Back to Lassen!

 We headed back to Lassen Volcanic National Park for 3 days of no cell service or wi-fi! HEAVEN! Our goals were to see Bumpass Hell, eat smores, join the Volcano Club, and just be.

 We found a great campsite near the visitors center as we arrived just a few days after they closed the more remote camp sites for the season. There is nothing quite like camping in the caldera of a volcano!

 As most of you know food is always at the top of my list! Chili & rice with peach cobbler for dessert! The peaches were from our tree, super small but super sweet!

 Bumpass Hell! We learned about this in some history reading we did. And I love any geothermal action!

 This was the most friendly park we have ever visited! We have so many family pictures because so many people stopped us on the trail and would ask if they could take our family's picture!

We did not attempt this trail this trip. But it was pretty!

smores CHECK!

Oh yea...and bears CHECK! We ran into a mama and two cubs on our last day. It was unnerving as bears always are.

And Leili was sworn in as a Junior Ranger and Dan, Riley Fern, and I all got competed the Volcano Club requirements and got a patch!

This is a trip we will take again, the park is huge and we saw just a nubben of it! It was the perfect place to spend a three of the hardest days of my life, this year we made happy memories that hopefully year after year will out number the hard.

Road Trip!!!

Well...things got a little crazy here! I needed to run over to mom's to empty and finish cleaning out the office because we finally were selling it! And since Dan was home he decided to come along with me...WE TOOK NO KIDS! Crazy!!

We made a quick stop at some petroglyphs just outside Fallon, it is always nice to walk around but also so interesting to think of people here so many hundreds of years ago!!

Dan drove part way while I knitted away...it's a long 10 hours over but beautiful.

We then spent Dan's birthday driving around in my daddy's truck and emptying the office.

Except when we were trying to get the truck running again! We know how to have an adventure...

Then the rain started threatening, but we worked anyway. We don't melt.

We also enjoyed the plumbs in my mom's yard and brought home a lot! 

And enjoyed the memories, here are my three older's prints from when my mom first moved into this house. Fern was so little we had to use her foot. 

Maybe they are weeds but the little sunflowers all over the yard were so very beautiful and happy. It was lovely and peaceful to be there as always.

And who would complain about hanging out with this guy for three whole days (yea you read that right, we drove 10 hours the first day, moved the office the second, and drove home 10 hours the third. Lets just say that was exhausting)!

Nature Journal - 4th of July

July 4, 2016

3pm

90 degrees

Fenno

It is hot. Dry. Some winds with the promise of bringing the smile back this evening.

I hear wind rustling through the tree. A lawn mower next door. Birds chattering. Cars speeding past.

I don't smell bbqs yet. No smoke yet. I smell dry earth & grass. Dry %& hot.

Today is the Fourth of July. I made macaroni salad like every year, but today is not like the other years. This year she is gone.

June Yarn Along!

Joining Ginny!

Obviously I have a problem...I can't just read one thing! From left to right; Pride and Prejudice, book club (while it is a favorite it is sometimes not distracting enough right now). Soul Gardening, poetry, stories, and spirituality from Catholic mamas (I am no longer in the trenches of early motherhood so it's mostly read with a knowing nod). Taproot Magazine, my early morning tea and hammock read these days (I read through these slowly as the stories and articles seem to fit in my always thinking brain). Mormon Feminism Essential Writings, this can swing wildly from inspiring and rising to action to frustrating, discouraging, and maddening (This may take a while to get through as I have to put it down for a week at a time sometimes). How to be a Wildflower, this is light and happy and beautiful, everything I need in life right now.

I have done a little knitting here and there, mostly while listening to podcasts but also at piano lessons. But since it is gardening and river/lake season there is just not a lot of knitting time! I am listening to bits of Feminist Mormon Housewives, Year of Polygamy (which as you can guess also needs breaks) and yesterday I started the three part on Rob Cast titled God (so far it is great), and I HIGHLY recommend his interview with Friar Richard Rohr)!  The pattern is Moho by Chris Salas in Madelinetosh fingerling in the color way Jamie's Kilt.

And a parting shot of our beach day yesterday!

A Couple Moments on this Monday...

I thought I'd share just a couple things from this past week that were lovely, because there were a few pretty hard parts of it...

Sometimes kitty cuddles can cure a lot of ills, sun and water I am SURE are cures to ANY ill you can imagine! And when you throw in siblings laughing and enjoying each other it's just the best. Weather warm enough for favorite vintage shoes and summer dresses is ALWAYS a highlight to my year. Love and inclusiveness is always in style and always needed. 

And my garden this morning! We almost had a tragedy when one of the walls of water collapsed and almost smashed on of my Orange Russian tomatoes! But thankfully I was in the yard and heard the rush of water! The beans are all starting to really take off now, I only have a couple more seedlings to get in the ground. Also that big mullein plant came back this year so I can dry some mullein leaf for tea and use the flowers for mullein oil for earaches (which we have also been dealing with this week) and maybe I'll get crazy and make some salve too! Pretty soon I will have to get very creative to get a picture of the whole garden!

