Good parents give their children roots and wings. Roots to know where home is, wings to fly away and exercise what’s been taught them. — Jonas Salk

I keep repeating that to myself alot these days.

You see, in September I had to hug my daughter, my Baby Girl, good-bye and leave her in New Mexico.

She is off on a new adventure! She accepted a position as Au-pair for a professional couple with a darling two year old daughter. I was so tickled that she wanted me to accompany her on the drive to New Mexico to meet her new charge. It was a fast trip, but we did take the time to make a small adjustment our route so we could visit Arches National Park in Utah. Boy, what a wonderous place!

We arrived at Arches National Park about half an hour before sunset, enjoying each new colorful sight as we rounded turn after turn of the road, winding our way through the canyons. The amazing colors of the canyon walls and the unique rock formations were spectacular. We took lots of pictures and enjoyed watching the sun set behind the canyon walls.



Can you see the depth of field in this photo~~these canyons seem to go on forever!



The colors were so vibrant in the light of the setting sun

We returned to the park before dawn the next morning so we could enjoy the sunrise and the play of light on the other walls of the canyons. We hiked up to one arch and watched as the sun rose above the canyon walls.




The Window, opening into the morning sun.
Can you see the kiss of light along the top of the arch?

Standing center of the window, I could see in the valley beyond,
bathed in the light of the rising sun.

The view from the center of the window looking west

And just as fascinating to me as the geographical wonders was the beauty of the stunted trees in this harsh landscape.

We returned to the hotel for a quick breakfast before making our way to Albuqueruqe by evening.

I savored the remaining hours of our journey. The time together in the car was a blessing to my eyes in the beauty of the landscape we passed through, to my ears as we talked and sang along to the radio as we drove, and to my heart as I savored the remaining hours with my Baby Girl.

Before leaving New Mexico, I was welcomed into the home of some wonderful friends of my Aunt's. Tom and PJ graciously took me in, feed me, entertained me, and gave me haven while I adjusted to the idea of being without the daily presence of my daughter.

The next day I was treated to a delicious deli lunch and had the chance to get to know a little about a loving and fun couple, who I hope to visit again. After returning home to get my luggage, Tom decided we should leave early for the airport so I could have a little tour of the area before my flight home.

Imagine my surprise when after, carefully stuffing my bags into the trunk of their little red Miata, Tom tossed me the keys! As I drove through Old Town and along the Rio Grande (which isn't so grand just here) Tom gave me a history of the area and a peek at the local mansions and  luxury compounds of the rich and famous.

Quickly approaching the time I wanted to be at the airport, we made a detour onto the Air Force base for a quick errand. While there, I talked Tom into playing photographer so I could picture text SonMySon and DearHusband the following teaser:

This is the view from the drivers seat of a little red Miata!

Followed next by the 'proof':

It is a fact that zipping around Albuquerque in Tom and PJ's lil' red sportscar provided me with an excellent distration to leaving my Baby Girl to begin her new adventure, in a new state, with a new job. So I am sure that it was all the very warm sun and the wind on my face that afternoon that was causing my eyes to tear upon take off.

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As you might have guessed, this post was delayed. I made several starts on it, and just needed to let it be for awhile. I distracted myself being busy with harvest time activities and time got away from me. Of course, losing my laptop's screen and the ability to pull up my first versions of this post added to the delay. Fortunately, the pictures were still on the memory card and I could download them to DearHusband's desktop.

I will wrap up this post on our big adventure by giving you the countdown: 7 days until our girl is coming home for a quick weekend visit! It will be a whirlwind of activity as she tries to get all her visiting in (with family, friends, and old co-workers) and she will be the photographer for a close friend's wedding before she returns to New Mexico on Monday.  We are all eagerly awaiting her visit!

All Hallow's Eve!

A traditional Scottish prayer for today:

From ghoulies and ghosties

And long-leggedy beasties

And things that go bump in the night,

Good Lord, deliver us!

Halloween is almost here!

Front porch Welcome

Guardian of the mailbox



Watch where you put your hand!



This is a costume I made for our Time Share Chihuahua one year:

"...if only I could fly..."



If I were to make another costume for her, I'd have to go with:







October begonias

Just a quick post before I run out the door this morning. This is what I saw peeking out my kitchen window this morning to see what the weather is like.

What a nice surprise! Begonias in October! I gues when they say "Non Stop Begonias", they really mean it.
Oh, and the grass-let's just say it's ornamental and supposed to be there!

