Doing the Off-Leash Thing!

It's been nippy and foggy here, but it only makes me friskier. So when Sierra Rose's mama invited me to play in the huge outdoor arena at the local fairgrounds, I woofed a resounding Yeah, Baby!
When Sierra and I get going, the hoomans wonder if we're fighting, heheh!
Naw... we are emphatically NOT!!!
But Sierra does a lot of bitey-face work and she is very good at it!
She's also fast and likes to chase moi!
I do what I can to accomodate her wishes!
But... occasionally, I'll do my own interpretation of "snaggling"!
En garde!

Then we kissie-face and make up!

Exit strategies

Last year I finally figured out that these were cicada exit holes. (I had mentally accused my husband... Derp.)
This was roughly the same spot where Jasmine discovered a digging armadillo at exactly 3:30 this morning. After the excitement was over, she was extremely messy but very proud of herself. Ick, but cleanup will have to wait til hubby gets home. The last time I tried washing her by myself (after the cow poop incident) it was... disagreeable.
But the extra-fun part was afterwards. We headed back to bed, only to find the bedroom door locked. Or actually, broken. A strict parakeet-protecting closed-door policy made me shut it on the way out.
Force of habit. I was still half asleep. Not my fault it decided to break, anyway. Sadly, the person who closed the door for no apparent reason usually gets the blame in these situations.
Luckily though, hubby excels at middle-of-the-night repairs.

Looking North

Edinburgh is built on a series of ridges which gradually descend to sea level at the Firth of Forth. The suburb of Craiglockhart sits high on one of these ridges, and from here you can catch glimpses of the hills beyond the River Forth. These snowy slopes are the Ochil Hills, and beyond them, out of sight but always in my mind when I look northwards, are the true Highlands.
The two curious shapes just between the skyline of the city and the hills are the two Forth bridges. The light coloured chimney-like structure is one of the towers of the Forth Road Bridge. To its left is the rust-red humped back of the Forth Rail Bridge - the never-ending painting of which is a Scottish metaphor for the myth of Sisyphus.

Bread

Tasty, if not beautiful
I don't know where my husband comes up with some of his ideas. He somehow got it into his head that he had to make bread. Or rather, that we had to make bread.
One of the scary things about getting older is some of the things that just pop out of your mouth, like "It has been 25 years since I made bread." The first time I said such an old-person thing I really shocked myself.
But it's true. Back then I was living alone for the first time, in that apartment with no air conditioning across from Vulcan's bare backside. Back before the internets. Before VCRs, or at least before most people could afford them. Due to scheduling mixups I wound up with a lot of free time that quarter. And that's the only time I've ever made bread.
To tell you the truth, it was a lot easier than I remembered. It's also very forgiving. We had an afternoon full of recipe-misreading and recriminations, punctuated with fits of hysterical laughter.
That means another 3 cups of flour, not the original 3 cups!
You said 125°, not 115°!
That's not what I'd call kneading!
When it was done it was delicious. I gorged myself. I ate so much bread that I gave myself a stomachache.
-----
Updated:
Well I was a bit embarrassed to have such a fine baker as Susan see our less-than-perfect loaves, but I think she's just happy to know that folks are baking bread. Go check out one of her special projects, A Year in Bread.

A Good Education

Darcie driving a wagon in Colorado and scraping a deer hide in Jamestown, Virginia.





"The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives."Robert Maynard Hutchins
Grandsons watching a rifle-firing demo at Yorktown, VA. Good grief, those old guns were loud!
Bauer receiving a lecture on different punishments given to wrongdoers. The 'Insubordinate' label he's holding up certainly fits.
Caed petting a turkey in the colonial settlement at Yorktown, VA.
Bauer and Caed chasing a strange-looking duck.
I think one of the best ways to self-educate is to travel. All these photos were taken on family field trips/vacations. Our family loves to learn the history of a place we visit and to do as many interesting things as we can while there. The children aren't always willing participants, but they'll thank me someday!

