were everywhere. I'd trip over them, stub my toes on them, roll my ankles on them. They are just everywhere. Aargh. And then came the wind. We discovered that every spring and every fall, our area gets some nasty high winds bringing in the change of seasons. We're talking 40+ mph gusts and weeks on end of 25-30mph winds all day long. So, when I found a book titled The Rock and the Wind, well, it was a must have. I bought it with big grin in my heart, knowing how perfectly God had sort of "tricked" us into buying this land when, in our shopper's delight, we didn't seem to notice all the rocks and hadn't yet learned about the winds. I'm so glad He did.

Basket Full of Yarn

2011-07-28T18:16:00.001-07:00

I was in an Art Expressions Bible study class a couple years ago and was introduced to the idea of Water Color Journaling. You take something about your day, a special event, or just something you want to highlight and document, and you do a watercolor of it. It becomes a pictorial journal. You can also write on your painting to make it even more like a journal.

In class we were given a passage of Scripture and some time to meditate on it, often through a nature walk. Then we'd come back to the room and draw and paint the little tidbits of nature we picked up. We'd write about how God spoke to us on our walk with Him, or what He "said" to us through nature.

A water color journal doesn't have to be all about Scripture. I have a friend who is a wonderful painter; she will sometimes go to the park, the zoo, the botanical gardens, or away for a painting weekend with a friend and she adds paintings and musings to her bound watercolor journal book.

All that explanation is to introduce a drawing & watercolor I did at home one night after I learned about this neat form of noting something special in one's life. I was so excited about knitting at the time and I loved seeing my basket full of yarn sitting on the fireplace hearth, that I decided to draw and paint it.

This form of drawing is called Blind Contour Drawing...well, a modified and "cheated" version. A blind contour drawing is where you look only at the subject and not at your paper. You're not supposed to pick up your pencil either. Yes, it's tough, but it's actually kind of fun. It certainly levels the playing field among students of varying degrees of artistic skill.

What it really does is teach you to see. It teaches you to draw only what you see. Very often, when drawing, our mind assumes things about the subject. Information previously known about the subject can interfere with what we're actually seeing. Angles, perspectives, etc., can get messed up when we draw what we assume rather than what we see. This kind of exercise teaches us to really see what we're drawing and it teaches our brain to communicate more literally with our hand. I enjoy it quite a bit.

Like I said, I kind of cheated on this one. I glanced up a little bit throughout the drawing and also went back in to fill in some detail like the cross hatches on the basket and the yarn lines. But, most of it I did blindly. And since there's no Drawing Cop hanging over me when I draw, it didn't harm my purpose at all. I drew the contours blindly (with a couple cheats) and then loosely went back to fill in detail to bring it more to life. Then I painted in with water colors. Apart from the weird and way-too-big word, "Knitting", I'm very pleased with the outcome.

And I do love a basket full of yarn.

Seeing Names

2011-07-11T19:14:00.000-07:00

My cat, Mini, was a tortie. I got her when I was in second grade and had her all the way through my Junior year in high school. With my second grade mindset, I named her Mini because as a kitten she looked so tiny compared to her huge eyes. My mom always thought I named her Minnie, as in Mouse or Pearl. But no. I always spelled it Mini, as in small.

It's funny how people can say the same name but spell it differently in their minds. I always "see" words in my mind. I don't know if this is common or uncommon but I do. When I say a word, often times I "see" it spelled out in my mind. Someone can say the name "Laurie" but if I'm seeing "Lori" in my mind, I get totally confused in the conversation and can't figure out who they're talking about! Reminds me of Anne of Green Gables who requested that people "please say her name with an 'e 'on the end because it's so much more elegant than Ann without an 'e'."

Summer Flowers

2011-06-28T22:33:00.000-07:00

We live entirely off the grid. We have a solar system for our electricity and we collect rain water and snow melt into two cisterns. That means, a couple times a year we don't have a lot of water. We would love to have a garden full of vegetables and have flowers surrounding the house. However, without an abundance of water, it just doesn't work.

So, every summer I buy a few flowers and plant them in pots for the one corner of our porch that receives afternoon sun. This year I did something a little different.

One of the things that drew The Fisherman and me to each other was our common love for wheel thrown pottery. I fell in love with the potter's wheel in college while The Fisherman fell in love with it in high school. It was a simple conversation one day after church about "throwing pots" that opened the door for our first date.

After we were married we took a couple classes at the local community college because we didn't have a place to throw, not having our own wheel, kiln, or studio. The Fisherman always made me jealous because he could throw these big huge pots out of 25 pounds of clay. I could never throw more than 4 or 5 pounds, and that was really pushing it. During our classes, he made these really nice pots perfect for flowers. But the semester ended before he could put them through the second (or glaze) firing. They were only bisque fired. We brought them to the woods with us when we moved, always hoping to find someplace to glaze and fire them.

Meanwhile, bisque fired pottery isn't all that strong. It's very porous because it's not fired at a very high temperature. Over the years, these pots have weakened and eventually broke. When planting my flowers this summer, I came across some of the pieces and had a fun idea.

I took one curved piece, packed it with soil, and walled up the sides with broken branches.

Watering it is a bit of a nuisance since all the water wants to leak out through the sides. My hope to pack the soil and branches tightly enough to prevent this simply didn't work. So I have to trickle water in at both ends where there are two little depressions. But I sure like the way it looks, even with the oops drops of brown stain from when The Fisherman re-stained the front porch.

I especially like the bent branch at the top of this side.

However, the flowers were much more photogenic on the other side. Plus, the lip of the pot is on that side, which I also really like.

I really like this little broken-pot flower pot.

Quilt Back Done!

2011-06-05T18:17:00.002-07:00

I finished the backing piece for my first real quilt. I finished it about 10 days ago but it's been so darn windy here that I haven't been able to hang it on the clothes line for a photo. Today was better so at last here it is.

In my last post I mentioned that I used a fabric that had the look and colors I originally wanted for the top. It doesn't show quite true in these photos but there is more of an overall aqua tone to this fabric. If you had a can of light turquoise paint, to get the color I'm talking about I'd tell you to add just a touch more pale green to it. That's aqua. And it was nowhere to be found when I shopped for the many different fabrics I needed for the top. There were only true turquoises and teals, and most of the purples were dark. I used what was available and, though I do love it, I ended up with a much more vibrant and contrasting quilt top than I originally intended. I hadn't intended it to be so, shall we say, loud as it is. I had a much more subtle look in mind.

Since the quilt top was nearly finished when I found this fabric, I knew I had to make it my backing fabric. Since I loved it so much I decided to do a little something special on the back as well. So I pieced a frame around it with some purple fabrics, just to add a little interest.

In the photo below, if you look carefully, you can see where I had to piece together the solid inner piece as well. Look along the top edge of the photo about 1/3 way across from the left and you'll see a sudden change from a plain turquoise section to a purple flower. Overall, you can hardly notice.

The frame on the back (two 1-inch strips) is supposed to line up with the frame on the front (one 2-inch strip). The outer border on this backing is larger now than it will be in the end. You're supposed to make the backing bigger than the top for the final quilting project. When finished it will look more like this:

The darker purple strip is the same fabric I've decided to use for the binding. The binding creates a nice folded edging all around the quilt.

The reason for making the quilt bottom larger than the top during the quilting process is probably to allow for creeping...something that I can't have happen now that I've designed it so the frames need to line up. I want my quilting pattern, which is designed for the front, to also work for the back.

I already know that it's not going to be perfect. I did a test layout on the floor and was disappointed to find I am a smidge off. I will have to be very careful when laying it out. And very diligent with basting it together so it will withstand the amount of handling it will experience while I do the actual quilting over the next, several months. (At least I hope it's only going to be months, rather than years!) With great care I'm hoping my circle quilting from the front will not spill over into the framing on the back. But I think it will.

I'll just have to be OK with that.

By then I will simply be amazed and pleased to have completed a full-blown, honest to goodness, bona fide quilt! Yea!

May Snow

2011-06-01T22:07:00.000-07:00

Just like last year, winter seemed reluctant to depart the mountain. With one final grandstand, it brought us snow on May 9th.

It was almost dusk when I came home to discover what appeared to have been almost three inches of snowfall. Last year it was May 2nd. This year May 9th. Crazy Arizona weather.

Quilt Top is Done!

2011-05-13T17:34:00.004-07:00

I'm so excited to report that I finished my very first quilt top today.

