The sun came out to play!

Trapped inside all week long (with no window to see out of - poor me!) during a wonderful sunny break in the weather, we made sure to take full advantage over the weekend.  Saturday we headed out to OSU-managed McDonald Research Forest in Corvallis - one of my favorite places ever.  The parking area we started from, Oak Creek, is the most popular access point for the forest and, of course, many other Corvallis-ites had the same idea we did.  We planned to just enjoy a fairly leisurely hike, leaving water and snacks behind.  Turns out adventure was in store for us! 
To try to avoid other hikers we headed away from the more heavily traveled main road and ended up on an unmaintained mountain biking trail called South Side Slip.  Jay was an avid mountain biker in college and learned all of the "illegal" trails - no maintenance is done by the University, no signage exists.  The trail was a little more than I bargained for - very steep sections, but very pretty.  I huffed and puffed my way up and we landed on a gravel-covered logging road.  Turns out Jay knew from about halfway up the trail where we were headed - McCulloch Peak, the tallest point in McDonald forest.  The first time I made it to the top of McCulloch was the year after I graduated from OSU and I remember worrying about being able to get myself up the winding logging roads to the top.  McCulloch became a sometime destination on my then-frequent weekend hikes, but on this bright and beautiful February day I was introduced to a route I had never attempted before. 
We were now at a crossroads:  head down the logging roads and back to the car, head up the logging road to the actual peak, or cross the logging road and continue on the bike path that had gotten us to this point.  Hmm.....well, we made it this far and my legs/heart/lungs hadn't given out yet, so we went for option 3! 
Always trailing Jay and Shep, I stopped often to catch my breath.  The trail was so steep at times that I was literally using my fingertips to grip the dirt.  I would stop, see a tree ahead, then tell myself I just had to get to that tree, then the next, etc.  Eventually we made it! 2178 feet up in the forest. Of course I didn't have a camera with me to commemorate (or water or snacks, for that matter!!) but I can assure you it was gorgeous. There was a nice retired couple up there who took a shorter route from a different starting point that we chatted with.  I kept wishing they would toss me part of their banana or a cap-full of water, but alas...no such thing.  But I survived to tell my tale and there will be more of those to come!

  Sunday we decided to head back to the forest to stretch our tired muscles. Jay brought his mountain bike with and has stories to tell of his explorations.  Shep and I played it safe and had a nice walk to Dimple Hill from the Lewisburg Saddle parking area in North Corvallis.  Yard chores were waiting for us when we got home but it was a great weekend!

Good eatin'

What's new in the dehydrator this week, you ask?  We made some tomato basil sauce and tried a recipe for pesto. Both of these turned out pretty good and when mixed together - even better!  Pizza and pasta toppings they became.  But then we had a hankering for some new snacks and decided to make some more crackers....voila!  Pesto crackers!  I think I like these the best so far.  We spread the mixture fairly thin onto the Teflex sheets that go with our dehydrator and then pop them in the unit!  It took a little more than 12 hours, but when I got home from work yesterday I had a tasty treat waiting!

Then last night we tried another new recipe - onion "bread".  3 pounds of sweet onion (we finally finished the bag of Walla Walla Sweets picked up last summer on the way back from our Snake River rafting trip), ground sesame and flax seeds, soy sauce/tamari, olive oil, and maybe one or two more things.  Jay took a break from the tough job of mixing to pose for the camera with our new handled mixing bowl (thanks, sis!) and the onion dough.  This mixture was spread a little thicker over two teflex sheets and it should take about 24 hours total.  Jay flipped the half-"cooked" bread this morning and it is looking good and smelling great! Can't wait to try it tonight!

Family Time

A few years ago my family began the tradition of celebrating Christmas after each new year. We based this decision on bad weather and difficult travel over the holidays, and the tradition continues! When exactly we get together has varied and this year we chose Valentine's Day weekend. It was so great to have my family together. My sister and I practiced making crochet flowers while my mom enjoyed her Grandma time with Karsyn and the men watched the Olympics.   We opened presents and relaxed!  Karsyn did a pretty good job of opening her gifts with a little assistance and promptly put most things in her mouth, including a new koala bear from Grandma T.

On Valentine's Day Jay and I stopped by his Grandma's house for a visit and to catch up before heading over to the east side of Portland to spend time with our friends Sarah and Greg and their 4 month old twin girls!  Sophia and Charlotte are just 5 days younger than Karsyn and it is great to get to watch these little ones growing!

More fun with food!

Just when you start to think that this juice/smoothie kick may be reaching its limit....we introduce more weirdness!  Add to our growing list of appliances a dehydrator and watch what happens!  Last Thursday our new Excalibur 5-tray dehydrator arrived and we had already prepared the main ingredients for our first test.  Drum roll........Juice Pulp Crackers!!!  I know you've been sitting there salivating over our blog posts about juice and soup and wondering to yourself, "Now what are those crazy kids going to DO with all of the byproduct from their juicing?"  Up until now we saved it in a 5-gallon bucket, then incorporated it into our composting barrels.  But now we can eat it instead!!!!  It's simple, really. Just follow along: All you need is 2 cups of juice pulp (we have about 200 cups, so you can borrow some if you don't have 2 full cups), 1/2 cup ground flax seed, a little water, and seasonings.  Vitamix it for a minute or so, spread it out on your dehydrator sheets or some parchment paper, and just 8 short hours later you have deliciously fibrous "crackers" that look like they may have come from your lawn mower bag.  But seriously, folks, they're not as bad as they sound!! 