I Get Whimsical With a Little Help from my Friends

When the security guy pulled our daughter over to the side at the Seattle Airport back in 1993 it wasn't a total surprise. Our irresistible souvenir from Molbak's wouldn't fit in any of the suitcases, and Lily had gamely volunteered to haul it home in her backpack. The shape was unrecognizable on the screen so the guard opened the zipper and looked down at a concrete statue of a Fu Dog, sometimes called a Foo Lion. After inspection we were waved through to the plane.
We bought this small Seattle version of a ferocious guardian lion partly because he reminded us of The Fu Dog Garden at Allerton Park in Illinois and partly in tribute to Henry Michell's foo dog. Our dog~lion stood in a clump of hostas in our Illinois garden for a few years, and when we moved to Texas he came along as the dean of our whimsical objects, here guarding a wax begonia.


This wacky confection greeted the people who stopped at our Illinois garden during a garden walk in the 1990's: Philo & I turned an old broken bedframe and some chickenwire into a whimsical Garden Bed - and if you look carefully at lower right you'll see the companion piece - a open suitcase rescued from the trash, painted and planted to complete this fanciful guest suite.

These dips into garden whimsy are rare - my natural tendency is to the functional and rather plain - a metal obelisk, wooden benches and chairs, undecorated clay pots, a natural stone fountain, hypertufa troughs and things like this windchime.
Long ago at a Renaissance Faire in Wisconsin we met a vendor from Austin and fell in love with these simple tubes of metal, large and tuned to a Mongolian scale. The sounds they make are harmonizing low notes of genuine music rather than clanking or tinkling. It's my kind of wind chime.



But fear not - all is not Spartan here at Circus~Cercis! Thanks to friends and family there's no lack of whimsy in our garden. Although the attrition rate from Texas weather (and critters) is high and some decorations from friends and family have melted, faded and disintegrated, there are survivors:

A motion-detecting frog was a fun gift from one dear daughter-in-law with the turtle sundial coming from one of our sons. Our other dear daughter-in-law and and another son gave us the St Francis statue. While we still lived in Illinois one of my sisters gave us this wooden angel that has miraculously survived nearly a decade in the Texas sun.
A strong wind gust picked up the heavy ceramic St Francis and slammed him against a peach tree last year. Philo filled the decapitated statue with cement and put it back together.

Whimsy seems to gravitate toward the secret garden - My friend-of-40-years, Roberta, sent the hand-painted wildflower sign. My friend Barbara sent this young girl, who reads and dreams under the pomegranate tree. Philo reused three discarded sections of ornate white iron fence to enclose the Secret Garden and that frog bench is a memento of last spring's visit from the fairy garden consultant. The squirrels and birds take it apart once in awhile and I rebuild it.
Many small decorations from the Divas of the Dirt are scattered around inside and out - including this sign Another sign came from Roberta - when she read the word "Diva" she knew who to send it to
Carol in Indiana had better avert her eyes now - here come faces in our garden!!
Philo and I bought a terracotta sun to hang on the chimney in Illinois and this face seems even more at home in Austin Titania has led a rough life in the 15 years since Philo gave me her planter head - she's no longer pristine but bears repair marks from storms and squirrels and weather damage. Maybe someone else would evict her for being too battered, but I look weathered, too, and find her companionable.
Early this year Dawn and I spent a day together, each finding pretty pots. Now this seashell planter reminds me of days on the beach in Carolina.
Are any of us completely resistant to whimsy? Once upon a time I gave this sign to my no-nonsense, vegetable-gardener uncle and was touched that he kept it. The saying was amusing, but it turned out to be untrue - this final bit of whimsy returned to me as a sentimental legacy from an old gardener. I miss him.
This wallow in whimsy and nostalgia was written by Annie in Austin, photographed with the help of a borrowed camera- go to Gardening Gone Wild for links to other bloggers who are joining in this months Garden Design Workshop.

