pink

Pink is not my favorite color.  I don't think it ever has been (well, maybe when I was, say, 6.  But that's an increasingly long time ago).  For as long as I can remember I've liked blue and green, and, more recently, brown.  I don't hate pink; I just don't often choose it.

Thus I rarely buy pink clothing, and I have never decorated in pink.  But this last week I did both of those things, and it has been unexpectedly empowering.

My friend Beth and I began our 3x/week running regimen again, inspired by the delectable foods of the holiday season and the resulting tubbification.  Beth bought a hot pink running shirt to inspire her in this endeavor, and her choice inspired me.  So, when I was running errands last week and saw a hot pink running fleece, I knew what I had to do.  Buy it.  Wear it.  Run in it.  And do it proudly.  I like my hot pink running fleece.  It's soft.  It's bright.  It's warm.  It makes me happy--and, yes, it inspires me to get out there and run.  Go, PINK!

I also chose pink in a decorating endeavor last weekend.  Of all the rooms in our home, our downstairs bathroom is the least satisfyingly decorated (not to mention designed).  Throughout our house, beautiful bright colors warm the rooms--yellow in the living room and kitchen, green in the bedroom and study, red in the dining room.  The previous owners did a great job of painting the rooms colors Greg and I like. 

But the bathroom . . . not so much.  For one, it's painted a pale, wishy-washy blue.  I wouldn't mind a deep blue or a bright blue.  But it's just kind of blah.  Secondly, it's small.  It's doesn't have quite enough room for a standard sized tub (though Greg and I realized we could possibly take out the shelves and put in a non-standard sized tub--oh, the possibilities!!); it's not even exactly rectangular, and the angled wall makes it an even tighter space than it would be otherwise.  When we moved in, we bought a medicine cabinet and some glass shelves and a towel rack and did the best we could.  I had a dolphin shower curtain that I bought when I moved to Chicago after college, in 2002.  It has followed me from Chicago to Charlotte to Iowa to Missoula--not bad for a piece of plastic!

Lately, however, I've been wanting a change.  Perhaps this is due to not being able to do garden and yard projects this time of year.  Perhaps I just needed to do an affordable home improvement.  Either way, It Was Time.

Last week Saturday, then, Greg and I went to Ace Hardware's paint section.  I knew what I had in mind--dark brown on the lower walls and a dusky rose (all right, all right, PINK) on the upper walls.  I've appreciated the color pink more since going to Morocco, where popular colors were bright blue and a stucco/earthy pink, the colors of the sky and the earth.  As I considered various color schemes, I just couldn't get that pink out of my mind.

The helpful paint lady found just the colors I was looking for, mixed them up for me, and Greg and I went home and got to work.  After 15+ hours of clearing everything out of the bathroom, mopping the floor, cleaning the sink and toilet, washing down the walls, taping taping taping, putting on multiple coats of the deep colors I'd chosen and then touching up all the little mistakes with a tiny artist-quality paintbrush, this was the result:

How's that for making a tiny bathroom into a classy little space?  As Greg says, "It's a grown-up bathroom!"  Not bad, eh?

I have to say, that dusky rose color looks mighty fine.

goodnight, dear void

I like to think that I'm fairly up-to-date when it comes to knowing about technological advances, particularly the ones that are used daily by the average person.  But then I learn about something new, and then another something new, and I realize that I'm woefully behind and will probably never catch up.  I think I'm all right with that.  I'm more than happy NOT to have an iPhone or any kind of smart phone; more than happy NOT to have access to 1,000 TV channels, and I'll probably never use Twitter.  But I have a blog.  I use Facebook and am just getting started with Google+.  I love Netflix streaming, and I do like having a phone with a qwerty keyboard.

