PepperWool knives

 

 

 

My son, Beren, has just launched his new pocket knife, the Merino MM. It is elegantly beautiful as well as useful and carefully engineered. Check it out on the website: https://pepperwool.com/ or to order one use this shortcut link: https://pepperwool.com/merino-mm/

Ohio River Islands, National Wildlife Refuge, 2019

Welcome sign to the Ohio River Islands National Wildlife Refuge, near Williamstown, West Virginia

In the past when in Marietta, Ohio, we had not visited this wildlife refuge in nearby Williamstown, West Virginia.  The two younger grandchildren had a field trip to the refuge as part of their summer reading camp and some of the rest of us drove out to pick them up.  There are several trails in the refuge and we selected a short one as well as exploring the visitor center.  

The Visitor Center

The main lobby of the visitor center

Fresh water mussels were harvested for mother of pearl in the manufacturing of buttons before plastic was invented.  There was a small water tank in the center with a number of river mussels.  These mussels are quite a bit larger and a different color than the ones we have here in the Pacific Northwest.  Instead of latching on to a rock or piling these mussels burrow down in the rocky river bed and are very difficult to see because they look so much like the rocks.  The ranger had uncovered a few for the reading camp visit so we were able to see some exposed mussels.  The ranger pointed out others that just had a small part of the shell visible.  

The mussels are somewhat difficult to see in the picture but there are several in this display tank. 

Samples of a variety of different shells of mollusks found in the Ohio River

Examples of the shells that had holes drilled in them to show how the buttons were made

There were also small aquarium tanks with fish and turtles that are common to this part of the Ohio River.  The turtle above is an Eastern Spiny Soft Shell Turtle.  These are aggressive like snapping turtles and can live up to 25 years.  

On one of the bulletin boards was this poster about Lightning Bugs, Fireflies or Glow Worms.  We do not have these in the Pacific Northwest and I am fascinated by them each time I go to Marietta at this time of year.  Around twilight and early dusk these little flying insects come out and there are sparkles of light near the grass all around, like fairy lights.  

Outside along one of the many walking trails was this display of pollinator habitats.  Mostly wooden boxes with holes for the bees to enter and use like a hive.  Because bees have been diminishing in number these habitats are proving to be very important in the pollination process of plants.

The flowers pictured are some that we do not have here in the northwest.  There were other more universally common flowers that can be found probably all over the United States and perhaps even in other countries but these were decidedly different and fun to see.

 Butterfly Weed,  a great bee attraction, the bush was covered in them

Large Pink Daisies

Milkweed

Both the orange Butterfly weed and the Milkweed are host plants for the Monarch butterflies.  Large numbers of Monarch butterflies migrate to areas where these plants grow.

Grandma on downhill skis . . .

Stevens Pass middle lodge

As some of you know 3 plus years ago I took cross-country skiing lessons from the Mountaineers.  The first year the snow was not so good, the second year there was no snow for cross-country routes, last year was pretty good, and this winter has been excellent.  Bob has been skiing both alpine/downhill and cross-country for many years and this year he wanted me to take alpine lessons too so we could do both together.  In January he signed me up for a “learn in 3” ski package at Stevens Pass.  The package included all the rental gear, lift tickets, ski checking, equipment for practice days and a guarantee that I would be easy intermediate level by the end of the 3 lessons or they would give me more lessons at no extra charge until I was at that level.  A great deal.

We chose the 10 am lesson time even though it meant leaving the house a little before 7 am to get there, get checked in, pick up the rental gear and be ready by 10 am.  I was plenty nervous about the whole thing but feeling a lot more confident on skis in general since we have going out each week this year doing cross-country.

What are the differences?  Cross-country bindings leave the heel of the foot free so one can kick and glide or skate along.  The skis are narrower, longer and have fish scales on the bottoms so it is easier to walk up small hills, even fairly steep ones, by stomping down on the ski.  The scales sort of grab the hillside and do not slip back.  Cross-country skiing is basically a stride step or a skate.  The trails are groomed for striding with grooves for the skis and the center is open for the skating step.

