Beyond the Hall of Mosses: Backpacking the Hoh River

Growing up with the Olympic National Park in my backyard meant that I spent my childhood getting to know all the local rivers and their hiking trails. The Dungeness, the Greywolf, the Elwha, the Soleduc, the Bogachiel, the Hoh, and the Queets became these living, breathing places that I regard as fondly as old friends.  Since having children of my own, I think we've done too much moving around for them to get to really know a place like that. We have now lived in this area for a few years, and are beginning to put down roots a little more deeply, so they may still develop that kind of connection with our local area. After hearing all my tales of the temperate rainforests of the Olympic Peninsula, my kids were very intrigued by the idea of giant ancient trees, so I decided it was high time they saw the Hoh Rainforest and the Hall of Mosses.

In June, we travelled up to visit my parents and spend a weekend backpacking up the Hoh. This was a real treat, since I realized I hadn't been backpacking with my parents in years! If you're ever visiting the peninsula, it's a great trail to take children backpacking on. It's very flat, with little elevation gain for the first ten miles or so, and the trail follows the river with numerous gravel bars where you can stop to camp or just splash around and rest. Before we set out, we had to take the kids on the little Hall of Mosses loop trail. They were not disappointed by those giant old trees. When I was younger, I would have passed it by, writing it off as the place all the tourists go, but to my kids, it was absolutely magical. Really, with a name like the Hall of Mosses, how could it not be?

It's pretty amazing, when you think about it, how these forests grow. The trees start out as the tiniest seedlings and grow into these towering giants. My kids, being the little naturalists they are, were very interested in the forest ecology of the Hoh Rainforest. What a great first-hand teaching opportunity!

The temperate rainforests of the Pacific Northwest coast are populated with abundant nurse logs. This occurs when an old tree falls over and begins to decay, sharing nutrients with tiny tree seedlings that take hold and grow on them among the mosses. As the new trees grow and send their roots downward to the soil, the old nurse log eventually rots away, leaving strange looking trees with legs growing all in a straight row.

 

The trees take on these amazing forms and look very much alive, like Ents walking along through the forest.

Sometimes you just have to stop and contemplate the life of a tree.

                                                                               

It's a bit humbling to hike amongst all those enormous old hemlock, maple and spruce. You can't help but notice how tiny we are in comparison.

As I hiked along, I caught a beautiful glimpse of Mt. Tom through the trees.

Listening to grandpa tell his famous trail stories is always a good time.

One can't help but notice all the fungus among us!

We were excited to spy a herd of elk munching grass on this river bar. They seemed used to people with all the hiking traffic that trail gets, so they didn't pay us much mind and kept right on grazing.

Elk sausages roasted over the open campfire made a delicious meal at the end of the day. ( Not to be associated with the elk herd spied a few hours before. We're not that impressive of survivalists, plus that would break numerous laws and regulations in the park. These sausages are from my dad's annual Idaho elk hunting trip.)

We camped out on a sandy river bar by a quiet side channel where the kids could splash around. I remember hiking trips from my childhood wading along those gravel bars, and playing with my little brother. It feels really good to hike up a river in the direction of its source, and fall asleep at night lulled by the music of the river flowing by. To me it is a comforting sound. It's a sound of home. I'm sure if one listened closely enough, they could distinguish the sound of one river from another. I hope that when my kids are grown they will be able to go back to some rivers and streams they consider old friends, and hear sounds of home in the water flowing by.

When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Go Swimming

It's shaping up to be one busy summer. Between teaching pioneer summer camps, tending that enormous garden we planted in the Spring, hand watering for up to six hours at a time, and sometimes canning jam, I've been feeling plum worn out. As I stand out there watering in the dark some late evenings, I contemplate how it is that we moved out to the country for a different pace of life, but somehow this pace of life is seeming faster. When it comes down to it, all I want out of the summertime is slow mornings at home working in the garden, clothes drying on the line, lunches picked right out of the garden, and lots of swimming in the creek. Last week I decided that it was long past time for our family to acquaint ourselves with some good local swimming holes. We didn't officially move out here from town until the end of last summer, so we're still new to the local area. But, where to go? The reservoir is a little funky and has concrete and goose poop along the shore, not to mention it catches all the stormwater runoff for the entire city of Eugene. Ack! We're only a half mile from a slow, muddy river, but our attempt to swim there one afternoon was thwarted by a dark cloud of mosquitoes like nothing I had ever seen. It was really bad. To be fair, I'm somewhat of a swimming hole snob. In all of my road trips and travels around the rivers and watersheds of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana , I have experienced some swimming hole excellence, resulting in lofty swimming hole ideals.

