Lonelilly
Doin' it my way.
The desert. All the reds, browns, and unexpected greens. The way the setting sun lights up the ancient, craggy rocks and paints them in purple. Evan took this photo when he was backpacking with our friend Alex last winter in the Superstitions. It was the week after Christmas, and we had escaped a bitter Northwest snowstorm by the skin of our teeth, driving through the Oregon passes at 4 a.m. so we could bypass a blizzard that would ground planes and leave people without power for days on end. Spending the worst part of each winter somewhere nice and sunny is a habit we’d like to work into in the next couple years… take the camera and set off on some great adventure.
This year, we’re planning to hunker down out here. Stay warm with lots of blankets, our wood stove, and a space heater. By the end of the week, there’s supposed to be snow on our mountain, which is really only a foothill, but a big one, and to have snow on it means winter has arrived, in all her glory. Hopefully we will have time to take some great photos of snow on firs and such. Lord knows we haven’t found time to do anything lately besides work, but cabin fever does set in eventually and forces us to get out. At least every once in a while.
Highway 20 is Washington’s northernmost route across the North Cascades. It hugs mountainsides, winds along rivers, climbs to staggering summits, and meanders through fir, hemlock, and pine forests with alpine meadows not too far above. Finally, it follows foothills tapering into the rolling grasslands of the east and begins to dip into wine country. Unfortunately, we had just the afternoon and didn’t make it that far. But I ate up the small bit that I saw of eastern Washington, and I want to go back for seconds.
Honestly, I’ve lived in the Pacific Northwest for 2 1/2 years now, and not once have I been across the mountains. (We live in a bit of a bubble over here.) So it was high time that we take a trip–and we need another one. I had jury duty the next day, so we could only go over for the afternoon.
Land is cheap out there, skies are big, and vistas are huge. It’s a place that lends itself to exploring. And it feels like the old West–cowboys on hillsides would not be out of place. Roaming cattle, log cabins, ranches… someday I will run a working farm out there, fingers crossed.
This is the view on the drive through the mountains:
And another:
Evan took this one. Mushrooms had taken over the forest–they were everywhere!
He took this one too. I love the colors & the perspective w/the fence in the foreground.
An awful picture to take because of the sun, but I had to get one of the road and the spires.
We ate dinner in Twisp, a turn-of-the-century mining-turned-tourist town. I love all the old fonts on the signs.
We just launched our newest site, Ars Grafik. It’s a marketplace of primarily free web and graphic design elements–all the great things that designers need in their toolbox, like free WordPress themes, PSD brushes, vector images, PSD and AI patterns, fonts, stock photography, textures, and more! We’ll be adding content like crazy now that it’s up.
This has been a continual process of reevaluating our place in the online world, and we’re really excited to get Ars Grafik off the ground. So pass it along to any creative types you know or drop us a good word on your blog. It’s MUCH appreciated!
I haven’t forgotten about posting pics from eastern Washington. More to come soon!
This weekend wasn’t meant to be spent horsing around… I was fully prepared to dedicate it to putting the final touches on a new font and prepping for a site launch… but the weather was gorgeous and the rains are to start on Tuesday, announcing the true start of fall in the Pacific Northwest, so, needless to say, instead of working, we took advantage of the very last weekend of an Indian summer.
Apples are fruiting like crazy this year, and we’ve amassed quite a few. We’ve already canned 12 quarts of applesauce and have frozen apple butter, but we still have a TON of apples. I’ve really wanted to make cider, and we have a press Evan made years ago, but we’re missing the grater component to the whole apparatus. Yesterday we talked with our neighbors (the AWESOMEST people ever: in their 60s, former chefs, Welsch, curse worse than a sailor, make home brews, garden like crazy, and have 2 uber-hyper dogs….) over the fence as our dogs played and found out they had an apple grater that they were kind enough to loan for the day. So we started at about noon Saturday and worked well into the night under the stars crushing and pressing apples into juice to make hard cider. It’ll *hopefully* end up being about 6% alcohol (which is a pretty dry cider)–no one we’ve known has had much luck with a sweeter hard cider.
So here’s the process:
You pick as many apples as you can find. Like, a mountain of them.
Then, you put them through the apple grater/grinder/crusher so it makes something that can be pressed:
You put the pulp in the apple press:
And catch what comes out:
Juice! 8 gallons worth, to be exact! Drink it as-is, or, for adult cider, sterilize, use a hydrometer to get the specific gravity and gauge end-result alcohol content, add sugar if needed, and add yeast to start fermentation. Three weeks later, you’ve got a great hard cider you can bottle and drink!
Today was as cool, if not cooler than yesterday, as we took a little day trip over to eastern Washington (which is foreign no-man’s land to many–I’ve lived in the Pac NW 3 years now and have NEVER been over the mountains!). I’ll post pics in the next couple days–it was GORGEOUS!!! I think I need a ranch out there someday–it feels like a true Wild West: large vistas, lots of pine, horses, rolling hills, dry grasses… I want to be a cowgirl.
Here’s a glimpse of Winthrop, WA, a cute little tourist town and our destination for the day.
Mom and dad came up to visit last weekend and, unlike me, they were pretty good about taking pictures while they were here. From the looks of the pics, things seem pretty backwater out here. We went on hikes, panned for gold, played down by the ocean, chopped wood, built fires… but we’re still close enough to civilization that we could go into town for bagels, drink the best coffee ever at this AMAZING little cafe just southeast of us, take Hunter to the dog park, and eat at this awesome little German restaurant not too far from home. We haven’t gotten to explore the restaurants around here so it was nice to be adventurous and get to know the ‘hood.
The best find was what we think is a garnet! See that little vial? That’s where all the little flecks go. And it’s practically empty–a lot of work for a little return.
I think I’ve got something under my nail… no wait! It’s gold! Who’s got a magnifying glass???
We trekked miles up the road to get to the top of the world.
Hunter came too, of course.
Then finished off the big walk with a nice hearty German dinner.
And when I say hearty… (jager schnitzel)
I mean HEARTY! (lots of yummies, including smoked pork–the bomb!)
Who could go wrong with a 20 OUNCE STEAK!
Nightly fire starting ritual. No one liked me with a hatchet in my hand. 