Spring Blossoms

Living in the middle of an orchard in the Springtime, there is always something to see in bloom.

Here are just a few of the flowering beauties that caught my eye this week.

Spring Equinox Snow

Yesterday morning, much to our surprise, we woke up to a Spring Equinox snow. The ground was covered in a good four inches, and it just kept coming down. School was cancelled, so I decided it was a good morning to hunker down and make a waffle breakfast.

Upon looking out the front door, the kids discovered gifts from the Spring faeries in a basket, including lettuce seeds, hardboiled quail eggs and homemade chocolate bunnies.

I checked on the garden, and found it all tucked in under a thick white blanket.

I couldn't help but venture out barefoot on the balcony, and run back in to stick my feet in front of the woodstove.

Snowmen were built and much fun was had crunching through the snowy morning.

I got busy at my work table and finished these handmade birds nests for my Etsy shop: http://www.mountainhearth.etsy.com/

And, speaking of nests and eggs, here's another Spring project I've been working on. I made these chocolate eggs from scratch with wildcrafted Bolivian cocoa beans and sprinkled them with lavender and alder smoked sea salt. Pure deliciousness.

Happy Spring to All!

One Grain of Sand: One Mother's Musings at the Oregon Dunes

With Winter nearly over, I finally managed to find time to head out for one of my yearly off-season yurt camping excursions to the Oregon Coast. Although these cold weather sojourns to the rugged stretch of coastline around Washburne State Park have become an annual occurrence for our family, and often something we do several times in a Winter camping season, this year was different because it was my first camping trip with my kids, on my own as a single parent. My son and daughter each invited along a good friend, and with the car laden down with gear, good food, bicycles, dolls and foam coated bopper "swords", we headed off for adventure. I must say that everything took a little longer heading out than I had planned, but finally by late afternoon we made it out to the coast and stopped at one of our favorite sand dune areas by Baker Beach just north of Florence. We had a break in the rain that was very well timed with our arrival, and everyone had a lot of energy to burn off after our rainy car ride across the Coast Range, so running up and down large hills and valleys of sand sounded like a good idea to all.

It wasn't long before I had a pair of sand burrowing wombats and dune warriors on my hands. It's a landscape that begs the imagination to run wild in imaginary play. I even found myself kicking off my boots and scampering around barefoot, marvelling at all the different textures and formations of sand and making patterns with my footprints.

Maybe it's the open, expansiveness of the dune landscape, but one can't help but feel very small when traversing these rolling hills of sand. After so many camping trips as a family and with groups of friends, I found myself really noticing that it felt different to be the only adult leading this group of children on an adventure. It was a lot of fun, and certainly rejuvenating to be out in nature, but still it just felt different. It's something that will take some getting used to on my part.

Out of all the adventures I've been on, none even come close to the adventure of parenting. It's a constant learning experience, filled with change and constant shifting, not unlike the moving hills of sand always forming and re-forming in the wind and rain. While we were roaming around the dunes, and I was pondering how small and humble I felt in the universe, I thought of this Pete Seeger song I often listened to with my kids when they were little called "One Grain of Sand." When I went to look up the lyrics, they really spoke to me in a whole new way. A most fitting song for this time in my life.

One Grain of Sand

"One grain of sand,

One grain of sand in all the world.

One grain of sand,

One little boy, one little girl.

One grain of sand,

One little star up in the sky.

One grain of sand,

One little you, one little I.

One grain of sand,

One drop of water in the sea.

One grain of sand,

One little you, one little me.

One grain of sand,

One leaf of grass--on a windy plain.

One grain of sand,

We come and go again and again, again.

I love you so,

I love you so, I love you so.

I love you so,

More than you will ever, ever, ever, ever, ever know.

One grain of sand,

One little snowflake lost in the swirling storm.

One grain of sand,

I'll hold you alone and keep you warm.

One grain of sand,

One grain of sand on an endless shore.

One grain of sand,

One little life, who'd ask for more.

One grain of sand,

One grain of sand, one grain of sand,

One grain of sand,

One grain of sand, one grain of sand,

One grain of sand,

One little star up in the blue.

One grain of sand,

One little me, one little you."

~Pete Seeger

 

Soak it up!

One of the things I have found to be true in life is that there is nothing quite so refreshing and rejuvenation as hot water on a cold day. In the interest of seeking out this experience for a winter adventure, my daughter and I went with some friends to one of our favorite hot spots, Breitenbush Hotsprings. Normally, I like my hotsprings very remote and un-populated, but for winter accessibility and the appeal of warm, dry lodging and hot meals it's a minimally developed locale I truly enjoy. If you've never been there before, their website is a good place to get a little tour: http://breitenbush.com/  We went in search of snow, figuring that our odds were very good in February at such a high elevation in the Cascade Mountain Range, and in our optimism, brought along snowshoes we rented from a local outdoor store. Upon arrival, we were greeted by many good sized patches of snow, and enough covering some of the roads to make for good snowshoe trails. The sunny skies and periodic warm Chinook winds on our first full day there made the forecast of snow seem doubtful, but our expectations were met well enough, so there was no fretting. Just lots of soaking.

After much soaking, hiking, stargazing and snowshoeing, we woke up on our second morning in the cozy little cabin (kept nice and toasty with geothermal heat) to a thick layer of snow covering the ground and plenty more falling from the sky. I felt like a little kid waking up on a snow day watching all that snow coming down outside the windows in the early morning light. It was quite magical.

Every tree, shrub and lichen was covered with a stately white mantle of snow...

As were our hair, noses and eyelashes.

We made the short trek past the lodge to the pools listening to our boots crunching through the thick, new snow.

We spent the morning enjoying the geothermal wonderland, soaking in the warm pools with big fluffy snowflakes swirling all around, landing in our hair and disappearing on the surface of the water.

By this point, I was feeling very resistant to the idea of ever leaving, but after my attempt to stay an extra night was thwarted by the news of full occupancy with no open cabins left, I supposed it was a good idea to drive down out of the mountains before even more snow accumulated. After another delicious hot meal in the lodge, we reluctantly headed out that afternoon for our slow journey through the snow down out of the mountains. Before leaving, I made one last visit to the hot-spring heated sauna (which I had all to myself) broken up in the middle by a quick jump into a pile of snow. It was delightful. I left feeling like I had soaked up all the relaxation and rejuvenation I possibly could for the time being, and decided that I just need more hotspring trips in my life. And a few more snow days.