Making a quilt has been on My List. It's been something I wrote down a couple decades ago as something I wanted to do in my life: make a quilt.

Last summer I wandered into a quilt shop and fell in love with a simple top-stitched pattern that gave me the courage to go ahead and dive in.

Here's a re-cap of the process of making this queen sized quilt top.

First I began collecting all the beautiful batik fabrics.

Then I cut 90 nine-inch squares of background fabrics and 90 sets of circles in three sizes: 8", 6" and 4".

Next I sewed them together. First I sewed the 8" circle onto the background square. Then I turned it over and trimmed out the background fabric within the circle of stitching. This is so the finished product wouldn't be so many layers thick for the final quilting process. Then I sewed on the 6" circle on top of the 8" circle, trimmed out the back again, and sewed the 4" circle onto the 6" circle. One final trimming of the back and I had my finished square. But hold on a minute, there's another step!

Once my circles are on my squares, this is where the pattern throws a kink into things. The next step is to cut all the squares into quarters and randomly piece them back together again, making a wild hodge-podge of circles. I couldn't wait to see what my finished quilt top would look like so I folded my newly sewn circle-squares in quarters and put a few next to each other for a preview.

Finally, after many a night of sewing 360 little cut squares back into 90 big squares, I had my finished squares, ready to be sewn together in 9 strips of 10.

But first, another preview.

It was here that I took a long break from my quilt. This is where I think I ended last summer. Eventually, this past winter I got my basket of squares out again. I sewed them into strips and then sewed the strips together.

Last weekend I bought my border fabric and today I finished sewing on the two borders.

Taa Daa! My first quilt top is done!

It's wild, I give you that. But I love it!

"And it flies!"

to quote a funny Facebook friend.

I had to take a picture of the back showing all that stitching!

As the breeze took the quilt into the sun, it began to look like a stained glass window.

I already have my backing fabric purchased. I'm going to do a little "piecing" for the back, too. Call me crazy. (I think one of the ladies in the quilt shop wanted to. Knowing it's my first quilt, she asked, "And why are you going to piece the back?")

Well, that's a bit of a story. The color I really wanted as the focal point of the quilt is an aqua-turquoise color. I thought some purple would be nice as an accent color. As I began shopping for fabric, they didn't have any fabric in the aqua-turquoise I really wanted so I had to settle for more teals, turquoises, and greens. They also had way more purple fabric than they did these blue-greens, and I needed a lot of different fabrics. So the quilt ended up much more vivid and much more purple than I intended.

Then, a couple months ago I stopped into the quilt shop browsing for border and backing fabrics. Lo and behold, they had JUST the color I'd wanted all along. It was only in one fabric, though. I knew I had to make it my backing fabric. Because it was the coloring look I'd envisioned from the beginning, I decided to go ahead and make the back something special too. This way, the quilt will be fully reversible and won't look so much like an ordinary quilt back.

I'm going to make two one-inch inset frames into the otherwise single-fabric backing. The edging will be one of the same fabrics used in the interior framing. It shouldn't be too hard. The trick will be lining up the sandwich of top-batting-and-back precisely enough so the quilting I do in designated areas on the front will line up with the piecing on the back. (Hence, the quilt store lady's question, "And, why are you piecing the back?")

But for now, I'm just enjoying the thrill of finishing the top! WooHoo! I did it!

Catching Up - Interlude

2011-03-01T23:00:00.001-07:00

Before I continue with some more photos of the winter games, I have so many little catch-up things swirling around in my head. I simply must get them listed.

The biggest item is that I have a new job. I haven't been working since I quit my church secretary job up here and moved to take care of my mom. I did a little work at an urgent care center while in Phoenix but other than that, I haven't been seriously employed. Now I am. And it was a total God-thing. I'm working at a local crisis pregnancy clinic. It's a wonderful place! They do pregnancy tests, counseling, and have several courses in parenting that moms and dads can take to earn Mommy Dollars and Daddy Dollars. With these they can purchase diapers, baby clothes, maternity clothes, toys, strollers, and other baby stuff. And the parents are learning how to be good parents through it all. It's great. I have wanted a job that holds meaning to me. I've found it hard to work in jobs that are just jobs. So my prayer has been that God would provide a job for me in some kind of ministry, whether it be a church or something else. I ran into a friend at Wal-Mart 10 days ago and as we chatted the topic turned to the fact that I'm looking for a job with meaning. Her eyes lit up and she thought of the opening at the clinic. Here's the real God-thing about it: this friend is the founder and newly retired Executive Director of this ministry. Wow! It is so exciting to have this opportunity come right out of the blue, be standing there in Wal-Mart, and have her call the clinic in my presence and tell them she's sending me over for an application and that she highly recommends me. I know He has made this happen. I'm so thankful.

Other tidbits:

The other day I came home from town in the late afternoon. The sun was low and there was new white snow on the ground. Long yellowed grasses of winter were standing up above the snow, here and there. Everything was white and yellow. The afternoon sun shone on them adding even more golden color to the scene. And then I saw them. Half a dozen antelope grazed right up close to the fence. Their coloring so matched the white and yellow of the landscape that I almost didn't see them. Their golden tan and white markings blended in beautifully. It was a treat to see them so close and to see them so blended into their surroundings.

I've been working on my quilt again. I've sewn my squares into strips. I'm working on ironing the seams out flat before I sew the strips together. I plan on doing that this Friday, sunny skies permitting. I always wait for my schedule and sunny skies to cooperate with each other to use the iron; such is my life on solar, though I think our newly refurbished system would be fine. We're just always of a conserving mindset. Once I get the strips sewn together into a big rectangle, I'll take it in to the quilt store and make sure the fabrics I've selected for the borders are the best choices and go ahead and buy them. Can't wait.

The morning drive to my first day of work was blessed with a bald eagle sighting. There are a couple of dead trees close to town, "widow makers" as they're called because they will eventually come crashing down of their own accord and if a man happened to be nearby, his wife would end up a widow. That's a sad thought, eh? But these giants have been around for many years. On cold winter mornings you just might see a bald eagle sitting in the top. I enjoyed this sight often enough that I named the the trees The Eagle Trees. The Fisherman, however, calls them The Ghost Trees. It was fun seeing one as a special treat on my first day at the new job.

Then, today, Day Two of the new job, I saw the antelope again. This time they were at quite a distance but it's always fun to see them in this one pasture close to home. And on the way home I had an extra special wildlife sighting "gift". I saw three deer (I've only seen deer around here two other times), four elk, and then two little bunny rabbits -- all within a couple hundred feet of each other and even closer to home. I love seeing wildlife.

I did mounds and mounds, pounds and pounds of laundry last week. I did all our bedding plus all the camping bedding which I (shamefully) haven't gotten washed since we returned home from Alaska. It's just so dang cumbersome that every time I've gone to the laundromat with our normal wash loads, I just haven't been able to muster the energy to add all that bedding to it. Yes, I do all our laundry in town at the laundromat. We have a washer here but we've grown accustomed to being rather stingy with our water supply. We never did get ourselves a dryer and though we hang up most of our clothes to avoid shrinkage, I'm not real keen on hanging out every sock as well. Nor am I fond of crunchy socks and crunchy bath towels. So I go to the laundromat. Anyway, I am happy to report I got 7 blankets, 3 comforters (2 of them down), and one stitched-together-combo blanket washed. The combo one is made of one sheet and two blankets sewn together. It's one of The Fisherman's concoctions to prevent his camping blankets from separating.

I have learned that the wonderfully soft micro-fleece blankets should not be put in the dryer. Since they're made of nylon, they melt. At least in the hot laundromat dryers anyway. When they melt, they turn crunchy. Not fond of crunchy you remember. So I dried what I could and brought the rest home to hang on the line.

I used to hate the smell of line dried clothes. I couldn't understand what everyone was talking about (TV commercials and all) with the smell of line dried laundry. I thought it was a bitter rank smell. Then, one day about two years ago I brought in the clothes and smelled that smell, and suddenly I liked it. Now I really like it and find myself smelling it just like in TV commercials. Go figure.

Well, that's about all I can manage for tonight. It's late and I have to work tomorrow (yeah! Thank You, God!) There might be more of these incidental tidbits of catch-up, but at this hour I certainly can't remember them, and my list is downstairs. So I'll bid you a good night until the next time. Night all.

