One of the greatest things about summer, or six thousand feet of elevation gain in two days

One of the reasons we choose to live close to the wilderness is easy access to some of the world's most beautiful places.  Now that most of the snow has melted in the mountains we can go hiking, which is one of my great loves.  My husband Steve and I have dragged our children up mountains since they were little, and it shows.  They are strong hikers.

My sons and I did two hikes last week, with a total of 6,000 feet elevation gain and 16 miles of hiking.  Come with us, and I'll show you why we love these mountains so much.

The first hike was Green Mountain, leading to a fire lookout with a 360 degree view of a sea of mountains.  Highlights: the wildflowers, Mount Baker and Glacier Peak visible in the distance, and a small lake to jump into and cool off in.

I love these excursions with my sons.  They used to whine and complain about heat, sore muscles or mosquitoes before, but not any more.  Now, I don't have to cheerlead them up the mountain - in fact, they encourage me when my knees start hurting on the way down.

Our conversations are fun up here... miles and miles and hours and hours of walking leaves time for talking about things they don't usually talk about.  This time, the topic of conversation was about girls.  Very enlightening, indeed.  My boys are growing up.

Two days later the whole family went hiking, including our little six-year old daughter Eva and two of the boys' friends.  The hike was on the East side of the mountains, a one and a half hour drive over the Cascade Mountains and different climate.  We knew eight miles and 3,000 feet elevation gain would be very hard for Eva, but we decided to push her.

Little did we realize that the day would turn into a 91 degree scorcher.

All was well on the way up, where large Ponderosa Pines offered shade, and mountain views distracted us from the steep trail.

But the hike led into a brushy area where a wildfire had swept through, and the energy shifted.  It was hot, scratchy, overgrown, and a little creepy with all the burnt and dead trees.

Eva crashed.  We ate lunch huddled under a tree to find shade. The other kids were chipper. Eva wasn't. The end of the hike was 1/4 mile ahead, so we decided to push on, Steve carrying Eva.  She acted fine on top, running around with the other kids, and all was well again.

But then, on the way back, Eva started looking pale, refused to walk and threw up.  Poor thing had too much exertion and too much heat.  

Steve carried all 60 pounds of her down the mountain.  Four miles. 3,000 feet elevation drop.  On his back.  Without complaining.  

My husband is beyond amazing.  While I spend the walk down feeling guilty and concerned about my girl, he single-handedly, single-back-edly carried his daughter down the mountain.  My admiration for him (which already is pretty damn high) rose exponentially.  This man has been the rock and solid foundation of our family for 14 years, and he never complains.

Phew.

I'm a lucky woman, and so are our kids. 

Here are all of us resting on the way down.  Eva fell asleep on top of me.

When we got to the car in one piece (Halleluja!!!!) and drove to Mazama to get some drinks and treats, Eva threw up again and then perked up.  She drank a cherry soda and was transformed after that, chatting and happy.

The next day, she was back to her normal, energetic, exuberant self.

Lesson learned: it's okay to push kids physically, but don't do it in 91 degree weather, and make sure you have a mule person with you that can carry heat stroke victims.

Other news of the week:  The garden is producing tomatoes and lots of other veggies.  For dinner, I go "shopping" in the garden and make from-scratch meals with produce I just harvested minutes earlier.

Also, my kitchen is messier than ever, since we spend all our time outside.  Who has time to clean the dishes?

I will leave you with images with more natural beauty.  I took all of these pictures either in our garden or within a 20 minute walk from our house.  Really.

Birthdays, cheesecakes, and abundance in the garden

We packed so much into this week, I got dizzy preparing the photos for this blog post.  The most important event, of course, was my husband Steve's birthday - the big 50.  He's now half a century old, he has no grey hairs (except three and a half in his beard), and he is not bothered by turning older.  It's not fair.  Maybe I shall have his midlife crisis for him.

My man is incredible.  Not only is he the kindest, least judgemental, supportive guy, but he also can out-work any 20 year old young guy.  Plus, he's incredibly handsome, don't you think?

We had a party at our homestead with a bunch of our close friends and neighbors, talked around a campfire, included another little friend's birthday celebration, and ate tons of good food.

The day after, I made him a cheesecake from my own Chevre, because it's his favorite, and because we didn't feel like sharing it with lots of people since everyone only would have gotten a tiny slice.  Instead, we just shared it with his parents, who had flown in from Minnesota to help us celebrate.

Eva and I decorated the cake with raspberries and flowers from the garden - a rose and edible borage flowers.

Steve and his Mom, and Luke's grubby fingers heading for the cheesecake.

Steve and his Dad, while opening birthday presents.

