Christmas in September

It's that time again!  The choir director is picking music for the Christmas program, and the Relief Society is gearing up for Christmas crafts at Super Saturday.  And it is time again for LDSP's Christmas Story Contest!  I have entered a piece, and there are quite a few other entries.  So take an early peek into the closet of Christmas spirit, and vote for your favorite stories before midnight on September 30.


Voting instructions and links to the stories are here.

I'm still in the Unpublished category.

Ho, ho, ho!

Happy Birthday, D2!

Five years ago, the midwife looked me over and gave me a 50-50 chance of going into labor that weekend.  I knew which 50 I believed.  Our first three boys had been born increasingly late, and it was still two weeks before the fourth was due.  So we spent Labor Day doing some preliminary shopping for a vehicle that would fit us all, in a couple of weeks.  That night, with very little warning, D2 made his surprising way into the world. 

This Labor Day, we celebrated the fruit of that labor by taking our little boy to the beach.

We found a great driftwood fort for our base of operations.

As usual, Scoot and Rollo spent the most time in the water,

while Dandelionslayer found a comfortable place to relax,

and D2 assembled a Museum of Cool Things.

Back at home, we enjoyed a cake that D2 designed, inspired by one of his favorite books.  See what I mean about pink?

D2 missed being born on Labor Day by a couple of hours, and was actually born on the first day of school.  This year the first day of school was a day later, and quite chaotic.  But here are some pictures from the second day of school . . .

which was also D2's first day of kindergarten. 

They say time flies on wings of lightning, but maybe it rolls on the tires of a big yellow bus.

Mount Saint Helens

Scoot has an abiding interest in volcanoes.  He does a school report on volcanoes every couple of years.  When we went to Japan, he said he wanted to "walk on a volcano."  We figured out, too late, that he meant "hike up Mount Fuji."  This summer, we decided it was time to visit Mount Saint Helens.

Dandelionslayer and I remember the big 1980 eruption.  We were on the other side of the country, of course, but we remember hearing about it, and seeing the movies at school.  My parents' friends, who lived in Yakima at the time, sent us a vial of ash the next Christmas.  So we felt a sort of connection to this place that we hadn't visited.

Much of the surrounding area has been replanted with noble firs.  They stand there like round hairbrushes, the limbs sticking out so straight that you can barely see them.  But I was surprised at the barrenness of the mountain itself.  A ranger told us about forms of life that braved the conditions of the crater soon after the eruption, only to be disrupted by later events. 

This dome in the crater keeps growing, as does a circular glacier that surrounds it.  And the steam rises.  This is definitely a live mountain.

Plant life is creeping in around it, though, like this paintbrush . . .

. . . lupines, blooming a little later than at our sea level home, and . . .

. . . I really don't know what this is.  Any ideas?

Of course, the geologic formations are easier to see without so much plant life.  I particularly admired this amphitheatre,

and this frosted ridge.

Some of the tourists were pretty cute, too!

Stash to Treasure: Lavender Sachets

Take a little bit of this . . .

(flowered sheer fabric left over from a most elegant nursing coverup)

add a little bit of that . . .

(lavender in the garden)

and you can make these:

Lavender sachets. 

The directions I followed are here.  The hard part was removing the dried buds from the stems, but the result is very pleasing.  I don't generally like to add scents to my life, so I hope someone will like the sachets at our upcoming Relief Society Service Auction.  And if not, well, the scent is growing on me.  I'm tempted to make the dryer version, but I'll have to wait until next summer to harvest more buds.  I'm letting the rest of the plants bloom, and the bees are very happy about it.

A Chilling Scene

...for those of you who are caught in a heat wave:

Time to defrost the freezer!

Rollo has always liked ice, applied orally, but he has recently learned to appreciate its healing powers.  If you know Rollo, you'll understand that this is something he'll use often.  Dandelionslayer's reusable ice pack comes out of the freezer a couple of times a day.  I've tried to convince him that my usually-cold hands are just as good.  The day I defrosted the freezer, he almost believed me.

The Case of the Lifted Lettuce

It was a dark and stormy season . . . or too dry, or too something for my leafy greens to grow very well.  I planted lettuce, spinach, and carrots at the right time, and then again later.  But, except for about three carrot seeds, two spinach seeds, and one lettuce, they just did not sprout.  The only lettuce that has grown successfully in my garden this year sprang from established roots, one of those "live" lettuces from the store.  It grew back nicely, and I saved it for a special occasion.

I looked forward to adding it to my Grilled Chicken and Mango Salad last night.  I tore the remainder of last week's farmers' market lettuce into the bowl, then went out to the garden to harvest the fresher head.  But where was it?  In the space where, so recently, green leaves grew, there was only a hole.

Exhibit A:  the hole

The leaves had not been nibbled away, nor slimed by slugs.  The lettuce was simply gone, roots and all.  The lettuce lovers of my family denied any involvement.  Upon whom could I call to solve this mystery?  The Scouts, of course!  (Never mind that they were also the aforementioned lettuce lovers, and therefore suspects.  A Scout is trustworthy.)

The Caterpillar applied the skills he developed last year for his Stalking--I mean Tracking--Merit Badge to find this evidence:

Exhibit B:  the track

He identified the culprit as a raccoon.  This makes sense.  We know there are raccoons in the neighborhood, that their paws are capable of uprooting small plants, and that they will eat anything (not just the cat food the neighbors set out for them).  

Having convicted the miscreant (in absentia), the Cub Scouts sprang into action to prevent further leafy larcenies.

Exhibit C:  scare tactics

It  may not have the power of a brass serpent on a pole, but Scoot believes that this shiny CD fish will startle potential felons, and encourage them to go home and rethink their lives.

Exhibit C:  the League of Protection

Rollo contributed another fish (made at Cub Scout Day Camp).  He is also searching for a hero with animal communication skills.  He'd like to interrogate the bees.  Busybodies like bees should know what is going on in a garden, don't you think?  If not, Rollo's glowing countenance and Super D2's moral support may win the day and prevent further robberies.

Not that I have any lettuce left to steal, anyway.

Southern Alberta

While studying the atlas prior to our trip, we recognized the name of a historical site in Alberta.

Some years ago we read about it in Dave Barry's insightful essay on the delightful culture of Canada, "What Has Four Legs and Flies," (be sure to go back to page 47 for the full effect) from Dave Barry Talks Back.  We had to stop by. 

The story goes that the Blackfoot people used to chase buffalo over the bluff for more efficient hunting. A young warrior wondered what it looked like from below. His friends could not dissuade him, and he watched. They found him later, under the beasts, with his head smashed in.  Thus, the site was named Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump.

We arrived at closing time, so we didn't have much time to look around.  But the center is built onto the cliff, with a couple of stuffed bison looking down on the main floor.  Perhaps one could get a better idea of the event if there was a recording of thundering hooves playing, or if the buffalo looked like they were about to slip. 

Outside, the wind was blowing hard enough to keep unwise buffalo from falling off the cliff.  I had to make some effort to walk back down the hill to the parking lot, anyway.

The wind seemed to be trying to remove the doors from our van as we drove along.  I felt grateful to not be driving a covered wagon, or pushing a handcart in that sort of wind.  But some of the pioneers did.  Our next stop was in Cardston, founded by Mormon pioneers in the late 1880s. 

In spite of wind and snow and wartime, they built this beautiful temple. 

 Actually, the wind was not so bad when we stopped to see the temple.  We enjoyed a peaceful visit in the visitors' center.

Then we pressed on to Montana, and continued home.