Adventures in August 2014

This is the month where the serious fruit and vegetable harvest began and it felt like we were spending all our time either at the garden or at home processing our harvest.

This is the very beginning of what would become hundreds of pounds of tomatoes. Or at least it felt like that much.

August is when I started volunteering with Green Urban Lunch Box. They have a fruit share program where home owners can register their fruit trees. When the trees are ripe, volunteers come and pick the tree. One third goes to the home owner (if they want it, they often do not), one third to the organization, and the rest gets divided among the volunteers. In just a few hours worth of harvest I came home with 40 pounds of apricots on my first pick!

Next year I will get in early enough for the cherry harvest, but I sure got a LOT of fruit from the 2014 harvest. It was a great way to meet people and climb trees too! 

Our dear neighbour Colette invited us over for a fancy dinner party in early August. This began a string of fancy dinner parties at her house.

For this dinner party, our hostess declared we must all wear goggles.

This is Colette's dog Gabi. Gabi is 12 years old and my favourite dog. She was a sort of rescue (there is a long story, I don't remember) and Gabi can't see very well so she is sure to bark at everyone who comes by and will continue to bark until she knows it is you. We have big cuddle sessions every time I go over there.

Funeral potatoes. It's a Utah/Mormon thing, apparently.

We have now been corrupted.

Plum season!

Nectarines!

I canned all these nectarines and I am still eating them for breakfast. :-)

Peaches! Lots of these got dehydrated and then instantly eaten by Dan because they were so delicious. But some also got canned.

We did a number of things with the plums. Some got suspended in vodka for an infusion. Some got dried. Some were made into an amazing plum chutney that goes very nicely with roasted meat.

We have this lovely space in our yard area that is very conducive to block parties. A few times in the summer we had people over for some good times and cocktails that increased in potency as the night went on (I was bartending).

Gabi, sitting cutely.

We couldn't keep up with the cucumbers.

So I took some to work and shot at my office mate with them. I posted a photo on twitter and @jonmchris improved my cumber-slinging photo.

Oh yes on the leadership thing with getting the twitter account going again. They made me sit for a photo and everything.

Fun fact about apricots: if you have enough pits and let them dry out a bit, then go at them with a hammer, you can get at what is called the "bitter almond" inside. Stick these babies in vodka (Neutral Grain Spirit) and let them infuse for a few months, strain, add sugar and voila! You have amaretto.

The start of our infusion collection.

One of the best things about harvesting fruit with Green Urban Lunch Box was grapes. And they were seedless grapes! Someone had given me her dehydrator and we had that thing going nonstop for about six weeks. Raisins! They were so delicious that Dan hid and hoarded them.

I just had to tweet this photo of the chicken burger with bacon made at the Red Onion, the cafeteria in our building at work. It's not on the menu but it's one of the best chicken burgers I have ever had. And they made it just for me. :-)

Near the end of August our beloved friends Peter and Burgle came to visit us from Victoria! We didn't have a lot of time with them, I had grad school orientation and then started classes, but we packed in as much as we could. One of the important things: take them to Yogurtland for self-serve soft serve yogurt and toppings!

We were also able to get away for a day to go camping in the desert. We drove southwest towards Fish Lake. Mr. Cupcake came too.

There had been some torrential rains in the days preceding our adventure, we were exploring.

Stopped at what was supposed to be a hot spring, according to the map. There was a hot spring but it was really stinky and extremely hot. Only the men were brave (?) enough to go in. Burgle and I were not willing to risk quicksand or stinky feet, so we sensibly stayed out.

(They did make it back alive, by the way).

Our perfect camp spot was just around the corner on BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land. We found a flat enough space, set up our tents, got the fire going, and roasted sausages from Costco.

View from our truck tent the next morning. In the whole time we were there not a single other vehicle went by.

Because we are adventurers, we weren't going to to back the way we came, so we took the road toward Nevada that had really been washed out due to the aforementioned torrential rains. Yay four wheel drive!

We drove up in the northeast part of Elko county, Nevada, stopped at Wendover for snacks, and then stopped again at the Bonneville Salt Flats.

It's a pretty spectacular place, especially on a warm sunny day. The other side of the highway has a better view but this was enough to show just how much salt there is!

That wraps up August 2014!

