Before the Blood Moon Eclipse

I may or may not get up at 3:30 a.m. in order to see the widely-hyped eclipse (OK, if you’ve seen  one, you really haven’t seen them all) so here’s a preview this evening.

Ready, everyone?

A crackling good fire

A lot of country folks say that wood heat is the most comforting and satisfying kind.  I’m one of those folks.  From the magical childhood memories I have of summer campfires with s’mores, singing corny songs and the privilege of staying up late, to my days of serious cowboy cooking in the wilderness over an open fire that also kept you warm outdoors, I’ve developed an affinity for wood fires that still brings me solace and a quiet pleasure.  

For the last 40 years almost, we’ve had a woodstove in our house, and sometimes it was our only heat.  I especially remember our first Fisher Stove that sat in an alcove along the interior wall in the main room at our Oregon homestead.  It was so plain and utilitarian, it made our living room look like the cab of an old steam locomotive, but a steady, lasting warmth poured from that thing to heat the whole house.  Our last woodstove was a fancy Vermont Castings model that allowed either the visual pleasure of an open hearth or a closed, well regulated firebox that was pretty efficient.  You could build one fire, close ‘er up, adjust the vent and flue, and have heat all night.  In the morning, only ash remained.

Now we have a traditional masonry fireplace in our living room, complete with flagstone mantle and hearth and a glass fire door/screen, a’ la something from an old issue of Better Homes & Gardens, or maybe vintage Sunset magazine.  It’s such a stereotype of the “modern” home of the  ‘50’s or ‘60’s, I wouldn’t even be offended if you saw it and laughed.   But it offers great enjoyment to build a crackling good evening fire in its cavernous grotto, and then just sit and watch the flames, or maybe read a book and listen to the snap and pop of burning pitch.   Yeah, the fireplace is a whole lot less efficient that a good woodstove, it’s still messy, and the experience seems altogether like a throwback to days long ago,  But there’s nothing else quite like it on a cold winter night.

Halfway to . . . where?

I find it interesting to live almost exactly on the 45th parallel.  That’s the degree of latitude midway between the earth’s equator and the pole – – the north pole in my case.  Depending on which way you’re looking – – north or south, you’re halfway there.

Our actual latitude is a little shy of the magic line – – it’s 44 degrees, 18 minutes and 43.87 seconds North at my front door, according to Google Earth, but that’s pretty darn close.  The town of Halfway, Oregon , is even closer, just shy of 8 minutes of hitting the mark, as this thing is measured.  Shaniko, Oregon, about 50 miles north of us in a straight line, gets the jackpot, by  being just a few small seconds away from the actual line.  Shaniko once held fame as the “Wool Capital of the World.”   Apparently being on the 45th parallel didn’t count, ‘cause now it’s almost a ghost town.

But the idea of being right in the middle along the earth’s sloping curvature towards the geographic pole seems novel somehow.   After all, the planet spins around the pole points, and that’s quite a dance through the course of a year.  For one thing, due to the tilt of the planet’s axis, on the summer solstice at this latitude, the day is almost twice as long as it is in winter’s opposite.  Almost, but not quite.  Still, that’s a lot of variation, just at the middle.

I’ve been fortunate in life to have seen both the northern lights and the constellation called the Southern Cross, a major feature of the night sky in the southern hemisphere.  From those experiences I gained a real sense of the span of the earth.  It’s big.

So, living now on that invisible line halfway from the middle to the top – – well, almost – – provides a kind of tangible sense of scale to this place, and makes being here even more pleasurable.

Hunkered down

I’m used to living with the curtains swept aside and the windows open.  I’m learning it’s not wise to do that here, at least in winter.

Excepting western Colorado, most places I’ve lived before allowed, even encouraged, access to the light and warmth available in the outdoors, and so daily habits fostered the practice of opening windows and drawing the curtains to let that light come in.  Our last house in California easily lent itself to this habit because the family room had a whole wall of windows facing the southwest, and they picked up the afternoon light and warmth in a way that infused the kitchen and dining room as well, making for a well-lit, comfortable interior space where we did most of our “living.”

Now that we’re swimming in frigid Arctic air here in Barneyville, open windows can’t be considered. We deliberately close all the drapes and curtains as soon as the sun sets, to help keep the heat in. But even hunkered down against winter’s blast, it’s still comfortable and pleasant to enjoy our inside space. This home offers ample room, and rooms, to careen around in, so it doesn’t at all feel confined. So whether it’s with a good book next to the stove, a new recipe to try out in the kitchen, an episode of Downton Abbey on TV, or composing blog posts at the computer, winter’s harshest aspects can be held at bay. Right now, it feels good to be inside.

Snow!

Well, it’s finally happened.  Snow here in the desert. 

