A Cidering Birthday Weekend

 Our Seattle area kids arrived late Friday night for a weekend on the farm. Jessica spent Saturday morning cooking lots of fabulous food, even though she was feeling lousy.  She is a determined lady. The rest of us spent the afternoon gathering apples and making cider for them to take home.

It's been a lousy apple year but the bears had left us some at the very top of a tree by the swamp at the far southern edge of our property. Kevin climbed up while Ian operated a long pole to knock apples down... and hopefully not Kevin. Johnny took photos.

 I gathered the apples on the tarp spread below... and hoped not to get hit on the head.

Bears had left plenty of sign of their apple eating activity, both on the ground...

And in the tree: Kevin said scratch marks from a bear's attempt to reach those top apples went nearly all the way to the apples...

The only tree in our orchard still with apples this late in this very odd year is very old and thick with branches. Too thick and with apples too high for poles from the ground to work, so Kevin climbed and threw apples down at us. Well, it sometimes seemed like he was throwing them at us. Johnny attempted to get a photo of Kevin hidden in the upper branches.

 Easier were the trees around our house, although they did not have many apples, either. Here Ian did the tree climbing honors. Kevin handed him a fruit picking pole so he could reach the apples high above.

 

With apples finally gathered, we set up the cider pressing operation. I washed apples while Kevin cut the rotten parts out.

Johnny and Ian took turns dropping the apples into the apple shredder. Well, Ian "dropped" his from a distance.

 Below Johnny presses the apples into the grinder with an apple pusher (my name... don't have a clue what it's really called.)

  The shredded apples dropped into a bucket and then were dumped into the press.

I did not get a photo of Kevin or Ian or Johnny twisting the press handles, squeezing the juice out, but they did and here it comes...

The juice was then poured through a strainer to get out the apple parts that had escaped through the press slats.

After each pressing, the mostly-dried-out apple pieces were cleaned out of the press and dumped into a wheelbarrow.

After all the apples were pressed, the leavings went to the goats. Happy goats!

 That evening we sat down for a wonderful supper of pulled pork and potato salad (at Johnny's request) and green salad and more... with a pumpkin cheesecake (at my request) for dessert, complete with candles to celebrate my Halloween birthday. (Brownies, too. Jessica makes delicious brownies.)

That evening, before goat-milking chores, we watched two episodes of the Big Bang Theory, Season 8.  K and J and Ian had given us the previous seasons in the past. Now we won't have to keep watching Seasons 1 through 7 over and over! (Every evening that we aren't too tired, Johnny and I watch 2 episodes of this comedy. We love it. No matter how many times we watch it.)

Kevin, Jessica and Ian left for their long drive home at Sunday noon. It was cool and misty then, after an incredibly warm and dry Saturday for our fun birthday and cider celebration.

Johnny and I ate well again Sunday night... and watched two more Big Bang Theory episodes from Season 8. Jessica made enough food to last us several more happy, delicious days.

Wrists, Witches and WonderFall Colors

For three weeks, I've intended to take photos of and write about Johnny's carpal tunnel surgeries. But he did not leave his sling on or his wraps on long enough for me to get my act together and take photos the first time (right hand) or the second time (left hand). He is not a patient patient. But the surgeries seem to have worked fine and he no longer has off and on numbness and very annoying (to most people it would be painful) tingling  up his arms to his shoulders.

Having his arm deadened from shoulder down for the surgeries scared him because it was like "having a dead arm" and took 24 hours for it to come back to life. On the first surgery he thought they'd destroyed a nerve or something because he couldn't feel his arm. Plus he had asked for no anesthesia because he wanted to watch the surgery. So they gave him 1/4 dose ("just to take the edge off") but he still fell immediately to sleep.

For the second surgery they gave him less and he was awake and able to ask questions but not see what was going on because the surgeon and attendants worked inside a tent. And the second time he knew his arm was only going to be dead for a day and he didn't panic. Plus he decided he didn't need that annoying wrap and took it off after a couple of days instead of the assigned week. (He lasted a few days longer on the first surgery before taking it off.) Johnny's wrists seem to have healed in spite of his impatience.


Besides carpal tunnel surgeries, we've had a witch invasion. It happens every year a bit before Halloween. Migrating witches crash all around the place. We did find one reason for a crash this year... check out her right hand. Don't text and fly!