This week in the life of yarnsalad

I started a post about August 2014, got distracted, closed my computer, came back two days later and all my work was lost, so I'll have to start over again. There were really a lot of photos, so I'm not surprised. Oh well, I have practice now at doing that particular post!

Classes for the winter semester start next week and I am looking forward to getting back into that rhythm, even though I know it is tiring and often gruelling. I find I have missed some of my classmates.

I'll be finishing up with one or two of the projects I have been working on, and will be starting one or two new ones. I haven't talked much about my work on the blog (and obviously not at all about the school), and that's partly because I don't know if I am allowed to talk about it. It's also that I don't know if how interesting it would be to my readers - I'm in such a narrow field that requires really a lot of background explanation as to what I do. So when I say I'm a researcher in Biomedical Informatics, what does that mean, exactly?

In a nutshell, it's the intersection of health care with information technology (or to keep it really simple, computers). I was at a lunch the other day with a bunch of people who have nothing to do with health care and I tried really hard not to use jargon in describing what I do but the truth is I don't know if there is a layman's term for Clinical Decision Support or Electronic Health Records. But I say I do observational research for ways to improve the system and people understand that. They understand the need for good design, and adapting design to the needs of the user, so I go with that.

In the next few months I will need to decide and write a proposal for what I want to do my dissertation project on. There have been a number of projects come my way and only a couple of things have really leapt out at me, but they aren't necessarily things that I can get faculty support or find funding for. I'm new to the American academic machine so a lot of my learning has to do with how to negotiate getting this degree. I'm sure that one of the things I have been working on will blossom into a side project that I can turn into a PhD. That's the plan.

It also means that by the end of March I need to choose my committee - that is a chair and at least three of the five people who will advise and guide me as I undertake this research project. I already have a solid idea of who I want, so I'm not too worried about that. These mentors can help me figure out which funding avenues to pursue as well.

Meanwhile, Dan and I have been working our way through our canned and dried preserved food from the 2014 growing season. I actually did a complete inventory of all the food in our house over the Christmas break. There were a few things I had forgotten we have, so I'm glad to know about them. There were a number of jars with no labels on them, so every time when I went to look for cumin or oregano in the pantry, I'd have to ask Dan because he remembered what the jar looked like. These jars all have labels on them now.

We will be getting together with garden nerd friends Emily and Alfred, friends made at Cannon Greens, to plan together what we will plant and share so that we aren't planting too much of something that we can't both use and not enough of others. One zucchini plant will suit four people just fine. Can't have enough basil. Which tomatoes, what will we use them for? Cucumbers for pickling? As a part of this, I am going through my cookbooks and books about preservation and planning what I want to make in the next growing season. I have lots of seeds now (I have an  inventory of that as well) so I certainly want to be strategic about what I grow. I had around 30 tomato plants last year and now that I know what kinds of tomatoes we actually like and will eat, we will make sure we plant more of those and none or less of the ones we didn't love so much. There is a seed swap coming up in a few weeks and I will be able to give away some of the ones I don't want.

I have resumed knitting in conjunction to listening to audiobooks. I don't have any photos to show for it just now but over the holiday I finished a pair of socks each for me and Dan and I have three more pairs on the needles.

We've had some more adventures with Mr. Cupcake so I will be sure to post those too, possibly as separate stories.

I'm writing this post from my office just now, which feels sort of weird but my chair here is much more comfortable and I actually get more work done, despite the frequent visitors "just stopping to say hi". I feel like I need to bring an array of snacks to offer my visitors, my office isn't big enough for a sofa, alas. I'm about to go home and think about what to make Dan for dinner. He works in Daybreak, an hour's train ride away, so he doesn't usually get home before 7:20 on week nights and thus the cooking has fallen to me. I vow to be more organized with planning meals. We have really a lot of food in our larder, after all! (If you have any ideas for what to do with dried tomatoes, please let me know!)

Tomorrow I have a meeting, then working on coding transcripts for a small project, then I will be attending a PhD defence in the afternoon before going to collect data at the hospital. I don't know what the weekend holds. House work, likely, and I will hopefully finish listening to Cutting for Stone by Abraham Vergese, recommended by the husband of a colleague. It's a lot like my favorite book Anil's Ghost by Michael Ondaatje (which I read every November).

Now to post this and catch a bus home! 