Sometimes when I'm having a text conversation with, say, my sister, I stop in the middle of it and think how strange it is to be sending messages back and forth using little pieces of metal and plastic that aren't visibly connected to anything.  I like that so much of this technology allows us to be better connected.  I got a text from Andrea last night that she had just seen the Nutcracker ballet, and that she thought of me during "The Waltz of the Flowers," because we spent hours dancing together to that song.  She thought of me, and, voila!, she sent a little message over the airwaves and . . . I got it. 

So the newest techie things that I've become aware of are Pinterest and Google Apps for non-profits.  The Google Apps is something that MNHC is looking into.  Our current email system, through Microsoft, is riddled with problems, spam, and ever-increasing annoyances.  Plus, it requires a bunch of electricity-sucking equipment that none of the staff has time to maintain.  The solution?  Switch our email from Microsoft exchange to Google.  Get rid of the antiquated equipment.  Put MNHC email out into the interwebs.  I just barely understand how this works, but it makes sense and seems like it'll take care of a number of our current problems as well as push us forward into a more practical and useful way of doing things.  Sweet.  Along with all this is the concept of collaboration, for example, using Google docs, and having people "go" to a central document, instead of sending out the same document twenty times via email.  That way there will be one electronic copy of it in an easy location instead of 20 electronic copies taking up hard drive space, server space, etc.  (I'm not explaining this well.  Apologies.)  At any rate, MNHC may be on the cusp of a new way of getting work done, and this new way appears to be a more efficient, not to mention sensible, way of operating.

The second cool thing I've been introduced to is Pinterest (thanks, Philip!).  It's brilliant and addicting.  How many times do we have great ideas, which we perhaps scribble down on a piece of paper or put in our journals or mention to our friends . . . and then promptly forget?  Pinterest keeps all our ideas in one place.  It's sort of like bookmarking a webpage, but having those bookmarks in a more attractive and easy-to-use format.  I've been having a great time seeing what's out there--innovative garden ideas, fun and easy crafts, ingenious ways of re-using items, etc.  It seems like such a good way of sharing our ideas with one another, a way of making our lives better, more sustainable.  It's a way of having access to everyone's brilliant notions.  (There are no doubt plenty of less-than-brilliant notions portrayed, too, but they're pretty easy to ignore.)

Most of us, myself included, find ourselves sitting in front of screens more than we'd like as it is.  But I do like to learn about cool and interesting new technologies and social networking opportunities out there.  If I can be wise in the ways I use these new resources, perhaps they'll help to simplify my life rather than complicate it.  Here's hoping.

And now, I'm off to the Holiday Pops concert by the Missoula Symphony Orchestra.  It's a lovely sunny, snowy day and Christmas is in the air!  Fa la la la la, la la la la!

productivity

I am often, for want of a better word, lazy.  Delightfully, not negatively, so.  I come home from work, put on fuzzy pajama pants, and cozy up with a book and a blanket and a kitty.   It's not a bad way to spend my afternoons and evenings.   I put in a good work day, and I enjoy being able to come home and relax.  Who doesn't? 

This afternoon I had a work meeting from 3:30 until 5:30, and at 5:25 my attention began waning, my eyes began glazing over, and I sat there dreaming about coming home to my kitties and warm house, looking forward to a dinner and a movie on my husband-less Tuesday night.  Then I realized that we are planning to host a little party tomorrow night, and that we promised to make soup and bread, and that if I wanted to make bread and actually have it ready for everyone to eat tomorrow, then I would have to make it tonight.  As the clock ticked to 5:29 I thought that perhaps I should also take advantage of this evening to do a little yardwork, since a large snowstorm is predicted to hit tomorrow morning, and there are masses of leaves in our yard, the garden hoses haven't been put away, the fall broccoli is still in the ground, limp and shivering . . . etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

So I drove home in the busy rush-hour traffic (yet another reason not to drive unless, like today, I really had to), collected the eggs (2!) from the henhouse, and, yes, put on my fuzzy pajama pants.  Then I took out the sourdough starter I got a couple of weeks ago from my coworker--brilliant, brilliant stuff.  I'd always wanted to make sourdough but have found it too complicated and time-consuming.  But when you actually HAVE the starter sitting in your fridge, making sourdough bread is just as easy as making regular bread.  All you do is take some delectably tangy starter . . .

add water and flour, sugar and salt and yeast, and knead it into a lovely ball . . .

let it rise, divide it into loaves, let it rise again, then bake it in a hot hot oven until its fragrance floats into every corner of the house and you can scarcely stand it . . .

and you just have to dig right in, because there is nothing like fresh bread.  MMM.

