Huckleberry Picking

Thursday I had a mad compulsion to go find our old berry patch and see if there were any huckleberries. It's early for berries to be sure, but I just needed to know where the patch was. I left work early and headed North. No I'm not going to tell you where my patch is. Go find one yourself, or come with us next time.

Sure enough the berries were out in abundance, lovely purple berries of deliciousness. I picked until the bugs drove me out. I managed to get about a cup and a half in my hour of picking. That evening Nick & I feasted on the berries for dessert.

I then let the clan know of my plan. Saturday morning we left Pocatello early (as in 7:00 a.m.) met up with friends in Idaho Falls and ventured out for berries. The patch was wet with newly fallen rain and dew and we were soaked to the knees before finishing.

Back in Idaho Falls we had lunch at the Brownstone Restaurant & Brewpub and talked and laughed till it was time to call it a day.

We netted a nice haul of 6.5 cups of berries now frozen in 1/4 cup measures for later use as toppings for ice cream, cheesecake and pancakes or fruit salad. We ate some too. Nothing like eating berries off the bush in the wilderness.

Book Review: Good Time Girls

Written by Lael Morgan, "Good Time Girls of the Alaska-Yukon Gold Rush" is a book that we picked up in our travels in Alaska. I finally finished it last week.

It is an extremely well researched book. Ms. Morgan definitely did the work to make certain her sources were valid. The scope of source material is also outstanding, from newspapers to legal records. It is beautifully illustrated with photos of the girls/women involved in the text.

The book contents are fascinating enough that I read the whole thing. Okay, here's the thing. I hate scholarly writing styles. I know that academics are encouraged to write in a manner that adheres to a dispassionate, even handed, balanced accounting of the facts. But I find this to be boring and tedious. I bet Ms. Morgan has delightful anecdotes about her research process, what she learned that she could not include for lack of verification, and it would have been fascinating to see how she felt about what she learned. I am very, VERY tired of dry academic writing.

"Good Time Girls" is fabulous in that the topic is quite interesting and entertaining and the quotes and stories are delightful. I even laughed out loud at one point, which was quite a surprise. So my rant against academic writing is leavened in this case. I'd love to hear Ms. Morgan talk about this book, the women in it, and how her research process went. I bet that's even better than the book. Alternately, if Lael Morgan has literary interests, she could mine her material for novels and short stories.

I do recommend reading this if you have an interest in the history of Alaska or the Yukon, or in the roles of women settling/opening the west.

Home again, home again, jiggety jig...

Sunday Nick and I drove to SLC (or rather Nick drove, I was along for the ride, still recovering from the overheating at Crystal Park) to pick up Shanna from the airport. We are very happy that she's coming back and going back to school. We've missed her. So it was about driving, snagging her from the airport and driving home. I did make one stop at the Whole Foods to pick up blackberry izzes, a fizzy, all fruit drink that I love.

Yesterday we moved her in to various and sundry places in our house. Her bed and necessary stuff is in my yoga room and her boxes are in the craft closet. She's going to redo her room before really moving back in. We're going to take up the crappy tiles and do something about her floor. She's going to repaint the whole thing a bright white to increase the light in the basement room. It worked amazingly well for the bathroom. We're lucky in that the basement does get a lot of light from it's big windows. It's just that Shanna's room has a North facing window. The window that looks out under the porch is going to be retained, but we're going to insulate it, and cover it with pegboard so that Shanna can use it as a jewelry hanger. She doesn't like the window there. Personally, I would have redone the window so it looks like stained glass, but it's not my room so...

Hopefully her phone recharger will arrive in the mail today or tomorrow. She accidentally left it in Texas and this prevents her looking for work. We no longer have a general home phone. She needs/wants a job asap. I would love to have a general home phone again. Frankly it may be the first thing I do once Nick is employeed. I frequently don't hear my cell phone, it moves around my house too much and I am prone to leaving it in my purse as well.

Its great to have her back.

Crystal Park Montana

Check out my web page for the outting if you want the technical/directional details. http://www.isu.edu/~semejenn/adventures/crystalpark.html

Usually we go in the off season of September after Labor Day weekend. We've never gone in July before. Now I clearly understand the reason and won't do it again. Ever. First it is hotter in July. It may only be 75 degrees at the top of the mountain (approx 8,000 feet up) but that is too hot when digging and the sun is relentless. Second, mosquitoes. We've never had the serious, severe, and irritating swarms in September. Third, hot pools are just too hot after a hot day in the sun. They are so much more enjoyable when it is cold outside. I overheated, then got in a hot pool and really overheated. I should not have done that. It took me a couple days to recover. Fourth, people, there were more people though most seem to have realized that digging in the midday sun wasn't a good idea. My guess is that they are camping or staying in the cabins and only come out in the morning and or evening.

Still, we got some really nice crystals and had a fun time hanging out with friends. It was great to be outside and in the mountains.

The radios worked very well! I love being able to talk between the cars. Coordinating stops is much easier. Also Heather was able to tell us about the flowers on the side of the road and I was able to point out a few of the birds. Most were on the wing and I knew that wouldn't work, but a Golden Eagle posed for us just outside of Dell. And the Red-tailed hawks were very obliging. Antelope and elk were both spotted, though not everyone saw both.

Other birds I saw were: House sparrows, Rock doves, American crows, Swainson's hawks, Brewer's blackbirds, Kestrels, Magpies, Eastern kingbirds, Barn swallows, Double-crested cormorants, Western meadowlarks, Red-winged blackbirds, White-faced ibis flying in a flock, Lots of common ravens, Canada geese, American white pelicans, Black capped chickadees, Dark eyed juncos and a gorgeous Gray jay at our dig site. One of the most fun sightings for me was the Rough-legged hawk who misjudged his soar in our cars direction and made a sudden turn right over the windshield.