Being fitted for downhill ski boots . . .

Downhill boots come up higher on the leg, are rigid and both toe and heel are firmly attached to the ski.  The tension on the binding can be adjusted for age, ability, and weight, so if one falls and twists the ski comes off.  Little levers pop down and act as brakes if the ski comes off to prevent it from scooting down the mountainside.  Downhill skis do not have fish scales, look like they are covered with Teflon, and are designed to be slippery on the snow.  If there is a small hill to climb it has to be done by a herringbone step or side stepping up, both a lot of work.  For the lesson and beginner area it is possible to ride on a magic carpet or go up even higher by using the chair lift.  

Magic carpets

Waiting in line to get on the carpet with plenty of small people.  Little kids are pretty random and unpredictable in what they do and when they do it.  My constant worry is running one of these tiny toads down.  I'd rather fall myself than hurt someone's grandchild.

 The skis get positioned at the foot of the carpet, it grabs the skis and way it goes sometimes stopping but starting up again . . .

Once off the carpet it is time to ski down . . .

Beginners start by using the magic carpet, a conveyor belt, which goes a short distance up and has a nice gentle slope down.  There is a second longer carpet that goes up higher with a longer route down but also a gentle slope.  After I had been on the carpet several times Bob took me up the beginner chair lift, called Daisy at Stevens Pass, and guided me down.  Yes, I am falling now and then.  Falling is to be expected and it is nice that there is plenty of snow this year to cushion the falls.  Despite detailed instructions from the lift operator, the first trip down from the top of the Daisy chair lift included a fall getting off the lift, apparently fairly common for beginners, and two other falls on the way down.  It seemed terrifyingly high on the mountainside and a long way down but it really isn’t that far down and I am hoping after several more runs I will get the balance, control and confidence necessary to feel safe, reduce the number of falls, and begin to relax and enjoy it.  The intermediate chair is about twice as high up.  Obviously not ready for that yet.

Three of us in the class this lesson and lots of deep, fluffy new powder snow!

For the third lesson I was the only ski student, the rest were snowboarders, so my lesson was a one on one--terrific for me.  My instructor was a young woman about 20 years old who worked with me to get the turns and stops under control.  I was much more relaxed with her than with some of the other instructors and it definitely helped that it was a one on one.  She let me take the skis off to get up after a fall.  Wonderful, so much easier for me than having someone try to pull me up by the arm or lift me up from behind!  My only fall that day was when I started sliding backward after stopping on the upside of the hill.  If I had just let the slide continue it would have stopped by itself but I panicked and leaned too far and did a face plant in the snow.  

Note:  did not graduate in three lessons.  The fourth lesson came and went a week later.  That week we had 6 inches of new powder snow and the class made first tracks.   I fell 5 or 6 times during the fourth lesson.  Not a good day.  Falling is tiring as well as frustrating.  That class had six students including two 13 year-old boys who were ready to pass and move up.  The other students were 20-somethings, could be grandchildren for me, who looked ready to graduate also.  The next two weeks I did not take lessons just practiced using the top magic carpet and the Daisy Chair.  Last week I was able to take the chair up three times and only fell once, that included safely disembarking the chair which for some reason is hard for me to do without falling.  Bob helped by holding my poles and telling me when to stand up.  I was not nervous with him to guide me down and hence did better than in the class.  There was lots of new snow and it was snowing with more accumulating all day long.  The fall was the result of heading into deep soft snow and getting stuck.  There were snow snakes (clumps of snow) on the bottom of my skis and we had to wax the skis.  I think I need at least one more practice before taking another lesson but it has been raining this week so we have postponed a ski day in hopes of better weather by the end of the week.  

 The small building is the disembark place for the Daisy chair lift

 Part way down Daisy

 Grandma on skis coming down from Daisy

Finally down far enough to see the lodge at the bottom

Big deals for me—I am no longer afraid of the chair lift.  For some reason the snow makes it easier to forget how high it is off the ground therefore vertigo doesn’t set in.  I have made it down from the top of Daisy twice without falls!  The turns and stops are starting to be under control.  There is one place toward the bottom that I can just schuss down full speed and not lose control or fall.  This year the hope was to be able to use the beginner chair and get myself down.  I cannot go down all the way in one continuous chain of turns but can do it in sections so the goal is almost met.  Bob says he will be satisfied this year if I can do just a little better—go further down before stopping and go some distance by myself without him shadowing me the entire way.  