It tastes especially good if you've just spent an hour and a half of your evening raking the yard, scattering leaves over the garden for mulch, pulling up mostly dead broccoli and kale plants, and winding up hoses.  IN THE DARK.  Because when you get home at 5:50pm on a day at the end of November, dark is all you have left of your evening.  And when you come in the house, sweaty, muddy, and tired, then a conversation with a good friend, fresh bread, two cats on your lap, and a good movie are the perfect way to complete the evening.

Now that's what I call productive.

in the lane, snow is glistening

. . . and boy, does it make me happy.  Some years, I spend November wishing for snow . . . to no avail.  This year, it came before I even began to wish for it.  There was snow on our hike up to Glen Lakes in the beginning of October.  At the end of October, there was even more snow on a hike up Sweeney Ridge.  And it was lovely.

Silliness in the parking lot:

Hint of a wintry wonderland:

Larchiness!

Snow and sunshine: the perfect combination.

 

Today, we woke up to an inch or so of fluffy snow covering everything, and we have spent the afternoon 1) making and eating a delicious brunch with friends and 2) sitting cozily in the living room, knitting, writing, reading, doing the crossword, etc., with the snow outside and sunshine streaming in the windows.  Right now the late afternoon light is hitting the icicles on the western side of our roof, and the sky and snowscape are awash in gold and orange.  Ah.

I haven't been out skiing yet, but it will happen soon.  In the meantime, I'm inspired by winter photos from the past few years, reminding me of all the fun to come:

Skiing up the Rattlesnake with Beth and Britta and sculpting a voluptuous snow goddess:

Exploring the sagebrushy open land up the Blackfoot Valley on a sunny winter day:

Skiing in Glacier NP while spending a weekend in Polebridge:

Bowman Lake, Glacier NP:

Playing "Red Rover" on snowshoes:

Skiing at Chief Joseph Pass:

Andrea sprawled in the snow after taking a tumble during a cross-country ski day near Mt. Baker:

 

I love winter.

cold weather biking

Until this fall, I have identified myself as a warm-weather biker.  Or even a fair-weather biker.  In the past, once that autumnal chill seeped into the air, I put away my bike for the season and resigned myself to having a longer commute time.  I do like walking to work--don't get me wrong.  But it can be difficult to make that shift from an 8-minute biking commute to a 22-minute walking commute.  I lose either 14 minutes of mellow morning time or 14 minutes of work.  On the flip side, I have an extra 14 minutes to ponder my life and my day and the world between home and work, and that's not such a bad thing.

This year, however, has been different.  The second week of October got cold and chilly and rainy, and I figured that was my sign to put the bike away and bring out the walking shoes.  The trouble was, October is my absolute busiest month at MNHC.  Two to six volunteers needed every day for our 4th grade field trips and auction auction auction (as my friend Ann said today, preparing for our auction is like preparing for a wedding . . . times two.  It is an Event).  So I couldn't really afford to take 28 minutes out of my day to walk.  Therefore, in the third week of October, I got out my thick gloves, fleece headband, and scarf, and started biking again.