Winter Games

2011-02-27T14:10:00.001-07:00

Recently we headed over to some Winter Games. We were scheduled to set up some photography at the Saturday events. We almost didn't make it because The Fisherman had a migraine, but at the last minute - the very last minute - he thought he could make it. We scrambled to load up a smaller version of our originally intended set-up and hit the road. It was a beautiful day, sunny and warm for winter. It's a good thing, too, because we were set up outside. I hear tell it was the first beautiful day in all of the nearly 10 years of the winter festival. We were one of only two merchandise vendors. The remainder of the space seemingly crowded with vendors were concessions vendors and participants in the Chili Cook-off. We enjoyed the day a great deal and had many visitors to our boothless "booth". And we even made some sales, too.

The event has two main features: the sled dog races up the mountain and the festival-like events down the hill at a casino. Saturday's events at the casino included a live band, a dog weight pulling contest, ice carving contest, dog shows (best purebred, best northern breed, owner-dog look alike contest, best mutt, best iddy-bitty dog and best "lap-dog"[70 pounds and up]). Here are some photos from Saturday's fun. Sorry about the quality - or lack thereof. It seems I need a refresher course on my camera settings, having blown out or blurred nearly all the photos. But you'll get the idea.

This guy was the winner, pulling around 650 pounds.

Not too many participants in the ice carving contest. But the local chain-saw carver, who creates bears, eagles, and other sculptures from big forest logs, was on hand. Though I didn't hear, I'm pretty sure he was the winner. I couldn't imagine what he was making in a horizontal format.

I don't have a clue what this gargoyle like creature was but it turned out very good.

Ahaa! Two horizontal blocks of ice became a dog sled, complete with hooded musher hunkered down in back. He even stuck in blue eyes for the dog. Very nice.

The next day, The Fisherman still not feeling all that well, I went up to Day Two of the sled dog races myself. One of the founders of the races at the games is a friend of ours. His sister is also a friend of mine from Bible study. He was racing and his wife was the official time keeper. They needed the two of us Bible study gals to stand at the place where the race trail crossed a maintenance road - to keep the dogs from veering onto the road and to stop any stray vehicle that might wander along. A dozen or so Young Marines were there to help but their numbers were consumed with an especially exuberant dog team I'll show you later.

So Nancy and I drove to the spot where the trail crossed the dirt road and we waited, each of us on either side of the trail. Watching the trail curve around the trees, we waited for the sound of barking dogs at the start line to quiet down. Then we knew a team was on their way. The dogs bark with excited anticipation until they hear their musher tell them to go. Then it's all business and they're off. Pretty soon we saw a flash of movement around the bend and here came the first team.

And the second...

Then the third, our friend, Ron.

He's getting out of mushing. Has sold or given away all of his dogs. Except for one 14 year old long-retired favorite, Snowflake. He was running a team for another musher and I was glad to be able to see him race for the first time since I've been an Iditarod fan.

This wasn't exactly like the Iditarod mind you. The largest teams run here were only 6-dog teams compared to the Iditarod's 16-dog teams that start out the race. And this race trail was only 4 miles long, not 1000.

And here comes the winning team coming in to the finish.

Eliminating some drag, the musher hunkers down to make it easier on his team to run the last stretch.

Here comes Ron, coming in for the finish.

After the race, it's chow time. "Dog trucks" are fitted with welded on eye bolts all around the truck and dogs are chained up temporarily before and after a race.

Then, it was back into the cozy shelter of their individual boxes.

Up you go!

Here's a couple of the small sleds that were used that day. Sleds are big enough to carry any equipment needed for safety out on the trail and also large enough to carry a dog inside, should it become tired or injured. On the Iditarod trail, sled bags are often used for a musher to crawl into and catch some sleep when they stop along the way.

Believe it or not, I'm such an Iditarod nerd that I actually know the names of some of the parts of a sled. But I'll spare you the identifying of them. Feel free to just look at the pretty sled in the pretty snow and sunlight.

More tomorrow of snow, sleds, dogs and mushers.

Our Favorite Snowstorm

2011-02-27T08:06:00.005-07:00

Writing about last week's snow storm reminded me of our favorite snow storm. It was when I was working at our church. Everyone else on staff had gone home for the day. The snow was coming down heavy. Really heavy. I'd always known that, should there be a bad storm, I could just sleep over at the church. The youth pastor had a couch in his office and I always carried a blanket in my truck. The kitchen had snacks, and even a small arsenal of frozen dinners I'd brought as lunches for the week. The church library was full of books and videos I could use to pass the evening until time to go to sleep. As I looked outside at the heavy snow coming down, I thought this just might be the night I'd actually need to engage this back-up plan.

Inexperienced with snow-driving (and hating it) the prospect of a 20-some mile drive home in a blizzard was just too daunting. I called my husband and told him I was too uncomfortable to drive home, that I thought I should stay in town. There were folks I could have stayed with in town, but frankly, I didn't want to be on the roads at all, not just the highway home. He said he would come get me and take me back into town the next morning for work if I wanted him to. I didn't know what to do. I was worried about him driving in it, too. But, his experience with driving in snow was much broader than mine and he wasn't as scared of it. He said it was up to me.

I hemmed and hawed, not knowing what to do. I had pre-thought this scenario for so long, I thought I was fine with it. But the more I pictured myself alone in the church all night, I got a little nervous. With enough assurance from him that he would be fine on the road and that we'd be fine going home, I took him up on his chivalrous offer.

I anxiously waited for him to drive to me. He got there much sooner than I expected but by the time he arrived, the storm had settled heavily in upon the town. I was anxious about the drive home, wanting to get right on the road as soon as possible. The sooner we got going the sooner we'd be safely back at the cozy home we'd built with our own hands. The home that was toasty warm from the day's fires, waiting to envelop me in security against all the dangers of the storm.

But The Fisherman had another idea. "Hey, let's go to dinner!"

"What? Are you crazy? We need to get home!"

"Ahh, we'll be fine."

I decided to trust his greater experience with snowstorms rather than the fears of my inexperience, the fears that were always ready to over-react to things anyway. Actually, it was quite amazing that I did this, choosing to not trust my fears which always seem so convincing. I decided to trust his evaluation of the storm.

We went to our favorite Chinese restaurant another 6 miles down the road...deeper into the storm. We shared the road with only a handful of other cars. Who else would be so foolish to be out in such a storm? We got to the restaurant and asked for seats by the window. I think there was only one other table occupied with diners in the whole restaurant, and they were nearly ready to leave.

Though I was still a little nervous, I'd let go of the bulk of my fear and had chosen to trust my husband, his judgment and his driving skill.

To this day, it's our favorite memory of dining at our favorite restaurant. We go to this restaurant on our anniversary, on our birthdays, with friends, with family. But this was our favorite visit. We both love the memory of having nearly the whole place to ourselves and looking out the window at a gentle but heavy snow coming down on the nearly abandoned road.

There's something about snow...it's just so quiet. Snow that's not accompanied by wind, that is. It's peaceful, even though it can create threatening conditions. There's nothing like looking out a window at those big, fat, white flakes coming down through the otherwise still air. The cloud cover seems to create a ceiling and all of the outdoors seems as if it's a big room. We love it when we're snug in our own cabin in the woods during one of these quiet snows. But there was just something so special about being in that restaurant for this particular storm. Something about being "caught" in town in the storm. Something about watching the snow fall while eating our favorite food, cozy and safe inside the restaurant. Something about the fact that nearly everyone else in town was already hunkered down at home, leaving the whole town to us. Something about having the whole restaurant to ourselves, the quiet inside matching the quiet outside.

We made it home safe and sound. Walking into our cabin from the cold and the snow is also one of my favorite experiences. Cozy. Warm. Strong and sturdy. Built with our own hands. Our shelter.

And if I don't have to drive in it, I do love the snow.

Storm's Coming

2011-02-26T20:06:00.002-07:00

Wow! I can't believe it's been almost a month since I last posted. More than that since I had a real post.

The winds have been blowing here "on the mountain", as they say up here. That means a storm is coming. They've been blowing for 2 days and nights. They blow hard and I generally dislike it very much. They slam into the house and bend the tops of tall pines as their persistence creates both constant and gusting roars ripping through the long pine needles. When we bought our property we had no idea how windy it was up here. We bought in winter and didn't realize that every spring and every fall the winds assault these mountain communities for weeks until the full change of season takes place. And every time there's a storm coming, the winds make their appearance for a couple days preceding.