Accompanied by the wind ushered in with this flowing river of Arctic Air, the snow announces itself this time with frigid temperatures that can’t get above freezing during the day, and drop to almost  zero at night.   The Cascade Mountains west of us squeeze out most of the water borne in those clouds sailing by.  Sitting here in the rain shadow of those bulwark mountains, it seems what little moisture remains simply can’t get any  farther.  Well, the Ochoco Mountains just east of us scrape off most of what’s left of that wetness, and the flakes fall.  But they appear so sparse and anemic – – tiny ice nuggets, really – –  that it’s almost comical to call it snow.

There’s that legend, ya know, about all the different words Arctic native people have for snow.  I kinda look at the single word we use to describe this stuff as having lots of different meanings, different permutations. 

When we lived at 7,000 feet elevation in the western Colorado Rockies, to me snow meant the physical and mental endurance associated with having that white stuff underfoot almost every day from late October to  early May.  Sure, you loved watching it fall and pile up, and you could go out and play or ski in it, or just passively enjoy its beauty and abundance indoors from a warm, comfortable fireside.  While living there, we enjoyed the frequent pleasure of being able to cross country ski right off our front porch.  But it stayed there for months, and you had to live with it, drive in it. and bundle up every time you went outside.  Eventually, it just got tiresome.

The infrequent snowfalls we experienced living in western Oregon were wet, sloppy, and short-lived.  I remember those events more as an annoyance and a hazard.  The conventional wisdom said that folks born and raised there didn’t know how to drive in the stuff, so you had to consciously  watch out for them.  Black ice was a true hazard, and didn’t require snow as a precondition.  And if you forgot and stood too long under a big tree, it could plop on you anytime to your great displeasure.  Of course, you had to watch out for that possibility in California, too. 

We had some really adventuresome snowfalls living in California at snowline in the Sierra Nevada.  Sierra snowfalls can be prodigious.  There, when snow comes, it can fall at the rate of a foot an hour.  Typically, like moisture-rich western Oregon snows, Sierra snowfall is wet, heavy, and dense.  That’s why it’s called Sierra cement.  One winter, we had an accumulation of 5 feet in less than 6 hours.  In that incident, plowing  the 100 foot path from our garage to the road took quite a while, and would have been much more difficult if not for a powerful  snowblower.  But almost always, once the storm passed, sunshine returned and all that snow melted and disappeared soon enough.  After all, it was California – – land of sunshine.

So, watching this desert snowfall episode brings forth another variation to my sense of snow, and what that word might mean,  So far, I find it unlike any of my prior experiences.  We’ll see.

Return of the Gray

Even though we lived there for 18 years, I never fully adjusted to the frequent gray skies over the Willamette Valley.  Yes, there were truly beautiful days and the landscape had an almost exotic quality suggestive of a Japanese woodcut – – the distant, conical outline of Mt. Hood against the eastern horizon suggested Mt. Fujiyama in many respects.  But lying in the storm track where seasonal low pressure weather systems continuously rolled in off the Pacific ensured we would have lots of moisture aloft, and temperatures guaranteed to condense all that water into impenetrable clouds.  Especially in Fall and Winter.  So skies were often a solid gray, significantly diminishing the amount of sunlight and flattening the depth of our vistas.  I found that aspect of life in western Oregon depressing.

Later we moved to Eastern Oregon, at the edge of the Palouse, where clouds would still gather, but  with less density, as I recall.   And they seemed to move more swiftly by.  Beautiful sunsets were our reward, and clear days came more often.  Later than that, we lived in the Sierra Nevada of California,  Clear, blue skies were almost monotonously in their regularity, even in winter.  Not that I minded; in fact, I reveled in the feelings that a kind of crystal clear, azure daylight brought with it.

Now we have returned to Oregon, although on the eastern side of the Cascade Mountains.  Many times those mountains block the westward flow of all that moisture off the Pacific, keeping us drier for sure, and less  cloudy.  Those sparkling clear days are simply glorious, gilded by the views we have of the Ochoco Mountains out our front door,  But there are also times when the skies are once again filled with unbroken gray clouds.  Except the feeling now is different.  These clouds don’t seem to press down so hard on you.  The air remains relatively dry under all that moisture lying up there in that cloud deck.  And the horizon isn’t so restricted and claustrophobic as I remember from those Willamette Valley days.

The gray has returned.  But I can live with this kind of day grayness.

A Visit to Ol’ Barney’s Steakhouse with friends

Popular, upscale, excellent menu, informal, and not expensive.  What more could you ask?