Hearkering back to July 2014...

I promised before Christmas (so long ago!) I would resume blogging. Why has it been so hard? What have I been doing with myself?

I plan to spend the next several posts doing a bit of a retrospective. Below is the story of what happened in July from where I left off with a lesson in discharging firearms...

Oh yes. My garden nerd friend Emily invited us to join them for an alpine hike up Little Cottonwood Canyon to Margaret lake. The trailhead took about 40 minutes to get to, driving.

It was extremely hot in the valley that day, probably something like 88 degrees, so we were all happy to get to higher elevations to escape the heat. The trail head was at 8500 feet.

We stopped for a snack on a big boulder and there were some extremely friendly critters who would gladly take blueberries from us.

Here we are at 9,500 feet, after a mile of hiking. I have never been alpine hiking before and it had been a long time for Dan. Our friends continued on to the summit (they are experienced hikers) while we headed back. Dan has had several knee surgeries so going down steep hills is really hard on him.

A week later, I was invited to come pick over some seeds and get some compost from Wasatch Community garden, items that had been donated to them by other organizations. I brought home more than I need, but I will be sharing with friends and neighbours!

And then I thought, while I'm at it, I should probably do a seed inventory so I know what I have. Sam was helpful.

In the summer, my department started recognizing people for showing our "values": relationship, leadership, relevance. Since I started tweeting for the department in July, they decided I was showing leadership and recognized me for it at our monthly Coffee Break. 

In looking though my photos for what to include, I realize that I should probably do a garden-only post, a food-only post, and a Sam-only post. This cat below here is not Sam, but a cat that hangs around the community garden. He always came meowing sweetly whenever we came to harvest. He loved being petted and picked up, purred nonstop, and nobody knew if he had a home or where he came from.

Such a sweet kitty. If Sam didn't hate all other cats, this one would have come home with us for sure.

This is sort of funny. We had been having troubles with the truck overheating, and Dan fixed it so we took a drive up the hill into the desert to test the engine. I took this photo and tagged it #desertselfie for Twitter, then a twitter account called Jaunty Hat "fixed" my photo for me and sent it back.

The summer really flew by, stay tuned for August and more! 

the longest I have ever gone without blogging

July 22 was the date of my last post. That was nearly five months ago. I'm so sorry to any readers I may have left!

I got swept away with the gardening season's massive harvest, then the beginning of grad school, then the entire semester swallowed up most of my time with a wee trip to Scotland somewhere in the middle.

I have week left of classes and only one final exam. It is my intention to catch up with blogging, with all the photos I have taken in the interim. So much has happened, so much to say.

So please bear with me, I do plan to make a comeback.

A gun scare resulting in a shooting lesson

I was at my community garden last Thursday night, minding my own business, watering the plants, when all of a sudden I heard screeching tires, vehicles crashing into each other, then a bunch of officers yelling expletives at men to get out of the car, face down, get out of the f****** car, get your f****** hands up, not a hundred yards away from me in the parking lot across the street. There were a lot of black police vehicles and officers in camo - not the uniform. I didn't know what I was witnessing. Police? FBI? Military? Who were these bad guys?

More to the point, as I was watching this I thought "ho hum, this is just like the things you see on TV".

But wait.

1. I don't watch TV.
2. The one TV show I watch is Game of Thrones and there are no guns.
3. I'm not in Canada anymore, and if I were still in Canada, this takedown would have been a shocking event.

Like seriously, if one of those firearms had been discharged, I could have been in harm's way and shot by a stray bullet. For real.

Dan and I have talked about learning how to shoot - mostly for protection against things like rattlesnakes (a real threat here) and crazy people. But I also wanted to be able to handle a gun and not be afraid of it if I ever needed to disarm it.

I have a Twitter friend @NotAssa who, it turns out, is a gun enthusiast, and when I asked him if he would teach me, he eagerly agreed to do so. Now just so you know that I haven't completely lost my mind in going off to the hills of Utah with a complete stranger to shoot guns... I had met him in person a few times before and one of those times was for breakfast with a bunch of new Twitter friends where Dan was present, and Dan figured this guy was okay for me to spend an afternoon alone with guns. (Spoiler: he's not a psycho killer).