And it's been great.  I love it!  I bundle up warmly, hop on my bike, and whoosh!  Off I go beneath the golden leaves of the trees, zooming down the streets of Missoula with the crisp morning air reddening my cheeks.  What I have realized, in the past 3 weeks, is that I am a one-weather-phenomenon-at-a-time biker.  I can handle cold.  I can handle rain.  But I don't do well with both of them together.  Perhaps one of these years I'll get fenders on my bike--that may just be the trick for cold-and-wet-weather biking.  Once the streets get snowy/icy/slushy, I'm done.  It'll be back to walking. 

But in the meantime, while the weather is crisp and clear and dry, the temps can get as frosty as they like--I'll still be riding my bike. 

tunnels of gold

I look out my window this sun-dappled Saturday afternoon and I see gold.  Across the street, our neighbor's birch tree's golden leaves shiver in the October breeze.  Three days ago their Norway maple was aflame with yellow fire, but now those leaves carpet the ground beneath.  Our Norway maples are just starting to turn, their leaves a pale golden-green that brightens the view from our western windows.  This week I biked to the university several times through tunnels of burnished bronze, vivid leaves arcing above and scattered below.  Soon all the leaves will have swirled down from their branches, but for a few days yet I'm surrounded by Midas-touched beauty.

Last weekend, Beth and Britta and I ambled up the Rattlesnake, admiring the swathes of paling green and yellow larches and bright cottonwoods scattered amongst the deep green of Ponderosa pines and Douglas-firs.

Last week, Kara and I took a hike up Mount Jumbo just before sunset, and all the grasses were awash in the late-afternoon sunlight.

A lone tree, on the cusp of assuming its fall garb:

I do so love living in a place with seasons.  Ten years ago, when I spent the semester in Egypt, I went straight from summer to winter and completely missed fall.  I found that I needed that time of transition, that jumping straight to winter from summer was disorienting.  There was no time of easing myself from one season to the other.

I sometimes wonder what it would be like to live near the equator, where the day length is always the same and the only seasonal difference comes in rainy vs. dry.  How would my perceptions of the world be different if the amount of light I got every day was the same throughout the year?  What difference does it make to me to live in a place where high summer brings nearly 16 hours of daylight and deep winter brings only 8 and a half hours? 

In 6th grade my friend Heather and I did a report on Sweden--"Land of the Midnight Sun"--and I remember reading that, before electric lights came along, Swedish farmers needed less sleep during the summer months, when there was much to do and, more importantly, when the nights were short, while in the winter months they slept much more when the nights were longer.  That is, their bodies' rhythms changed according to the amount of daylight.  (Remembering this tidbit makes me want to research this topic further!)  They were influenced by the natural rhythms of the physical world.

Perhaps I'm just looking for an excuse; I am finding it increasingly difficult to drag myself out of bed before the sun rises (today, the sun rose at 8:13, and we still have nearly two months to go before the winter solstice).  This is fine on the weekends, but on days I have to work the situation is less than ideal.  I wonder what would happen if we all got up and went to bed with the sun, no matter what time of year it was.  Would we be happier?  Healthier?  More effective in our work and play?  Would we be more tired in the summer, with less sleep, or would we find ourselves energized by the long, full days?  Would we be more content in the winter, able to curl up in our beds for long, cozy hours?  I wish I could attempt this experiment.  

Speaking of experiments, the results are in on one of our garden attempts this summer.  The question:  Can we grow sweet potatoes in Missoula?  We had an inkling of a possible answer ("Maybe, but you're probably crazy to try!") in the fact that only one company is willing to ship sweet potato slips to Montana.  We planted about 12 sweet potato plants this spring; nine of them went into the ground near the bean fence, and three went into big black pots in our "Row O' Pots."  Greg dug up the results of the ground-planted sweet po's more than a month ago, and found a few orangish roots the size of pencils.  Instead of letting him dig up the potted sweet potatoes at the same time, I convinced him to move the pots into our greenhouse to soak up heat from the fall sunshine and dig the roots up at a later date.  That later date turned out to be this past Wednesday, and this was our result:

Our conclusion:  Oh baby, oh baby, can we grow sweet potatoes in Missoula!  We've already had some in a delectable garden soup (along with other delights such as potatoes, onions, garlic, cabbage, and tomatoes), and are already looking forward to trying again next year, with even better results.