Along with wayward witches, we are having the prettiest fall ever. The Big Leaf Maples are more colorful than I've ever seen them before. From what others say, the colors are more spectacular through the entire northwest than in the past. Maybe the witches are being dazzled by the colors and not watching where they're flying. Or maybe they're texting someone about how pretty the trees are...

When we moved to the west coast a zillion years ago, I missed the spectacular colors of the east coast... so I planted trees that turn red in the fall. Here is our arboretum this fall with the Amur Maples in their autumn finery.

And around the house, more reds of many shades...

But it's the native maples, usually a muddy yellow-brown this time of year, that are turning our hillside gold.

Next up: a colorful autumn birthday party plus cider making with Kevin, Jessica and Ian

Science Works in Ashland

Ian has just sent me these photos he took with his phone while we were in Ashland. I did not haul my camera around (except on our hikes) so kept asking him to take photos.

Steve and family had arrived a couple days after we did. We met them Thursday morning at ScienceWorks Museum. What a great place.

Steve became mesmerized by this giant kaleidoscope type thingie. He said he could watch it all day.

But there was way too much to see there to spend much time at any one station. The bubble room was my favorite. Below Steve and Kestrel create bubble shapes at the bubble wall.

All three of them are inside a giant bubble of their own creation.

Below Cedrus creates a giant bubble.

There's an outside portion of the museum, too. but I have no idea where this tube was or if they were supposed to be walking on it. Munazza and I retreated to do Qi Gong after the noise and stimulation inside the museum and I did not notice this tube.

This climbing wall has geologic time on it. The sign encourages visitors to climb through time.

Kestrel and Cedrus did.

Steve and Ian also did and both managed to get clear on top of the wall which I don't think people are supposed to do.

That evening we watched the Green Show on the bricks at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. This night the Uganda Children's Choir performed high energy songs and dances.

Everywhere inside and outside festival buildings were these wonderful welcoming signs. I asked Ian to take a photo of one for me.

It was nice to spend a week in a place where everyone is truly welcomed and honored, as actors on stage and as audience members. Oregon Shakespeare Festival is dedicated to diversity in their company members. All the actors are superb, whether they are deaf or hearing, black or white or any other hue, male or female, disabled or able-bodied.

Ian and I are looking forward to next year!

Coast Watch

Today Johnny and I hiked a mile on the Oregon shore... for another of my many volunteer survey projects, this one for CoastWatch. It was a beautiful day on Mile 262 that stretches north from Cape Kiwanda almost to McPhillip Park, which is basically a secluded parking area with a rough and rocky road to the beach.

At high tide today there were quite a few "beached" birds and I was glad I was not doing a beached bird survey here. There was a good variety, though, better than on the Bob Straub Park beach where I get 99% Common Murres. This beach had freshly washed in carcasses of grebes and scoters and auklets and others I didn't know what were.

But it also had, on a headland off Cape Kiwanda, four live Black Oystercatchers. I was hoping some would be fledglings, showing me that the two pairs that nest on Haystack Rock, off the cape, had been successful but, alas, these were all adults, showing me quite the opposite. (Fledglings don't have red around their eyes so even if I don't see their not-all-the-way-red-yet bills, I can tell if they are birds of the year or adults.) Oh well, any day I see Black Oystercatchers is a successful day.

 I then hiked over the dune to meet Johnny, who had hiked the mile back to our starting point and was driving around to the south side to pick me up. On the way I spotted the resident Peregrine Falcon. I clicked a fast photo in case it flew.

And it did a second later!

A little farther along, I took a photo of an underwater channel that is eroding the dune. The ocean is finding more and more ways to divide and conquer.

 Down on the beach on the south side, Haystack Rock was reflected in this outgoing tide.

Against those cliffs in the photo above, on rocks just above the water line, a lone sea lion was napping, raising up a few times to look around, wondering where its friends had gone, maybe.

Johnny was waiting for me at the parking area so off we went to try out a new restaurant in Pacific City, Beach Wok. It was good but the Mexican restaurant, Los Caporoles, remains our favorite.

On our drive home, we stopped by the Little Nestucca River and hiked down to a scenic spot where we found two American Dippers. Any day I see a Dipper is a good day.

In the photo below, Johnny stands by a pool in the creek (at my request. I said "Stand still and look like you're enjoying yourself so I can take a photo.")

A beautiful day with lovely weather, one Peregrine Falcon, four Black Oystercatchers and two American Dippers. It doesn't get much better than that.