Snippets from the Ranch

Sunsets are always a delight out at the Ranch, especially on the days of unremitting heat when we are forced to run the noisy old window air-conditioner. The temperature cools down rapidly once the sun hits the horizon, and we gaily open all of the windows and fine-tune our bodies for every breeze that wafts into the house.

There were thunderstorms in the mountains on Friday and I sat and watched the lightning flickering in the clouds and listened to the thunder.

Unfortunately, the lightning strikes of last week (1,900 in twenty-four hours, according to one news report) have caused forest fires and one tree faller who was  helping fight the fires was killed by a falling tree snag. 

The air has been smelling faintly of smoke and the sunsets colourful and hazy.

I caught the sun as it was hanging on the edge of the mountains.

And it's gone.

The moon was large and orange a couple of weeks ago. 

I discovered the difficulty of capturing the moon at dusk.

We've had a few visitors to our little abode lately. 

Some of them were invited.

Some of them weren't.

They helped themselves to our flowers anyway.

Remember the poppies?

They are all dried out, so I spent a pleasant interlude on Friday morning (when I wasn't watching lightning or deer through my front window) collecting poppy seeds. I got a cupful without much effort at all.

I spend some time, almost every day that I am out here, pulling Russian thistle, the local incarnation of tumbleweed. A few weeks ago, I pulled up a particularly large one and found this nasty bug among the roots.

I put it in a large cup with some dirt so that I could show the kids when they arrived for their week of camp, but lucky I took a photo because when we went to look at it, someone (or something) had knocked over the cup and the bug was nowhere to be found.

Now I am wondering if another critter ate it.

The fun never ends out here at the Ranch!

We are still intrepid. Well, sort of.

Let's go on a hike today, I said.

Okay, he agreed.

That Steelhead Falls trail looks pretty easy, I said. Only four miles round trip.

Well, the hiking guide said "moderate", and "take hiking poles and wear sturdy shoes and be prepared for a boulder field and steep trails".

But, what the heck, we are seasoned hikers and "moderate" sounded easy enough.

By the time we lazed around on this beautiful morning, did some laundry, ate brownies and cookies for breakfast, went to the farmers' market by the fire station, and finally arrived at the trail head, it was almost noon. A little bit warm. But we were intrepid (which I have decided is tied closely to "ignorant", "naive", and "clueless") and off we went.

The beginning of the trail was easy enough.

The vistas were spectacular.

I was leading the way along what I thought was an obvious trail, but after a bit of back-tracking to find the real thing, Jeff pointed out what should have been obvious to me.

Trail markers.

Things went a little better after that.

For a while.

I ignored the gullies left by water in the springtime, which certainly looked like trails to me.

We knew we had to descend this cliff somehow.

A few more back-tracks and Jeff decided it was time for him to lead the way.

The situation started to look a little precarious.

If you know Jeff and me, we are slightly inclined to be disaster-prone on escapades like this.

It was getting to be mighty hot, and we appreciated the rocky overhangs and occasional juniper tree.

We wondered what lived in these holes.

It is a different beauty over here in the high desert, and the rivers are solace to the soul.

I think this is a ponderosa pine, which is pretty unusual in these parts.

Um, yes, this part of the trail was a little daunting. Narrow and precarious.

In fact, it doesn't really look like a trail at all, does it?

Back on stable ground, we were happy to see this old beaver dam.

I doubt this trail is navigable in the spring, as the bullrushes were growing about ten feet above us.

Suddenly, the trail seemed to dead-end in a bunch of boulders.

Oh yeah.

Boulder field.

So this is what the guide was talking about.

Want to see what a boulder field looks like from the other side of the river?

There ya go.

Only the one on the other side didn't have as much vegetation mixed into the equation.

We became trepidatious, rather than intrepid, and made out way s-l-o-w-l-y over the boulder field, which rather reminded us of the ill-fated Mt. St. Helen's climb. The trail was almost non-existent and we were second-guessing ourselves most of the time, wondering why we had ever begun this hike at all. 

I am pretty sure that this is where a woman had to get life-flighted out of the canyon earlier in the summer when she put her hand on a rock without looking and got bitten by a rattlesnake. I told Jeff that I will never judge anyone for that again. 

We finally got through the boulder field and concurred that we would never attempt this hike again.

And that we would not return the same way. 

Things got much better after that, except for the heat. 

I decided that, considering that we saw no other people on this trail, that we were the only ones stupid enough to hike it on this hot afternoon.

Jeff tried to coax me into joining him, but I decided not to tempt fate.

Supposedly, the trail to Steelhead Falls was only two miles long, but it was starting to feel much longer. I suspect I was suffering from a bit of heat exhaustion, as Jeff had insisted I wear jeans because of rattlesnakes. 

Now, my question is, will a rattlesnake bite through denim? 

Maybe skinny jeans weren't the best solution.

