Wiling Away the Seasons

Autumn Leaves

Girls enjoying the novelty of leaf carpeting

Chickies enjoying some fresh-thawed water

And Along Came Snow

Friday Phone Unload

View from Bike Commute

Mirror Lake in Mt Hood

Pumpkin Carving with Monty

Mulled Wine

Yes Please

Summer ending

Pumpkin: Growing

Corn

Giant Sunflower

A couple of quick shots from the last month or so. After batches and batches of roasted tomato soup, oven dried tomatoes,  and summer squash soup the garden is finally starting to slow down. We don't have frost in the forecast for the next few days so we still have time to squeeze the most out of our little fertile plot. I have been busy trying to save all of our bounty for use later in the white winter. I have untold amounts of fruit and tomatoes frozen in our freezer, and just finished putting up a half dozen pints of tomato sauce, a half dozen half-pints of Tomato Confit, and another half dozen half-pints of plum and star anise jam. Up next: 35 lbs of apples will be transformed into apple butter. It is feeling rather fall like now...

Canning

 

Potatoes

This Saturday Dr. H and I dug up all of the potatoes in our little potato patch. All 50 pounds of them!

One of three 10 gallon buckets full

This is a smaller potato

I can't believe they grew so well! All but about 5 pounds are currently curing in my basement. The rest are being eaten while their skins are still tender. Yum!

Bounty

This season of abundance has me totally inspired. I spend my mornings strolling though my garden, one hand holding a cup of coffee and the other flecked with soil. This morning, I brought along my camera.

Garden Blooming

 

Chickens and Eggs

Fruits of My Labor

Saving

Dirty, Sore and Happy

Am I crazy people? I'm thinking the answer is YES. This past weekend Dr. H and I participated in the Dirty Dash here in Spoklahoma. For those of you not in the know, the Dirty Dash is a 10K obstacle course with lots of mud pits. SO. MUCH. FUN. I can't remember the last time I was that dirty (or this sore). We signed up for this race on the Thursday before, and I spent two days trying to get my mileage up to be able to complete the 6.2 miles of the race. This was rough as I usually max out at 3 miles, but the race was totally worth the effort!

Check out that MUD!

 For more pictures of me and Dr. H, head over to Here and Here.  

Summer = Cherries

Last weekend Dr. H and I spent a lazy Saturday tooling around farming country gorging ourselves on cherries and strawberries. We picked a ton of each, and now have some of these gorgeous jewels tucked away in our freezer for the colder, less colorful months ahead. We also spent some time at home cooking up some delicious food with our bounty. We made strawberry shortcake on Saturday and have been eating it every night since then.

Cherry Gazing

Rainier Cherries

Dr. H in the Strawberry Fields

We took home two of these bad boys

Hanging out with a couple of friends

Hanovi: Great Horned Owl and a Heavy Beast

Tilt: Western Screech Owl. My Fav.

Me ant Tilt Hanging Out at the Open House

Is it weird that this is what I do all the time these days? It has gotten so routine that sometimes I forget that everyone else doesn't spend all day hanging around owls.

Life After Alaska

Just in case you all thought that once Dr. H and I returned from Alaska all fun came to a screeching halt, I am here to set the record straight. The very same week we returned we went to a Neko Case concert at the Bing Theater, which was AWESOME! Such a talented lady. We also purchased mountain bikes, went on some epic rides (almost peed my pants riding along the super steep drop off on High Drive), made another batch of beer (Hefeweizen this time to celebrate the grand opening of our neighbor's new German-style pub in his garage), and went down to Portland to visit with some friends.

The weather here has finally started to feel summery, and my garden has absolutely taken off. We have already enjoyed the first zucchini of the season, we have lots of green tomatoes just waiting to ripen, our potatoes are almost ready, and our onions are getting huge! In fact, I just finished a delicious all garden omelet. YUM! More pictures to come in the next few days. Here is a little taster of life on the Eckenrod Homestead.

Chicks taking a nap in the grass

Skagway: The Disneyland of the North

Skagway feels much like Mainstreet in Disneyland. Cute, albeit touristy shops, quaint storefronts and lots of ice cream parlors. Dr H and I managed to find both a bike shop and a brewery in Skagway though, so our couple of hours in Skagway were well spent :) We also took the White Pass train from Skagway, and it was beautiful!

Engines of our White Pass Train

Note the little trestle bridge

View down from Trestle Bridge

Really old Trestle Bridge- We did not go over this thankfully

I love the way the background looks like a green screen

Dr H and an antique snow blower for a train. It is Huge!

Skag-Disney. This old storefront is covered in driftwood.

 Seriously some of the best fish and chips ever. Plus good beer.

Skagway lost some serious points when we found this little joke of a store. It's very existence kind of made me want to shoot myself in the face. I can't articulate just how little I respect this woman. Hate me if you must....

That's right. A Sarah Palin Store. 

Wishes Granted! Juneau!

Here is the Mendenhall Glacier we saw in Juneau,  and the trip through the Tracy Arm up to Steven's Glacier. Just beautiful!

Mendenhall Glacier

Yep, those are icebergs in a lake

So wish I was in that little canoe!

Glacial Waterfall

Waterfalls along the Tracy Arm

There is a glacier back there.

Steven's Glacier behind little island with iceberg

And a couple of photos just for fun. Even though they are a bit embarrassing.

Towel Elephant

Amazed Chipmunk

Long Time Coming... Ketchikan and Beginning of Cruise

Here are the much anticipated photos of our Alaskan cruise. The trip was awesome and the scenery idyllic. The southern Alaskan coastline is just gorgeous! Rather than make one huge photo journal, I have decided to break these posts up by site visited. So here is Ketchikan!

Best part of the Cruise: Room Service

View off of balcony north of Seattle

Ketchikan

Just what every red-blooded American needs

My future house

awww

very old brothel