We decided to get out our Oregon Gazeteer topo-map, and explore the nearby watersheds in the coast range. We had luck! We found warm, lazy swimming holes, shady creeks with inviting pools to explore, sandy beaches, and big flat rocks. Jackpot!

We splashed, we played, we intertubed, and we just lay in the water and enjoyed relief from the sweltering heat of July. I realized we'd been working way too hard, and need to fit a lot more creek swimming into our lives. After all, isn't that what summer memories are made up of?

I came across this cantankerous critter hanging out in the shallows in the morning sun. He was one enormous crawdaddy, and with visions of delicious stew for dinner, I grabbed him without really thinking it through. I didn't think he could pinch all that hard, but I was so very wrong. He hung onto my finger for dear life, and drew blood! I decided that was that, and he was dinner for sure.

However, it was his lucky day. After finding none of his friends (he must have told them we were planning on crawdad stew), we decided that a one crustacean meal was a little thin, so we let him go. It did get me thinking about finding or making a crawdad trap, though. This crawdad and I may meet again, and next time he won't be so lucky!

I couldn't be more pleased with my new discovery. It's so much easier getting through a long, hot day knowing that a cool, refreshing swimming spot is waiting for you. I'm also excited by the prospect of exploring all those little tributary creeks and forks of the river. Oh, the adventures! 

Nothing slows life down like a dip in the creek.

Got Wood?

We've got wood! And for this, I am feeling very grateful. I really can't take any credit for it, and my husband is due some serious thanks for keeping us warm this coming winter. One of the first projects we took on after moving into our house last year was installing a good, sturdy Jotul woodstove. We had always wanted wood heat, and the house had no other heat system in place, so it pushed us to realize that long standing dream. We bought our firewood right after moving in, knowing we wouldn't have enough time to go out and cut it ourselves, but also knowing it would be a luxury outside of our budget over the long run. Like so many other things, we would need to do it ourselves. Somehow, during this busy first year on our little farm, we knew that having wood heat meant we would need to produce some firewood before the end of the summer.

In the early Spring, a neighbor who works at the mill hooked us up with a cheap pile of rough logs. With the foul weather and all the busy goings on of life, the pile stayed in our driveway for a very long time. The kids decided it was a great jumping off point for their rope swing. The sight of it became very familiar. We ought to have given it a name. Log mountain, perhaps?

When the rain stopped, my husband got out there with a chainsaw and began sawing up sections of the logs. It looked to me like a monumental undertaking, but before long, there were many log rounds where "log mountain" once stood. Who ever said a determined man couldn't take down a mountain?

Then he got out there with an axe and started splitting the logs into firewood. He didn't use a splitter. He did it all himself. Our son even helped a little. Before long, we had piles of firewood in our driveway.

Then he started filling one end of the barn with wood. He stacked it up higher and higher, until the barn was  looking nice and full.

It is a good feeling, indeed, to know that we have heat for the winter squared away. No expensive heating bills, no having to rush out to buy overpriced cords of wood at the last minute, just a big pile of neatly stacked wood in our barn.

I'm looking forward to many a long Winter's evening by the warm, crackling fire in our woodstove.

(I think the dogs are too!)

A Good Foundation Lasts Forever

As many of my readers may know by now, I am in love with old homesteads. There is something captivating about coming across the remnants of someone's hard work and dreams from days long gone by. I always wonder who they were and what their life must have been like. Did they sit on these front steps at the end of a long, hard day's work and dream about all the possibilities of their land?

I went back to visit the original homestead that sparked this fascination. Up in the foothills of the Olympic Mountains near where I grew up, I discovered this grassy valley when I was about eighteen. Signs of the home that was once here are everywhere you look. Old lilacs, fruit trees, fallen-down fences, masonry walls with ivy trailing over, an overgrown driveway, and the stone foundation and front steps of a house long ago burned to the ground. Some fairly good sized Douglas-fir trees grow right out of the middle of where the house once stood. My friends and I spent many an afternoon sitting on the stone steps of the foundation and dreaming up big plans to somehow purchase the property and make our own homestead community.

