Eugenious

October Fun!

Posted by julie on Saturday, 31 October 2009, 23:17

When we arrived at the Halloween party last night, Elena stepped from foot to foot, rocking back and forth in a little tap dance fueled by party energy. Then she twirled around, her Robin cape swirling with her. There would be no containing her excitement.

The Penguin and Robin, Boy Wonder arrive at the party.

“I’m Batman, I’m Batman,” chanted Sylvan whenever he donned his costume and was transformed into a superhero in the past two days. Sylvan’s Batman saves the world with a lot of running and darting and chanting. Trick or treating? Sure, okay, but first I’m going to run around this tree: “I’m Batman.”

I'm Batman!

Elena’s state of “go” wore her out; within three minutes of riding in the car to come home, she was asleep.

Boy Wonder crashes.

But we had another party tonight! More costumes, more people to love. AND, most exciting, walking from house to house to touch everyone’s pumpkins and climb everyone’s front steps. And, no, don’t even think about carrying me; I’m one, and I’m walking!

Robin and the Riddler.

Elena wasn’t the only Robin at tonight’s party.

Robin and Mini Me.

In other October news, Elena supported her Mommy’s team this fall with a Yankees rally cap. They lost that one, but things are looking good at the moment.

Go, Yankees! (Um, what's baseball?)

Our farm, as we call Winter Green Farm, from which we get all of our vegetables from June through November, hosted a fun, end of the summer season gathering earlier in October. Hay rides, pumpkin patch, cider press, pumpkin painting, potluck, live music. Sylvan spent most of his time throwing apples into the cider press, which is what he did last year, too. It is a fantastic machine, electric and loud, and it dribbles out the tastiest apple cider. No wonder he’s fascinated. He did branch out and paint a pumpkin, too.

Sylvan painting, with the cider press closeby in the background.

Sylvan painting, with the cider press nearby in the background.

Elena picked a great one, and her camouflage was perfect for the pumpkin patch.

Posted in the categories Uncategorized by julie on Saturday, 31 October 2009, 23:17| Comments Off on October Fun!

Clear Lake 2009

Posted by julie on Tuesday, 13 October 2009, 23:16

Sylvan as train on the boat ramp. Note the neon green kayak. What a gorgeous place to be in a boat on a fall day.

Sylvan as train on the boat ramp. Note the neon green kayak in the background. What a gorgeous place to be in a boat on a fall day.

Thanks to Chandra, we found our favorite fall destination three years ago. We ventured back to Clear Lake this year with two other families, both with 4-year-old sons and 1-year-old daughters (well, one’s 11 months).

The girls

The boys

We last visited two years ago, when Sylvan was half as old as he is now. He was a good hiker then, insisting on walking so much that we nearly ended our hike by headlamp. This time, he wasn’t nearly as gung ho, but he did walk four of the five and a half miles, really hitting his stride with about two miles to go. And the other two little guys walked even more than that. Even Elena walked a bit; we were so far behind the other two families due to our little boy dawdler (it wasn’t exploring, Grammas; it was dawdling) that I just let Elena walk for a while. She appreciated not being in the backpack; her brother, on the other hand, still likes being in the backpack.

For your viewing pleasure, a re-enactment:

Are you kidding? That water's 38 degrees. 2007.

I might hold a grudge this time. 2009.

Someone's not afraid of a little cold water. So unafraid that I had to pull her away kicking and screaming. Literally (and I know what that means).

"Mommy, I'm a big-horned cow."

Some natural history notes:

When you walk around the lake, it’s difficult not to notice that the vine maple leaves appear to be dependent on the amount of sunlight they receive for their autumn color. The leaves in the full sun are red, those in the dappled forest are peachy, and there are pockets of orange and yellow.

This samara left a yellow "shadow" on the leaf behind.

Chris has some animal notes to share. If life bogs him down and he hasn’t posted these within a few days, I’ll attempt to fill in.
Mount Washington sported some large, new patches of snow. I climbed it two weeks ago (trip report to come), and my partners and I only found some of last spring’s snow. But this autumn’s snow is nothing compared to that of two years ago. I just pulled up this photo of the Sisters from 2007, and they’re covered. Not so a few days ago. But it’s raining now. Not so much hard as convincingly.