Swashbuckling, Wood-chunking, and Bug-sloshing

"Swashbuckling, Wood-chunking, and Bug-sloshing" was written by Annie in Austin for the Transplantable Rose
The adventures may have been bloody but they were cinematic and the blood was not real in the new arthouse movie called The Fall. This visually compelling movie came with recommendations from both Roger Ebert and a trustworthy friend, so Philo and I went to see it at the Regal Arbor a couple of nights ago. We liked it a lot and were enthralled by the performances of a young Romanian girl named Catinca Untaru and by an actor who was unknown at the time this long-in-progress movie was filmed, Oklahoma's own Lee Pace. (Lee is now a favorite for those of us who have fallen under the spell of Pushing Daisies.) Lee's character is Roy, an injured stuntman confined to a Hollywood hospital in the 1920's. The wonderful Catinca plays Alexandria, also a patient, also injured, but mobile and so charming she has the run of the hospital. Roy tells Alexandria "an epic tale of love and revenge" - interrupting his story like Scheherazade in "One Thousand and One Nights". We see Roy's words inhabited by the kind of characters seen in old movies and visualized against some amazing settings. The hospital scenes were filmed first, but it took four years and location filming in 18 countries for Tarsem Singh and his brother Ajit to get this story on screen. The official site is here. A review by Reel Fanatic is here. If this looks like your kind of movie, try to get to it while it's still on the big screen.

The blood is real elsewhere. Mpst of us have discovered that deer, woodchucks, raccoons, squirrels and other animals don't share - they're able to turn an entire crop to compost by taking one bite of each fruit or tomato, or are willing to destroy a garden seemingly on a whim. Most of us just write posts in order to vent our anger and grief over lost crops or plants, but some people go after the varmints with everything from guns to hammers. Read all about it in the New York Times article on Garden Vigilantes. Philo saw the story first and brought it to my attention as soon as I woke up this morning.


Sometimes I read the paper right away with that first cup of coffee, but lately have been taking a quick run out to the tomato patch before breakfast to look for Leaf-footed stink bugs. I don't like to use pesticides anyway, but after reading the level of poison needed to control these bugs it would be out of the question - I don't want to kill off the bees, too! So I take my small bucket with a couple of inches of water in the bottom, lightly sprayed with something like Simple Green to break the surface tension, and in the other hand carry the Green Shears of Death, a pair of stainless steel garden scissors. The bugs are too fast to cut in half, but but by using the point to hold the insect's attention while stealthily moving the bucket underneath him, one jab forward and many a stink bug falls into my pail and drowns. As I scurry around the tomato frame in a nightgown, carrying a bucket and scissors and making triumphant little grunts as another bug falls to soapy death, the idea of me tending a front yard vegetable patch grows ever fainter in imagination.
Some adventures are best kept behind the garden gate.
There will be Flower Photos next time! I promise!

"Swashbuckling, Wood-chunking, and Bug-sloshing" was written by Annie in Austin for the Transplantable Rose Blog.

Back in the mountains

Sunday was the day on which everything became alright again. I knew before I left home that I wouldn't be nearly 100% on the day, but I had already decided that simply getting through a ride to Binna Burra and back would be good enough. I managed to climb the mountain in reasonable shape, cresting the 7km ascent to Lower Beechmont in reasonable time after pedalling on guts alone for virtually the entire duration. It was here, taking in the sweeping views over Hinze Dam, Springbrook and the surrounding ranges, that I knew I was back. Now all that mattered was finishing the ride with the accompanying inspiration of amazing views on both sides of the road.

At the summit of Mt Roberts I bumped into an old friend from Brisbane who had ridden up a little earlier. It's amazing how a chat about an upcoming ride (the Wonders of Glorious Mee on Saturday) can inspire a tired body to continue. On the way home I opted for the detour along the western spur of the Beechmont Range, with it's views over the coomera gorge. By now it was getting hot, and I was starting to tire, but for once none of that mattered. All that mattered is that I was able to climb again, and the feeling was wonderful.

Bikestyle

I like everything that has to do with this culture of bike I whirl around in.

Not only are bikes fun to ride, they're good for health and they're good for transportation.
And then there's the bike art and bikes that are art pieces and art that is for bikes and bikes that are art sculptures and antique art pieces. And my dad Art who taught me how to ride a bike and his dad Art who taught him how to ride a bike.

And then there's the friend part. You gravitate towards friends who ride bikes. You make friends with people who race bikes. You hang out with families who ride bikes. Your kids become friends with the kids of the friends you have who ride bikes because you hang out all day at the races on Sundays all fall and winter and they all run around in kid packs.

And bike moms are fun. They can ride in the middle of the day with me and then there are the other bike ladies who like to ride long and talk about everything under the sun. It's bike therapy.
And then there's the dirt trails in the trees that swoop and whirl and make you feel like you're dancing with the trees. And the days when you get to ride with your husband and you get along perfectly. And the nights when you sneak around on the trails on the bike and eat chips and drink beer.