This weekend, we hosted special guests for an overnight stay with us while on their way from Yakima to Southern California.  These are friends we don’t see often, but it seems when we do get together we pick up right where we left off, even if the last time was years ago.  We enjoyed ourselves once again with spirited discussions in relaxed company.  Their visit included an offer for dinner out, which prompted us to suggest a restaurant here in town we hadn’t tried yet, but one which suggested another chance to explore a little local history over a good meal.  They were receptive, and like us, even game for some culinary adventure.  And that’s exactly what it was.  Last night’s menu featured wild game on the menu.  We all shared the tender and delicious Louisiana alligator appetizer, and B. and I ordered the elk tenderloin with mushroom gravy, while the girls opted for regular menu items for their entre.  With a good bottle of 40 Hands merlot, it was a feast of subtle and robust taste sensations.  The ambience was suitably understated “old fashioned” western saloon, dressed up for modern tastes, and the service was attentive by the genuinely engaging staff, including a personal visit to our table by the head chef.   We let the general din and roar recede to the background of our own spirited conversation as we enjoyed our meal together. 

Legend has it that the restaurant is located on the original site where Barney Prine set up his blacksmith shop and saloon (now there’s some creative marketing!) back in 1858, I think it was.  The business has gone through several incarnations since, attested by old black and white photos decorating the walls and showing the place as it was over the years.  It was obvious that lots of local characters, upstanding and otherwise, had spent time there.

Before our departure, I quizzed our waitress about whether ol’ Barney was the good natured, welcoming personality I had originally pictured, or whether he was the scoundrel others had claimed.   Like me, she was somewhat new to the area and not well versed in its history, but she didn’t hesitate to seek an answer to my question and immediately approached the two couples sitting at the next table, total strangers to us but who happened to be well established local folks.  This led to impromptu introductions and a conversation with them about Mr. Prine and a bunch of other things, but all in the spirit of an easy friendliness that I continue to encounter in this community almost everywhere I turn.

This morning, we bade farewell to our friends on their continued journey south.  I’ve spent much of the rest of today musing about the pleasant time we shared together, and especially the unexpected friendliness of total strangers we discovered at Barney Prine’s saloon. 

Strangers, Neighbors, Friends

It still surprises me some how easily engaged people can be in this place.  I don’t exactly know what led me to feel right from the start that this was a friendly town.  Even though we had just moved here from another state and so we were complete strangers to local folks,  after a few casual encounters with the waitress at the café, or the clerk at the cash register, or just people walking by, it sure seemed that way.  Maybe it was a sense that when someone greeted you, it was more than an empty gesture, as if asking “how are ya?” meant they genuinely wanted to know.  It was unexpected I guess, considering our status as strangers to everyone.

Oh, I’m sure this town has its curmudgeons and contrarians like anyplace else.  Too many Pollyannas can drive you nuts anyway.  But our experience here of making acquaintances  out of strangers has been refreshing.

So it’s becoming kind of a game, and so far everyone else seems to be willing to play it, too,  It involves a little joking, or even flirting, with someone at first.  The other day, for example,  a young lady was standing at the hardware store checkout stand with no customer to assist for several moments and looking a little bored with facing a long afternoon work shift , when I approached with my purchases.  As I laid them on the counter I teased her by saying something like “Well, you’ve must’ve been waiting all day for me to arrive, and here I am!”  And without batting an eye, she grinned and came right back with “Oh, but I’ve been waiting my whole life just for YOU!”  We both laughed, and so did the store clerk standing nearby who overheard our exchange.  A little more impromptu banter continued as my purchases were rung up and bagged, and I left their store with a genuine smile on my face.  A fellow just coming in as I left saw it, and gave one back to me.  All of them complete strangers. 

No big deal, you say?  Nothing remarkable about that, you say?  OK, maybe not, and I’m like someone just off the boat.  That’s OK.  It’s nice to feel that other people somehow recognize you as special, and let you know in a good way they think they are, too.

The world needs more of that.

Indian Summer

A lot of hand wringing and teeth gnashing seems to go on about the mis-use of words referring to ethnic groups.  Latest seems to be in the NFL over the Washington Redskins team name.  Maybe it’s tied to our historic Calvinist sense of guilt, but there is indeed a history of bias, discrimination and, OK, bad karma, following us around to remind us of our past sins.   I have no quarrel with fixing that when and where it arises, and our better sensibilities finally take hold.  That should happen.  But I also happen to like the phrase “Indian Summer” and I don’t feel there needs to be any negativity associated with it.

We’ve been enjoying a glorious Indian Summer for the past week or more, and it is forecast to continue.  Nights are brisk, days warm up by afternoon, and the warmth lingers briefly into the evening.  Short sleeve weather.  Skies have been crystal clear (except for a controlled burn yesterday, briefly), and no rain is yet in sight.  Fall foliage has been excellent in the right places.  Here it is getting toward late October, and that feeling of summer continues to hang on, making the days very pleasant.  Somehow, I can imagine the quiet wisdom of ancient peoples of this continent (before the Europeans came) being integral to the sensations this season brings.  And that pleases me.