It was an entire day of serendipity. We agreed to meet a parking lot but didn't check beforehand what the other would be driving. We coincidentally pulled up next to each other at the same time. What timing! We all got out, said our hellos, Dan dropped me off and I went up the mountain with Asa.

We had not spent much time together prior to this, and he's one of those super-serious yet thoughtful guys who is reserved yet well spoken. To be honest it was a bit awkward, but I'm used to drawing people out of their shells (if you will forgive the pun). When I'm nervous I talk a lot and ask lots of questions, it seemed go go okay.

On the way up we heard pop POP pop and we thought it was just the balloons Asa had blown up beforehand to use as targets. We gained a lot of elevation in 20 minutes and maybe the air pressure changed so much that the balloons were popping? When we arrived at the site, no, it wasn't the balloons. It was the right muffler.

What you are seeing above here is the exhaust pipe having become detached from the muffler by heat degradation. We had no TIG welder nor wire with us, so we decided to just do our shooting lesson and deal with the muffler later.

The first thing we did was attach the targets (balloons) to the bushes with clothes pins. There was really a lot of litter in this site, clearly a popular spot for target practice. There were cans, broken bottles, broken clay pigeons, spent shells, milk jugs, and even vinyl records (what heathen would use Haydn as target practice!) We agreed that after we were done shooting we would pick up some of this trash.

I started with the .40 Smith & Wesson pistol. After firing a few rounds and missing all the balloons, I declared the gun broken because it was not hitting the targets. I must admit I was getting discouraged. I finished a magazine and declared I was done with that one, let's move on to the rifle.

Next up was a .22 rifle. I was to learn that the guns would get progressively heavier and have progressively stronger kickback. Dan warned me beforehand that I would have a bruise on the part of my shoulder where the long guns butt up against it, so I sort of knew what to expect. The .22 was WAY easier to shoot and hit the target. Turns out rifles are in general easier than pistols. (TV and the movies lie). It was very gratifying hitting the target but I found myself feeling bad for shredding the bushes and trees, hoped I didn't kill any small critters.

The next gun was a super fancy one. I never thought I would find myself holding a semi-automatic rifle but there it was. This is a .223 AR-15.

If I was a bit more muscled I would probably have felt more confident firing that one (I mean, it does look pretty badass) but it truly felt dangerous. Didn't spend much time with this one. I think that it scared me a bit made my aim weak too.

After that Asa handed me the 12 Gauge shotgun. More noise, more kick. Here I learned you can just point and shoot, rather than aim. Pop, Pop went the balloons. Okay, I was getting the hang of it.

The last one was a .300 Savage rifle. By this time my left forearm was getting very fatigued at the twisting action of holding weight that I'm not used to. If I was a golfer I would have had no problem, probably. Even now, two days later, my forearm is a bit sore from that motion. This gun had the most kick and sure enough, the next day I had a smallish bruise (looks more like a hickey!) on my shoulder.

So the shooting lesson lasted probably about an hour, then with the bags we had we picked up as much garbage as we could. We also looked around for some useful wire to perhaps string up the muffler with, since it was hanging by one end and would no doubt bounce a lot as we went down the gravel road. The only thing potentially useful was the wire holding this fence together but we had no tools to get it with.

View from where we are parked. We gave up, got in the car ready to leave, when a US Forestry Service truck pulled up behind us. Then they started to drive away. Turns out they had come to that spot to pick up garbage but, on seeing it had been done, were leaving. Asa jumped out and flagged them down, explained our predicament, but they had no wire. One of the agents suggested using the fencing wire (serendipity!) and he had wire cutters. What luck! So we traded him for the garbage we picked up.

The next step was to jack up the car and string up the muffler. The Forestry guys left and we got to impromptu car repair. Having lived with Dan for so long, I know a thing or two about cars.

I held the muffler in place while Asa attached and tightened the wire. That would at least get us down the mountain. 

Feeling triumphant and proud of ourselves for our amazing skills, we toodled somewhat noisily down the mountain back to meet Dan at the same parking lot. Along the way I regaled Asa with tales of when Dan and I had the van and the accident we had on our honeymoon camping trip and other such yarns. We had bonded by this point, having been in a potentially difficult situation if either one of us had different dispositions (I am a woman who is not afraid to get dirty, who sees minor setbacks like these as a part of the adventure). 

In all, it was a fun afternoon.