And I like the way you see so many other riders out on the road on a day like an easter sunday when there's no racing so everyone's out riding and no one's really out driving and you stop and say hi to everyone you know.
And I like bike blogs where you get to know other bike blog people and then when you meet them for the first time at a race or a ride or gold sprints, you say oh yeah, I know you and you're already sorta friends.
And bike races are fun, especially cyclocross, where everyone cheers for everyone.

But even circuit races and crits are fun to be at - even when you have to course marshall at the DHL driveway and help maneuver a 16 wheeler across the the circuit course while a pit bull is running down the middle of the course towards you because its owner is driving along on the other side of the cones and says he's out taking the dog for a walk by letting him run down the street while he drives a long and then you yell at him to get the dog and he decides to pull a u-turn across the course and you know you only have about 2 minutes to get them all off the course before 75 racers come zooming down the hill.

And then the lady in the SUV bmw pulls a u-turn. And after you get her all situated you see that your cheetos have spilled all over the road.
And even on days when you're feeling too crappy to do the dishes or go to work or get up off the couch because you feel so achy because you think you might be getting sick, you can muster up just enough energy to go for a really slow and spinny road ride and feel like crap still, but when you get back you do feel a little better and happier, kind of.
But especially the rides along the ridge when it's spring and you can smell the jasmine and the roses and the bbq along the way.

And roller racing is fun even though the 20 seconds you raced felt more like 20 minutes and it gives you the same feeling as if someone punched you in the gut. But it was worth it just to see almost naked men on stage in spotlights, racing bikes.

And riding any bike behind Morgan is nice because he has a nice butt.

Bikes are fun.

Ice Paradise - Grand Portage Bay

This past weekend we had a nice surprise on Grand Portage Bay. Saturday morning we woke to all these amazing blue ice sheets that had been pushed up along the shoreline in the night. Almost the entire bay was ringed with these sheets of ice. Armed with my ice spikes on my boots I walked along the shore and took in the amazing sight of this icy paradise. Unfortunately the view you see here was short-lived. Sunday night we had a major blizzard combined with high winds. The combination of wind and snow dramatically changed this view. Some of the ice sheets are still there, but the waves broke them up quite a bit and they are now covered in snow. Today there is a fresh layer of ice on the bay and I can hear it crunching as it gets pushed up on shore once again. So, maybe we will have fresh views again similar to this one! One never knows what Lake Superior will do to surprise you in the winter season :-)

I Know How She Feels

Excerpt from Traveling with Pomegranates by Sue Monk Kidd and her daughter Ann Kidd Taylor. Sue says, "At times like this, I feel the small curse of my introspective nature and its obstinate demands, how it wants to be allowed, wants my unhurried and undivided attention, how the moments of life insist on being metabolized and given expression. As usual, having failed to stop and tend to this unmitigated part of myself, it has stopped me."

Recycling (3) - the solution

And the winner is Gennasus, who guessed correctly that the red mystery object in this post was a telephone box. When the iconic red design was taken out of service, many people bought them as curiosity pieces, or just out of love for a bit of British life that was no more. Well done, Gennasus - but of course Moray is noted for the intelligence of its inhabitants!
I actually took the shot above a few months ago, but didn't post it at the time because I felt that it wasn't complete. When I went past the other week and saw the campanula in full flower it seemed to come together as a story. Sometimes I fret mildly about my backlog of photos that I'm not using, and how to keep up with posting photos - a discussion Mountain Mamma at Many Rivers to Cross has been having. But then I realise that there's absolutely no need to fret.

First Alpine route - Paciencia 8a, Eiger nordwand

On the crux of Paciencia, Eiger north face. All photos thanks to the talentedAlexandre Buisse
June and July were some of the most busy and challenging days of my life, none of which involved any climbing. The death of my father Norman was not a good time. Not wishing to talk about it much more on this, my climbing blog, all I should say is that at least I was able time to spend time with him first.
There wasn’t much time before other life events called for action. Claire, Freida and I moved house. Just ‘round the corner’ to Roybridge. We now have a great base for Freida growing up and it was a pleasure to put my back into working on it and preparing it for my family. Each day, I got up early, worked until the wee small hours and repeat…
So my planned trip to the alps with Calum Muskett crept up on me. I’d done next to no climbing for several weeks with everything that had gone on. A few fingerboard sessions, a couple of TCA sessions, that’s it. I could still one arm a first joint edge. But endurance was nil.



