Slow Boat Farm

Good morning, my friends! I’m back a day early. If you were hoping to have another day of peace and quiet without my blabbing on and on and on about nothing at all, then I’m sorry. But you know how it is…I get word overload, and then things just don’t go well at all. And don’t even get me started on all the pictures I have to show you. After giving it some thought, I decided to tell you about the trip in three installments. There’ll be this post. Then, I’ll write a post about our sight-seeing day on Thursday. Then, I’ll tell you about our journey home. And I can catch you up on current events while I’m at it.

Okay, so let’s back up to Wednesday morning, the day we left home. The flower pots needed watering, and I harvested five tomatoes and four medium-sized zucchini. Cool. It’s always nice to see the literal fruits of your labors. And what do you suppose I found outside the greenhouse? The first purple poppy! Yay!  

We had just a little last-minute packing to do, and then we were on our way. The traffic getting through downtown Portland was absolutely awful. It lightened up some when we were able to get across the Interstate Bridge on I-5 to the Washington side of the Columbia River. 

Happy to be here, Washington. We’re just here for a short visit this trip. We’ll be spending more time later this fall. 

The drive up I-5 is nothing special. Concrete freeway lined with Douglas fir trees as far as the eye can see. The scenic part of the drive doesn’t really get started until after you pass through Longview. That was where we turned off. We’d been driving alongside the Kalama River, and we crossed over just after leaving the interstate.

As we headed west, we paralleled the Cowlitz River.

By then, we’d already driven most of the way there. We could see the bridge that would take us across the Columbia channel to Puget Island.

We turned off at Cathlamet, Washington. What a fun little town…and historic. This is what Wikipedia tells us about Cathlamet:

Cathlamet was the largest, or one of the largest, villages of Columbia River Native Americans west of the Cascade Mountains, and the home of the Kathlamet people. Cathlamet was sighted in 1792 by Lt. W.R. Broughton, while verifying Capt. Robert Gray's reported exploration of the Columbia River. This village of cedar houses included 300-400 inhabitants when visited by Lewis and Clark.

In 1846, James Albion Birnie became the first permanent white settler at Cathlamet, moving there after a career with the Hudson's Bay Company. He set up a trading post, remnants of which were reported still standing in 1906. Birnie named the area Birnie's Retreat. The name was later changed to Cathlamet in 1851.

It only took about ten minutes to drive through town, and then we approached the Julia Butler Hansen Bridge. Julia Butler Hansen was a Congresswoman who represented Washington from 1960 to 1975. The bridge was built in 1938, and so it seems it must have been renamed at some point…or maybe it had no name before. 

Okay, here we go. It’s a pretty fancy bridge leading out to a small community.

We were crossing the Columbia channel.

And here we were on Puget Island, where I saw the first barn of the trip.

Here's what Wikipedia tells us about Puget Island:

The island was named for Peter Puget, a lieutenant in the Vancouver Expedition of exploration, which first mapped the island in 1792. 

Puget Island was settled in 1884 by the Ostervold family. In addition to running dairy farms, farmers on the island grew mint from 1917 to the late 1940s. The next major crop grown on Puget Island was cucumbers, primarily for pickling, until the crops were damaged by mosaic disease. In the 1990s, sheep, dairying, and cottonwood were the main agricultural pursuits.

Just about ten minutes later, we arrived at our final destination. Slow Boat Farm is kind of like an AirB&B for campers.  

We could see the kids and their new van as we drove up. We pretty much had the place to ourselves.

Looking in the other direction, the owner lives in one of those structures. There’s also a part-time tenant living here. Otherwise, they rent out their open field for camping.

Looking west, it looked like this:

This is how we arranged ourselves. It was very windy when we arrived. The weather would continue to get worse throughout the evening, unfortunately. On the positive side, we’d always planned to eat dinner at a restaurant in town this first night, and so it didn’t really interfere with our plans.

We had a few hours to spend before dinner, and so we sat and chatted and got ourselves set up. A family of deer visited off in the distance. There was a doe and her fawn.

The fawn still had its spots.