He also advised me to beat the bushes and rocks as we forged through them, warning the rattlesnakes that we were coming so that they could run away, which bit of folklore I'm not sure I believed.

Anyway, every time we turned a corner, I expected to see a waterfall.

And, finally, we did.

And there was much jubilation!

Large trees growing out of rocks are cool.

Apparently, the local kids like to jump off the rocks into the water, although it is discouraged because of the danger. Which probably only makes it more appealing to the younger set.

Here is the river above the falls.

We decided to take the half-mile trail to a closer parking lot and the plan was for Jeff to walk back to the first lot and get the car, as I was exhausted.

I sat on a rock in the shade of a tree and Jeff started up the gravel road. A few minutes later a man and woman (to whom we had spoken earlier) came into view and told me that we should have probably gone back the way we came, boulder field and all, as it was about three times as long again to go back on the road. I must have looked crestfallen, because he told me not to worry, that he would take care of it. 

He and his friend left in his red pickup truck and there I sat, hoping that they would find my intrepid man.

I sat and contemplated my dusty hiking boots.
Thanks, Barb, they served me well today.

And about thirty minutes later, along comes Jeff in his trusty Sebring. Turns out it was about ten miles back to the car. Gulp.
And thank you, Jeff Davis, who lives just down the road from us (as it turns out) for being our saviour today.
You know, I fully expected to be saved by someone today, and my faith was fully justified.

And after we got home and showered the dust from our tired bodies, I decided that we survived the trail quite well, and that some cooler day we might try it again.
Because we are intrepid that way.

Coconut and garlic escapades

My freezers and I are performing our annual summertime dance. I pack and rearrange, cajole and plead for just one more cubic inch of space in which to pack the season's bounty.

 

I planted some garlic cloves of previously unknown species last fall (thank you, Lori) and they ripened up nicely a few weeks ago. Turns out it is elephant garlic, not a true garlic and has a milder flavor than the real thing.

 

I am a garlic-growing novice. Indeed, I came late to an appreciation of the pungent bulb, and those who know me well are amazed when I use phrases like "My kitchen is full of the aroma of roasting garlic". This, coming from the girl who has been known to ban her husband from her side of the bed when he indulged in pizza at lunchtime.

 

I think I allowed the garlic to sit too long, either in or out of the ground, because the bulbs were not tidily encased in white parchment like all the good blogs display. The cloves had broken out of the dried skin and were separated and some had even taken on a tinge of green.

 

No matter. I attacked them with gusto, having decided to roast and freeze the lot of them and be done with it.

 

 

So I cut off the rooted ends and painstakingly peeled all of the cloves. 

 

  

If they had been all tidy, I could have merely cut off the root end and tips and roasted them without peeling, but there you go.

It didn't really take very long, and I had a slow day, so didn't mind the extra work. 

They do look rather gorgeous, all shiny and curvaceous, don't they?

 

Forty-five minutes later, after covering the pan with foil and roasting at 350 degrees, here it is.

It looks a bit anaemic, so next time I do this I might remove the foil for the last 15 minutes.

 

 

I mashed that garlic up and froze it in ice-cube trays, and that should do me for the next year.

Although, I am using it more often, so maybe not.

As it is, there were lots of little bulbs on the outside of the bulbs that I will replant. Next year, these will be single cloves, which will grow into the full bulb in the second year.

Delayed gratification is my friend.

 

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Several vendors donate their less-than-perfect produce to the senior centre in our town. I make it a habit to pop in to see what's new every time I am in that part of town. It is free to anyone who wants it, and at the height of the growing season a lot of the produce is fed to animals or thrown away, because it spoils before it is claimed.

So, my frugal self feels obligated to use whatever I can.

 

Last week, there was a box of young coconuts that had a smidgen of mould on the stem end.

I took four of them and headed home to do some research on processing them, little knowing what lay ahead of me.

If you want to know the steps involved in attacking a coconut, there are plenty of links on the internet. Let's just say, I found a few tricks that worked and some that didn't.

 

First, I scrubbed the ends so that nothing would be contaminated by mould spores. It was only on the surface, so felt okay about using them.

Next, I drained the water, which netted me about two pints of coconut water.

Pretty awesome.

That was the easy bit, involving hammering two holes in the stem end and then making a mess as the water dribbles out into a jar.

 

According to several sets of instructions, if you put the coconut in the oven or freezer for 15 to 30 minutes, the meat should separate easily from the shell. I tried the oven, as I was roasting garlic at the time.

I would say that this was a bust, because I had to spend about five minutes per coconut half gradually prying out the meat, which was hard on my hands. There is a tool you can buy, which would be worth the money if I ever decide to do this again. 

 

Then, you crack the coconut in half, which involves a heavy meat cleaver and nerves of steel.

Really, it does.

This step went quite smoothly, compared to what was to come.

The first coconut didn't get baked, and I had to pry the meat out in small chunks, which was a painstaking and painful effort.



