Rainy Middle Fork road hike

Today twelve Senior Trailblazers met at the Senior Center with only a vague idea of where we would be going. Our scheduled hike, Hannegan Pass, is still not passable because of snow. In fact, the Bellingham Herald printed an article today that confirmed our fears: Artist Point, which we use to access many of our favorite hikes in the Mt. Baker area, will not be cleared of snow this year. So, today we chose to drive from our mostly blue skies in Bellingham up to the Middle Fork logging road, hoping for a view and determined to get some exercise, no matter what. We actually had a wonderful day last November when we previously visited this area. I wrote about it here (and you can see the views we missed today).

As we drove our three cars almost thirty miles up to our starting point, it began to rain. And rain. Hoping the sky was just getting the moisture out of its system and then it would be nice, we donned our rain gear and started up the road. It didn't let up, and by the time we had hiked over two miles, some were talking about going back. But we wanted to get a least the exercise we have grown accustomed to having, so we kept going until we got to the junction you see below. Some wanted to hike until 11:00 am on the lower road, which didn't climb so steeply, and others wanted to go up. Since we had our walkie-talkies with us, we split into two groups, with one group going up and the other going down. We agreed to turn around at 11 and head back down to the cars, which is what we did, meeting up again at this junction without any problem.

Sometimes the rain would let up and we would get hopeful for some views and the possibility that we might even dry out a little. At least it wasn't cold, with temperatures somewhere in the low 50s. But it didn't happen. Not knowing WHAT I would write about for this blog, and what pictures I might have to share, I took some pictures of the flowers, and this is the best I got.

I thought the green leaves (if you enlarge the picture you can see they are weighed down with rain), the rock and the flowers all made a nice little scene on an otherwise wet and rainy day. All in all, we covered more than seven miles and those of us who took the high road got somewhere around 2,000 feet elevation gain and loss, making it an acceptable hike. We are pretty hardy to spend five hours walking in the rain, making it back to the cars before even considering stopping for lunch. Some decided to take off and head back to the center, others (like us) got back to the highway and stopped by the side of the road for lunch.

Peggy has missed the last three hikes, since she went off on an adventure to Scotland and just returned late last week. She bought this plastic raincoat for that trip and never used it, but she certainly got a chance to see how it worked today. It's great to have her back! Better luck to all of us, weather wise, next week.
:-)

Roasting Stick Bag

My family inspired me this last weekend to make bags for our Roasting Sticks.


This is the BEFORE. . .


This is the AFTER. . .

Here's how I made the bag. . .

1- Grab an old pair of jeans & cut the pant leg to the size of the roasting sticks (mine is 27" before hemming).


2- Turn the jean pant leg inside out & using a heavy duty needle, stitch the bottom closed.


3- For the drawstring top, cut a piece of fabric to fit the diameter (x 4")of the pant leg. Put the ends right side together leaving an opening.


4- Pin the fabric right side to the wrong side of the jean. Stitch around.


5-Turn pant leg inside out and stitch around the top edge.


6- Fold the unfinished edge under & stitch around the pant leg making the casing for the string.


7- Thread ribbon or string in the hole of the casing.


8- Use your CREATIVITY to draw pictures/words on the bag.

[After thought: I might have to sew on a piece of ribbon for hanging.]


This is our fire pit area in our backyard. The large pit is for roasting marshmallows/hot dogs & camp wood burning. The smaller pit is for our dutch ovens.

{Pumpkin} Chocolate Cookies

I know its summer but I crave pumpkin desserts.
I found this EASY cookie recipe-so yummy!

Ingredients: 1 box spice cake mix(dry), 1 (15 oz.) can pumpkin, 1 (12 oz) bag chocolate chips
Mix together and scoop onto greased cookie sheet.
Bake @ 350 for 13-15 mins.

Enjoy!!

Summertime!

We Bellingham residents have been wanting a weekend like the one we just had for quite awhile. This picture was actually taken on Memorial Day, the unofficial first day of summer, but then the cool wet weather returned to dampen more than just our spirits. The official first day of summer, though, came last Tuesday and then... we had an absolutely lovely weekend. Although it was cool and a bit cloudy to begin with, Saturday got nicer and nicer. And any day we see the sun and the rain doesn't fall is a good one.