I'm talking serious winds. Winds that make driving on the highway a tense experience. Winds that send your hair all over creation. Winds that make you lean into them. Winds that shut car doors on your leg, and winds that can rip cold air right through to your bones. After two days of these winds, I went outside tonight and it was...absolutely still. It stopped me in my tracks, the silence, the peace. I exhaled a slow and long breath of relief. I smiled. I sighed. I drank in the sight of motionless treetops. The quiet was beautiful. Ahh.

But, at this time of year, it does mean that this is literally the calm before the storm. It's supposed to snow tonight and all day tomorrow. But we're ready. I filled our water jugs when I was in town Friday. We restocked our wood shed a couple days ago. I pulled the truck in backwards today when I came home. That way we can drive straight out in case the snow is deep. When there's several inches snow on the ground I prefer to drive straight out in Forward rather than backing out in Reverse, even though we have 4-Wheel Drive and it's not that much of a problem.

Fortunately I don't really think the concern is warranted this time. Last night I heard the tail end of a weather forecast for tomorrow that said "...in the high country. Forecasts call for 8-14 inches of snow." What high country? Our high country? The high country north of us? South of us? West of us? I never could find out but checking the internet today it predicts only 1 inch in our area. That's fine with me! But you never really know for sure whether the forecast will run true. We never really how a storm is going to hit us. Sometimes it's worse than predicted and sometimes it seems to split and go around us entirely.

Last Saturday we'd heard snow was coming in the night. It came early. On our way in going to church as a matter of fact. That's one of the disadvantages of living over 20 miles from town; the weather is often different where we live than in town. It can even be different in different parts of town. And the drive is so long that the weather can change en route. It was barely snowing at our house, just little tee-tiny flakes. On the way to town we ran into rain. By the time we reached the half-way point, the rain was getting slushy. Another couple of miles brought discernible snow. Each mile after that was different. We hit pockets of heavy snow and light snow. By the time we were five miles from town it was downright bad. The plan was to swing by and get a $5 always-ready pizza, go by the drug store to pick up some things, and then head to church further down the road another 8 miles. 2 miles outside of town we were in a blizzard. We knew we needed to turn around and go home. So close, we decided to pick up the pizza and then turn around.

Big, fat, wind-driven snowflakes came flying at us as we drove home. It reminded me of "warp speed" in the original Star Wars movies. The drive home was slow. The roads were still OK - slushy and not iced over yet - but we were concerned about elk in the road. The snow was coming down and blowing so hard our visibility was only about 50 feet. We came home and hunkered down for the night, disappointed that we missed church but very thankful that the snow hit on our way in rather than while we were sitting in church. We would have had it much worse driving home at 8:30 pm if we'd sat in church for an hour and a half while a blizzard quietly raged outside. It's just one of the downsides to living so far from town.

I'll write more soon, to catch up with what's been going on for the last month.

I Won! I Won!

2011-01-30T20:20:00.001-07:00

I can't believe it, but I won these beautiful wood buttons from

The Hickory Tree!

WooHoo!

I'm so excited and dreaming of all the ways I'll use them!

THANK YOU, La Chapstick Fanatique!

A New Find

2011-01-25T22:45:00.001-07:00

I love wood! I love branches, twigs, and bark. And I've just discovered an Etsy store dedicated to Tree Branch Buttons. It's called The Hickory Tree. I have always loved wooden buttons. I've been wanting to incorporate some of them into my knitting and am now thoroughly inspired.

OK...it's a day after this original post and I finally got the photo added. Don't know why it didn't work before but here they are in all their beauty.

I learned about The Hickory Tree (and got the photo) from a blog by the name of La Chapstick Fanatique which I just began following. It looks like a thoroughly interesting and fun blog. Recipes, Etsy finds, AND Giveaways! Check it out!

True Confessions and Getting Home

2011-01-14T00:38:00.051-07:00

Whoops! Though I promised this post for the very next day after my last, I just discovered that when I revisited the scheduled post for some last minute edits, it got "saved as a draft" rather than "published". Here I've been thinking it's been up for a week, only to see it's been sitting in my Drafts all along and with a scheduled post date of January 14th. Sheesh! So, at long last...

It's true confessions time.

I have to be honest. I have to confess. Spill my guts, own my junk, and come clean.

Here goes....

I wore these three shirts........................

or some combination of them...........

for at least five days straight at the end of our trip.

Please don't hate me.

Let me explain:

1. We were super busy, of the non-stop variety. I was layering and unlayering like a crazy woman the day we packed up to leave our particular portion of Alaska for the winter.

2. We were camping - in our van, yes, but it's still camping. And let's face it; when you're camping you wear the same clothes for a couple days. I just kinda got carried away.

3. It was REALLY cold and, hey, we lived in a van; it's hard to change clothes.

4. But the real reason was that it was SO cold I slept in my clothes. (Yes, it's worse than you thought.)

5. It was SO cold I was not about to put on freezing new clothes in the morning.

6. It was, you remember, down into the 30's and 20's every night.

7. Which meant waking up in 30 degrees, seeing your breath, and having frost on the ceiling. Just coming out from under 20 pounds of warm covers was enough of a shock. I was not about to change into ice cold clothes. No way. No how. No sir.

8. You can't make me. You can't make me. You can't make me!

9. That's all there is to it.

10. Those conditions just never went away until we drove far enough south, so....

Please don't give me that look.

I can't even remember how it got started, though I do remember at some point I grabbed the giant blue sweatshirt of The Fisherman's one morning because I was in the mood for wearing a huge jeans-colored sweatshirt that day. I wore it as a "jacket" for a couple days, putting it on when I needed an extra layer now and then. The morning after our dusty Denali day, our friends let us use their hotel room to shower up. I believe that's when I donned the blue long sleeved tee-shirt and the burnt orange colored light sweatshirt. Then, I kept using the giant blue sweatshirt to stave off the cold. And then...well, I just pretty much stayed cold for five more days, with the occasional peeling off and re-putting on of layers.

So, I never got out of those three shirts till we drove out of the bitter cold.

In case you're incredulous,

in case it's just too horrid for you to believe,

in case you're saying "It just can't be!"........

Here I am with the boat on Sept 15, the day we spent all day packing up and preparing to leave our cabin for the winter. It was the beginning of my giant blue sweatshirt addiction phase.

No evidence for the 16th, but we spent the day in Anchorage and I'm pretty darn sure I wore at least the first two of the same layers.

And here I am September 17th in Denali Park.

OK, here we start into the serious problem. September 18th at the Arctic Circle, layers 1 and 2. Layer 3 was bunched up in the car for this shot.

On the 19th at The Pipeline...

(after the all-night Northern Lights chase in 29 degrees, going to bed nearly frozen at 5:30 a.m., sleeping four hours, and hitting the road again). Layer 3, again not making the photo.

Somewhere in Canada around September 22nd or so, driving along, I suddenly realized the shocking truth that I'd been wearing the same three shirts for five days.

I knew I just had to 'fess up and come clean (seriously!), so I gulped back the humiliation and took one final incriminating photo.

So there you have it. My True Confession of The Three Shirts.

So there you have it. I wore the same clothes for five days and what's worse, I didn't get a shower from the 18th to the 25th Yes, I felt gross. But, that's what happens when you're camping, right? It felt GOOD to get clean when we got home, I can tell you that!

On to other things: Note my goofy blanket contraption in the photo above? I rigged it so it would trap the warm air on my feet from the heater. My feet are ALWAYS cold. When the heater was on the "Floor" setting, I'd hook the blanket into the dash and drape it over my lap so as to seal in the heat on my feet. When The Fisherman's feet started to catch fire and he couldn't take it anymore he had to either turn it off or change it to the top vents. Then I would take down my contraption and wrap the blanket entirely around my feet and legs. Why is it that only on the passenger side there's a constant cold draft coming all the way from the back behind my seat and swirling around my feet? The driver's side doesn't have that problem. The Fisherman doesn't have a problem with cold feet. I do. My side gets the draft. Not fair. To either of us actually!

Well, by now we' were getting farther and farther south toward the Canada/US border. The days are a blur with 12+ hours of driving. We cover so much ground I usually don't have much idea of where we are. That phenomenon gets even worse when I try to look back at pictures and remember where we were, what day it was, how close to which border we were. It's all a blur.

But somewhere in British Columbia was this pretty bridge:

And this amazing sunset:

Then, at long last, just 25 miles from the US border, we saw our favorite fruit market.