All around, these little buttercups were in bloom.

We enjoyed our dinner out. The rain started up as we drove into town. There’d been intermittent lightning and thunder all afternoon. By nightfall, we were into thunderstorms and drenching downpours. Happily, the forecast was for better weather by morning. 

The rain stopped overnight. When we awakened the sky was still gray, but it was considerably lighter than the previous afternoon. There are cattle ranches all around. The cattle were off in a distance the afternoon of our arrival. When we awakened on Thursday morning, they were right outside our back window.

Erik made us a delicious breakfast Thursday morning. This was bacon from their pork share.

It was delicious…possibly the best bacon I’ve ever eaten.

Also, pancakes.

And scrambled eggs.

Mae made fresh squeezed orange juice. I’m telling you…we were roughing it.

We’d been hearing the screech of an eagle, and I finally spotted them in a tree about 100 yards away.

I took picture after picture. It’s hard to get a good picture from so far away, and so I just take a lot of pictures. In one of them I captured the top eagle spreading his wings. I’m thinking the eagle below him is a little nervous about what’s got him so stirred up. If I were standing below him, I’d certainly be considering my options.

Okay, and from there we took off on our day of sight-seeing. I’ll save that for tomorrow’s post. I’ve done absolutely nothing since we got home, and so I have plenty to keep me occupied today. We realized we were out of cat food, and so, clearly, that will require an emergency trip into town. There’s not a lot of unpacking to do for such a short trip, but I need to hoe the garden too. I expect I’ll find time to sew at some point. I haven’t done any sewing…nothing at all…since the last Tiny Treasure. Honestly, I’m certain my pulse is getting weak and thready from lack of thread-based intervention. You may have experienced this affliction yourself a time or two. 

So, with that, I’ll leave you to your day.

On Hiatus

Good morning, my friends. We're heading out on our camping trip today. It's a short trip. You can expect to hear from me again by Sunday, if not sooner. I won't be blogging while I'm away, but I should have plenty to tell you when I get back.

There was still a lot to do in preparation, but I took some time to stitch up Tiny Treasure #67. This one has stem stitch, running stitch, lazy daisies, and French knots.

It was a hot day yesterday. We had the A/C turned on by 10:00 a.m. In the kitchen, I made the filling for the Blueberry Hand Pies. It needed to cool completely before I could continue on, and so I did that first. There was a little filling left over. We spooned that over some vanilla ice cream for dessert last night, and that was mmm, mmm, mmm good. 

For the hand pies. I needed to roll out the dough, and cut it into sixteen 3-1/2-inch squares. For that, I used a pizza cutter and one of my quilting rulers. (I have one with a broken corner that I use for unconventional jobs like this). It was like cutting pieces for a quilt. When they were baked off, they looked like this.

It was a scary job because, with the heat, the dough got so soft it was hard to work with it. We got 'er done, though, and these will be nice for our camping trip.

Also, I was squeezing in baking these cookies during my wait times. These are Iced Espresso Oatmeal Crunch Cookies. I'd share the link for the recipe, but it was a test recipe for America's Test Kitchens. I've checked their website, and it doesn't appear there, which leads me to believe it hasn't been published yet. In any case, please feel free to email me if you want the recipe, and I'll be happy to share it. Keep it on the down-low, though, okay? I'm not supposed to share the test recipes. It's a good cookie, and Mike requested them for our camping trip.

Okay, and then I packed the rest of the food for our trip. There wasn't a lot to pack. Erik has some restaurants scoped out where we'll eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He's making breakfast one morning, and we're providing dinner one evening. The rest of the time, we'll be eating in restaurants. 

While I was in the camper, I could hear some nestlings cheeping from one of our bird houses. This is a western bluebird, and she's been skittish about allowing me to photograph her. Finally, I just sat quietly on the steps of the camper and waited for her to return. She watched me, and decided I was not a threat.

Eventually, she started feeding her hungry babies. This little family has been here for more than a week. I expect they'll fledge soon.