I went walking early Saturday morning with the Fairhaven walking group, after having skipped it the week before because it was raining when I woke. Yesterday we walked about five brisk miles down by the bay and ended up at the Adagio Cafe for coffee afterwards. I then moseyed down to the Farmers' Market with a new friend, Karen, who I've seen before with the walkers, but we both headed down to the market together and I got to know her a bit better. I introduced her to the Rabbit Field Farms booth, where the vendor was expecting my usual purchase of baby kale. It looked good to Karen, so she bought some too. It's especially tasty early in the season.

Then I walked over to the Y and swam a half mile, feeling like a million bucks after swimming, showering, and heading back home. After the exercise and being ready for a good lunch, I felt the weekend had an auspicious beginning. The squirrels were on the porch when I got home, and after I shoo'd them off and swept up after the birds, I realized that they aren't intimidated any more by my Super Soaker antics (which I wrote about here), because the water isn't anything that hurts them and now they know that as crazy as I look, I'm not likely to harm them either. Sigh. They have had babies, and now I have two families, a black set, smaller and native to the area, and a family of gray squirrels. I went out one day after having chased one particularly persistent guy off the porch three or four times and hurled an apple I was eating after him as he ran away. Immediately he turned and inspected it, and of course hauled it back to his den. Or maybe her den. Now I occasionally throw an apple core onto the lawn and it is gone within minutes. As long as they aren't on my porch I don't mind them. My brother-in-law used to remark that squirrels are rodents, after all, just rats with a better wardrobe.

However, I just read an article about sitting still too long in one place, that it's bad for your health. Even if you get lots of exercise otherwise, it's important to take breaks often from sitting, stand up and stretch, even for a minute. I guess these guys are doing me a favor as I snatch up my Super Soaker and run out the front door, pumping the trigger with mad abandon. They run, too, but just as soon as my back is turned, well, you know the rest.

And then yesterday, Sunday, was a brilliant day, filled with sunshine and reaching 72 degrees F. I drove down to Snohomish and ended up making four skydives before heading back home. They were all good ones, too, playing in the air with my friends and having just the best time. All my landings were good, and I'm still learning how to pack this parachute to open consistently nice and soft. I am convinced, however, that once I figure it out, I will be happy with it for the rest of my skydiving career.

Many of my apartment neighbors on the ground level (I'm on the second level) have flower gardens that are simply amazing. That's one thing I do have to say about the rain around here: everything is lush and green, and the flowers are extremely happy to show their stuff. This weekend was the beginning of what I hope will be a truly wonderful summer. And my dear virtual friends, as I read about your lives, I get to experience what your little corner of the universe is like. It means a lot to me to have such a community.
:-)

Pioneer Day Celebration Posters

I was asked to make some posters for our church buildings highlighting the event our Stake is going to celebrate. In July we celebrate our Pioneers.

I of course couldn't just do a simple writing on the poster board-I had to Heatherize it!


I used this scrapbooking spray ink to wet the edges.


Then I wiped it.


I used postal paper, crumbled it many times, & taped it to the poster board. Then using the 1/8" hole punch, I punched around each edge. I threaded the hemp string(found at Walmart in jewelry section) through each hole to "sew" around the whole poster board. After this I used my firestarter to burn the edges. CAUTION: do this outside & do small sections so you can put the fire out with your shoe!

[Adhere Picture: taken from the cover of the July 2010 Friend Magazine]

Back to the Chuckanuts

Because our scheduled hike into the High Country is still impassable, eight Senior Trailblazers who met at the Senior Center discussed our options for today's outing. The weather was gloomy with a 50% chance of rain, so driving for any distance at all didn't make a lot of sense. We decided to stay close to town and chose a pretty hard hike: Chuckanut Ridge. Several of you have asked about the origin of the word "Chuckanut," so I looked it up. It's a Native American word meaning "beach on a bay with a small entrance." To me, it sounds like something a squirrel would do (smile).

When we gained the ridge from the Arroyo parking lot, you can see we had little view of Bellingham, but lots of clouds towards the mountains made it obvious we had made a good choice for today. This trail is not an easy one, with lots of ups and downs, and the scenery for most of the hike was just what was in front of and around us.