Their sign boasts, "Grown here. Sold here."

I think it's funny that we come all the way from Arizona, where the name "Mariposa" is more common and fitting, and find a Canadian fruit market named Mariposa. And it has a goofy cartoon coyote sign. I guess coyotes are everywhere, even in Alaska, but they just seem to be such a southwestern canine to me.

Here's some of their pumpkin and squash crop.

The first dozen boxes in the front are filled with different kinds of apples. Different kinds of apples! The boxes on the other end are filled with various kinds of plums, apricots, tomatoes, peppers and such.

Inside they have more vegetables. They also have tons of jams, syrups, gift packages, flavored oils and on and on.

If it wasn't 36 hours away from home, we'd buy even more. That is, if we had even one more square inch of space in the van.

That's the end of the photos, friends. Once we hit the States, it seems we're so tired and ready to be home that we run out of picture-taking steam. It's too bad, too, because some of the scenery is really beautiful. Washington with all the roadside apple groves. Idaho with it's beautiful Lake Coeur d'Aleane and quaint town of Wallace. Montana's beautiful rolling hills and distant mountains. Utah's red rocky areas, the hip quaintness of Moab, and the most unusual little town called Bluff. It's situated on flat land nestled right up against some beautiful straight-up bluffs. The highway winds through the town that's just a couple miles long.

Then we hit northern Arizona. Dry, barren, desolate northern Arizona. It's the hardest leg of the journey home. Almost there. Extremely tired. Ugly scenery. Days of driving behind us and several hours to go.

The Fisherman drove 18 hours that last day. He wanted to get me home by Saturday night so I could go to the quilt show I had hoped we'd be home in time for. Its last day was Sunday. I told him I could never mind it and be just fine, that it was OK, and he didn't have to hurry home. But he wanted me to be able to go. Sweet. Sweet. Sweet.

We got home at about 1:00 a.m., said "Hi" to the cats, and went to bed. I got up the next morning, SHOWERED, and made it to the quilt show by 10:30, surprisingly awake and able to enjoy it thoroughly. I even went over to the Fall Festival where we usually have a booth set up to sell The Fisherman's photography. We didn't sign up for it this year because of our special Denali Road Lottery opportunity. I heard we were missed, which is a good thing.

I feel like I've re-lived the whole trip home in posting these photos and telling the stories. In my mind, we just got home and I'm bushed. I just looked at the clock on my computer and it's nearly 1:00a.m. as I finish out these Journey Home stories. Deja vu, anyone?

Birch Forest

2011-01-13T07:42:00.006-07:00

Just a few miles after the meadow and Toad River we came upon this fine birch forest. Or is it aspen? We're not sure, even though we have a tree book. We pulled over and spent a half hour taking pictures.

I think I might have liked the photos better if it had been the height of summer and the grasses were a vibrant green. Still, how can you resist those yellows and browns of autumn?

I found it such a beautiful scene.

And look what a blue sky adds to things.

I took in all the beauty of the forest at first. After awhile, I started focusing on the trees. I'm always drawn to the details, the close-ups. Soon I began taking photos of the bark, thinking of how I'd enjoy sharing them with my friend, Angie. She loves bark. Right, Angie?

I can't imagine what kind of tree trauma might have caused this unusual scaring, but it sure turned out pretty.

Or what causes this typical feature. Anyone know?

Now this one, I think I've got figured out. That looks like a scar from a bear claw to me.

I've always been fascinated with the "eyes" of aspen. What happens to make them?

Soon I was back to taking photos of the gorgeous white-yellow-and blue combination of sky and forest.

One of my favorites....

Time to get back in the van and carry on. As far as photos go, we're almost home. As far as miles go, well, we're still in Canada with about 2000 miles before home. One more post tomorrow and it's the end of the roll, so to speak....if images were still captured on a roll instead of a flash card....if images were still captured on actual tangible film instead of......instead of.......how ARE digital images captured anyway?

Toad River

2011-01-12T08:38:00.002-07:00

There's a particular stretch of road in Canada that I especially love. The first couple miles include this beautiful meadow with horses.

On one side of the meadow is this house. What a gorgeous setting!

On the other side of the meadow is this house.

This photo would be so much better without the red SUV in the driveway.

I was having trouble getting my camera settings for the right exposure. The Fisherman took this next photo with my camera but using one of his graduated filters. It's dark on one side, clear on the other with a graduated middle. The foreground is so much darker than the background because it's in the shadows. If you expose for the mountains, the foreground will be black. If you expose for the foreground, the mountains will be washed out. See how perfectly both came out using the filter.

Now scroll back a couple photos and notice in the horizontal version of this scene just how washed out the mountains are. I love those filters. They're kind of a pain to use but they work wonders.

If I used one for the photo below, the sky would be beautifully blue, as it was in real life.

Last year I bought this book

And I bought it here

The book tells the story of the Lesh family (all 10 of them) who moved from Massachusetts to Alaska in an old bus in the early 1960's. Wife and mom, Sally, was not nearly as excited about it as her husband but she went along with it all, engaging in the plans and the journey as much as she could. On their way, they stopped at Toad River for lunch. It was closed so they fixed a picnic lunch and enjoyed it on a log by an old cabin. She tells the story of how that old handmade log cabin changed her. As her husband measured and talked about making their cabin in the same fashion, with the same joints, a new heart sprang up in her. She became fully invested in their adventure.

I think this is the very cabin.

It looks like it's used for storage today, but I love imagining the people who built it, way back when, and the lives they lived there. Was it a family? Was it one man? A trapper maybe. Perhaps a man seeking his fortune panning for gold in the Toad River. Did he name the river in disgust, abandoning his dream when the river turned up more toads than gold?

I wonder about these things.

Because we have plans for a genuine log cabin someday, we always take pictures of them. I'm always fascinated with the joints and how they look. The Fisherman studies them, just like Mr. Lesh did, trying to learn how to duplicate such construction.

And, no, we didn't have lunch there.

But we only got a mile or two down the road and simply had to stop for a beautiful birch forest.

Tomorrow...

Caribou and Folded Mountain in Canada

2011-01-11T09:16:00.002-07:00

First off I have a very important question.

Why do Canadians spell labor "labour" but spell caribou "cariboo"?

Just curious.

I suppose they could ask us the same question.

CARIBOU

We had the fortune of several good caribou sightings along the way. I got some of the best photos I've ever taken of them.

I love caribou antlers. I think I might even like them more than moose antlers. They are just so interesting. During the winter months, they use the broad paddles at the top to clear away snow and find food.

Great shot, except for whatever got in the way in the corner.

Look at their feet. They have toe-like appendages in two rows above their hooves. I never knew that.

Caribou are, I believe, the only antlered animal where the females also have antlers. Their antlers are much smaller than the males. This gal is in the midst of shedding her velvet.

Antlers grow and fall off (shed) each year. To provide them with the blood supply they need to grow, they're covered in fur until a certain time of the season when it sloughs off in a bloody mess. Enlarge the photo (by clicking on it) to get a better view of her antlers.

They help the shedding process by scraping against trees and brush. When it's all off, the antlers are often stained with dried blood and they're a beautiful brown color. As they endure "wear and tear" through the rest of the season, they become lighter in color. If you come across some shed antlers on the forest floor, they're likely to have a bleached look, being white or grey in color.

I'd always heard the term "velvet" and imagined it to be sort of like felt. Last year at the antler store near Sterling (on the Kenai Peninsula) we found a caribou antler still in velvet. It's actually a thick short fur.

It feels so good to touch, I can see why it's called velvet.

I'm really glad for this special spot on the antler we bought. It shows how thick the fur is.

We asked the guy at the store if it would shed and become a mess. He said it wouldn't, and so far he's right.

I can't imagine how the huge antlers of the males grow every year. What a feat that is, especially with moose.

FOLDED MOUNTAIN

The Fisherman pulled over at a special landmark so I could see Folded Mountain. We pulled over and I didn't know what for until he said, "Look up across the road."

WHOA!

Here's what the sign said about it.

I took photos of the whole mountain in close-up segments from left to right.

Here I went back to the section before and zoomed in a little more.

I love this mountain!

The Journey Home Begins

2011-01-10T13:19:00.004-07:00

We headed out of Fairbanks with a new travel schedule. Now we were driving a lot at night in search of the Northern Lights for the first few days. We enjoyed seeing them again and again for two-three nights.