Back inside, I had some lunch, then a nap, and eventually made my way to the sewing room where I found Sadie had already claimed the Shop Hop 3.0 quilt. Kitties like quilts. Any questions? Also, she would like you to know that she's been to all of the towns featured in these quilt blocks.

Eventually, I coaxed her into her little bed, and then squared up the quilt.

From there I could sew on the binding.

And then I spent the rest of the afternoon on the hand stitching. The first corner is finished, and I'm approaching the second corner. Probably this won't get any more work done on it until this weekend when we're back home.

Okay, and here's our morning's sunrise. 

It's going to be another hot day today. Probably, it's a happy accident that we're heading for the Oregon coast, where it will be cooler. We'll be heading out around lunch time and spending a couple of days at Slow Boat Farm. Slow Boat Farm is on Puget Island in the Columbia River near where it dumps into the Pacific Ocean. Erik and Mae have camped there before, but this will be our first time. It's a relatively short drive. We have plans to do some sight-seeing at Cape Disappointment in Washington, and Astoria in Oregon, and whatever else we can make time for. It should be fun, and what could be better than camping with our kiddos?

So I'm signing off for a few days. Look for me to return no later than Sunday morning.

Some Firsts

Good morning, my friends. It was a busy day from start to finish yesterday. It got so late in the day, I barely did anything in the sewing room. Oh well. Plenty of other things were accomplished. There’s still a lot to do today, but it’ll be less hectic than yesterday. 

Before we needed to take off for the grocery store, I was able to stitch Tiny Treasure #66. This one has stem stitch, straight stitch, and satin stitch.

When that was finished, I checked in on the green beans. They’re doing a pretty good job of climbing their poles, but I have to redirect a few each time I check. And yay! The zinnia has opened. There should be a few more within a couple of days.

The first tassels are appearing on the corn.

Here’s the second Bumble Rumble dahlia. Remember how I mentioned the first one seemed a little beaten up? All of its petals fell off, and just the yellow center was left. I’ve never seen it do that before, and I don’t have a clue why it behaved so weirdly this year.

I noticed a fat slug on the Firefighter dahlia to its right. I’ve been treating it with insecticidal soap because it appeared bug chewed. Seeing the slug made me decide to change strategies. Now I’ve liberally peppered the area with slug bait. Maybe now that I’ve discovered the real culprit, we might see some flowers from it.

Checking the greenhouse, I decided to harvest the first tomato. There are several more that I’ll probably harvest before we leave tomorrow.

Back inside, I made some cookie dough. These have been resting in the refrigerator overnight. I’ll bake them this morning. When they’re cool, I’ll add some icing.

When I was finished with the cookie dough, I made some pie dough for the blueberry hand pies. This won’t be my first time making the hand pies. Last time I made them, I noted the dough was easy to work with. I don’t know about you, but pie dough and I often come to blows. I’m hoping this will cooperate today when I attempt to assemble and bake the hand pies.

It was mid-afternoon before I was able to get going on the pickled beets. Fortunately, the most time-consuming part of the job was done. It probably took longer to boil my kettle of water for processing than it did to pack the jars. When all was said and done, I had five pints.

Honestly, all I wanted to do after that was sit and put my feet up. I was a few days behind on my crossword puzzles, and so I did those. It was nearing 4:00 by the time I made it into the sewing room. My goal was to at least get a start on the binding. I’d forgotten this, but the book fabric is an extra-wide one…60 inches wide.

Even with that extra width, I needed five binding strips. So, I cut those, and then decided not to start sewing them together until today. And who knows if I’ll even feel like it today. Nothing can happen on the binding until I square up the quilt, and that sounds like a lot of effort at the moment. Maybe I’ll find more energy toward the end of the day.

In any case, I decided it wasn’t a good take-along project. We’ll be doing some sight-seeing on the Oregon coast the next couple of days, and I doubt I’ll have a lot of time for sewing. Still, I decided to trace the 11th block for the Snowmen & Reindeer project. It’ll be my only take-along project this trip. It’s a short trip, and this should keep me busy.

Here are the blocks I have for this project so far.