Posted in the categories Friends, outdoors by julie on Tuesday, 13 October 2009, 23:16| 2 Comments »

Tea with John Muir

Posted by julie on Sunday, 4 October 2009, 0:29

Before tonight, I never knew how to answer the question that comes up in some games and quizzes: “With which historical figure would you most like to have a conversation?” But, after a phone call with my Dad and an e-mail from my Mom, in which they independently extolled the wonders of Ken Burns’s National Parks series on PBS (which you can watch online until October 9), I was sufficiently intrigued to make the show my companion as I cooked some potato-leek soup and prepped tomorrow morning’s breakfast, a puffed sliced apple dish (sounds good, doesn’t it? We’ll see how it goes.).

Not surprisingly, the National Parks footage is beautiful. How could it not be, with the “crown jewel” nature of the places that we Americans own together? Old photographs fill in some historical information in the 12-hour documentary, and a number of eloquent historians, authors, and park rangers share their thoughts and experiences.

I’ve only watched half of the first episode, The Scripture of Nature. I found myself near tears on a number of occasions. While I was, actually, chopping onions, it was, instead, the film’s declaration of ideas that stirred meâ€“of public ownership of this country’s most jaw-dropping places, places that more than one urban easterner in the 1880s just stood before, speechless, before writing of his religious experience there; of the contentious decision, later, to include in our National Park system those battlegrounds where blood was shed as this nation struggled.

John Muir, when he started working in the Yosemite Valley, built a cabin near the foot of Yosemite Falls with the floor’s flagstones just far enough apart that ferns could still grow. The moment I heard that, I knew how to answer that niggling question about with which historical person I’d like to chat. While I wouldn’t know what to ask John Muir, how to open a conversation, I would like to listen to his ideas, just hear him speak about the Sierra.

Of course, as we drank tea from the thermos, Mr. Muir would eat only crusts of bread as I lavished clotted cream on my scones. And he would still hike 50 miles in two days. That man was truly fueled by sequoias and granite.

Posted in the categories Julie by julie on Sunday, 4 October 2009, 0:29| 2 Comments »

They’re Bigger Every Day

Posted by julie on Friday, 2 October 2009, 10:58

For those of you who don’t get to see the little guys every day or even every week, here are a few photos so you can see how big they are:

Told you he was big. 36 years, 127 days today.

He started meditating soon after this was taken. Ah, those relaxing parachutes.

Elena hiking in the cemetery - and eating a roadkilled apple.

Posted in the categories Elena, Sylvan by julie on Friday, 2 October 2009, 10:58| 1 Comment »

Fire in the Sky

Posted by julie on Wednesday, 23 September 2009, 10:54

The green double jogger, parked in the backyard last night, has a coating of ash on it this morning, fine particles that crumble when I touch them. The air smells like fire, albeit relatively far-away fire, just a hint of smoke, like campfires on the next campground loop. While the western sky is nearly clear, the eastern sky hazes to white near the horizon. I looked up Oregon’s current forest fires when I noticed the flat orange sky yesterday afternoon. It looks like the Tumblebug is the nearest, so it’s probably the one coloring our skies; it’s burning southeast of Oakridge. (click on the northernmost fire icon, then on the fire’s name, the Tumblebug complex, to find information, updated daily, about the fire).

When I walked out and sniffed the air this morning, it quickly brought me back to my former life, when I was only responsible for ten screaming college students. In 2003, I instructed a course that crossed from the west side of northern Washingtonâ€™s North Cascades east across the Pasayten Wilderness, on the dry side of the mountains. This was my favorite course in five years of on-and-off working for the National Outdoor Leadership School: great co-instructor, fun student group, and, boy, what a beautiful and varied route. In late June, we launched into the cold, camping on thick, wet snow the first night. As we headed east, we crossed through many different bioregions, from west-side rainforests to mountain hemlock krummholz and passes above treeline, then into the grass and gravel of the Pasayten.

Our first views of the Pasayten fire, 2003

We hiked through much evidence of forest fire, both recent (within the last two years) and from the late 80s. At our second re-ration, the horsepacker gave us maps from our program supervisor for British Columbia’s Cathedral Park, our escape(!) if we couldn’t hike around or through the fire burning east of us, toward which we were walking. We supervised our students closely, making sure we knew where they were as they traveled without us during the last four days. A single ridge separated us from the conflagration in the end, as we awaited our pick-up at the trailhead. If the fire had come over the mountain, we were set to start walking, quickly, down along the gravel road out of the mountains. The nearest water was a mile back along the trail, a trickle.

The last night in the Pasayten

Posted in the categories outdoors by julie on Wednesday, 23 September 2009, 10:54| 1 Comment »

To Whet Your Birthday Appetite

Posted by julie on Saturday, 12 September 2009, 0:15

In anticipation of Sylvan’s big day tomorrow, his fourth birthday, here are some shots of him, on or near his birthday over the past five years.