 

The ones I baked were better, but, as mentioned, still took a ridiculous amount of effort.

 

Next, pare off the brown skin if you want a nice, white, coconut pulp, which I did.

This part was quite easy.

 



 

Chunk it up, put it in a powerful blender and cover with water.

I used the coconut water instead of tap water on the first batch. It was a bit of a waste of coconut water, because the coconut pulp actually absorbed a lot of it. 

Then blend the heck out of that baby, until there are no chunky bits left.

 

Drain well to separate the pulp from the milk and you have some nice coconut to use in baking (on the right) and some coconut milk (left) to use in drinks and smoothies.

Yum. 

 

Four coconuts yielded about two pints of pure coconut water, half-a-gallon of coconut milk, about eight cups of coconut pulp (I used some in a cake already and it was absolutely to-die-for), and half-a-cup of coconut oil, which you can see coating the sides of the blender jar.

 

 

And then I went outside and hammered the coconut shells into little pieces and put them in the compost bin.

Sometimes, my neighbours think I am a crackpot.

True story.

And, just in case you are crazy enough to try this feat of endurance yourself, here is the cake recipe, which I and several family members and neighbours can highly recommend.
There's no photo, because it was inhaled too quickly, but here's the link to the original.

Hawaiian Wedding Cake

1 20 oz can of crushed pineapple, undrained
1 1/2 c sugar (original calls for 2 c)
2 c flour (I used Ultragrain, my new discovery at Grocery Outlet)
2 tsp B. Soda
2 eggs
I c unsweetened coconut
1 c chopped nuts (I used pecans and would use less nuts next time)

Mix all together, bake in a greased 9x13 pan for 40 to 45 minutes at 350.

Frosting
 

1/4 c butter
8 oz cream cheese
1 1/2 c powdered sugar
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 c unsweetened coconut

Soften butter and cream cheese, beat together all ingredients till creamy.
spread over cooled cake.

DO NOT MAKE THIS CAKE WITHOUT THE FROSTING.

That is all.



Snapshots of 24 hours of summer

Sunday was little London's blessing day at church. She wore a dress that was worn by both her mother and her grandma, which is a worthy tradition. Charlie's blessing of his daughter was short and sweet, which would have been appreciated by his Grandpa Tom.

Family showed up in full force.

Overheard last night during the aftermath of a family spaghetti feed:
Nana, where did you get this game?
Where do you think I got this game, Josh?
At a garage sale!

Every time the grands have asked me lately where I got something, the answer is the same. 
They are starting to get the picture!

The husband grumbled about not needing more games as he loaded his car for the trip back to Central Oregon last night. 
But it is an awesome game, and it was unopened and only a dollar. It's called The Way Things Work, based on David Macaulay's book. Josh and Thomy loved it, even though they are way younger than the suggested age, and I love that it teaches scientific principles.

Little Jeff decided he didn't want dinner, and was okay with giving up his ice cream treat as a result.

Until it was time to go home, then suddenly he wanted to eat his dinner.

But alas, he bounced between crying and sitting-but-not-eating until parental patience was lost and he was carted unceremoniously out of the door.

(Dinner was not that bad, by the way!)

An hour-or-so later the phone rang.

Hello.

Hi Nana. Do you think you could save my dinner and I will eat it next time I am over?

Um, sorry Jeff, but I threw it away already.

Silence....

Nana, could I have an ice cream next time I come over?

(Nana trying not to laugh out loud).

Well Jeff, you can have an ice cream but you will have to earn it. You can do a job for me and then you can have an ice cream, okay?

Okay, Nana.

Too cute.

Josh and Natalie ending up spending the night unexpectedly, so we started the morning with a three-mile Nana-walking-and-kids-scootering outing that was way too early considering I hadn't slept much since 3am. The kids are dressed in a mixture of pyjamas and swimsuits, which is all I had on hand. After I finished piano lessons for the day, we picked up Thomy and Jeff and went to Buckley Park, a small neighbourhood park that has a most splendiferous ditch running through it. I sat on the bank, alternately reading Michael Pollan's new book and watching graceful monarch butterflies and brilliant red dragonflies swooping over the water, while the kids gradually shed their shoes and socks and got muddy. They were hunting tadpoles, but only managed to catch a dragonfly and some other water critter. We examined the dragonfly and then let it go, but the other critter was taken home to the scientist.

As I sat watching the three little boys and the girl having the time of their lives in a muddy creek and with only a plastic box for props, I couldn't help but remember summers of my childhood. We played in the fields, picked wildflowers, jumped ditches, tunneled through fields of wheat, climbed haystacks, and rode our bikes through days that seemed endless. No one organized our time or filled our days with activity, and we were as happy as puppies in a field of fire hydrants. I am as guilty as anyone of organizing activities, but it did my heart good today to see those littles playing with such innocence and gusto in a ditch.

I could use more of this kind of summer.