This has got to be the best version of One Week that I’ve heard - the harmonies are awesome! Too bad the video quality on this sucks… and if you notice an absence of bright red hair, Jim is home waiting for his wee babe to arrive, so they had a sub bass player.
I can’t believe it is almost Halloween already. We are going to try to trick XM into putting on a princess/fairy dress she inherited from her cousin, and O changed his mind on his costume - he will no longer be a popsicle (phew!), but will be everyone’s favorite animal rescuer, Diego. This article in the Oregonian was really funny, to me anyway…I always wanted to be cool things for Halloween, but I got stuck with whatever my mom wanted to sew for me. Like a pioneer girl.
“Halloween costumes my mom made me when I was a kid: Fall. Winter. Spring.
Halloween costume I wished I’d had as a kid: Princess Leia.”
Anyway, we had fun decorating the porch with pumpkins and spiderwebs while we hung ghosts from the trees while the squirrels scrambled around preparing for winter.
Speaking of urban wildlife, we have a family of raccoons that lives in the tree on the other side of our fence. They are huge, and saunter through the yard on the way to the tree without a care in the world. We also have what is possibly the biggest opossum in the metro area making itself at home in our garage. I caught it last night turning in for bed in the bottom level of the kitty pueblo. I poked it with an ice scraper before trying to dump it out of the pueblo, but it wasn’t going anywhere. The cats didn’t seem to mind, so I said goodnight and left.
I love that I have access to things that satisfy my physical-geography geekitude… things like the USGS Earthquake Center email notification service, that lets you know when a quake greater than say 4.5 in magnitude happens, anywhere in the world. You can’t hide your earthquake from me, Society Islands!
I also regularly look at the Fox 12 weatherblog, keeping abreast of changes in weather data. Big windstorm coming tomorrow… also, they have pictures sent in from readers. Remember that sunrise I was raving about the other day? Here it is, over Mt. Hood.
I recently subscribed to volcano hazard news, read NOAA’s National Weather Service Headlines, and when I’m tired of this planet, I check out space weather and NASA’s image of the day.
Chocolate Stout Cupcakes, fresh from the oven. The best thing about them is the fact that they only use 1/4 of a cup of beer, leaving a lot left over for the cook.
We tried to take full advantage of what may be the last nice weekend of the month, soaking up as much time as we could in the foggy mornings and sunny afternoons. I took the kids to the 20th Annual Apple Tasting at Portland Nursery on Friday, which was really nice because it was a lot less crowded than it is on the weekend. We stuffed ourselves full of apples and bought some of our favorite (a variety called Ambrosia - super crisp and sweet). The kids enjoyed storytelling and stamping art with vegetables and ice cream and free popcorn and fresh pressed cider. Unfortunately the camera batteries were dead, so all I got were crappy pictures taken from my phone. The event happens again next weekend for those that need their apple fix.
On Saturday we were very happy to attend the kid friendly 2007 Fresh Hop Beer Tastival - “your once-a-year chance to taste what Oregon’s finest brewmasters can do with just-picked hops”. With that in mind, I give you the conversation D overheard between two other tastival-goers:
Drinker 1: “Have you tried the ‘Fresh Hop’”?
Drinker 2: “No… if it says ‘hop’ then I don’t want it.”
This is the second of four hop tastival events throughout the state, and was held at the McMenamin’s Edgefield. With 20 beers on tap we armed ourselves with 10 beer tickets each and split the list of beers in two. The tasting was in the clearing next to the Little Red Shed. When we arrived it wasn’t crowded at all and we nabbed a spot by the fire. The lines were short, beer geeks were taking notes as they tasted, and I spotted beer writers Fred Eckhart and John Foyston enjoying the brews.
Most of the beer was good (not super hoppy, like I expected, but a decent tasting beer nonetheless). A lot ranged from boring and light to downright awful (I’m looking at you, Karlsson Brewing). Our favorites were Killer Green by Double Mountain, Lupulin Ale by Full Sail, Elemental by Pelican and Hop Heaven by Rogue. Roots had an ESB called Hoppipatumus that tasted like a really hoppy belgian - intriguing and delicious.
By the time we left it was getting very crowded and the lines were ridiculously long. Despite evidence to the contrary, the kids did not have any beer…just some 7-Up and a whole lot of fun.
I will always remember a debate put forth by a classmate in college titled “Can You Consider Yourself an Environmentalist and Still Eat Meat?” When D sent me this link it reminded me of that sentiment - the PB&J (no, not Pam Beasley and Jim) Campaign… saving the planet one peanut butter and jelly sandwich at a time. So put down that bologna and help the earth!
For example:
Have a PB&J and save 12-50 squre feet of land from deforestation, over-grazing, and pesticide and fertilizer pollution.
I knew there was a reason peanut butter and jelly was so awesome.
In other food news, we are going to the Portland Nursery’s Apple Tasting today, which is a fun and easy way to try dozens of unique varieties of apples and pears. Tomorrow we are heading out to the Fresh Hop Tastival at the Edgefield, where we get to try 30 fresh hopped beers. Paradise!
With Fall’s arrival came the winds and the rain and the weather cool enough to do some baking. (Did you PDXers see that sunrise yesterday? It was incredible! And it was windy and the leaves were blowing all over, and when the sun broke over the horizon and hit the tops of the red and gold trees…wow. I love Fall.)
Whatever would I be baking? Why yes, it is cupcakes. This installment of Lesley Bakes Every Cupcake in the Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World Book has this intrepid baker whipping up a batch of pumpkin-carob cupcakes with cinnamon glaze. Let me just say, the house smells amazing.
O wanted to take a cupcake in his lunch, so I decided to make one that didn’t call for a pound of delicious frosting piled on top (like last weeks chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting). We’ll see how these hold up.
Next up, Chocolate Stout Cupcakes, made with Lost Coast Brewery Eight Ball Stout.
Thanks everyone that commented on the last post, we really appreciate it. It took Owen about a week to return to his normal self afterwards…he was really hit hard by Enid’s passing.
He is doing so amazing in school…it is really crazy to see how the Mandarin he has learned is like second nature to him, and while if someone asks me “how do you say the number 7 in Mandarin?” I’d have to count up from one to remember, he can tell you right off. He is learning the characters as well, and has homework to practice them. He still loves to talk about his day at school, sings us songs in Chinese, and plays Pokemon with his friends at lunch (not the card game, they pretend they are pokemons and basically chase each other around).