All cleaned up and asleep in Aunt Jenn's arms after the difficult business of being born

First birthday: reading a birthday book

Second birthday: balloon madness

Third birthday: opening presents, eating pretzels

Nearly four: watching a wet parade last week

Chris, my sister Jenn, and I hiked up Mt. Pisgah the day before Sylvan was born. It was September 11, and I was silently grateful that my unborn child apparently wasn’t going to share a birthday with a tragedy whose date figures rather prominently whenever it’s mentioned, but I did want to spur things along. It was five days past my due date (a date Chris reminds me is arbitrary, since our human gestation time of 40 weeks was simply made up; he might tell you more about that if you ask nicely).

Sylvan Alexander Jones was born at 4:45 p.m. the following day. The blackberries, 2 mile steep uphill hike, corresponding 2 mile pounding downhill hike, and happy thoughts apparently did the trick. To commemorate this successful hike, I thought we’d hike up Mt. Pisgah the day before each of Sylvan’s birthdays. In true parental fashion, I managed to make that work for birthday #1. Birthday #2’s hike was a week and a half late, birthday #3’s didn’t happen at all, and #4? Well, Sylvan put the kibosh on it tonight. Maybe within the next few weeks? Here are some photos of the little Sylvan I could still easily carry up to the top.

Almost 1, looking through sculpture at top (and resembling Elena)

Just over 2, dropping rocks into the sculpture at the summit (and resembling a tiger)

Posted in the categories Birthday letters, Sylvan by julie on Saturday, 12 September 2009, 0:15| Comments Off on To Whet Your Birthday Appetite

Ice Cream Special

Posted by julie on Tuesday, 25 August 2009, 14:08

Mommy (at the playground, inquiring over the small counter about today’s specials): “What kinds of ice cream do you have today?”

Sylvan: “Today we have roller coaster ice cream.”

Mommy: “Really? What’s that like?”

Sylvan: “It goes around and around in your mouth.”

Of course.

9/11/09 update: When I recounted this story to Sylvan, he said, “That’s not what I said. I said it zooms into your mouth.”

Posted in the categories Sylvan Says by julie on Tuesday, 25 August 2009, 14:08| Comments Off on Ice Cream Special

Wind

Posted by julie on Monday, 24 August 2009, 0:36

I listened to the wind in the conifers on three consecutive days last week. And I noticed it. Hooray for small miracles of mindfulness.

Last Saturday, I had a good run on the Ridgeline Trail, enjoying how strong my out-of-shape body actually felt (hefting 22-pound babies counts for more than I give it credit for) but not enjoying the sharp, 2-3-inch crushed gravel on the new section of trail (no rock plates in my otherwise fantastic shoes equals sore feet). Wind in the Douglas firs.

Last Sunday, I climbed Diamond Peak, a solo hike that felt really tough for the first four miles. My body has always reacted strongly to a little altitude. I remember showing up at the Noble Hotel in Lander, Wyoming (elevation ca. 5350 ft.) for NOLS courses and sucking wind as I climbed the stairs, thinking, “How am I going to go out and heft a 60-pound pack around at 8000 feet?” Then, of course, there was the stroke, after I’d been up to 11,000 feet. Dehydration and my body’s goal of making more red blood cells to compensate for the difficulty in acquiring oxygen couldn’t have helped.

My body turned it around last Sunday, though, and the objectively difficult part of the climb, a steep, well-worn and heavily-cairned climbers’ trail with lots of scree and gravelly footing that gained the last 2300 feet to the summit, seemed much easier than the first four trail miles. After snapping a few pictures on the windy top, I had a late lunch back down at the false summit, all the while convincing a cheeky ground squirrel that I don’t share chocolate with rodents. There was no one else on the mountain on that sunny Sunday in mid-August. I saw two Pacific Crest Trail through-hikers that evening, back on the trail as I headed to the trailhead. I also surprised a long-tailed weasel, who skittered away up a log, looking back, then finding cover. Wind in the mountain hemlocks up high, then Douglas firs toward the trailhead. And, whew, the mosquitoes down near Summit Lake, on the Forest Service road I was walking on back to the car. I put on my raingear and RAN.

On the summit. Nice gaiters, NOLSie.