One of our first daytime photo stops was for a little flow of water in a roadside ditch that had some cool ice formations.

I get confused along the journey home. We drive so many miles per day, that when I get home I can't remember where things were. I can remember what the area looked like but have little idea of where it's located in relation to other places along the road. The Fisherman remembers it all. He's made the trip over a dozen times, going one direction or the other. He remembered a beautiful rest stop and pulled in to show me. As we walked down the path through the woods, suddenly the trees opened up to reveal a river.

A beautiful scene.

We climbed down the bank and walked next to the water. As is my habit, I was looking down a lot as I walked. I found this weird little hole with frost all around it.

How did that happen? Why only that hole and not the other one with the rock partially moved? Funny.

Just in front of my little frozen hole was this staircase made of tree roots. How cool is that?

I climbed the stairs and we hit the road again.

This has become one of my favorite places to stop along the way home.

It's easy to see why these guys are called Stone Sheep. Like all mountain sheep and goats, they hang out in the rocks and they seem perfectly camouflaged among the grey stones of their domain.

We watched this herd come down from the mountain and into the grassy area beside the road.

This, I know, was in Canada.

It was my best and closest look at these creatures and for the first time I noticed the coloration on their legs. The fronts of their legs are dark and the backs are white. Interesting.

A baby! Baby animals are always so darn cute.

Sheep butts.

And off they go! Right down the middle of the road.

When we first stopped for the couple of sheep coming down from the mountain, up ahead of us around a curve we heard the horn blast of a big semi. We knew what that meant: sheep in the road. We waited around, eating some lunch, for the rest of the herd to come along. They joined up with the other ones and eventually moved on past, right down the middle of the road again.

The eased their way to the wide shoulder of the road and kept on a-going.

The Pipeline and Back to Fairbanks

2011-01-09T08:05:00.002-07:00

We were thrilled with our experience of the Northern Lights and being able to get photos of them. We stayed up all night in freezing temperatures getting photos. Whenever they faded away, we'd drive some more, making our way back south. Eventually, we drove back into the tall forests and could no longer see them.

At the beginning of the journey "north of north" we were driving in two vehicles. We first thought we would follow in our van all the way to the Yukon River. The road was so terrible we decided to stop at a nice big pull-out and park the van. We were worried about leaving it vulnerable and alone in such a desolate area but concern over the wear and risk to our tires, following behind in our leader's dust and trying to keep up with them, all won out and we parked it. We were in a hurry to gather our stuff for an all day-and-night trip but managed to transfer vehicles and be on our way.

When we arrived back at our van after in the morning, it was about 5:30 a.m. A trucker was parked in the pull-out with his engine running; he was evidently sleeping. The Fisherman took some more photos of the sky while I started to transfer all our junk back into the van. As I sat in the driver's seat, turning the engine on and starting the heater, I looked out the passenger window. My goodness that window's clean, I thought. Until I realized that we had left it completely down all day and all night! We'd been worried about it's vulnerability, left there alone at a desolate pull-out, and here we'd left the window completely down. Oh, it was locked - good for us. Surveying the contents, we were very relieved to see nothing missing or even disturbed. Clothes, generator, shotgun, laptop, all the photo flash cards of The Fisherman's summer picture-taking - they'd all been left vulnerable for over 18 hours in the middle of nowhere where cars pass by regularly albeit infrequently. We could have been cleaned out and no one would have ever witnessed it.

I won't mention whose window was left down.

While The Fisherman took more pictures, I crawled in back. I was freezing cold. I was wearing three layers of clothing and got under six blankets. We slept till about 9:00 a.m. When we got up, I noticed this sign across the road from us. After driving all day and all night on the famously rugged Dalton Highway, I thought it worthy of a photo.

Road Damage? Really?

And note the special message that some Hawaiian traveler wrote in the dust of the sign.

We then hit the road back to Fairbanks. We'd seen the Pipeline all along our drive north.

We stopped at the Alaska Pipeline exhibit just outside Fairbanks. They've set up a few displays and an information house at one point along the oil pipeline.

Sometimes the Pipeline crosses the road overhead but mostly it crossed underground.

To improve the flow of oil in the Pipeline they send these things called "pigs" into it. There was a nice display set up to explain it.

There was a nice photo-opp mileage sign we had to take advantage of. Problem was, the sun was so bright I couldn't even look into it.

Nice squint there, Judi. I think we need to take another one.

Now I'm crying, the sun is so bright.

Ahhh, that's better. I could actually smile in this one.

Here is a sculpture model of the Pipeline's path across the state of Alaska. See our van in the parking lot?

I really wanted a picture of me standing under the Pipeline showing the whole deal. So, here we go again with the sun.

There's that lovely squint again. Once more.

Crying again.

There we go! That's better.

We spent the day in Fairbanks, just looking around. We went to Pioneer Park and were disappointed to find it closed. Not entirely closed, though. We could go in and walk around, but all the gift shops and museums were closed for the season. It looks like a great place. We also found a spot on the Chena River where The Fisherman just had to throw in a line and try to catch his first Arctic Char.

He got one.

Hail the conquering fishing guide!

The Heavens Declare the Glory of God

2011-01-08T12:24:00.000-07:00

You remember from yesterday's post that we drove on the Dalton Highway to the Brooks Range and the North Slope, stopping at Mile 270 to turn around at 8:00 p.m. We headed back south as it grew dark hoping to see the Northern Lights, or Aurora Borealis. We'd heard they had been very active recently and they were the whole reason for this trip. We were not disappointed.

Just north of the Arctic Circle, around 1:00 a.m. they showed up. They are an amazing sight. With such a light show I almost expect some kind of noise to accompany them. But there was nothing but silence. It was awe-inspiring. They started out as just a vague greenish hue above the horizon. We stopped on the road, and the photographers took out the cameras and tripods and ran tests for camera settings.

The living lights grew and stretched across the sky. Soon, they began to move to a different location in the sky. When they did, they began to form streamers and to swirl and dance. Oh my!

It was breathtaking. What a marvelous first experience of the Northern Lights.

After awhile, they seemed to fade and disappear. We got back in the truck to drive until we saw them again. Each time we saw a hint of them we found a piece of road that had a good view and stopped again.

The sky was full of stars, too. The Fisherman set his camera exposure so he could capture both the Aurora and the Milky Way in one photo. Absolutely spectacular!

As the chase, and the night, went on, the magnificent display changed over and over again. Eventually I wimped out (more like, soon I wimped out) and watched the Lights from bundled up inside the truck. The Fisherman, however, stayed outside virtually all night long in 29 degree weather. That's why he's the "real" photographer and I'm only the dabbler.

At one point, the lights stretched above the horizon in a perfect gentle arc. All the way across the sky, this arc seemed to be a dome above the earth. As we stood there at the top of the earth, The Fisherman was especially moved with an inner glimpse of the earth and heavens from afar and he marvelled at God's immensity and was stunned by His glory.

"The heavens are telling of the glory of God,

and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands"

(Psalm 19:1)

As night gave up a sliver of horizon to the coming dawn, we were excited to see The Fisherman's photos show both the dancing green lights and a hint of the coming sunrise.

For by Him all things were created both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible... (Colossians 1:16)

...all things have been created by Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. (Colossians 1:6-17)

I know there is a scientific explanation for the Aurora Borealis, something to do with the earth's magnetic field and solar flares on the sun. But you know, I think I'd rather not fully understand it - whether it's fully understandable at all. Sometimes, knowing the intricate explanation enhances the awe and sometimes it just competes with it.

For right now, I don't think I even want to grasp the details of how they occur. If you could take the whole subject of understanding the Aurora and project it into a single moment of viewing them, my thoughts on not wanting or caring to know the specifics would be like saying in the moment, "Shhh! I just want to stand in awe. Don't talk; I just want to absorb the thrill of witnessing this magnificence."

Our God is an AWESOME God!

The heavens are declaring the glory of God, and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. (Psalm 19:1)

Humor North of North

2011-01-07T23:25:00.000-07:00

I was just looking at my Alaska journal and found I'd recorded some funny things along the way of our trip north of north. For instance, here's what I wrote as we drove along the Dalton Highway:

"In Denali Park last night I looked up at the clock in the truck and it said 11:11 p.m. This morning driving through Fairbanks I glanced to the side of the road and saw a large digital clock at a business and it said 11:11. Driving on the Dalton Highway, I just looked to the side of the road and happened to see a Mile Marker. It said: Mile 111."