Instead of watching the Super Bowl on Sunday - a lack of cable can do that to a person - we invited a few people over for board games and snacks.  To prepare for our hosting duties we whipped up some delicious hummus and salsa!  Jay feels that he is closer each time to perfecting his salsa recipe and he got rave reviews.  By the end of our game afternoon all of the dishes had been wiped clean - all the feedback we needed. 

For his day off yesterday, Jay got down and dirty with the slowly diminishing pile of sequoia rings in the backyard.  Mighty Man Jay has whittled the pile down to almost nothing!  If you're still anticipating a cold snap this year, come and take some of our finely chopped wood!!

And lastly, to close this super-post, we come full circle with food.  Youtube is a wondrous thing and from some fairly specific googling we were led to a video on preparing tomato crackers in a food dehydrator. 
Flax seed, fresh and sundried tomatoes, red bell pepper, lemon juice, garlic = ---------->

This is the before product....end product taste is akin to pizza!! Jealous?

Sweatin' Time

   Late last week I was invited to a free yoga class.  I haven't participated in a yoga class in about 3 years, and what little yoga I have done since then involved my sister's Wii Fit board.  The friend who invited me, Yvonne, has never participated in yoga so I agreed to give it a try and meet her at 11:30 on Saturday for Bikram Yoga.  Now, anyone who sees the word Bikram and has any sense of recognition may see where this is going.  Myself, well, I had heard the word before, but had no idea what I was in for.  I dug up my old yoga pants and dressed myself in a t-shirt, and headed over.  I instantly realized I was out of place when the lobby temperature was very warm, condensation was dripping down the window leading into the classroom, and every other person around was dressed in the equivalent of swimsuits.....this was hot, hot yoga. 
   After Yvonne arrived and we quickly discussed our lack of awareness of what "Bikram" yoga was, we snuck into class to try to hide in the back.  Being free meant it was packed, but after two minutes of being the spectacles of class, our instructor positioned us near the back corner of a large room that smelled like the brutally used and hot socks of a football player. 
   Our instructor led the class by talking, not showing, so I was able to exercise my sideways glancing trying to discern what some of the poses were meant to look like.  A few minutes in the sweat started coming...and there was no stopping it!  Did you know your fingernails can sweat?**  Although overdressed, I at least had followed instructions to bring a towel and water - every time we laid down I snuck in a quick face swipe. 
   Overall the class turned out to be pretty great!  I felt a little drained by the end of our 90 minutes, but proud that I made it through without stopping (unless you count falling out of balance every 3 seconds as stopping....)  I also have to admit that in a way I sort of cheated....a gentleman left through the back door early in our session and didn't replace the towel blocking the draft under the door, which happened to be about two feet away from my soaked self.  Every chance to lay in our "dead body pose" brought sweet relief from beyond the foggy barrier to coolness!  If I ever go again I just might have to tackle someone for that spot. 
**For everyone's benefit, I decided against posting a photo for this blog entry  :)

There's hope

Last month when Jay, Shep, and I took our trip to the coast, we stopped in historic Newport at the docks to walk around and, of course, had to stop to see the sea lions.  Shep was surely not a fan and Jay actually had to take Shep off the dock as Shep willingly pulled him along.  But before they walked away from me we all took note of one sea lion in particular: enter stage below.

A piece of something - plastic, wire, rope - was wrapped around the neck of this one sea lion. He/she seemed to be unfazed, but the material had been rubbing away at his neck for some time and a raw spot was visible. I immediately wished I had some extremely long-handled gardening shears to reach down, perhaps when this creature's eyes were closed, to cut through this neck trap and free him/her of this awful plight. And of course I thought to myself that somebody should be out there doing something - after all, Hatfield Marine Science Center is just across the bay and someone there would care, right?

Fast forward to today: tonight, while eating dinner (yep, blender-ed tortilla soup - you guessed it!) and browsing the local paper, this story caught my eye. http://shar.es/aNu7L I guess I don't see why there aren't any other creative means to removing this torture chamber of sorts, but I now understand why a tranquilizer dart won't help. I'm at least glad that I am not the only one who has noticed.

Now....some of you may know how devoted Jay and I are to recycling and composting and generally making efforts to reduce our impact where possible. And I'm not here to try to lecture anyone on their habits (or lack thereof), but I hope it's hard to shrug off the extra minute or two it takes to cut the plastic rings that hold soda cans together or come on milk/juice containers, or to tear apart the oodles of packaging materials that come with anything you purchase these days. And if you are STILL using plastic grocery bags, please give me a buzz and I will buy reusables and send or hand deliver them to you! It doesn't take much to make a little difference. If you care to see more results of lazy recycling practices, please google "Great Pacific Garbage Patch"; you will surely be shocked. (......cue curtain closing......)