Eagle oops

Each of my grandsons has a "favorite" animal. Lee loves bats. Collin seems drawn to cats. Jayden is a horse boy. Max likes to rescue animals, be they ugly little starling babies or bats who fell from the barn roof, or stray kittens. Than is our Eagle man.

When mom and I "inherited" a huge stash of fabric last year, I found this panel of eagle print, and right away knew it was destined for Than. It took awhile to get around to actually making the quilt. When I decided it would be a great Christmas gift, mom and I got busy, and it turned out pretty nice.

I suctioned the poofy finished quilt into one of those plastic storage bags that goes totally flat, squished it into a box, and off it went to Wisconsin, just in time.

I did some outline quilting, and mom tied the rest of it.

Of course it had to be inspected by a fellow critter..the King approved.

You don't do ANYTHING in this house without feline supervision! She may LOOK like she's sleeping on the job, but just head for the kitchen and see how fast her feet hit the floor.

The oops is my fault. It didn't occur to me until my last phone conversation with Than, that I COULD have waited to give him the eagle quilt.

Because he is working on his Eagle Scout award. Wouldn't that have made a terrific "congratulations" gift?!

Winter Textures

They're calling it the "February Storm". Having lived in Wisconsin through several winters, on Lake Michigan, it makes me shake my head and smile a bit.


But snow is beautiful, even if the natives don't know how to drive it. This morning the cats and I enjoyed just sitting and looking out the windows. A cup of mint tea, sitting by the wood stove, kitty on my lap. A nice way to start a winter day.

SISTA!!!

"HIYA, LOU! Here I am, your sista!!"

"You got it - Anne is allllll about decorations - especially if they are SHINY or SPARKLY!"

"Next time, sneak into the bag, and come see me in Salem!
Sure, you'll fit - just kick out the shoes..."

I feel a reunion coming on...I know where another one is hanging out...maybe two more.

I better get the Carmelized onion cheese and seeded crackers out. They ARE gourmands, you know. They came from Anne's studio, after all. Hmmm. Better get the ingredients ready for Molten Lava Chocolate cakes, too...or those gooey brownies. Oh yeah.

Vacation weather

While I'm house and kitty sitting in Salem for a few days, the snow is making the Farr's log home feel really cozy.

Meanwhile, it's 80 degrees in Texas.

Becky and Bill are fetching Katie home - she's just completed her 18-month mission in McAllen, Texas.

Hope the snow is gone by the time the plane lands back here, Kate may have to dig out more than a sweater to feel at home again!

Heloise Hefalump

"Yep, that's me - the one and only - oh - wait a minute. I seem to remember some sisters. Of various colors. Annnnnne! WHERE ARE MY SISTERS??"

"OK, is this not the cuuuuuutest hair ornament?!

Whaddaya mean, hefalumps don't have hair?"

"And EARBOBS!! A girl HAS to have earbobs! They are definately THE fashion statement. Just ask Anne. She knows alllllll about fashion statements. If ya don't believe me, just take a peek in her shop - er, that would be CLOSET. Ya. Closet."

"Now ya gotta admit, if ya have to have a bum this size, why not make the most of it with a cute little tail?

HEY! It IS TOO little. Ya just gotta have the right perspective."

"I got drafted to help Gram with this quilt thing. It's very tedious. I think I'm getting a headache..."

"Oh man. I can't HANDLE this quilting job. Please, please, let me just be cute - that's enough, isn't it?

Isn't it? CUTE counts. Oh yes it does."

"Finally. Back where I belong, in the jungle. Being cute."

"Oh - those things? Ummm. Ask Anne. She made me. Anne's allllllll about decorations. Ya. Decorations.

But they itch."

Thanks, Anne, for a precious and fun Christmas present!

How prepared is YOUR pantry?

One of the many beautiful and comforting values of being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) is that we have counsel from a living prophet. For years and years and YEARS one of the most urgent messages from our church leaders has been to be prepared. In every way - spiritually and temporally.


Emergency Preparedness encompasses many things, from monetary to medical to pantry. Recent world events and weather events have really nailed the lid on the truth of an urgency of having a good home food storage supply and system of use. Mom and I have discussed this for years; two years ago we put together a 72-hour kit containing food, clothing, sanitary needs, and water, ready to go at a moment's notice.

With repeated counsel from our local Church leadership, mom has been concerned that we still aren't doing enough. There are some very helpful brochures and guides available through the Church for getting a preparedness program going in your home. But I also turned to some online resources that I've found very useful.

A year-long list of weekly purchases can be daunting. I am really excited about a program I found last week, on getting a 3-month supply of food and necessities put together in 12 weeks. Lo and behold, the Safeway and Fred Meyer ads this week had many of the items ON SALE (magic words!). So after a look at what was already on hand in the pantry, we tackled the first few weeks on the list, buying a modest amount and supplementing with what we had.

I'm going to put in the link for this program. If it doesn't work for you, I can email it.

http://www.theideadoor.com/Preparedness/3%20month%20supply%20on%20one%202%20sided%20page.pdf

The idea is to have 7 dinners, that your family likes, to rotate through the week, for 12 weeks (in our case we are going to work with 6 weeks to start with). You can use the list provided, or substitute any meals that your family likes. Mom doesn't care for refried beans, so we ditched the Bean Burrito Enchiladas and put in Chicken noodle soup, using our own canned broth with veggies and chicken already in it. Just add noodles!

What you see in the photo below is one of the meals, organized as a unit. TUNA CASSEROLE. Can't get much more simple than that, right? So on the program page, it lists the meal, the recipe, the list of what to get. We had home-canned tuna, which helped a bunch. Safeway had a great sale on soups and noodles. I dated the purchases, attached the "recipe" (who needs a recipe for Tuna Casserole?!), and put the items together on the pantry shelf for easy grabbing.


