A Year of Blogging...

Wow!  Today is the one year anniversary for this Old Moores Valley blog.  I have learned so much from doing this, and had fun, too.

This is a huge commitment.  More so, than I realized in the beginning.  There are people who check in on a regular basis and if I go too long without a post, I hear from them, though not in a bad way.  I usually post in the evening just before bedtime, and it always takes much more time than I think it will.

When I "designed" my first blog, I thought that I did not care if anyone read it or commented, that it was only for me and my enjoyment.  Not true.  I do care.  I enjoy the comments and questions, whether they are posted on the blog or come via an email.  I enjoy reading the "blog stats" and seeing where readers come from.....all over the world.  Thank you.  

It is always interesting to see what key search words bring folks to Old Moores Valley.  In the past year, the alligator lizards and the rubber boas have brought the most readers.


My favorite single post is probably the haying post with the black and white pictures.  And, of course, I love all the bluebird posts. 

I had lots of ideas that never made it into a post.  For instance, rhubarb. I am thinking that rhubarb may be the next most very wonderful thing to grow and cook with.  

Rhubarb: the next food craze.

A couple more pictures just for fun of it.

Early blooming poppies.

Rusty found objects get attached to the shed & the barbed wire wreath.
"Parking Lots or Pears" sign from an Oregon Land Use political campaign.

Instead of plastic bags.

Bees and Sunflowers

A self portrait.
Still love those saltwater sandals.

California male quail in the front yard.

Shadowy characters in the back yard.


If there is one thing that I hope shines through this past year of blogging, it is how much I love this place.  Everyday I wake up and feel fortunate to be the co-caretaker of this very special piece of land.


May your 2012 be wonderful!  Happy New Year.
http://old-moores-valley.blogspot.com/2011/04/rubber-boas.html

Oregon White Truffle...

Two years ago the American Truffle Society came out for a field trip.  Lots of people out in the woods looking for truffles.  We found some that Mr. Shoulder to the Grindstone likened to eating dirt.  We were all disappointed that we did not find any of the good ones.

However, tonight out digging under a fir tree, flashlight in hand, look at what we inadvertently found.  An Oregon White Truffle.  A large one.

I am headed back out in the morning to see if there are others.  Whoopee!!

A Frosty Walk...

Temperatures have been below freezing and even into the teens for the last several days.  The wood fire is working overtime. Decided that I needed a good frosty walk today.  So the dogs and I took off up the hill.

Up the hill....

Stopped to look at a bunch of towhees eating apples, 
just too flighty to capture them on camera.

Up the hill, past Bee Junction...

Heading toward the log landing...

Libby dog loving the frost

A brown creeper, great camouflage...

Around the side of the hill and then back up towards the top...

On the top of Muffin Mountain.  Carlton and then Mt. Hood very faintly in the background. 

About three miles up and back. Libby and Jack still have lots of energy.

And even though it's not a great picture, I couldn't resist including this picture of the bull elk
that was hanging out by the walnut trees at dusk.

A nice day. A nice walk.

Really, really, random...

Not sure where my holiday spirit is this year.  Seems to be missing.  I made a wreath, hung it on the garage and that is the extent of decorating.  December has wings, it is flying by, and I have no idea where it is going.  Below freezing weather every day, but no complaints from me, as it isn't raining. Even the ponds have frozen.

I have some new kick ass boots.  They make me want to dance and ride a horse, perhaps dance while riding a horse.

I went to a "clothing exchange" yesterday.  Take the clothes that you are tired of, never wear, wonder why you ever bought them in the first place, and exchange them for clothes that someone else is tired of, doesn't wear, and wonders why she bought them in the first place.  And then drink some wine.

I didn't get any wearing clothes, but I did get some clothes that I can cut apart and use the material to make something new and different.  If nothing else, I can use the material as lining for a bag or to clean up after the dogs.

And I did drink some wine, and so did everyone else.  One of the women, not someone I had ever met before, commenced to tell us all how to meet the perfect man and get him to marry you.  She is newly engaged, about 65, and feng shui-ed her home to make room for her perfect man.  Also, told us the book to read that would make all our dreams come true.  Talked about master minding.  Like Rick Perry, she had a hard time remembering the last part of the phrase....master, master, ummmm master... Well, of course I had to fill it in for her.  I was surprised to find that ....bating was not the rest of the word she was looking for.

Maybe I am jaded, but it was all I could do not to roll my eyes.  Seems to me that finding the perfect man is about 5% of the battle.  The real challenge is to continue to love the perfect man when you find out that he is not so perfect, and neither are you.  Speaking of which, my mother and father-in-law are celebrating 60 years of marriage this month.  Now that's a lot of compromising, putting up with, negotiating, and just plain loving.  Congratulations!

Quince...

A new tradition for us is making quince paste about this time of year.  Up until three years ago, I had never even seen a quince.  However, now I am thinking we need to plant our own quince tree.  I did manage to trade some walnuts for a few pounds of this pear/apple relative.

They are very hard and very bitter.

Yellow skin.  White flesh. 