But for now, the sun is still shining, the leaves are more golden than ever, and it's time for this girl to get herself outdoors.  Au revoir!

why I love my job

My job at the Montana Natural History Center is one I enjoy for many reasons, not least of which is that my duties vary widely and I don't, generally, have a chance to get bored.  Other reasons (in no particular order):

**On a day when I'm running around like a crazy person trying to make sure everything's in order for our fundraiser (coming up later that week), my co-worker Alyssa, who's in charge of Camo the gophersnake, asks me to make sure that Camo has eaten his (dead) mouse for the week, and, if not, to fish it out and put it back in the freezer for next time.  (Thankfully, Camo ate his mouse!)

**I get to answer questions like, "Would MNHC be interested in taking my rock collection/seashells/bird's nest/skull?"

**My parents-in-law collect dead birds for me to put in the MNHC deep freeze, in the hopes that one day they'll be stuffed and put on display or used for a taxidermy workshop.

**I walk in the kitchen one January morning to find a dead great blue heron thawing on the floor, so it can be folded up to fit in the freezer.

**One of our bowls in the kitchen is designated as "Camo's bowl" and is used for defrosting his weekly mouse meal.

**Community members not only bring us rocks and skulls, but occasionally live animals, including chipmunks, birds, and spiders.  The chipmunks and birds we care for as best we can, or send along to more appropriate places, but we currently have 2 (live) black widow spiders in jars with very secure lids.

**I love and support MNHC's mission of educating people about the natural world.

**I get paid to do things like spend hours outside teaching kids about insects, scout local natural areas for field trips or other programs, learn about birds/bugs/skulls/aquatic insects/botany/winter ecology, record Field Notes in the KUFM studio on the UM campus, and, oh yes, once a year I get paid to dress up, spend an evening with amazing people, and watch community members give generously of their resources so that MNHC can keep teaching people about the world around them.

**When searching for materials in our (huge) program storage area, I may come across anything from a stuffed mountain goat to fossils to a walrus skull to ancient books on natural history.

**Every day is casual day.  I dress up sometimes because I like to, not because I have to.

**My co-workers are intelligent, wonderful people, who are first-class nature geeks.  I fit right in!

**My co-workers and I often get distracted by flowers and bird calls, and we always have a field guide near at hand for reference.

**I am always learning something new!

**Greg gets to teach/lead field days at MNHC a few times a year.

**I have learned more about the birds and plants and ecosystem of my place in the two and a half years of working at MNHC than I did in the four years of my graduate program.  Part of that, of course, is due to Greg.  But I have found a new passion in learning not only the names of the plants and animals around me, but in learning how they all fit together in this place I now call home. 

**I get to see firsthand the generosity of people from the Missoula community.  Those with monetary resources give generously.  Those with fewer funds still give a little.  Those with time (even a little bit) give in so many ways.  Right now I have dozens of volunteers who spend 5+ hours per day outdoors, teaching 4th graders about nature.  We've had some pleasant days this month, but many have been cool and rainy, and yet these volunteers layer up, pull on their wool socks and waterproof boots, their gloves and raincoats, and go on out there with energy and good cheer.

**I have gotten to know some of kindest, sweetest, most compassionate people I've ever met. 

**Not only do I get to satisfy the scientist in me, I also, as of now, get to use my writing and editing abilities as well, as the VERY-soon-to-be new editor of the Montana Naturalist magazine.  Exciting!

Even when I'm in the midst of the more busy and stressful times of year (e.g., NOW), I love the work, and, in general, feel energized rather than sapped by the busyness.  Though I admit, I'm looking forward to the winter months and the relative calm they bring.