Here mate, is that the Eiger?
When I started to drive south from the highlands, the extent of the problem with this started to dawn on me, since our discussed objectives were basically a list of the hardest routes in the alps. Top of the list was Paciencia, the hardest route on the north face of the Eiger. First freed in by Ueli Steck and then repeated just once by David Lama in . Reading Lama’s blog made me wince. He rated it one of the hardest routes in the alps and said he was utterly exhausted by the time he reached the top. Although the pitch grades don’t too bad; 6b, 6a, 6a+, 7c, 7c, 7a, 8a, 7a+, 6b+, 6a+, 6a+, 7c, 7c+, 7b, 7a, 6a, 7a+, 7c, 7a, 6c+, 6b, 6b, 6c+ Many of the pitches are tad on the sandbag side. For instance, one of the 6b+s we thought translated to E4 6b.
On paper it was completely ridiculous for me to go near it. However, predictably, after meeting Calum in Chamonix we decided in about 2 minutes we’d head straight to the Eiger for the first route. It would also be my first alpine route.

Another great 7c pitch, full of north face atmosphere
A day later we were scrambling up the classic 1938 route to the foot of Paciencia. It was misty, damp and cold and after a drippy bivi I woke up ready to fail. Thankfully, our intention was just to have a recce and get our bearings on the Eiger. That day we hung about on the first few 7c and 8a pitches and I tried to give myself as big a workout as possible. I achieved that goal with ease.
I wasn’t sure about going back up. Perhaps it would be better to do a few easier routes first? I couldn’t think of a good way to even suggest that to Calum, who is already an accomplished alpinist, just a couple of years younger than me at 19. So we went back up, taking the photographer Alexandre Buisse with us for the first day. After soloing back up the 38 route in the afternoon we bagged the first few 7c pitches before dark and settled into our bivi, ready to go for the 8a in the morning. The morning however, was mostly spent melting snow to fuel some serious tea drinking on our ledge. Once we got started, we both dispatched the brilliant 8a pitch with much enjoyment. What an amazing pitch in spectacular surroundings.

Calum on the rather thin first 7c pitch
Our clear objective was for both of us to free the entire route with no falls, whether leading or seconding. All of the many 7b and 7c pitches were very hard to onsight, as we already knew from reading David Lama’s account. So we decided to give ourselves three full days to climb to the top since we would need the extra time for both of us to succeed on each of the 23 pitches. When we reached the second bivi below the Czech Pillar, we spent the following day both climbing the hard pitches that followed, before descending for one more night on the ledge. Both of us were tired that day, and I almost fell right at the end of a 7c+ pitch, where I knew Lama had also fallen. I knew I didn’t have the energy for another go within the hour, so I just held on like my life depended on it when a foothold broke 4 moves from the belay ledge. While Calum worked on the pitch, a helicopter appeared, hovering close by. The door opened and a long lens popped out and took some pictures of us. I thought to myself, that doesn’t happen in Scotland.

8a, or more tea?
We rose at 6am the next morning both feeling rather better than anticipated. Just as well, since the first task was to jung and haul the bag back to our highpoint before commencing the final 8 pitches, including one more of those nasty 7cs right near the top. We both climbed strongly on that pitch and we carried on that momentum all the way to the end, pulling into sunshine at 6pm on the top. The crux was yet to come for me however. I’d had blisters on my toes from wearing boots that didn’t fit my feet on the recce day. Nearly 4 days in my rockshoes had made them considerably worse. The walk back down to Grindelwald was a teeth gritter. Of course, now I’m sitting in a cafe the next day, everything feels better.

I learned a lot some new beta on big walling tactics from Calum, and was certainly inspired by his confidence, backed up with skill and problem solving ability. He took the route very much in his stride, as I’m sure he will many more harder routes. Thanks to Ueli Steck and Stefan Siegrist for opening the route. It must’ve taken a lot of effort.
So, where’s my boulder mat...