Christmasy

It's definitely getting Christmasy around here.  Dec. 1 I got serious about shopping, and did most of it that weekend.  I have a few more gifts to find, but for the most part everything is purchased and wrapped.  Now comes the hard part - not opening them.  Does anyone else have this problem?  We are always so excited about what we've gotten each other it's hard for us to wait until Christmas!  Home improvement has taken somewhat of a back burner, but painting that fireplace is high on the list...

I found this vintage light up Christmas tree at an estate sale a few months ago.  

Last night we had my parents over for full Thanksgiving dinner.  They were out of the country for Thanksgiving, so we celebrated late.  I can't believe I didn't take a single picture of the food!  The turkey was perfectly golden brown and everything else turned out great as well.  We were able to try out our new remote thermometer for the turkey and it was so nice to be able to monitor the temp the whole time.

Some home improving has still been going on.  Aaron used a wire brush to take the paint and rust off these original register covers.  The plan was to paint them white, but when he got the old paint off , we really liked the industrial look of the brushed silver.  So he cleaned them with acetone and clear coated them.  They may rust, but hopefully they won't.  If they do we will just go with the first plan and paint them white.

 I wish I could share what I've been crafting...but not until after Christmas!

Ice Storm

We had a crazy weekend beginning with our power going out Thursday night. We had over a foot of snow and then the freezing rain came. Lots of freezing rain, for days. By Saturday morning there was over an inch of ice on everything. Early Saturday (about 3:30 am) it began to warm up a bit and rained hard. That's when the branches really started breaking, and all of the snow and ice started coming off the trees. The snow began to melt and slide off the roof in big heavy sheets that shook the ground when they hit. It was noisy, scary noisy. Aaron slept through the whole thing with ear plugs in. We talked to two of our neighbors, they both had moved their entire families to other (safer) areas of the house during this time.
Four big branches broke off on the tree in the chicken run.







The biggest branch that came down in our yard. Hood River is a mess right now, some areas have 30% of their trees down. Which is why it took so long for our power to be restored, lots of areas without power.


As the ice melted off the trees and power lines, it would hit the ground, shatter and dance across the icy snow.


From a power line


Shedding


Here's why our power was out. A tree fell across our neighbor's driveway and took the power line clean out with it. Another neighbor cleared the tree, got most of the branches off the line, and plowed the road so the power company could access it.


The other end of the line on our side of the street.


Best purchase ever - Aaron found these at the Rack for $45! We lived in our Sorels this week.






Beautiful glazed snow...


That was hard to walk on! You could get away with walking gently on top of it most steps, but occasionally you would break through and startle yourself.


There is so much snow right now, especially where it has come off the roof. There is even more since this was taken, I can easily look down into the gutters on the coop.


Regarding the power outage - which lasted from Thursday around 4:30 to Sunday at 4:00, not very fun. The biggest concern being with the food in our freezers that I had grown from seed, planted in the garden, watered all summer, then prepared into food. 6 months worth of labor that I didn't want to lose. I learned a few lessons with this experience. Keep the bulk of anything you really care about in your largest freezer. We had all our tomato sauce in the kitchen freezer, I had meant to move it into the big freezer but never got around to it. It was stacked all together, so it kept itself frozen, thankfully. If you have extra space in your freezer, fill it with frozen jugs of water to help keep it cold longer. We filled our refrigerator and refrigerator freezer with bags of snow after day 2. It did help. We didn't open the large freezer, which is in a cold room, and things stayed frozen solid.
I realized having a wood stove and a good supply of fire wood is something we should always have. We would have been so miserable if we hadn't been able to stay warm. Other than a few annoyances, like hauling in the chicken water every night (I'm spoiled with my thermostat controlled water heater), not showering, and the difficulties in cooking, we survived just fine. When the storm wasn't keeping us awake, the extra sleep was nice. I had to force myself to stay up until 8:30 last night and slept til 7! Tonight we are clean, happy and well fed, a good way to start out the work week.

Winter Has Arrived

Those happy thoughts I had been having about skating through this winter with 45 degree sunny days are a distant memory. Winter has definitely arrived. We got 15 inches of snow topped off by ice this morning. It's still sleeting and expected to continue for the next 4 or 5 days. It's going to be a while before this mess is cleared up.
So much snow that you can't walk around without topping your boots and getting your pants soaked.



I couldn't get to the chickens since all the doors and locks were frozen, so I offered yogurt through the fence via spoon.




I did finally get the man door open, restocked their food, filled their waterer with snow and a pan of hot water (love this, I normally have to haul the whole thing inside in the winter because all the faucets are shut off), and added some extra pine shavings for coziness. They can go a week without me needing to go in now.


Oh, and my hawk-proofing was working great...until the fishing line became covered in ice. Luckily it was inexpensive and served its purpose. I'll have to go out and cut it all down so no one gets tangled in it, which almost happened yesterday. Olive FREAKED out when I was knocking snow off the gutters and flew to the far end of the run. Then, despising snow, had no idea how to get back (without touching the stuff). It took her about 15 minutes to realize she was going to have to touch it to make her way back to the safety of the coop. I think they were on extra alert 1. because of the snow and 2. our neighbor's kid was doing laps around our yard in a snowmobile all morning.
We'll have to see if our fencing will have to be replaced too, it was flimsy chicken wire and didn't fare very well.




That small plant in the foreground is broccoli.




All this snow is the reason we left the bees an upstairs entrance. They can still come and go if they need to.


They seem to be doing fine - hardly any dead bees this year. I heard their sweet buzzing yesterday when I put my ear to the hive.


Beautiful ice on everything!



I can easily say that I have never lived somewhere and had this much snow. It is beautiful, but it definitely adds a difficulty element to just about everything besides sitting inside by the fire.