I am so very grateful to love what I do.  

tomatoes and larches and autumn, oh my!

Tis autumn, which is, at the moment, my favorite season.  I find that my favorite season tends to change depending on which season it is:  my favorite season is whichever season I am currently experiencing.  But autumn holds a special place in my heart.  My birthday is in September; Greg's and my anniversary is in October; I grew up in a family of educators, so autumn was always a time of new things, of starting over.  Now I am married to an educator and I work for an organization that provides educational programs, so the autumn feeling of renewal is part of my life once again. 

Autumn means harvest.

Autumn means change.

Autumn means food preservation.

For the past five weekends, some combination of Greg, Beth, Britta, and I (plus various other friends) has bought and canned tomatoes.  The first weekend we bought 20 pounds of tomatoes and canned 7 quarts.  The second weekend we bought 40 pounds of tomatoes and canned 14 quarts.  The past three weekends we've bought 60 pounds of tomatoes and canned dozens of quarts of crushed tomatoes, numerous pints of salsa, as well as roasting and freezing perhaps two dozen medium-sized freezer bags of tomato sauce.   While canning tomatoes has been our tradition for the past three years, I don't think we've ever canned quite this enthusiastically before.  The first year we canned tomatoes, we were reluctant to use them--"What? Use our beautifully preserved tomatoes for some random dinner?  We can't do THAT!"  Fortunately, we've done enough canning by now that we eagerly use the food we've preserved--which is, after all, the point.  Our goal this fall is to can enough tomatoes to last us for the year, and we may be close.

We have so many cans of tomatoes this year, in fact, that we need more space for them.  I have mentioned in another post that we happen to live in a small house.  We are fortunate enough to have a large, if unfinished, basement, but it's nice to have our canned food a little more handy than that.  A few weeks ago I was headed to our upstairs Hobbit Room when a dazzling notion struck me.  Behind the door to the upstairs, at the end of our little hallway, is a blank wall with about four inches of space between the wall and the door hinges:

My dazzling notion?  To build shelves along that whole back wall to serve as storage space for our canned goods, tea, and other non-perishable food items.  I went to Ace and bought the lumber, and then, while Beth, Britta and I canned in the kitchen, my brilliantly handy husband built these (but very kindly allowed me to fill them):

TA-DA!

Oh, the delightful satisfaction that comes from making effective use of our spaces, even (or especially) those that seem too small to be useful.

This past weekend we also took our annual pilgrimage to see the alpine larches (Larix lyallii) changing color.  We hiked up to Glen Lake, a place we've visited many times before; even so, its beauty felt new and startling.  Perhaps it was the blueness of the sky after several days of rain:

Or the brightness of the changing huckleberry leaves:

Or the ethereal wisps of fireweed fluff, swirling away on the mountain breezes:

Or the striking juxtaposition of burned forest and lush regrowth:

Or the vivid yellow flame of changing larch needles:

Or the purity of the dazzling-white snow, and the way deep greens and bright yellows and greys and browns stood out against it:

Or the sky-deep reflection in the calm waters of the lake:

Or it may have been the combination of all these things.  

warrior goddess

. . . or something.

So, the story of me and exercise.  In general, I'm not really into "exercising."  I like to walk and bike, hike in the mountains, stay active, etc.  I like being fit.  But I like to stay fit by having a more-or-less active lifestyle.  When I was canvassing for North Carolina PIRG (i.e., walking 20 hours/week), this worked well.  Very well.  But working in an office, even though I bike or walk to work and am constantly running up and down the stairs at the office, does not quite cut it.  Being over 30 may make a difference, too.  (What?  I CAN'T eat whatever I want and not gain weight anymore?  HUH??)  The challenge, of course, is motivating myself to exercise.  Last year my friend Beth and I started running together several times a week, which was great.  We got to the point where we could run 5 miles fairly easily . . . and then we stopped.  Life got busy, our schedules changed, yadda yadda yadda.  This past spring, I decided to have a daily yoga practice for Lent, which worked out marvelously!  I did yoga every day for 47 days and it was fantastic.  Lent ended . . . and so did my yoga practice.  Sigh.