Talking of raspberries: We picked them at the Cascadian Farm U-Pick field, just a few miles down the road.  There is no more scenic place to pick, and afterwards, you can reward yourself with ice cream.

It's wonderful to have Steve's parents here.  They win the best-grandparents-in-the-world award, since they LIVE for them and love nothing more than spending time with them and giving them their full attention.

Eva, for example, has claimed Grandma for herself.  They bond painting Eva's nails, sorting through jewelry, and playing with Eva's little wobblehead figures.

While we celebrate, play and bond, we also eat like kings and queens.  All our hard work in the spring has payed off, and we now eat whole meals out of the garden.  Last night, we strolled through and picked new potatoes, carrots, beets, kale, collards and lettuce, and made these into a gourmet meal, adding fresh Sockeye salmon for good measure.  Of course, there's also lots of home-made goat cheese as well.

The goats keep us busy.  I taught Luke how to milk, and he milked three quarts of milk all by himself.  We take the goats and babies out to pasture every day, which involves a certain amount of chaos with the puppy trying to chase the baby goats, the mamas butting the puppy, and me trying to contain everyone on a leash.

And we still find time for swimming in the pond and knitting.  I just finished a beret, and don't ask me why I knit with wool in summer, but I did.

One more thing I loved this week: biking with my middle child, Luke.  We are kind of, sort of training for riding our bikes over the pass this year, which would involve an Herculean kind of effort, lots of muscles and tons of chocolate.  So I decided to go on a training ride with Luke, since his older brother Kai already rode over the pass twice.  

We tackled the Cascade River Road, which goes uphill and passes by a waterfall.  Since the day was hot, and we even hotter, Luke and I dunked ourselves in the water to cool off.  What a fun 23 mile ride with my blondie!  He did great, of course, and kicked my ass on the last very steep mile to the lookout.

I will leave you with a picture of two swallow babies who live on the outside wall of our house, and whose parents are hustling all day long to keep them fed.

There's nothing like eating dinner underneath a swallow house.

What's going on in your neck of the woods lately?

Alive and well

It's so wonderful that life offers pockets of comedy, even in the face of grief and loss. Watching our puppy chase butterflies, or rather their shadows on the ground, never fails to make me laugh out loud. 

Trying not to smile when my six-year-old (who is learning to sound out words) asks, "Mommy, does the F-word start with f?"... Some of you might not find this funny, but the ones who know me and my terrible potty mouth might.

In the midst of crying over my friend's suicide and another friend's death in a car accident, I find lots of things to be grateful for, maybe BECAUSE of these deaths. After all, we are alive, and we are well.

I'm feeling incredibly grateful for our beautiful piece of land, which grounds me and serves as my mental health therapy. It doesn't hurt that it also puts out a lot of food already!

And the flowers! The flowers! I pick huge bouquets of roses and peonies and station them around the house, so we can smell them inside and outside. I grow perennial flowers in various flower beds around our place, and I also like flowers in my vegetable garden, because they look pretty and attract pollinators.

Steve, the kids and I worked in the yard all day on Memorial Day. We went a little bit insane and paid for it the next day since we were so sore. But we got a lot done! Steve did macho stuff with the chainsaw that involved trimming up some pretty big trees that had gotten too overgrown, shading my precious flowers. I single handedly weeded so much buttercup and grass from under the blueberry bushes that my hands could hardly milk the goats the next morning. We also weeded the garden and mowed the lawn. Our place now looks worthy of being featured in Sunset Magazine or something.

We bribed the kids into helping by promising strawberries and whipping cream later on. It worked. They kicked butt.

If you look closely, you can see Steve on the ladder with a chainsaw in the middle of the picture. See how all that green swallows everything?

Another source of comedy and comfort are our animals. Truly, how could you be sad when you watch the puppy sniff noses with our new baby pigs, or when you hang out with the goats and chickens? Our baby chicks are now 3 months old, and the roosters are starting to crow. The other day I milked the goats in the barn and heard a terrible screaming sound outside. I just about knocked over the milk bucket trying to figure out who got killed. Turned out it was the rooster who tried to crow for the first time in his life. Yeah, keep practicing, buddy.

And lastly, who cheers me up most are my children. This weekend, little Eva got to hang out with her best friend and even be the hostess of a sleepover. These girls played in the garden for hours, making up games, grazing on fennel and kale. At one point, I asked them if they were fairies. They looked at me a little disdainfully and said, "No, we are obviously wolves." Right.

In the picture, their teeth are green because they are eating fennel. Obviously.

Let me leave you with a picture of my Cabra Al Vino. Remember, if you want to learn how to make cheese from me, take my self-paced, start-anytime online cheesemaking course. I promise, it's super fun!