We also did Spaghetti and Sauce, home-canned Chicken Noodle Soup, and store-bought cans of Chili/Stew with crackers. So there we have four of the seven meals already on the shelf! How cool is that?!

The bonus of all this organizing fervor was that the pantry was totally cleaned and reshuffled to make best use of the shelving available. We cleared one shelf to await an order we are getting from the Church cannery in a few weeks. Staples such as flour, sugar, oatmeal, etc., in #10 cans.

We were raised, as mom and dad were, with growing gardens and canning a good supply of fruits, vegetables and meats. We also have a freezer full of meats, fruits and vegetables. Add some dry-goods like pasta, rice, gravy mixes, etc., and we have a very good supply of food items that we use daily and rotate through, to keep everything in good storage shape.

I got REALLY ambitious and labeled some categories on each shelf, for quick and easy reference to meal-making. I rarely have to ponder what to have for dinner!




From left to right: tuna, jam, chicken soup base, salmon, clams.

Left to Right: venison, peaches, pears, applesauce, green beans (from our garden !).

So my point of telling and showing all this, is that we ALL really DO need to have a healthy, carefully considered supply of foods on hand. For at least three months. If you can stretch to a year and have the storage space, go for it!

You are some of my most precious people in the world. I want you to feel the peace and comfort of being prepared as best you can. If you want/need more info on Emergency Preparedness, I would be delighted to send more information and links to help you out. We don't need to wait for something like an earthquake or war to make use of a comprehensive preparedness program.

Something as common as a job lay-off can demonstrate the value of such prepareness.

And don't forget - spiritual preparedness doesn't require shelf space.

She-wood

"Cheese, trees, and ocean breeze." That's been Tillamook County's motto for as long as I can remember (no smart remarks, there). Logging continues, but not at historic levels.

In fact, there's a whole new face to logging here along the bay. We used to just go up in the nearby hills and cut our firewood. Loads and loads of it. Then the powers-that-be required permits. Then the logging companies, as they one by one went out of business, got tighter with what wood they left in the hills. So what's a guy supposed to do, to get firewood to heat his home and cook his elk (harvested out of those same hills)?

Brother Terry, with two wood stoves and a roaring big fireplace, not to mention a freezer full of elk, turned to another source of wood. The winter storms and floods sweep down the canyons along our main rivers, the Wilson and the Trask, carrying downed logs to the bay. A guy handy with a boat could actually "log" the bay! And that's just what he did.

It's really really hard work. And takes some special equipment and know-how. After beating one boat up, Terry had a special steel boat custom built for him, in Washington state. Heavy-sided and extra strong. He single-handedly pioneered the art of logging the bay for firewood and cedar bolts for shakes and shingles.

Now days, there's a lot of competition for those logs, which have become fewer and fewer as the old growth has disappeared and the logging has turned to more wood-stingy techniques. Terry is known for being a tough man on the water. We've watched him more than once, fight a log through a storm into harbor.

This day was following some storms, the water was still rough and the weather pretty iffy.
You can't see him, but with binocs I spotted him coming down the bay, about in the middle of the sun spot.
As you can see from the milk-chocolate water color, there was a lot of water coming down the rivers, with slides contributing mud and logs.

One of the beauties of being out on the bay is the wildlife. Flocks of ducks and other waterfowl keep company, and if you don't mind getting a little wet you can spend a whole day in a boat just enjoying nature. Even with a big log bucking the waves alongside, Terry loves being on the water.

Eventually, about 40 minutes later, he was close to the quieter water in the small harbor at Bay City, where he launches from.

He approaches the first log he had secured earlier, a big fir. The dark log lashed to the boat is an old cedar, well over 250 years old.

We frequently say, Terry was born about 100 years late. He would have made a great Mountain Man.

As much work as it is to haul those logs in, there's a lot more labor involved before the wood is warming our backsides.

First of all, the equipment has to be cared for. The boat has to be on the trailer while there's still enough water in the harbor to maneuver. The logging is done approaching high tide, when the logs can be floated off high banks or from backwater sloughs. Then the race is on to get to the harbor, because by then the tide has turned and water is flowing quickly OUT.

A logger, woods or water variety, keeps an arsenal of tools in good shape, ready for work.

Terry usually lets us know when he's got a log on the ramp, because he knows that cutting wood is mom's favorite thing in the whole world. And she's good help, even at 83 years old!

She has been splitting and handling wood all her life. She knows how to read the grain of the wood and just where to put the wedge, how hard to swing the maul.

This old cedar was heavy with water - notice the sheen of water around the wedge, where it's being forced out by pressure from the splitting tools.

The most fun to split is the "she-wood". One whack with the splitting wedge or ax, and the straight grain wood just POPS! apart. In case you are wondering - it's "she-wood" because even a woman can split it with ease. You can bet a man coined that term...

One of the many hazards of bay logging. When those trees come sliding down mountainsides, they often ram into and through mud slides, piles of other logs, etc. They pick up strange passengers. Things that can wreck a saw blade. So one of the many tools Terry has on hand is a sharpener. Today it was needed, because...

a big chunk of rock had plowed inside the log right to the core, and when the saw hit it, bad things happened to the teeth of the chain. Mom cleaned out the rest of the hole, but it was too late for the poor saw. Takes time to sharpen, which after a long day on the water is an aggravation a tired logger doesn't need.

Back on task. There's nothing like the scent of fresh cedar or fir sawdust - fresh, woodsy, homey.
We worked for 3 hours cutting wood and stacking it in the trailer. That was about half the log.

By then it was dark, so we headed home, to enjoy a nice warm crackling fire while we ate dinner!

Wood heat truly "heats you twice..." Or maybe three or four times, when you are logging it out of the woods or bay.