Snow hat on the clock tower

Because we plan to keep this up we will buy gear, skis, helmet, boots, goggles etc. when things go on sale toward the end of the season.  If the snow stays good and the runs are open through April and maybe into May perhaps I will graduate this year after all.  The classes and instructors have been great and I really have been taught pretty much everything I need to graduate, I just need more practice.  Even though apprehensive to try downhill skiing it has turned out to be fun.  I thought I was probably the oldest person to take beginning lessons but one of the instructors told me he had taught a man about 10 years older.  Advice from a grandma—don’t be afraid to try something new!

. . . how does your garden grow?

It has been years since I had a vegetable garden.  We are selling the north house and have been taking samples of Bob’s plants from that garden to put in here at the “new” house formerly called the south house.  Both the front and back yards are still “undeveloped” and messy due to the construction.  Most of the remodeling is done but not all so there will be more disruption in the yard before everything can be made neat and tidy.  However enough has been completed that now it is time to have a little fun. 

Bob has been working incredibly hard digging up plants from the north and moving them to the south, then replanting them or setting them out in pots for future replanting.  He made a carrying litter so that the two of us could haul the plants and supplies up the stairs thereby reducing the number of trips as well as cutting back on the awkward shapes and weight to carry. 

The stairs we climb multiple times with heavy loads of plants and supplies

 

Two person carrying litter

Bob knew I wanted a vegetable & flower garden, preferably in raised beds, so he cleared a space and put in some gravel.  Then he built box walls, got topsoil, fertilizer, and peat, mixed in some of the dirt from the yard to custom make a potting soil that we put into the box.  A trip to the nursery (or two nurseries as it turned out) netted several plant starts and the results are in the photos below.

Sacks of topsoil, fertilizer, and peat 

 

The box with gravel for drainage

 

Making the soil mixture for the box

 

One last wheelbarrow full of dirt

 

Almost ready for the plants

 

Tomatoes, herbs, strawberries, green bean seeds planted in the middle and zucchini together with plants from the north waiting to go into other parts of the yard

Tomatoes

 

Lupine, lavender, rosemary, and sugar snap pea seeds in round pots

 

A few flowers too

 

More strawberries in another pot

How does the garden grow? With pretty plants all in a row.

Sad tale of unsettled jam

Why would anyone keep old pectin instructions when instructions are in every new box?  Last year we made both strawberry and raspberry freezer jam.  It never set properly and we wanted jam not syrup so all of it ended up in the disposal.  This meant an entire year without strawberry jam  following a year when the freezer failed and we lost all that year’s jam too.  Grumbling, gnashing of teeth, despair.

The pectin boxes had long since been recycled so it was impossible to check the expiration date but we thought that the pectin might have been too old and it was just our fault for not checking the dates.  A closer inspection of dates and manufacturers this year revealed that the same parent company made all the pectin on the store shelves regardless of the brand name.   I have been making freezer jam for more years that I care to admit.  The instructions for last year and this year looked a bit off to me but I followed them to the letter this year being extra careful to measure the sugar and fruit and cook the pectin mix exactly as written.   The manufacturer put those instructions in the box and surely they use a test kitchen to try these things out before selling to the public.  Hmmm.  Guess what?  The jam did not gel this year either. 