Lots of quince paste (aka membrillo) directions online and in old cook books.  I simply 

core them, 

take out any ugly spots, 

chop them up, 

cook them 'til soft, (with a bit of water so they don't stick or burn)

run them through a food mill,

put the pulp back in the kettle,

add the same quantity of sugar as there is pulp.

And cook.

And stir.

And cook.

And stir.

For a very long time.

Until the yellow turns to a deep pink.

Until it is very thick and the path of a wooden spoon through it doesn't disappear immediately.

Then turn it into a pan covered with parchment paper.

I love parchment paper.

Put it on top of the fridge for about a week until it is dry and a little less stiff than a gummy bear.

I love cinnamon gummy bears

After that keep it covered and in the fridge.  It will last forever. 

Serve with a dry cheese.  I put some on a ham sandwich yesterday.  Yum.

Quince Paste/Membrillo

Crows..A Scene from Hitchcock

Dense, foggy morning, and dozens and dozens of crows.

I couldn't capture the numbers with my camera.  The crows were everywhere.
In the trees, the fields, on the lawn and the driveway.

Felt like a scene from The Birds.

100's of pounds of walnuts....done!

How many of these buckets of nuts have we picked in the past two weeks?

1000's?

Maybe it just feels like 1000's.

No more walnuts!

We both work really hard gathering the walnuts.

We get walnut stained fingers,

walnut stained knees,

and walnut stained clothes.

Now the walnuts are off to the dryers.

Should be home on Thursday.

2.25 per pound.

We have someone who would buy all of the nuts, but he will just ship them to China.

There they would be shelled and packaged,
in order to send them back to the US

to be sold in little cellophane bags at your local Wal-mart or Kroger store.

We don't want to be a part of that process.

So instead we sell them to folks who want 

local,

natural,

real

food.

We end up trading,

giving,

sharing,

the nuts with others.

There is something that is very gratifying about the whole process,
and also addictive.

Thank you big old wonderful walnut trees!

Orange

such a pretty time of year

The Forest Giveth.....

Perfect fall day

On the road to hunt for the elusive chanterelle

Will there or won't there be edible mushrooms?

The first chanterelle of the day

Another one

Old lobster mushroom.  Leave it.

A beautiful hike and mushrooms, too.

The bounty

8 pounds of forest goodness

Nothin' Much, You?

Wow! Summer really is over.  It took so long to get here, stayed but a minute and then skipped Autumn taking us right to November.  Dark cold rain.  But a great excuse to be finished with gathering, canning, freezing, drying food.  No more weeding.  No more mowing.  Seems like we hurry to do so much during the spring and summer that now I feel guilty when I slow down to read a good book or spend a day with my sewing machine.  I actually have to tell myself that it is okay to stop.  Just stop!

These next few weeks are a slow gift that I give myself.  It won't be long until the walnuts are ready to be harvested, dried, bagged and sold.  Work at the winery will pick up soon.  So I plan to own the next two weeks, slow things down to a comfortable crawl, be a turtle, do what I want, not be subject to all the "shoulds" that dictate a fast pace.

Sometimes it seems like life becomes an unannounced contest whereby the one who does the most is the undeclared winner.  Everyone trying to do more, faster, better than the next person.  I listen to the conversations around me.

"I picked 40 pounds of tomatoes out on Baker Creek."

"Well, I picked 70 pounds of heirloom tomatoes that I grew myself."

I think I will practice some different responses to the question, "What are you doing?"

• I have read 7 great books in the past week and 2 books that are just okay.
• I have arranged all the lace and ribbon in my lace box, and my buttons are now sorted according to size and color.
• I was just rearranging the dried beans into a mosaic so that our soups and "hot dishes" will be beautiful works of art this winter.
• I have spent the week looking out the window, waiting for the elk and the bluebirds to return.
• I have been playing marbles, cribbage, and just dithering the time away.
• I have been really busy watching Libby's hair grow so that I will know when she needs to be trimmed.

I have been counting the bees that come to the sunflower seeds.
I have been counting the sunflower seeds.
I have been counting the leaves on the sunflowers.
"He loves me.  He loves me not."

Hmmm, maybe I will just say, "Nothin' much.  You?"

Bean shelling time.....

A few years ago we started growing beans for drying.  We save the seed every year.  And every year the beans do better and better as they adjust for our short cold growing season.  Of course, growing a lot of beans has a down side.  All those beans have to be shelled, and we don't have some kind of shelling machine that takes care of that for us.  

Black Beans

The Peregion beans are the only Oregon native bean.  Pretty markings, good flavor.

Peregion Beans

We started with growing beans for drying with a bag of plain old kidney beans from the grocery store.  They have evolved over time from bush beans to semi-pole beans.

Kidney Beans

A year ago we tried garbanzo beans. That was pretty much a joke.  They only got to be the size of a pin head.  But it was a good experiment, though a failed one.

Besides shelling beans, we've been making tomato sauce, green and red salsas.  And yesterday I made blackberry ketchup.  We finally have ripe blackberries, saw the ketchup recipe and gave it a try.  Recipe says it will be good on pork chops.   

Tomato Sauce/Red Salsa

Also, lots and lots of pears this year.  Anyone have something wonderful that you do with pears?