What's up with me and 1's?
-------

Pardon my language on this next one, but it's too funny. On a sharp downhill curve on the Dalton Highway we passed a sign naming it "Oh Shit Corner."
-------

We passed Jim River 1, Jim River 2, and Jim River 3. I wonder who Jim is. Lucky guy has three rivers named after him.
------

We also passed a sign identifying another river as the "West Fork of the North Fork - Chandalar River"
------

I just had to share those things.

North of North

2011-01-07T22:05:00.033-07:00

So, we had our spectacular day in Denali Park, thanks to the generous invitation of some photographer acquaintances. I forgot yesterday to post a photo of us at Reflection Lake.

Our awesome photo adventure didn't stop in Denali. Our friends were headed north of Fairbanks - indeed, north of the Arctic Circle - in hopes of seeing the Aurora Borealis. They invited us to join them for another day in pursuit of some amazing sites.

About an hour or so north of Fairbanks we hit the Dalton Highway. It's dirt. As we raced along at breakneck speeds (or so it seemed from the back seat) we stopped whenever any of us wanted to take photos. Our fast driving hostess was gracious in that whenever she passed a roadside outhouse, she tapped the breaks and asked, "Outhouse anyone?" With all the "I'm goods", she'd accelerate again and we'd continue careening down the road. Time was running short for the day. It was a long drive, especially with stops for photos and outhouses.

The landscape changes drastically from Fairbanks on up to "The North Slope". The Slope, as it's called, is exactly that. As you travel farther north you cross the Brooks Range. From there, the terrain slopes downward toward Prudhoe Bay and the Arctic Ocean. The Slope is where the oil comes from. There are several pumping stations up there. In the summer, I don't think it's so bad but during the winters, it's brutal. Men and women often work a two- weeks-on/two-weeks-off schedule and the pay is very desirable. Each station seemed to have it's own landing strip and helicopter pad. Some long-time employees even live in the Lower 48 and fly up every couple weeks for their stints, courtesy of the company they work for.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

We came across a couple of female moose while we were still in the grassy and wooded part of the state. The sun was so beautiful it was a photographer's dream.

As we watched them munching the lush grass, they watched us.

We took several pictures before this lanky gal turned and revealed that she was sporting a tracking collar. Looks rather uncomfortable to me.

But don't you love that crazy dangly thing on her neck?

I'm sure that has a name but I'm sure I don't know it.

The sun was bright and shadows deep.

Reflections always catch our eye and stopping at this scene was a must.

The best photo I took of this scene is the one below. Unfortunately, I didn't see The Fisherman at lower left in my view finder. If he'd been hunkered down he might not be noticeable, but I got him right as he was standing up. Oops!

A slight pivot to the right and there was another gorgeous mountain reflected in the quiet river.

I was really pleased to be on our extended adventure. There are places The Fisherman has been in Alaska that I've never seen. I never thought I'd get north of Denali Park, at least not for a long time. One of things I really wanted to do was cross into the ARCTIC CIRCLE. And here we are:

Another thing I wanted to see was COLDFOOT.

Now, here's an insight into who I am: Coldfoot is nothing.

And I knew it.

Still, I wanted to see it.

Why?

Well, because it's The Northern Most Truck Stop in the country, of course. And because I read a book about a famous Alaskan who built it up from even-more-nothing back in the early 1980s. At that time, they even operated out of some tents. Now it has it's own post office.

Because Coldfoot is a truck stop, there's a huge expanse of dirt parking lot running between the main building and the other side where there are some bunk houses. I don't know if they're still rented out. On the bunkhouse side is this Welcome sign explaining where you are and that Coldfoot began as a gold mining community around the turn of the century (the turn of the last century).

OK, are you ready to see "Coldfoot"?

Here it is, in all of it's nothing-ness:

Ta-daa. Coldfoot. This is a restaurant. There's a separate dining area for truckers, a small gift shop, a buffet area and another dining room for non-truckers. I think there's also showers and some sort of rec room/lounge for truckers. (But I may be confusing the farthest north truckstop in the nation with the BEST truckstops in the nation, Flying J's who have great facilities for truckers and definitely have a truckers lounge.)

Here's the other side across the truck-stopping expanse of dirt with the bunkhouses in back.

That's about all there is to Coldfoot. You've seen it all.

Ahh, but I've actually BEEN there, don't you know.

One of the things that caught my eye inside was this log post behind the cash register counter.

It's a message board. I love it. Have a message for Kenny the trucker? Just write it out and tack it up to the post. He'll get it the next time he pulls in for a bite to eat and some company. It is, after all, the last truck stop before Prudhoe Bay. He'll show up.

The book I read is called One Second to Glory, about Dick Mackey and written by Lew Freedman. Mackey's a former and famous Iditarod musher who was on the ground floor of getting the Last Great Race established in 1973. His famous win came in 1978 (his 6th Iditarod) when he ran beside his team down Front Street toward the finish line. Amazingly enough, the 1100 mile race, that took over two weeks to complete, came down to a foot race between 1st and 2nd place. Dick Mackey's dog team crossed the finish line literally one second ahead of Rick Swenson's. Controversy swirled for a few moments as Swenson moved his team and himself across the finish line, whereas only Mackey's team had crossed. For the first time the question arose as to whether it was the musher or the team that had to cross. Finally, with a now famous line in Iditarod history, the Race Marshall declared, "They don't take pictures of the horse's ass, do they?" That settled it.

Later on, Mackey saw the opportunity to build up Coldfoot into a successful business that would also be of tremendous benefit to the truckers. One of the things I read about was a record temperature differential one year at Coldfoot. When we were there I saw the weather worn sign commemorating it.

It's illegible now, but here's a photo from the book when Mackey went back to visit Coldfoot. It describes that on January 26th it reached -82 F and that the record high for the summer was +97 F.

That's a 179 degree temperature spread within one year. That's just crazy!

From Coldfoot we drove north to The Slope. How far north we drove was determined by the time. We drove till about 8:00 pm when the light had grown grey with dusk. We found an excellent pull-out just past a pumping station and got out for a stretch. This was the farthest north I have ever been -- Mile 270 of the Dalton Highway -- and being that I collect rocks and all, I decided to find a cool rock to commemorate this landmark event in my life.

The Fisherman took my picture to commemorate the commemoration.

See my pretty rock?

Not really, huh? Too bad because it's cool. It's very pale grey with a white quartzite (or something) stripe in it. There are lots of grey and white rocks like this in Alaska, but I had never seen one this pale. They're usually dark grey, so this one was special. Of course, it had to be a two pounder.

We stopped at Coldfoot again on the way back from the North Slope.
By then it was dark.

See the trucks? It really is a truck stop. What a job that must be, driving a big rig all the way to the Arctic Ocean!

So, now I've been to Fairbanks, the Dalton Highway, the Arctic Circle, Coldfoot, the Brooks Range, and the North Slope.

And....... seen the Northern Lights. Don't miss tomorrow's post. I'll be putting up some of the great Aurora shots The Fisherman got.

Alaska 2010, Continued

2011-01-06T21:35:00.000-07:00

There are still a ton of photos to show you from this year's Alaska trip in September. Let's see...where where we? Oh yes...

This year we had the opportunity to go into Denali National Park under special circumstances. In an effort to maintain optimal conditions for the wildlife, the road, and the park, the park strictly manages the number of vehicles that travel the park road each year. During the regular summer season, no personal vehicles are allowed into the park beyond the first mile or two. To see the park you have to pay a fee and get aboard a green school bus for a group tour. The park is 6 million acres large but the road is only 92 miles long in total. The buses only go to mile 61 or so. When we first visited the park in 1990 the bouncy bus ride cost us $4 each (an increase from the $2 each our friend in Anchorage told us it was when he went). When we returned in 1998, it cost us $30 each and the price is roughly the same today. At the beginning of the season there's about a week where they let you drive in to the Teklanika (Teck-lan-eek-a) campground about 35 miles in. Last year we spent four days doing this and had a blast.

Each year the park holds a Road Lottery allowing winners access to the whole park road in their own vehicles. For four days at the end of the season, Road Lottery winners are allowed into the park to drive around at will along the whole distance of the road. Winners are assigned a date and are allowed inside the park from 6:00 a.m. to Midnight. Some photography acquaintances of Rusty's won it this year and invited us to go with them. Sweet! It was a great opportunity.