I hope your Monday is gentle! 

Mother's Day

I know we are long past Mother's Day, but I wanted to share our adventure and I am sure you can imagine that it was a hard day and took some time before I was ready to share.

 I just wanted to get out of dodge! I did not want to talk to anyone or do any of the regular things we have done in the past. Thankfully I have this amazing, wonderful husband who understood and was completely supportive! So we got this crazy harebrained idea and took a day trip to Lassen Volcanic National Park! Yes it s a bit far for a day trip, but we enjoy car trips, we had time to kill, we had never been there, and we let the kids bring their kindles...

(And no Dan is not THAT tall! He is on the paved road and we are a step down in the dirt. But Riley is indeed THAT tall, he passed me up a month or so ago!)

The bubbling mud of death! You should look up Bumpass Hell...we did not get to hike there since it was still VERY snow packed up there but this was a small part of the geothermal mud pits they have there.

 My Mother's Day pictures with my kids!

 It was breathtaking!

It was a beautiful bright day to spend outdoors with my family, and any day for me spent in a volcano is always A+! I love volcanos and geothermal activity, I guess that means I live in the perfect spot! This part of the country is completely dotted with volcanos, both extinct and dormant and there are so many hot springs around here you need a book!

It was an amazingly beautiful drive, and the very small part of the park we were able to see (most roads and trails are still closed because of the hight of the snow) were well worth it! We will be back, hopefully next time for some camping!

On the way home we did stop by a Jack-in-the-Box and all had an order of my mom's favorite curly fries!

Nature Journal - May Day

April 30, 2016

3:30 pm

55 degrees

Fenno

It is a cool, wet, grey day. The breeze is chilly & the dark clouds promise more rain.

I smell the last of the lilacs while looking at the beginning of the poppies. I hear a hawk cry, the chickens squawk, a hammer somewhere distant and the leaves rustling.

Tomorrow is May Day. The first one.

Nature Journal - Dorostkar

March 10, 2016

1:30pm

60 degrees

Dorostkar

Warm sun, gusty breeze, old leaves rattling. rustling. Kids exploring, traffic racing, wind-chimes and spring awakening.

A rooster crows!

Yarn Along March

Another Month already! 

Ok! I finished my mittens and have had occasion to wear them this week as it has been pretty chilly on our walks, I then cast on and finished (except for buttons) for a Henry's Hat from Joanna Johnson's new book Henry's Hat! Then Fern and I had the SUPER fun opportunity to go to an early screening of Eddie the Eagle hosted by our LYS Jimmy Beans Wool. They gave us a kit to make our own Eddie Hat so I did that. Lastly I cast on a Moho in the limited edition Lorna's Laces color way Jamie's Kilt! I do love Outlander!

As for reading! I finished Jane Eyre with 3 days to spare before book club, I read Planted: Belief and Belonging in an Age of Doubt and started Mormon Feminism Essential Writings I should be reading the next book club book...but it's a newer book and therefore more expensive so I am waiting for the library's copy! I have so many book waiting here at the house it is so silly that I keep finding other books to read. But I guess that is the plight of many book lovers!

Joining Ginny!

Yarn Along February 2016

I think a good goal for me is to join Ginny and share my knitting and reading once a month. That feels doable. And so here we are 3 days into February and it has already been a "fly out of the shoots" start! Whew! And on top of the normal craziness in 8 days I will have a 15 year old (who needs a razor). I don't think I'm old enough to have a kid with facial hair!!

Oh well! Here we go!

I have one Waiting for Winter Mitten (Susan B. Anderson) done and the other about half way. I could have used these this week as we had a glorious Sunday two days ago where we were snowed in and only left the house for a walk in the open space across the street (snow boots would also be a good thing to add to my wardrobe)! This is a Madelinetosh limited dye called Nile that Dan picked out for me over at Jimmy Beans a little while back.

I (reluctantly) set aside Nikolas for a bit as I have a WHOPPER of a book club book this month; Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. It is oh so good! 

And to further tempt me my amazon order came today! I got Susan B. Anderson's new Kid's Knitting Workshop, it looks like a great reference book and has some projects Fern (and I!) are already thinking about. Next: Planted: Belief and Belonging in an Age of Doubt, I've heard some great things about this and listened to the podcast Mormon Matters when they interviewed the author. Looking forward to some helpful insights. Then Mormon Feminism Essential Writings, pretty self explanatory (Exponent II has a good bit of info on it if you're looking). And then the picture book Girls Who Choose God. There will most likely be an entire post about that one as it is FABULOUS!!! There are two this is the women in the bible volume. Seriously it's AWESOME. I am in love! 

*Sorry I got lazy and did not link to all the books and such. If you need more info I'm happy to supply it!