And if you peek into the bottom right hand corner, you'll see my tiny fairy sized fushia is still in bloom. I am planning on bringing it indoors as a houseplant, but not until I can do a thorough bug inspection!

How To Preserve A Husband

I have so much to share! I have been meaning to post more regularly but a trip to Albuquerque, the fall harvest, a trip to the Methow Valley (more specfically, the Big Red Barn in Carlton), more canning and a visit from my daughter have taken precedence.

Now, however, I found a gem I have to share from the back page of the New Revised Edition #29 Ball Blue Book: Easy Guide to Tasty, Thrifty Canning and Freezing, copyrighted 1972.

How To Preserve A Husband

Be careful in your selection.

Do not choose too young.

When selected, give your entire thoughts to preparation for domestic use.

Some wives insist upon keeping them in a pickle,

others are constantly getting them into hot water.

This may make them sour, hard, and sometimes bitter;

even poor varieties may be made sweet, tender and good,

by garnishing them with patience,

well sweetened with love and seasoned with kisses.

Wrap them in a mantel of charity.

Keep warm with a steady fire of domestic devotion

and serve with peaches and cream.

Thus prepared, they will keep for years.

I have to wonder if that was a nod to earlier versions of the Ball Blue Book, seeing as they've been publishing it since 1909! I would love to get my hands on one of the early, early editions to see what other advice is included along with the recipes for safe food preservation.

I love old cookbooks! But, just in case you are using an older version of the Ball Blue Book, the USDA published new standards for homecanning in 1988, so you should treat yourself to the 100th Anniversay Edition of the Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving published in 2009.

And, in case you are wondering, the back page of this issue has a recipe for Peach-Walnut Shortcake. No more pearls of domestic wisedom. That's too bad, because I really got a good smile from the poem above!

An unexpected harvest

While blackberry picking one evening last week, Brent noticed that among the brambles towering over our head, just out of our reach, were plums! Bonus! We got a few, but lamented those we couldn't quite reach.

We picked our nightly gallon of blackberries and heading home, I pointed out another plum tree, just around the corner.This is when my Dear Husband says "Stop!"

He jumped out  of the truck, over the ditch, braved the mosquitoes out hunting in the approaching dusk and quickly picked me 4.6 pounds of an unexpected harvest--all while wearing a full arm cast on his right arm!

The next day, while picking more blackberries after my morning drive to Lynden, I hatched my plot.

I brought my little household step ladder with me when I picked him up from work. We headed back to the first plum tree,  picked our way, carefully, through waist high grass full of thistles to the back side of the blackberry brambles and found not only one plum tree but a little grove of them. Unfortunately, most of the plums had already been found by other harvest-hands, as evidenced by the already trampled grass. We picked all we could reach, with our little ladder, and came home that time with 6.4 pounds of plump purple little plums!

Tiny but flavorful plums. (I added a washed quarter for size reference)

The next day I searched the internet for recipes using plums and came across several for Asian style plum sauce. Those recipes planted a seed, so I headed into the kitchen to get busy. Using the simularities between the different recipes I found as a base, I started cooking down the plums. With the taste-tester help of SonMySon, I kept adusting the spices and ingredients until we had it just perfect! The first three pounds of chopped plums netted me three pints of my new Aizian-style Plum Sauce. (At Aizia's request, the recipe will be titled using her spelling!)   The sauce was wonderful atop a bowl of jasmine rice and moist shredded pork! A big hit we will be enjoying regularly!

 All my begging for more plums on FreeCycle and Craigslist has let me empty handed so I am tickled that Jannie was able to find another source of plums for me!  At, of all places, a nursery in Eastern Washington that sells fruit tree stock to nurserymen.

Autumn approaches

The beautiful colors of fall are beginning to appear, tucked into the greens of our local scenery.

This tree is always the first one I notice is changing colors. This picture was taken the last week of August, and it just keeps getting prettier and prettier as the days shorten and our nights are getting colder.

I see this tree everytime I drive into town, it sits on the edge of the woods right next to the prettiest little homestead. There I see a big beautiful house that sits back off the road aways, with a flower filled garden  peeking out from behind a short white picket fence with a welcoming gate in the center. Buffering house and flower garden from the highway is a lovely expanse of green lawn that is bordered to the west by a neatly ordered garden, and fruit trees that line the drive on the east.

I bet the industrious gardener who minds this little piece of heaven, has no idea that I also enjoy his garden!