Eighteen-year-olds can dream up some pretty grand dreams, and somehow our plans never materialized, but every time I go back to this spot, I can't help wishing it were my homestead. The air smells of warm evergreen boughs and pitch on hot summer days, the tall grasses ripple in the wind through the valley, and all you can hear are the songs of birds and wind in the trees. One of my original homestead dreaming friends and I went up there with our kids a few weeks ago, and the dreaming caught on like wildfire. Pretty soon the kids had plans for an old-style Inn, a hostel for WOOFers to come work on our organic farm, and a waterwheel powered grain mill. My friend and I were talking about a mountain brewery and pub. It was a lovely afternoon with our feet in the fields and our heads in the clouds!

The valley

Old fence and the overgrown driveway

You find places like these way up in the hills where the pavement ends

Ancient fruit trees

Thena harvests fir tips for her delicious homebrewed beer

The shady pond with willow trees

Homestead mint

Stone walls and ivy

Drinking cool, clear water from the artisan spring that gushes out of  the ground all year round

There's nothing like homestead dreaming with your friends on a long summer's day.

A Canner's Inheritance

My Grandmother recently gifted me a box of my Great Grandmother's canning jars. Many of them are the old blue glass with rubber sealing rings or glass with metal clasps over the top. They were so beautiful that I couldn't resist sharing them here.

"Ideal"

"Improved Gem: Made in Canada" These jars must have travelled with my great grandmother from the old family farm in Alberta.

 

Just look at that glass lid!

 

This one was the treasure of them all. It reads "Buffalo Lithia Water" and has a glass stopper for the top.

I can't help imagining all the good things these jars have held over the years and all the family meals where they filled everyone's bellies. What a wonderful inheritance to have handed down to me!

An Interview With Taryn Kae Wilson, Modern Homesteader of the Siuslaw River

Taryn Wilson, and her husband Jeff are some folks you ought to know. They are artists, modern homesteaders, masters of simple living, a well of joy and inspiration, and two people I feel very lucky to call friends. I am happy to introduce you to them with this interview. I met Taryn at their Eugene Saturday Market booth, Mystic Orb, and was drawn in by all of Jeff's amazing bone and wood carvings and their bright smiles. Then I discovered Taryn's blog, Wooly Moss Roots, and knew that we were meant to be friends. Through her soulful writing and photography, she invites you in to share in the appreciation of all the beauty and honest hard work of homesteading life.  Their motto is "Feed the Joy" and this is visible in everything they do, spreading out in ripples around their lives. Their joy is contagious!

From Taryn, I have learned a lot about following dreams, delicious food, cultivating joy, creating abundance, raising goats, and finding gratitude every day for all the good things in life. So, here is the interview. Prepare to be inspired!

1. Tell us about the daily life of artists and country homesteaders. What does a typical day look like? How does it change with the seasons?

Our daily life is a blend of homesteading and creating for our business. We are constantly balancing these two things. What's so nice about working from home is that our schedule is flexible so it flows smoothly with the seasons.

A typical day starts with a hearty breakfast. Then milking our goats, making goat cheese and kefir, gathering eggs, caring for the animals (feeding, trimming hooves), watering the garden and harvesting, cooking and culturing foods, hanging clothes to dry, Jeff carving and creating in his workshop, and me loading new items on our online etsy store.

Depending on the season other daily additions may be fires in the woodstove, cutting and hauling firewood, harvesting at local farms, and planting, weeding and spending lots of time in the garden.

On a weekly basis, we sell our artwork at Eugene Saturday Market. Typically, we take one trip to town a week (besides our market day) to run errands. The rest of the time, we like to focus our energy at home.

Daily life is a lot of work, but it's filled with things that we love, so working hard is a joy.

2. Share the story of your homestead on the Siuslaw. How did you come to be there? What are some of the things you have done there? What are your dreams for the future?

Jeff has lived here longer than I have. We were both drawn here strongly. Once we met, we were like magnets and we've been here together ever since. This land is our favorite place on earth. When they say "there's no place like home", it truly feels that way for us.