What to do?  After spending $22 for a flat of berries, $18 for the pectin and about $12 and for the sugar the jam was already almost as expensive as the less tasty variety in the grocery store.  A check on the Internet showed that we were not the only folks with this annoying problem.  Several solutions were suggested but most involved cooking the berries.  I did not want to do that because freezer jam tastes just like fresh berries mostly since it is NOT cooked.  Some of the other solutions required more work than I wanted to invest at this point.  One very hot day of standing and stirring is enough of that.  Finally I found a fix that sounded reasonable enough to try.  So back we went to the store for more pectin and lemon juice (lemon juice had not been used the first time, it wasn’t in the instructions).  I didn’t want to use lemon juice since the berries seemed tart enough without it but was willing to do that if necessary to make the pectin work and the jam set.  When I emptied the soupy jam mix into a large bowl it looked just like what I remembered from previous years before adding the pectin.  There was an old stack of recipes with a rubber band around them in the kitchen.  I dug through that and found an ancient pectin box instruction sheet that had somehow survived the recent cleaning frenzy.  With some alteration my solution is a little easier and the jam did set within an hour.

Happy ending to the sad tale of the unset jam—

1.    Do one batch at a time.*  It will take more time but the proportion of fruit, sugar and pectin will be correct.
2.    Have empty clean containers and lids ready.
3.    Pour the unset jam into a large bowl and stir to remix sugar and fruit (some of the fruit may have separated from the sugar if it has been sitting for the recommended 24 hours).
4.    Put ¾ cup of water in saucepan, add one box of pectin, stir and bring to a boil over high heat.  Boil for one minute.
5.    Pour the hot pectin mix into the fruit & sugar mix.  Stir for 3 minutes.
6.    Pour the new jam into clean containers and put lids on.  Label & date the new jam.  It should set within an hour or less. 
7.    Let sit for 12 to 24 hours, then freeze or refrigerate. 

The instructions in the current pectin boxes have the sugar, water and pectin boiling together for 1 min.  I am not sure but I think this is where the problem lies.  Just like mixing yeast with salt (the yeast won’t work) it seems like mixing the sugar with the pectin doesn’t allow the pectin to work correctly. 

For new strawberry freezer jam if your pectin** box instructions are different than what is below, don’t use them unless you want syrup not jam:

2 cups crushed fruit
4 cups sugar
¾ cup water
1 box of pectin

1.  Mix the crushed fruit and sugar in a large bowl.  Stir until all or most of the sugar crystals are dissolved.  Let sit 10 min.
2.  Put ¾ cup of water in saucepan, stir in pectin bring to a boil on high heat and boil for 1 min.  The pectin might be a little lumpy to start but as it boils it will dissolve.
3.  Pour hot pectin into fruit and sugar.  Stir for 3 min.
4.  Pour jam into clean containers, seal with lid, label and date.
5.  Let sit on counter for 24 hours.
6.  The jam is now ready to put in the freezer or refrigerator.

And there was much rejoicing . . .


.......................................................................................

*  I used 24 fluid oz. rectangular freezer safe containers for most of the jam and smaller round containers for the remainder.  The recipe makes 5 cups of jam and will fill about 2 1/2 to 3 of the 24 fluid oz. containers depending on how big a margin is left (instructions say to leave 1/2 inch).  Therefore, one batch here means I emptied 3 boxes of unset jam into the bowl for each box of pectin and 4 of the round containers equaled one batch. 

** Qualifier:  I used Sure Jell but MCP and Certo are also made by Kraft.  These three brands were the only ones available in the local stores here.  See Michelle's comment below about Ultra Gel.  I will look for it next time. 

Home & yard improvement - part 1

 

The arborist and his team rope up and begin

 

Once this 70 to 80 year old birch tree was beautiful and healthy.  About 50 years or more ago it was severely topped and this week it had to come down because the center of the tree was rotting.  I think this may be a fungi disease called “heart rot” that afflicts hardwood trees.  The rot in this tree was caused by the severe topping and took years and years to reach this condition.  Heart rot can start in a branch but it will eventually migrate to the center of the tree and after time kill the tree.  It was sad to see the tree cut down but it had grown over the house damaging the roof and was also threatening the neighbor’s house. 

Sadly our birch tree was rotten

Now that we know that it was rotting it is scary to think that a big storm could have toppled it and done real damage to one or both houses.  We had two other birch trees that hang over the driveway trimmed.  That trimming revealed one large branch with the beginnings of heart rot also but the rest of both trees had not yet been affected by it.  Trees with heart rot can look fine on the outside but the inside can be soft and sponge-like.

