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!