It's so much fun to think about all the projects we've done here together. Working so hard around here towards shared goals has made us a very strong team.

Firstly was a lot of clearing and hauling out of excess stuff that had accumulated over the years. We cleared off the land and cleared out the house. We cleaned and organized like crazy. Then we built a small coldframe in the garden with recycled windows and raised plant beds throughout the garden with bricks we got for really cheap from our neighbor. We painted almost every room in the house and textured the walls in the entire upstairs. We tore out the old ceiling in the music room and put up recycled cedar barnwood boards. Then we built a large woodshed with wood we sustainably harvested from this land and recycled materials. We built a greenhouse with recycled windows and a goat barn. We refurbished an old building into a chicken coop (and tore down the old one.) We put up fencing for a chicken yard, goat yard, and large garden area. We've done a lot of landscaping. Those are just a few of the things we've done, there have been a lot of wonderful changes!

We have lots of dreams for the future. We dream of planting a huge blueberry patch. We also want to plant grapes. We would like to start raising honeybees again someday and we'd like to get some ducks for slug control. We have an old greenhouse we want to tear down, arbors we want to built, and much more landscaping we want to do. Jeff dreams of having a solar powered water pump so we can pump all the water from our well with renewable energy. We dream of being off grid and we dream of building our own eco-friendly home and recycling the parts from this one. It's so fun to dream and to create them one day at a time!

3. Tell us about the art that you and Jeff create. What is the Saturday Market vending experience like?

Jeff and I both love artwork and love to create things with our hands. I am not currently selling any of my artwork, I just do it from time to time for fun. My favorite art forms these days are needle felting with wool and drawing. Jeff creates artwork for our business, Mystic Orb. I help him when it comes to the writing on the signs, designs and different things like that. I like to think that he has a magical workshop and I am a little elf helper.

Jeff creates artwork with all natural materials- wood, stone, antler, feathers etc. He makes necklaces, earrings, spoons, buttons, signs, journals, pipes, walking sticks and anything else he happens to come up with that day.

We love having a booth at the Saturday Market. It keeps getting more and more fun all the time. In the beginning, we hardly knew anyone, but over time we have made so many friends and the market continues to become a more colorful experience all the time. Being a part of the market is being a part of a wonderful community. There is so much trading and bartering, connection, creativity, collaboration, inspiration and soul!

Doing the market is also a lot of work. I admire everyone who sells there because I now understand firsthand all the hard work involved. Creating your stock, setting up your booth, tearing it down, constantly changing your display, pricing... It is all so worth it to work for yourself! At the market, you are not only the maker, but you are also the seller. Jeff and I both love people and we love talking with everyone who comes by our booth. It's fun when people return because they know what a friendly place it is.

4. What do you do to live simply and lightly on the earth?

There's a lot of little things we do.

We hang our clothes to dry- in the winter by the woodstove, in the summer outside on the line. We hand wash our dishes and let them air dry. We organize our trips to town so we drive as little as possible. We grow and produce a lot of food on this land- vegetables, fruit, eggs and goat milk. We constantly buy more of our food from local farms. We bring our own water with us when we leave the house. We use cloth bags for groceries. We cook most of our meals at home. We use a hand lawnmower to mow our grass (or let the animals graze.) We use recycled materials for building projects. We cut up old t-shirts with holes and turn them into rags for cleaning. Most of the wood we use for our business is local and sustainably harvested or reclaimed.

We are constantly coming up with new ideas for living in a more environmentally friendly way. We know many people with this similar passion and get lots of ideas from them as well. (people like Lara!) :)

5. What inspires you most?

There are so many things in life that inspire me. One of the things that inspires me most is being in nature. I feel the most alive when I'm outside. Also, other people who shine their light and live from their hearts inspire me. Bright colors inspire me. Good food inspires me. Seeing people's faces light up with joy inspires me. Music inspires me. (looks like I could keep going and going.) Life inspires me!

6. Give us a peek into your kitchen. What are your favorite things to cook? Tell us about the role and soul of food in your lives. Your favorite farms?