On Monday, Sylvan, Elena, and I hiked up the Amazon Headwaters Trail. Elena fell asleep, as planned. Sylvan, on his first apprentice-hike, preparing to climb Diamond Peak with me (when he’s 10? 11? I think he’s thinking this reward will be a little more immediate, but I’m happy to have him excited about hiking again.), powered uphill with nary a whine. The ripe blackberries helped. Wind in the Douglas firs.

Posted in the categories Julie, outdoors by julie on Monday, 24 August 2009, 0:36| Comments Off on Wind

Elena at 1

Posted by julie on Tuesday, 18 August 2009, 22:49

Dear Elena,

Ah, sure, apologies and all that for not writing you a birthday letter since May. Second children, blah, blah. I really do think there are more picture of you, second child, so don’t worry. I love you the purplest.

A short summary of your last few months:

June 24 (in Arlington, OR, at the playground): You stood by yourself, from crouching while hanging on to standing: “Look, Ma!”

Elena's first solo stand

Also that week we were camping: You started waving. Clapping too, I think. You also signed “more” once and “milk” twice. That’s it for the sign language. I mean, reaching and making whiny noises works so well.
You love waterfalls. The one we hiked to in the Wallowas made you smile.

Elena at the waterfall

You like tents. You enjoy burrowing into puffy sleeping bags and bouncing off the tent walls.

Late June: You realized that banging two objects together is pretty fun. And noisy.

Smiling on cue

July 12: You got your first tooth.
July 19: Second tooth. Now we’re feeding you filet mignon. Rare.
Late July: You started taking directions. You’ll “shake the water off” if Daddy asks you to, shaking your head “no.” And you notice when someone is leaving and saying good-bye; you wave to them, even with only the prompt of good-bye language.

July 27: You started walking, first taking a tentative three steps, as Gramma Mia and I looked on, not believing that Grampa had really only stepped out of the room for a moment. Within a couple of days, you were up to eleven steps, including stopping, crouching down, and picking up objects. Now you’re a toddler, definitely preferring walking to crawling. I’m not sure you realize yet that you’re allowed to bend your legs when you walk, so you really do toddle. I can’t even remember the last time you crawled (but it was probably yesterday. Please forgive me; I have two small children.).
You dig ice cream. It’s required in this family.

Within the past month, you’ve started to understand concepts that seem rather abstract to me. You’ll pick up my shoes, even Mary Janes with heels, shoes that don’t look anything like your shoes in color, type, or size, and you’ll try to put them on your feet. It’s the same with hats. You don’t have any baseball hats, but you’ll pick up my Yankees hat and place it on your head. And you’ll pick up anything with plentiful buttons on one side: old cell phones or remote controls, a calculator, (a cob of corn tonight; those are buttons, right?) and you’ll talk to your favorite person on it (Tephra?). Remember, too, that you live in a family where Daddy uses his cell phone for work, I don’t have a cell phone, and I spend perhaps an hour, total, on the land line each week.

Hip hip. That's what tigers say.

Yesterday, at the end of a hike with Sylvan on the Amazon Headwaters trail, we crossed a bridge with safety wires placed closely enough that I felt I could let you do your own thing. You crouched down, picked up some Oregon ash seeds, and tossed them over the edge. As you’ve done from nearly Day 1, you started exploring on your own, testing gravity in this case â€“ or at least having fun throwing stuff.
You have three words that I recognize: dog (daw), cat (a-dat), and door (doh).
You think the trampoline is great fun, but “how am I supposed to get off this thing?”
And I almost forgot: you’re using the potty! Okay, you’re using your diaper, too, but I just sat you on the potty last week, and you figured, “Oh, I know what this is for.” And, without fail thus far, you’ve delivered. Today, at your one-year exam (30th percentile for height, 75th for weight â€“ taking after Mommy), the doc essentially said, “Really? It seems too early.” I know, I know. And we have to get through the year of stubbornness and running away, but I’ll take using the potty instead of yucky diapers while I can.

From this to this in a year:

I love you, Elena, you and your sweet smile.

Love,
Mommy

Posted in the categories Birthday letters, Elena by julie on Tuesday, 18 August 2009, 22:49| Comments Off on Elena at 1

Look who’s 1 today! And still cute.

Posted by julie on Saturday, 15 August 2009, 16:09

This morning, we celebrated Elena’s birth with a small party in a park that has sand, water, community sand toys, and lots of kids who utilize such a great public space. I invited just a few families, all of whom have kids who are close in age to Elena and Sylvan. And I made a rockin’ cake (well, a few folks asked for the recipe, so I’ll take that as a good sign). And did you know that you can dye frosting with blueberries?