Wednesday, December 24th
We went up north and had dinner with A and A. The menu included coq au vin, potatoes pavé, mushroom soup with home made croutons, roasted carrots, and a rather extraordinary salad. Everything was awesome, including the blackberry pie for dessert.
As part of the festivities, we were required to pay homage to the restaurant manager, who, by chance, happened to be a hamster. Since hamsters are nocturnal, she was just waking up as we were finishing dinner. After some coaxing, she accepted a blueberry from E and then obliged us by taking a brief turn on the wheel and by having two good rolls in her sandbox bathing area. Excellent.
At the end of the evening, we went off to stay the night at a Best Western.
Thursday, December 25th
Before going back to A and A’s for present opening, we stopped at the motel breakfast room. There we saw three other couples about our age. It was hard not to think that maybe they were traveling for the same purpose and on the same schedule as we were. Back at the Andees’ we had a leisurely present opening ceremony. Besides our treeside presents, we got a bonus in the form of efficiently packed leftovers from the previous night’s meal.
We had a nice drive back from Portland. The rain held off and the I-5 traffic was light, with noticeably fewer semi trucks than normal.
Friday, December 26th
We made an evening meal of Christmas Eve leftovers today. If anyone wonders whether potatoes pavé can still be good after two days in the fridge, the answer is oh yes. And did we mention the pancetta, the mushrooms, the pearl onions all that other stuff in the coq au vin? They were all right too.
Sunday, December 28th
We went down to Herbert Farm and Natural Area today to see how lazy old Muddy Creek was doing. The trail was flooded in its usual place just thirty yards from the trailhead, but our detour through the field was fine–squishy but passable. Further along, down by the old road crossing, the creek was making some noise.
To restore the riparian habitat, thousands of native seeds and seedlings were planted along the creek in the late 2010’s. By now they are well established. Current restoration efforts are focused on the control of non-native plant species, including North Africa grass, Velvet grass, Reed Canary grass, Oneseed hawthorn, Common sheep sorrel, and Stinking chamomile. (Yeah! We don’t need no stinking chamomile!) Of the six, North Africa grass is considered to be the worst threat, as it can outcompete both native grasses and native flowering plants, resulting in decreased biodiversity. The fight against the non-natives will have to be an ongoing effort because some of them have been growing in the area for quite a while, creating long lasting seed banks in the soil. And as for Oneseed hawthorn…well, there’s a big stand of that on an adjacent property. That’ll keep them busy.
Stinking chamomile (Anthemis cotula) closely resembles true chamomile (Anthemis nobilis.) One way to tell the difference is to look for membraneous scales underneath the flowers: A. nobilis has them and A. cotula doesn’t. Another way to tell is that A. cotula smells terrible.
Tuesday, December 30th
A nice sunny day here, colder but beautiful. Last night we had our first real frost of the season. Hard to believe it took this long.
Wednesday, December 31st
Another sunny day. A good day to get outside and go snowshoeing mow the lawn. Sounds ridiculous to be mowing the grass on New Year’s Eve, but weather is weather and grass is grass. M wasn’t the only one in the neighborhood out taking advantage of the day.
Champagne and a new jigsaw puzzle kept us awake long enough to see in the new year.
Thursday , January 1st
New Year’s dinner with B, J and P at B and J’s place. More delicious food. Scalloped apples! Christmas cake! Lemon tarts! Emergency samosas from the Mother of Markets (as Roland used to say.)
Afterward, we worked more on the puzzle, which is a view of Neuschvanstein Castle. It’s beautiful, but pretty hard. Might take the rest of the year…