The fog began to close in by the time we stopped at Gates Overlook for lunch. I haven't bothered to show you the view from the overlook, because there wasn't one. Marjan, today's leader, gave us options many times during the day to make it longer or shorter, but by the time we packed up from having lunch, nobody seemed to be inclined to make it any longer than the eleven miles (round trip) we would cover on our return. It might have been a smidgen longer, but both of our GPS people were elsewhere (Al is in Las Vegas in over 100-degree heat, and Fred had taken Monday off work for our snowshoe trip and decided to put in some work hours today).

By the time we started heading back down the trail to our cars, the sun began to break through the clouds a little, so we had mixed rain (enough to cause us to put on our rain gear) and sunshine. Cindy pointed out these little flowers to me, which she thinks are called foam flowers (or at least that's what I heard). They remind me of baby's breath, which florists use in bouquets. On the way back down, I couldn't resist asking Dan to let me take a picture of him with this sign:

I don't know who the original Dan was, but our very own Dan will be 78 years old soon, so I figured he deserves a traverse if he wants it. Happy birthday! Not to mention that he had no problem with our long hike and almost 3,000 feet elevation gain and loss. I learned today that he started hiking with the Trailblazers in 2000, when he was about the age I am now. Made me hopeful that I'll still be playing in the Chuckanuts with my friends when I'm 78!
:-)

Pattern Art

I love how these turned out-so simple!


One daughter used paper.


My other daughter used wood.

Geezers in the mist

Fred and Mike on the way to Huntoon Point

The Senior Trailblazers have decided to add a twice-monthly Monday or Tuesday hike to the High Country for the 2011 season, and today four of us set out to see how the conditions actually are up there. The Bellingham Herald featured an article this weekend stating "Plenty of Snow in Cascades Means Shorter Hiking Season." This definitely was NOT what we have been hoping to hear. If you read the article, you'll find that the cool and wet spring, along with lots of late-season snow, means that Artist Point, a very popular place to begin our hikes, will possibly not open for the season -- at all.

This is the road to Artist Point, which stops at the ski area parking lot. We made jokes along the lines of "just gun it, Al, let's see how far we can plow through." Um-hmm. Not very far. We slapped on our snowshoes at the ski area parking lot and set out for Huntoon Point, two miles away from here and a little higher in elevation than Artist Point. The snow was slushy, a little like sno-cone consistency, but it was in the fifties, even without any sign of the sun.

As you can see from our clothing and the sunglasses, it was actually quite toasty and the reflected light off the snow caused me to come home with a sunburned face, and summer's sunlight at 5,000 feet warmed us through the heavy clouds. There is usually an astounding vista here, but we didn't see it at all. This was the best I saw, and I had to capture quickly before it disappeared again.

It almost looks like a black-and-white picture, the colors were so washed out with the sky being almost the same color as the snow. The day was calm and relatively warm, so once we reached Huntoon Point we had lunch and then headed back down to the car. The feeling of the day was a little surreal, with such a monochrome landscape. It was only broken by the colors we added ourselves.

Although it's hard to believe, you are looking at both sky and snow as Mike and Fred make their way across the snowy terrain. Snowshoes make a four-mile hike feel like we went twice as far, but it was still a lovely day, with the four of us deciding to check out Hannegan Road on our way back down to Bellingham. Once we left the High Country and got down below 3,000 feet, the greenery exploded and I just had to take this picture of a trillium almost past its peak. The three petals and three leaves show why this flower and its beautiful leaves celebrate THREE in its name.

So all in all, it was a good day, and I'm looking for something to put on my pink cheeks to help them recover from all that indirect sunshine!
:-)

{Summer Time} Idea Container

Now that our kids are out of school we can have some Summer Time Fun.

Even though we will have the lazy days of summer, we still need some consistency. I'm going to refer back to the the schedule I made last year but add the twist of more outdoor games. I want us to enjoy the beauty of the sun & nature.


We bought this container(at a local restaurant supply store) for our concession business but haven't had a need for it lately so I'm putting it to good use. The lid is labeled with the days of the week(with stickers).


I thought it would be fun to have ideas for each day (except Sunday) where we could play different types of games. The idea categories. . .
Monday- Games with Round objects (balls/balloons & beanbags)
Tuesday- Games with water

Wednesday- Games with recycled items
Thursday- Games in nature (park/birdfeeders,etc...)
Friday- Games with a race
Saturday- Games on the sidewalk(chalk) & flashlight games

I will try to post any of these game ideas I do but most of them come from Family Fun Magazine.