Okay, so there’s still a lot to do today. I’m baking cookies and hand pies, and I’m packing food. We’re responsible for dinner on Thursday evening. We’re going to grill some steaks, and I’ll want to make up the marinade we like ahead of time. That’ll be added to the day’s agenda. The green beans will get another check-in, and I’ll give the zucchini a once over to decide if I need to harvest anything there. For sure, I’ll be harvesting zucchini tomorrow morning before we leave. It’s a short trip, but you know how sneaky zucchini can be. You can’t leave it alone for a second or it’ll grow to the size of a baseball bat.

So, after yesterday’s effort, today’s sounds small in comparison. Probably I’ll get that quilt binding sewn on today. It’s still my top sewing priority. But nothing can get done until I get up out of this chair. And with that…off I go. Enjoy your day, Everyone! It’s supposed to be hot here today and tomorrow. If you’re in the heat too, we can sweat it out together.

You Say Tomato

Good morning, my friends. By the time you read this, it'll be way past morning. I wrote my post and then never published it. Sorry for the late posting. That's what happens when I get too busy. It's Day 2 of my busy week. Yesterday gave me a taste. Today will be even busier. We must do some grocery shopping, unfortunately. We'll get an early start and try to be home early because there's much to do at home as well.

Before I even did my slow-stitching yesterday, I hoed the garden. It was a happy thing seeing this first zinnia nearly open. First, I thought it was yellow. Then, I thought it was red. Now, I'm thinking it's both yellow and red. 

There’s less to hoe in the garden each time I’m out there. I use a hula hoe and chop the weeds off at ground level. There are some weeds that have roots seemingly to China. Those are harder to eradicate. As for the others…hoe them off enough times and deprive them of sunshine, and eventually, they don’t come back.  

Checking the greenhouse, I’m thrilled to see about half a dozen ripening tomatoes. 

Here are some more over here. (Sorry for the blur in the image below.) I’m thinking that red one is just about ready for harvesting. The yellow residue you see on some of them is sulfur dust. It keeps the spider mites away.

When I’d finished my outdoor chores, I went to work canning four 12-oz. Jars of Spicy Dilled Carrot Spears. My recipe is for four jars. I had more carrots than listed in the recipe, but my yield was still just four jars. It’s enough to get us through the season, and I still have two jars from last year.

All the while I was working on the carrots, I was roasting beets in the oven. Those were roasted and skinned, and I’ll be pickling them this afternoon. The most time-consuming part of that process is done, and so it shouldn’t take too much of my time this afternoon. 

When all of that was done I turned my attention to Tiny Treasure #65. This one has stem stitch, satin stitch, and lazy daisy.

And then Sadie joined me in the sewing room to work on the Blueberries block.

I could eyeball the applique for this upper section where the blueberries are in the basket.

For the lower portion, I decided to do it on my pressing sheet first. I was glad I did because the pieces for the bear were a little tricky, and I ended up repositioning one of them.

When I had it that far, I fused it to the background.

From there I just needed to add three clusters of blueberries in the lower portion where the greenery is, and the applique was finished.

It occurs to me that I can clean things up now and get my binding sewn on before I do the top-stitching, and so that’s what I’m hoping for today. There should be enough time later this afternoon for the binding. If there’s still time left over, I’ll start top-stitching the Glacier block and then the Blueberries block.

Also on today’s agenda…grocery shopping and pickling some beets, as I’ve mentioned. For our camping trip, I committed to baking some blueberry hand pies and some cookies. So I want to make the crust for the hand pies today. The cookie dough is rolled into logs and chilled. From that point, it can wait three days before it’s baked off. So I’ll make the pie dough and the cookie dough today with a plan to bake both tomorrow. 

Of course, the flowers need watering. I’m still doing daily check-ins with the green beans to make sure they’re climbing their poles. That about covers it. Just writing about it makes me tired. Today and tomorrow are going to be busy but then we’ll have three days of forced relaxation on our camping trip. All the stuff I’m doing now will be worth it when we get to the relaxation part.

Okay, so I must get on with things. I have miles to go before I sleep.