But now I am 32.  And right now, that is enough motivation for me to have a fitness regimen.  I'm rather amazed at myself, actually.  I wake up in the morning and think, "I'm going to do my workout today, because I AM 32!"  And it works!  I get out of bed, put in my contacts, move the coffee table out of the way, and do my exercising.   Who knew?

We'll see how long this lasts, I guess.  There's always the possibility that I'll get unmotivated and just drop it all.  Then again, I will be 32 for an entire year, and that may very well be all the motivation I need to keep this up.

For the past week and a half I've been doing an online workout called Warrior X-Fit.  My good friend Tricia recommended it to me a couple of years ago, and I finally decided to check it out.  I'm enjoying it, though the workouts are absolutely.  kicking.  my.  butt.  Limp, limp.  It's a well-thought out system.  First off, it's free.  Secondly, you get a completely different set of exercises to do every day of the month--that is, you never do the same exercise twice in the same month.  These exercises work every single part of your body, including muscles you didn't know you had (and trust me, two days after doing this workout, you wish you didn't have those muscles).  Thirdly, the only thing you need to do these exercises (if, that is, you need anything at all) is a resistance tube, which you can buy for ~$20.  Lastly, it only takes about 20-30 minutes, and, at the end, a voice proclaims in stentorian tones, "You have fought like a warrior!" Yes, I AM a warrior goddess!

The one thing I've learned, though, is that I can't do it every single day.  Thus, I alternate between Warrior X-Fit and yoga, and it's proved to be a good balance.  I certainly appreciate a morning of calm stretching, balancing, and breathing after a morning of jumping around and sweating. 

In other news, Greg and I have been enjoying an incredible tomato crop.  We haven't yet had our first frost (though we reached 33 degrees the other night), so the tomatoes are still going strong, their well-being assisted by the hoop house that Greg built last year (nicely done, eh?).

As you can see, the tomatoes are pretty happy.  Isn't this one a beauty?

We ordered the variety below from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, and are we ever so happy with that decision.  This is a chocolate striped tomato, with gorgeous green and red stripes that looks not quite ripe but is actually fully, deliciously ready to be eaten.  The taste of these tomatoes has nothing whatsoever in common with the taste of the hard, flavorless tomatoes you buy from the grocery store in January.  Biting into one of these delectable fruits is like reaching tastebud nirvana.  Mmmmm.

And, the eggcitement continues . . . with our first BLUE egg!  Isn't it gorgeous?

In non-food news, we have a couple of new acquisitions.  The first was inspired by a Saturday of cleaning, when I decided to wash some of the cat blankets.  Our dryer hasn't worked for months--we rarely used it, anyway--and we've been line drying all our laundry.  However, one of the few times I find a dryer handy is when I want to get all the cat hair out of a blanket, rug, etc.  Additionally, our washer is rather old, a top loader with an agitator, so we decided to go to Vann's and get an energy-efficient washer and dryer.  And hey, if it's a pretty red color at the same time, all the better!  Now we just need to update the basement . . .

Our second new acquisition was free, which is always a bonus.  Driving home from church a couple of weeks ago, we noticed a lovely purple loveseat on a neighbor's lawn.  We walked over to inspect it, deemed it in good condition, and carried it the two blocks home (receiving offers of help from two people on the way).  Basil has already laid claim to it . . .

Here's a view of the Missoula valley and the lovely autumnal hills from the Mount Jumbo saddle last Friday, when Kara and I took a long looping walk through grasslands and forest, and even startled a fat black bear in the underbrush!

And, because such cuteness MUST be shared with the world, Nutmeg and her Buddha expression (and yes, she is sitting on Greg's shoulders, per usual).  Mreow!