Our kitchen is alive with experiments and new creations all the time. If you peeked into our kitchen you might see- goat cheese hanging from a peg, dripping yellow whey into a bowl. Goat's milk kefir fermenting in the corner. Jeff's latest batch of sauerkraut and pickles, growing tastier by the day. Beans and grains soaking or cooking away on the stove. Nutrient dense bone broth brewing in the crockpot. Herbs from the garden hanging to dry. Effervescent, fermented drinks (kombucha and water kefir) ready to drink on a hot day. Colanders of brightly colored garden produce about to be washed in the sink. Flats of berries we've picked at local farms, waiting to be frozen, fermented, dried or canned. A basket of eggs from our happy hens.

We love our kitchen to be a colorful place filled with savory scents. Food plays a big role in our life, so many of our homesteading activities revolve around it. We put a lot of time and energy into producing food on this land and we love to harvest food from local farms. When it comes to food, we like to eat foods close to their natural state. We love fresh foods with life force and we love fermenting foods. This is what makes our bodies feel alive, healthy and full of vitality. This is how we like to feel. I've found that eating locally, with the seasons, makes you enjoy and appreciate what you're eating so much more.

Our favorite farm for local meat is Deck Family Farm. We love their down-to-earth family and their wide range of healthy, pastured and grass-fed meats.

7. What are some of your plans and dreams for starting your family on your homestead? What things about raising children are you most looking forward to?

I am pregnant for the first time and loving every moment. This will be my husband Jeff's second child. For most of his life he had multiple jobs outside of the home. We absolutely love being able to work from home now. This is one of the things that we are looking forward to the most- that we will both be able to be home to raise our baby. We are living the life we love and it feels great. We're grateful to share this life we love so much with our baby. We are happy to be able to raise this baby in the country and provide space to run, play and explore. We want our child to have a close connection with nature. We want to feed our child nutritious food so they will grow healthy and happy.

I am looking forward to being reminded of the joys of being a child. When I was a kid I found so much joy in my imagination and playing. I enjoy bursts of this in adulthood, but know that having children around will bring this out even more. I love the way that children look at life and I feel this perspective with be so beneficial for mine.

I am looking forward to being a mom. I feel it will be the most sacred job I ever do.

8. Share some tips for cultivating a joyful life.

I've realized that being joyful is a choice. I've lived in misery and I've lived in bliss. The difference was what I chose to focus on and learning to live from my heart. When you let your divine spirit fully express itself, your joy will radiate! It's so simple- do what you love and your heart will be happy. Ask yourself- What do you love? Do these things often! They will make your Spirit happy!

Joy is based on gratitude. Be grateful for every little thing in your life and say thanks.

Every night, before I go to bed, I write down ten things I'm grateful for from that day. This has given me a new, refreshing perspective on life. I've realized how incredibly blessed I am and the more I notice, the more good things that come my way.

Be loving towards yourself so you will experience joy. Be loving towards your body. Take good care of yourself. Treat yourself like the sacred being that you are.

And feel free to let your light shine! The world needs it!

9. Describe your favorite outdoor places to visit and spend time in nature.

My first favorite place is this land. It feels like a power spot for me. This is where I rejuvenate and energize, where I feel grounded, rooted and balanced. This is the place where I feel the most like myself, the most connected. I love to be in the garden, I love to sit on the roots of the mossy maple tree and I like to gaze up in wonder at the majestic cedar. I enjoy hiking up the mountain behind our house with the dogs. There is a tree I like to stop at because it is always covered in sweet sap and I like to go and smell it every time I pass. I love picking huckleberries there and keeping my eyes peeled for chantrelles. I listen to the creaking tree in the forest and try to remember which one it is again. When I get to the top, I gaze at all the mountains around me and feel in awe of how beautiful the world is.

Other places I love to visit are all local. I love Sweet Creek Falls. It's such a magical place, filled with refreshing waterfall mist (heavenly on a hot day.) I love going to the ocean. I always feel so good at the ocean. I like to feel the sand on bare feet and dip my toes in the water. I like to lay on the warm earth and listen to the waves. There are also some favorite places along the Siuslaw River. One is a place I like to go, sit on the rocks and watch the river. The other is a favorite place for swimming. Sometimes tiny fish come and nibble on my toes which tickles like crazy.

But no matter where I go, I love being outside!

To visit Jeff and Taryn's online Etsy store, and see all the magical creations click here:

Mystic Orb Sacred Earth Talismans

And you can also read Jeff's writings and see his latest artwork at his blog: Mystic Orb