cheese-to-be

As I was laying in bed this lazy drizzly morning reading my book, I stumbled across something exciting: how to make cheese.

I suppose it has crossed my mind, as I'm always excited for a chance to immerse myself in the making of my food; apple and pear cider in the fall, berry picking and canning in the spring, growing and harvesting my own vegetables, making beer. But I've been reading Pollan and Kingsolver and learning about our corporate food machine, triggering in me a more urgent search for ways in which to eat local, eat well.

The idea of living on a farm or farm-like place has always appealed to me. In fact, I did everything I could in Eugene to make my small 1/3 acre lot into a farm, though I could have found some chickens to keep as well. I love the idea of growing, collecting, cooking and preserving food locally. In fact, the idea of eating a piece of fruit I had to struggle to reach is so much more appealing to me than buying fruit in the grocery or even in a farmers market, that I rarely even think of buying fruit.

I can recall one of the tastiest meals I've ever had with vivid detail. It wasn't my grandmother's Christmas dinner, my mom's delicious sherry artichoke chicken, it was a meal cooked entirely from a friend's property in Utah, amidst a peach orchard near a spring. We ate turkey that roamed freely about the ranch, and salad collected from their amazing garden, tucked into the sandy soil against a rock outcrop. It was the most flavorful turkey and salad I have ever eaten. I wondered at the time why it was so good. I think I understand it now.

With my new perspective on food, I've been searching for opportunities to make some of the things we normally buy: bread, beans, preserves, and buying things from local sources when we can afford them.

After my discovery this morning, I searched out our local farmers' market, hoping there would be one up and running on a Wednesday morning, looking for a source of local milk. I was in luck. I stumbled around the house collecting warm waterproof clothes, then I bungied a wooden box to the back of my bike and headed to the market in search of milk.

I didn't find any, but I did find some local cheese, beets, tomatoes, cilantro, garlic, onions and Swiss chard. yum yum. With my collection in the makeshift wooden bike basket, I headed home to plan a meal, find a local milk farm, and learn how to make cheese.

leaves of three, leave it be

In 2005 I embarked on an adventure with several other brave souls to study the historic oak savanna of the Willamette Valley. Although we were there to study the age of the trees and their distribution, I am sure I learned more about another species, one that just so happens to thrive in oak savanna: Toxicodendron diversilobum.

Toxicodendron, more commonly known as Poison-oak, can climb trees or hug the ground, it can don green or red or orange leaves of varying shapes and sizes. The branches glow orange in the spring, giving the earth a warm halo. Its summer berry yields are plentiful, providing a good source of food for local birds. And its toxic oil, Urushiol, has convinced most humans to leave it alone. The oil can remain active and toxic for 1-5 years, even with exposure to UV. The toxin is potent enough for 1 nanogram to cause a rash.

I grew up on the east side of the cascades, a location my parents had chosen, at least in part, because Toxicodendron doesn't grow there. My exposure was minimal if not altogether lacking during my early rolling-in-the-forest days.

I had been warned about poison-oak. My parents dutifully pointed it out as they walked out of their way to put a 10' space between them and the plants at rest areas on the way to my grandparent's house, as if the plant would suddenly leap towards them and rub itself all over their bare skin.

Just looking at it makes me itch, my mom would say. My dad would nod in agreement. I ignored both the plant and my parents.

See that? Don't touch it. You'll be sorry. Then my mom would break into song:

Gonna need an ocean duh dah-duh dah-duh of calamine-a-lotion duh dah-duh dah-duh and laugh a slightly hysterical laugh you could tell was inspired by her experience with Calamine lotion.

She would then ask:

have I ever told you about my 7th grade graduation? Panty-hose were brand new back then, and grandma bought me my first pair. I wore them to graduation. My oozy poison-oak blisters glued the nylons to my legs and I spent the night in the bath tub soaking them off.

I suppose if you've ever had poison oak, you have your own horror story to tell. And if you haven't, you think we're all crazy. Well, believe me when I tell you, the oak CAN make you crazy. I suppose that is why I'm writing this now. My current oak situation has me thinking about my first oak adventure.

During the height of my poison oak-induced mania (caused primarily by wading through groves of poison-oak vines), I would drive to the store, and grind my teeth (so as not to tear my skin off). I waited in line, ready to push anyone out of the way that threatened to take too long. I bought rubbing alcohol and Mary's poison Oak Soap, I bought Technu and Citrus degreaser. I bought Aveeno oatmeal baths and Fels Naptha (laundry soap in bar form), bleach and naturpathic anti-oak-itch spray, I looked through the isles searching for anything that would remove layers of my skin, or dry the oils poisoning it, anything that would make me stop itching. Then I would race home and take an icy cold shower, then a super hot shower: itch relief in two forms. Relief and pain and madness all in rolled into some hot water running over my bubbly, deformed skin.

In all about 60% of my body was covered with oozy red blisters. I was blistered from ankle to ass. I had rashes on my belly, arms, back and neck. I was miserable. Because we figured that much of our back-end exposure was due to pulling our pants down in the woods, we convinced our boss to buy us contraptions, so we could pee like guys. Although awkward, it prevented quite a bit of butt rash, but posed another more frightening possibility. I invested in rubber gloves.

After a day of work we would carefully and systematically drop off our toxic gear and head home in haste. At home, I would remove my toxic clothing (complete with gloves, duct taped at the wrists to my long-sleeved shirt), as if I was a doctor removing a rubber glove, rolling the toxic sides into themselves, and dumping it straight into the washer, careful not to let the clothes touch the floor or my body. Hot wash with lots of soap.