Pumpkin Soup

I hate to do a post without photos...but I didn't take any while we were making this and I'd rather post something than nothing, so here goes. We finally took most of the winter squash and baked them yesterday. It's crazy to me we are still processing the garden and it's almost time to start the next one! We made a double batch of this delicious soup yesterday with the squash, and pureed and froze the rest. This soup has a strange combination of ingredients, but I guarantee it's super good for winter meals. We are notorious for never following a recipe exactly, and this is no exception. We used apples instead of pears, halved the peanut butter (also used chunky - not bad), and Aaron likes to add yellow curry to his.

Pumpkin Pear Bisque with Ginger

2 tablespoons butter

1 medium yellow onion diced

1 medium carrot, chopped

2 large cooking pears or apples, peeled, cored and coarsely chopped

2 tablespoons peeled and minced fresh ginger

16 oz pumpkin (from a can or made fresh)

4 cups chicken stock

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1/2 cup smooth peanut butter (I would halve and taste before adding all)

1 cup 1/2 and 1/2

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/3 cup maple syrup

salt and pepper to taste

In a large saucepan heat the butter over med-low heat until it bubbles, cook the onions and carrots for 2 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the ginger and pears and cook until translucent, stirring occasionally, about 5 minutes. Do not let them color. Stir in the pumpkin and stock and bring to a boil. Cover and simmer over low for 15-20 minutes. Puree either in a Cuisinart in batches or *with an immersion blender*. For a creamier texture put through a sieve after pureeing. Add lemon juice, peanut butter, cinnamon, maple syrup, 1/2 and 1/2, salt and pepper. The soup should be fairly thick, but not too heavy. Makes 6 cups or 6 servings.

Wahkeena Falls to Multnomah Falls

The snow fall this year has been disappointing, but with warm and sunny weather, we spent some time hiking around the beautiful gorge this weekend. Saturday we hiked to Mitchell Point, which wasn't very long, but super steep, with wonderful views at the top. I didn't take a camera with me unfortunately.
Today we did a loop from Wahkeena to Multnomah Falls. I lost track of how many waterfalls we saw, and most of the hike was along the super pretty Multnomah Creek. There were a lot of people at either end (especially the Multnomah Falls end) but the hike was well worth it. Neither of us could remember ever going to Multnomah Falls, which is kind of crazy because it's a very popular place, and we drive past it at least once a month. I think it's popularity is what turned me off from it, but it is the highest waterfall in Oregon, so of course it is stunning.






Like many people we have made New Year's resolutions, among them are to lose some weight, explore this area more and get organized. So far so good on all fronts. I would also like keep up here more frequently, so hopefully you will be hearing from me more.

Gearing up for Winter

We had such a productive weekend - I LOVE that. Saturday was one of those days where you look at the clock thinking it's 4:00 and it's actually 1:00. I wish everyday was like that. We cleared out the garden, brought in all the stakes, pulled all the plants except for some broccoli (it's like its fifth harvest!), lettuce and chard. Put away the irrigation pipes and loaded everything up into the pickup.


Aaron then went to a roll session in our community pool, he's been getting back in the kayak and loving it. I'm pretty happy he's practicing all his rolls so if/when he goes in the river he's prepared to pop himself back up. I picked up all the dropped tomatoes and as many tomatillos as I could to prevent too many volunteers next year.


I made a batch of applesauce with the last of the apples from Harvest Festival. I did a couple loads of laundry. We made some homemade sriracha - I'll give it its own post in a week when it's done. I also used up the last of the apricots I bought in early summer, and made a batch of jam. We started winterizing the chicken coop, I painted panels that we will put up to block the wind. Speaking of wind, holy crap it was windy last night. There were actually branches down everywhere, which doesn't happen too often because we get frequent high winds. It also woke me up a few times even though I turned the fan up a notch.
Olive is going through a hard molt, literally within 3 days most of her feathers just fell out. Luckily it's been warmer, we had some freezing mornings and she would just stand on one leg hunkered down, shivering. I upped their protein so that their feathers will come in healthy and nice.


She looks so funny without a tail.


Last night we went to a homebrewer's club meeting. These guys are pretty serious, but it was a fun meeting. They made a HUGE batch of beer, a pale ale, then everyone hopped it differently. Each person was assigned a single hop, and then the beers were fermented the same temp/time. We did a blind taste test and wrote down what characteristics we got out of each hop flavor. It was good, but by #9 all of our taste buds were shot, and some of us (just me I think) were a little drunk. We're finally starting to meet some people and it's been nice to have a social life again!
Today we cleaned up the garage a bit, took some things to Goodwill and now Aaron is replacing the axle on his Suburu to extend its life past 300,000 miles.

Hiking!

I think we might just live somewhere with the prettiest hiking trails in Oregon...We have spent our spare time in the snow so far because it's been cold and snowy. But with unseasonably warm (sunny even!) weather I got out to do some hiking this weekend.
Friday Jason, Megan and I hiked about 8 miles at Eagle Creek. To hike the full length of the trail would have been 12 miles round trip. We passed beautiful waterfalls, the greenest forests, foggy mists, and narrow cliff trails that made me feel like I was in China.






Saturday we all checked out Bonneville Dam then hiked Wahclella Falls. It is only two miles round trip, but part of it was pretty steep. GORGEOUS.





Sunday Aaron and I hiked 5 miles at Herman Creek. The last 1.5 miles were on the Pacific Crest Trail and we turned around at Pacific Crest Falls. The uphill hike in turned into a downhill hike out (fancy that) and my knees were not too happy. Still a pretty hike.




SO many places left to explore. All of these places were so big and pretty, there was no way to take a good photo. I think that might be a sign of a good hike. I can't wait to get out some more, 50 degree weather all week!