Simple Message

I know this is Message is Super Simple but for Father's Day this was my husbands surprise for breakfast. I used the squeeze bottles to do the ketchup one & a knife to do the jam one.

Singin' in the rain

No, not me. I was grumbling about the rain this morning, not singing. I woke to the sound of it drumming on the roof, which is never a good sign on a Saturday when I'm thinking about going out with the Fairhaven Walkers. Nope, I've been soaked on too many of those walks to be happy about walking in the wetness. But if you ask me, this beautiful flower, taken this morning at the Farmers' Market, was definitely happy. The delicate purple edges (its name is something that begins with a C, but I just can't remember, although I asked the vendor) were so light as to almost be invisible.

After giving up on the walk, the first bus to town goes by at 9:50 am, so I ambled to the bus stop since the rain had dwindled to what was called "light rain mist" on my weather blog. For those of you interested, the temperature outside right now is 54 degrees F, and yesterday's maximum was 66. Our all-time record for the date was 87 in 1958, and I don't think we need to worry about setting records any time soon. We are continuing with our cooler-than-normal temperatures accompanied by rain. At least these days are broken now and then by sunnier and warmer temperatures than we are having today.

There were no crowds at the Market today, either, as you can see from the grey, wet and rather empty sidewalks. But by the time I left the market, the rain had stopped. Although there is no sunshine yet, it's amazing how much my mood lifted once the rain let up. Then it was time for the lap swimming to begin over at the Y's pool, so I went in and swam more than a half mile, in a lane all by myself. By the time I went to catch the bus home, I was smiling and would have been singin' in the rain... if there was any left.

I stopped by the bookstore and picked up The Help by Kathryn Stockett. Everyone who has read it tells me I'll love it, so now I'll have some lunch and snuggle into my recliner and read, while the birds sing outside.
:-)

Excelsior Pass attempt

I was so happy that finally, mid-June, the Senior Trailblazers would leave the Chuckanuts behind and drive up the Mt. Baker Highway to check out Excelsior Pass. Ken Wilcox, in "Hiking Whatcom County," gave this description of the hike:

There are two approaches to this extensive alpine ridge. ... Both lead to exceptional meadows and good views of Mt. Baker, the North Cascades, and peaks of the B.C. coastal range. ... Note that the snow on north-facing slopes takes longer to melt, which means the longer south route may be mostly snow free several weeks earlier than the north.

Well, ten of us headed up the highway to try out the longer south-facing route. This is what it looked like for a couple of miles, lots of green and really lovely, other than the fact that the sun didn't shine on us all day. No matter, it wasn't raining, which is always a plus. The hike begins at an altitude of 1,850 feet, and we didn't run into snow until we had trekked to right around 3,700 feet.

You can see the trail is becoming obscured by snow, but we figured we could get quite a bit higher, using Al's GPS tracking device to stay on or near the trail. However, by the time we reached 4,200 feet, the trail began to be less and less visible. We tried to break through some of the more dangerous looking snow, in order to make it safer for others, as well as for us on our return journey.

Here is Al breaking through the snow to the trail, but it wasn't long before the trail was only visible by pink streamers that had been placed by some intrepid hikers who went out some time before us and made it all the way to the ridge, I'll bet. By the time noon rolled around, we were still 900 feet from the top, because hiking through snow is slow going, and we made a decision to have lunch and decide what to do afterwards.

If you enlarge this picture, you can see the pink marker that was our only indication of a way to the ridge. As you might have guessed, once we had our lunch break, we decided to head back down through the snow to the trailhead and our cars. Fortunately we were able to follow our own tracks and were never in any danger of getting lost. I saw this really beautiful moss-covered rock on our way back down, with ferns strategically placed as if positioned by a guiding hand.

What amazes me is how everything grows so profusely in this part of the world. The rain helps, of course, and the low altitude, but I am constantly astonished at the beauty I am able to appreciate every single time we hike into the wilderness. Not to mention being in the company of good friends who are always filled with the same pleasure and joy that I feel when being together in the wilderness.

We covered only 5.5 miles and 2,600 feet in elevation gain and loss. We did agree that the snow for the second half of the hike made it seem twice as long. We didn't really have an incentive to make it all the way to the top, since the clouds would obscure any possible view. It really didn't make or break our hike; it has been a good day. Thanks for sharing it with me.
:-)