The shower was comprised of a strict protocol: very cold water and Fels Naptha, followed by approximately 15 gallons of cold rinse water. Another soap and rinse cycle, then the excruciatingly hot water to scratch the itch I couldn't touch, followed by icy cold water to reduce swelling and keep me sane for at least 20 minutes. Repeat as needed.

During our van rides to the field sites we would exchange pre- and post exposure protocol and treatment of blisters, anything we could find online and things that were or were not working for us. We spent hours online searching for something that could fix us, but to little avail.

I fell into an insane paranoia of poison-oak the plant, and the invisible oil that could be anywhere. My work boots lived in a plastic bag on the porch, only to be touched with gloved hands. My truck, I considered toxic, though I still placed a towel on the seat before I would sit down. The van that transported our team and our toxic equipment, we treated like hot lava.

I did eventually recover from my oak field season, with only a few physical scars and an amazing skill for recognizing Toxicodendron in all its seasonal glory. After a bucket (almost literally) of steroid cream and two rounds of oral steroids, my body recovered and sanity replaced the itchy madness of the summer. Perhaps it was because of this experience, that I decided to study something else for my thesis. No more oak for me.

So, here I am again, searching for information about poison oak. It seems to be the same old story, no one really has a good, safe remedy or prevention technique. But I did find these advertisements that may be helpful:

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Just in case you wanted to buy some after reading this.

As for my current oak situation: I didn't even get it from romping in the woods. Nope, Andrew brought it home on his clothes, he smeared it in my car, on the floor of our room and who knows where else. As for my body? I have blisters on my legs and arms, on my face and lips, on my breast and nipple. Another round of steroids to stay sane. I should join the Olympics.

salameandering

Lately, after a newt-filled hike, I've been obsessing over salamanders. I've been looking them up online and searching under the rocks and wood piles in the backyard. And, much to my enjoyment, I found a couple fun ones:

the California Slender Salamander (a worm with legs?)



The Arboreal Salamander

shovel sledding and snowshoes

for a week of winter wonderland fun, we went to Utah. Northern Utah this time. It was my old stomping grounds back in the day. The post-college conundrum seasonal ski bum job sort of stomping grounds. The lodge where I worked cleaning toilets and stocking spa towels brings back memories every time I start towards little cottonwood canyon. I could ski out the back door down to the lifts and be on the mountain in less than 10.

This time, like many others before my toilet-cleaning, bed-making days, my family was there to visit my aunt and uncle: long time locals. Andrew was the new edition ( or addition, depending on how you want to look at it).

It was his first time skiing and, I have to say he did an amazing job picking up the moves right off. So we started down the blues. Then we went up a mountain on snowshoes. all the way up. It was gorgeous up there, clear skies and views for miles. Allyn and Jerry left us to our mountain summit, heading back for food and rest.

The way down may have been the highlight, though. The running and crashing in pillows of piles of powder. Then the shovel-sledding down the cat track: my favorite sport.

rifle gap

Once upon a mountain I found myself traveling once again through Colorado, on my way home, I suppose, from Denver or Boulder, or perhaps on my way back to Boulder from Glenwood Canyon. I was with a group of friends, It was late and we were tired. We found a dirt road and pulled off the interstate, following the rutted tracks a ways towards the hills, through the brush. It was a strange place, you could just sense it.

The night was dark, and we could see very little save the ground just in front the car. We pulled into a make-shift turn around, the kind you find all over the desert, all over BLM land, and parked the car to camp.

As we unpacked our tents we examined the ground, embedded with shot gun shells, bones and brown glass: the remnants of what were likely whole beer bottles at some point, until they were used for target practice. The ground was a frightening mosaic of death. Whose bones were they, anyway?

I slept only lightly, fading in and out of disturbing dreams about unidentified animals and hunters and, well, being hunted. The morning was welcome, the light washing away the shadows of the night, but the sight wasn't much more pleasant than it had been in my dreams.

It wasn't just the road that painted a picture of the goings-on on this land, it was everything. There were fire pits and beer bottles and shells and bullets, decaying carcasses and bones. Curious, and feeling safe now that the darkness had gone, and with it the fear of predators ( mostly of the Homo sapien type) lurking in the shadows, I went to explore.

The bones were not just deer and elk, no, I found the unmistakable remains of a very large dog. This was no coyote, it was no fox. It was a domestic dog with a head the size of a basketball, okay, probably more like a large ugly-fruit. The find catalyzed an entire series of questions in my head: why would you kill a dog? why here? Whose dog was it? what did it do? who did it eat before it met its end?

inspiration

this is a blog i found in my archives, saved as a draft from this summer (including the title):

I wish I felt inspired to write right now, but somehow this inhumane 8-5 work day thing has

that is it, all i wrote almost the entire summer.
note to self: let's not do that again.

Instead I work at strange times of the day, 4:30 in the morning for example, or closing a store at 9:30 pm and sometimes I do both of these on the same day. Some weeks I have very little work, and my paycheck is slim. In some weeks I do 2 weeks' worth of work. I remind myself regularly (usually around 4:07 a.m.) that I should be happy for three reasons:

1) I have a job (well, 2 actually)
2) I don't sit at either job, in front of a computer or otherwise
3) I don't work 8-5 and I can generally take as much time off as I like

Then I bundle up and hop on my bike in the starlight to open the coffee shop. You would think I might have some writing inspiration from that, but I guess I'm all out for the moment.