Early in the morning the sun was beautiful and golden.

We each had different thoughts as to how many cars were let in each day. I thought 100. Our hostess thought only 10. As we approached the check point at the Savage River bridge, we saw nearly a dozen cars below the fog. When it was our turn to chat with the park ranger, we were disappointed to learn they let in 400 cars each day.

So much for seeing wildlife! With all those cars running up and down the road, rather than just a few buses, there's no way the wildlife would be hanging out near the road for us to see.

It was a chilly morning.

If you've been reading my blog this fall, you'll probably recognize the scene below. A horizontal version of this foggy swampy pond was my header photo for a few months. This is located right before the Teklanika campground. The scene caught my eye as we passed by and I said, "Ooo!" I was asked if I wanted to stop for a photo and I'm sure glad I said yes. I love this scene.

Here's Denali (Mt. McKinley) kind of from behind.

We did see a Dall Sheep ram resting below the road. Not very obliging of him to keep his back to us.

Never fear, The Fisherman is a determined photographer. He hiked down the hill and up another one to lay on his stomach and shoot some photos from a better angle. You can hardly see him at the right. He's in the middle of the hill on the right, lying at an angle and just above the golden alder brush. The ram is on the lower hill on the left.

Gorgeous views were everywhere.

We were happy to see some Grizzly Bears. Though they were sort of far away on the hill, it was still thrilling to see them in the wild. And they were close enough for me, thank you very much.

We drove all the way to the end of the road and were treated to a celebratory sign marking the event.

Along the way, we passed the Eielson Visitor at about mile 60. Then, Wonder Lake is around mile 62 or so. Wonder Lake is as far as the buses will take you. You can get off and on the buses all day long. Campers take the bus in, do their camping trip, and catch another bus out on another day. Yes, there are actually people who camp in tents in there among the grizzly bears, moose, and wolves. I can guarantee you'll never read a post about me doing that! A ways past Wonder Lake is Reflection Lake. We got to see all the high dollar lodges that lie along the road beyond Reflection Lake, at least the roads leading through the woods to them anyway. There are about a half dozen of them. At the end of the road, there's an airstrip, heli-pad, and a large maintenance yard. Rooms/cabins back there in the Kantishna area cost over $500 a night. Here's a link to one of the lodges.

After reaching the end, we turned around and drove some more till it got closer to sunset. We saw some gorgeous views of the Alaska Range, of which Denali is a part.

The dirt road was dry and the fine grey dust clung to cars,

and collected with amazing depth on the back bumper.

Here is Wonder Lake with the Alaska Range behind. Denali is not in this picture.

A little pan to the right and there's Denali.

A couple hours before sunset, we went back to Reflection Lake to stake out a spot to take pictures.

Here was the view from my camp chair.

Wow! Stunning, right?

And I'm sure you've figured out why they call it Reflection Lake. Though it was breezy, you could still see a nice reflection of the 20,230 foot "High One", as the native name, Denali, means.

It didn't take long for us to be joined by several other photographers. Some had staked out a different vantage point and are tucked in behind the brush on the right.

As evening drew close, the water calmed and the reflections grew more breathtaking.

I loved this shoreline shot. I just wish it was Denali that's in it, even though I really love that pointy peak.

This isn't a typical shot of Denali. I don't think many people would think of taking a photo of such a stunning, majestic and famous mountain in a partially obscured setting. But for some reason I really liked it.

And this picture seems to highlight what I call The Bear. The Fisherman can't see it, but I sure can. To me this side of the mountain shows the profile of a big grizzly bear's face, much like the outline of the northern part of Alaska's coastline does to me, too. Can you see it?

As the sun set, we saw the beautiful alpenglow on the mountain.

One last shot of Denali and Reflection Lake at sunset for you.

We stayed until the light was almost entirely gone and then headed back to the park entrance. We got back to Denali town sometime after midnight, cold and tired but exhilarated with the beauty we'd seen all day.

Happy New Year

2011-01-05T20:57:00.001-07:00

It's five days into 2011 and it's about time I get on here and wish you all a Happy New Year. I hope you had a happy and blessed Christmas, a safe New Year's holiday, and that 2011 will bring you many good things.

We visited family in Phoenix for the holidays. The weather in Arizona has been exceptionally beautiful the entire fall. That is, until last week. A nasty storm blew through and brought the temperatures in Phoenix from the 70's down to the 40's. Even in the Valley of the Sun, temps dropped below freezing. Up here at our mountain home (at 7000 feet) I hear the temps got as low as -18. When we arrived home, it was 36 degrees in the house!

The mountains got hit with a bunch of snow while we were gone. We'd heard forecasts of 2-3 feet. With below freezing highs in the days following the storm, we expected the highway to be a sheet of packed snow on Monday when we drove home. We were pleased to find the roads perfectly clear and almost perfectly dry. The forecast overestimated the snowfall and we only got 8-10". The clear roads were great! When we got to our shared private road, however, it was a different story. No snow plows venture down our road but we were very happy to see a set of tire tracks to follow. We were in the van, which is not four-wheel-drive, and would certainly have gotten stuck without those tracks to follow. We got to our turn and - hooray! - the tracks turned, too. Our next door neighbor had been up. We share our Driveway Road with them and his tracks made it possible for us to get all the way to the end of the Driveway Road. We spun a few times but The Fisherman kept us moving and out of the deep snow. All we had left to manage was the final turn and the stretch of our Driveway. We weren't certain we could do it, having no more tracks to follow, but we made it. Whew! We were SO glad for those tire tracks (thanks, John and Maggie!) because we may have had to park out at The Big Road and WALK the 1/2+ mile home...carrying all our junk and making several trips.

We had a bunch of snow on our porch, all the way across, so we know it was windy up here. I crunched through the snow on the porch and around our stack of firewood to fill the bird feeder. The next morning I swept the four inches of snow off and this is what remained.

Because I've learned about this particular phenomenon, I usually try to sweep before I walk on the snow. This time, though, there was just too much of it for the time of day we got home. After all our unloading, I just didn't want to sweep. With the house at only 36 degrees, I probably should have; it would have warmed me up. I'm wondering how long we'll have my snowy footprints on the porch.

We've kept the fires burning to stave off the cold. We don't stoke the wood stove at night though. We used to put a giant log in and close the damper down some, letting it burn slowly all night. But we found that the house was cold in the morning anyway, so we quit wasting the wood.

Here's what the inside thermometer read this morning:

That's a little colder than I'd like it in the morning!

And the windows looked like this:

Yes, that's INSIDE.

And it's no wonder when the outside thermometer was saying this:

With temps like this, we won't be seeing our snow melting much. I haven't taken any photos of this latest snow yet, but I'll leave you with some photos I took on December 23rd. It had rained during the day on the 22nd and by morning we had about 4 inches of wet snow that was melting fast in the warm clear skies.

I love snowy fences

And snow covered branches

The sun was warming things up so fast that I took a photo of this scene with snow covering the entire fence, checked my lighting, and looked up to watch a patch of snow fall off.

This is our clothes line encased in heavy wet snow that was falling off as I snapped photos.

Here's the clothes line again,stretching in front of the tall Ponderosa Pines.

Looking back at the house (a little over-exposed).

2010 Reading List

2010-12-31T21:01:00.001-07:00

Archiving my 2010 Reading List....

Going Rogue, by Sarah Palin

Erik's Story - the story of an Alaskan Down Syndrome artist

Bo's Cafe, by Thrall, Lynch, & McNicol

Dream Spinner

A Shepherd Looks At Psalm 23, Phillip Keller

Lunch At Toad River, by Sally Lesh

Time Bandit, by Jonathan and Andy Hillstrand

A Walk to Remember, by Nicholas Sparks

Son of Hamas, by Mosab Hassan Yousef with Ron Brakin (autobiography of a former Muslim-now Christian who is the son of one of Hamas' founders)

Home to Holly Springs (The Father Tim Novels #1)

At Home in Mitford (Mitford Series #1), by Jan Karon

A Light in the Window (Mitford #2), by Jan Karon

A Common Life (Mitford #3), by Jan Karon

These High Green Hills (Mitford #4), by Jan Karon

The Prodigal God, by Timothy Keller

The Lance Mackey Story, by Lance Mackey (Iditarod Champion)

Understanding Mourning, by Glen W. Davidson

Suddenly It's Spring, by Mary Lovel