A giant truck and a chipping machine took care of the leaves and branches.  The chips will be used in parks and gardens.  The larger logs will be donated to people who depend on wood stoves to heat their homes but who cannot afford to buy cut wood.  It makes us feel a little better to know that the tree will be getting a second useful, albeit, different life.

As part of our remodel project there will be other trees and shrubs that will have to be removed.  Some have to go because they are in the way of the foundation for the addition.  Others are invasive plants that started up from seeds left by birds and/or squirrels many years ago.  They are completely overgrown and are spreading, choking out other things, and most have wicked sharp thorns.  We hope to do away with the grass lawn altogether and just have low maintenance local native plants eventually.  Already there is additional light coming into the yard making it possible in the future to grow things that produce fruits, vegetables, and flowers that have needed more sunlight than the yard previously received. 

Goodbye Camellia

One of the casualties was a lovely old Camellia bush that produced a bounty of flowers this year but was located right where a new drainage system has to be installed.  Now we won’t get water in our lower level library and perhaps we can find another Camellia to plant in a better place. 

The last rose

A very old rose bush was sacrificed too as it was right where the new kitchen will be constructed.  Bob says he knows which rose it is, and is confident that we can replace it once everything else is completed.  Change is difficult.  It is the idea and hope of the new addition that keeps us going and looking forward to a lovely big kitchen in a few months.

Rain, rain, go away . . .

A few weeks ago we had lots and lots of rain, 5 inches in a 24-hour period according to the rain gauge on the front porch.  The gutters had not been cleaned since last fall and they overflowed.  We immediately called for a gutter service to come out and clean them and will probably have this same service clean the gutters twice a year from now on.  Whenever the gutters overflow water comes into the basement.  Not a giant flood but enough to get the floor wet.  We have since discovered that excessive rainwater runs not down the hillside but toward the house because there is an old decommissioned oil heat tank buried in the front yard.  The water hits the tank and runs toward the house instead of flowing away from it.  Removing the old tank is out of the question as it would involve moving parts of a rockery and digging a huge hole on a steep hillside.  

There had been carpeting on the floor that got wet during the leak so we had to remove it before the situation could be assessed.  That room is going to be the library and it needs to be dry, warm and cozy.  The paneling had to come off so we could find the leak. We still could not find where it originated.  The bottom plate of the wall had to be removed before we found source of the problem.

The big worry was that there would be a giant crack in the wall but often water comes in where the wall and floor meet and that is not so big a problem.  What we did find was a surprise.  No cracks in the wall, that was good.  But a crack and holes at the bottom near the floor where roots from shrubs outside had worked their way through the concrete and behind the paneling.  What the photo does not show is two thick roots right at the bottom that had to be cut out with a razor blade.  These small delicate looking roots were growing up the wall behind the paneling and insulation.

There is a product that will seal and waterproof this type of crack in basements so we ordered some.  In the meantime the crack had to be cleaned out, roots removed, and the surface made ready.  Time to rent a Jack Hammer device.

It weighs 25 lbs and is, to quote, “about all a small, old man can handle.”  The use of said hammer required some protection too.

I did notice that the facemask is not covering the nose and the protective eye goggles are above the eyes.  It was hot work I was told and the goggles fogged up and the mask hampered breathing.  So much for trying to be safe . . .

 We plan to replace the old paneling with something brighter, paint the other walls, and install some carpeting as soon as the interior repairs have been completed.  Then the bookcases and books move in with a couple of chairs or a loveseat and a lamp or two.  It should be a warm, cozy library when it is all finished.  The Bride of Satan will have a little refuge when the kitchen remodeling begins in a few months.  Otherwise, she needs to put on her traveling furs and move to the north house for a while.  Not going to happen, if one listens to her.

A French Drain will also be necessary outside to prevent the water from flowing toward the house.  But that will have to wait until the weather is better.

This experience is reliving a part of Bob's life from youth and a part he would rather not remember.