Time to Get Busy

I'm up in Idaho right now.  Been busy meeting with my committee professors and connecting with fellow grad school people.  I now have a time line for my dissertation:
Final draft of dissertation to my committee November 8.
Defense of dissertation November 30.
Back to the "real" world outside of academia January 1.

Whee!!  The opportunities to be distracted in the next two month will be few and far between, but I will do my best.   lol.

Headed into Fall

Bounty of Pear Goodies

It's officially fall here, I think. The cool, crisp mornings tell me so, regardless of when the fall equinox occurs. Been busy here keeping all the plates spinning.

Transcripts

First off, the big news is I have finished transcribing, editing, formatting, and printing the transcripts!  In all there are thirty, though three of them were with two parents, so the total number of individuals interviewed is Thirty-Three.  I had in my head that it was thirty-five for the longest time, but I was wrong.  Now the fun work of coding and organizing this mass of data begins.  Creating the coherent story these parents can tell is a pretty enjoyable task.   I am headed up to Boise next week to meet with professors and check in with my fellow doc students, while making time to visit my Idaho friends, too.  I am looking forward to it.  I've made a CD of the interview tapes, and will be listening to them again on the way up and back. 

Pear Marmalade--Emily's "summer in a jar"

As for my distractions... Pears are such a lovely distraction.   My pear tree at my home had a modest crop this year. The new tenants  were busy moving, so I harvested the pears and am in the process of making pear butter (two recipes), pear marmalade, and pear coffee cake. You can see all the goodies in the first picture on this blog page.   My favorite to make is the pear butter because it fills the house with the scent of pears and apples and cinnamon.  The pear butter itself I can just eat out of a jar, like applesauce!  The Pear Marmalade I love because marmalade is one of my favorite covering for bread, but the pear version is milder, more spreadable, and the interaction of the orange and pear is, to my tastebuds, divine!

Giovanna, just turned 6 in August!

Berhwood.  His coat looks like a seal's, I think.

The horses have settled into their winter coats.  This weekend I thought, "Gee, I need to worm the horses."  Then I went out and discovered that Giovanna had bot eggs all over her legs.  Berhwood had zero.  Go figure.  So I cleaned her off and wormed them.   The next day, she had about six eggs on each front leg, and Ber had four.   Yesterday, one or two eggs on each horse.  So I'm betting it was one bot fly, and it is now gone.  In other horse news, I am looking forward to the delivery of their horse shelter in October. It is coming from an Oregon manufacturer who makes them, delivers them, and sets them up.   This will make the coming rains of winter much more doable.  Two shelters, plus a 12'x12' breezeway that I can keep feed and things in.  Yes! Ber and Gio have somewhere to get out of the rain if/when they want, and I will not be soaked walking from the big barn to my horses' pasture two times a day!

Winterized Ber!

Winterized Gio!

Now that I'm in my 40's, I finally accepted that I needed progressive lenses on my glasses.   Picked them up yesterday, and they make a world of difference. Still getting used to the endless focusing changes, but I see way better and reading/computer work is much easier.   My eyes had been getting so tired with the transcript work, but this will really help.  My hands also are very worn out from all the typing. A little too late, I purchased a wireless keyboard and mouse for my laptop.  They will be quite helpful when I sit down to the writing of this dissertation, I think!  I hope!

View of Trinidad Head from the pasture.

Zoom in on Trinidad Head.

I leave you with a picture of my pasture cat. He showed up one day and insisted on being my cat. So I started feeding him. He has the potential to be a great cat, but I haven't named him yet. Once he has a name, I'm committed!  lol. 

Pasture Cat.

September 15th Already?

From

Georgia's Moon
 
Today marks the day when Arcy and I began the rest of our Idaho adventure on our own.  To celebrate Georgia's memory, I am sharing a few pictures from before we moved to Boise, and a story about Georgia's garden escapades that I wrote while teaching at Blue Heron.  I hope you enjoy this glimpse into Georgia's true nature.  :). 

Serene in the Middle of Chaos, That's Georgia!

Hmmm, what's that?

Two Days before Moving to Idaho. It's like they Knew it was going to be cold!

Georgia the Carrot Thief

By Emily Gibson

9-5-07

“It’s 6 am!  Time to get up!  Where is Emily?”  I stretched up, yawned, wagged my tail, and trotted into Emily’s room.  If she wasn’t up yet, I knew how to wake her: a quick snuffle in her face with a lovely wet kiss.  Worked every time.

            Snuffle, snuffle. Kiss, kiss.

            “Ew!  Georgia!  Oh, you smell awful.  Please get your wet face out of here!  Ew!”  Emily sat up in bed.  Yep, works like a charm!  I trotted off to wait by my food bowl.  Soon Arcy and I were both munching down our breakfasts. Did Arcy say thank you?  No.

           Licking my whiskers, I sat by the door, whining softly.  A minute later, Emily staggered by the door, opening it for us on her way to the kitchen.  Arcy and I dashed outside to check for cats.  But did Arcy say thank you?  No.

            Once we had surveyed the perimeter of the yard for cats, and chased a few wayward felines out of our garden, I looked around for something else to do.  Ah, more food!  All that running and barking made my tummy empty.  “Hey, Arcy, let’s get something to eat!”  She had her head in a hole and didn’t pay any attention.  Oh well, her loss.  I trotted through the garden.  Peas?  No, not ripe yet.  Potatoes?  No, they were just starting to grow.  Pears?  Too green.  Asparagus?  Nope, Emily put up chicken wire.  I wonder why?  How about carrots?  I hopped up into the carrot bed.  What?  There was a weird net-thing on the bed, covering the carrot fronds.  I had to really work in order to pull out a carrot, but I managed after a minute or two to dig one out.

            “Hey, Georgia, can I have one?” Arcy begged.  Great, she finally noticed the work I was doing, and now she wants some.

            “Please?  I’ve been chasing gophers, and I’m starving.”

            “Okay, sure. Here.”  I tossed the carrot I’d just excavated to Arcy.  Then I worked on another one for  myself.  But did Arcy say thank you?  No. 

            After digging and pawing and biting for another five minutes, I finally pulled another out.  Phew.  Now I was hot and puffy.  Holding my carrot like a prize, I trotted to the middle of the yard and settled down to gnaw.

            “Scree” I heard the screen door open.  Here comes Emily!  She must be heading out to the horses.  I’ll go with her when she catches up to me.  Meanwhile, I’ll keep eating…  Hmm, that’s funny, why is she frowning?  I wonder if she wants a carrot too?  I’ll go get her one.  I headed off to the carrot bed again.  Wait a minute, where’s Arcy? 

            I searched, and soon found her cowering  under the jasmine bush.  “What’s up, Arcy?”

            “Emily is mad about the carrots.  I have carrot breath.  She’ll make me go to my room.  I don’t want to go to my room.  It is hot in there.”  Arcy tucked herself further under the bush.  “Here she comes—go away!”  Arcy closed her eyes.

            I trotted back to Emily and sat down, giving her my best grin and eyebrow wiggle.  I wagged my tail, laughing, and waited. 

            Emily bent down to look at me more closely.  I wiggled happily, thinking I was getting a kiss.  Oh, boy, I loved kisses!

            “Georgia!  Look at your face!  Look at your paws! What have you been doing?  You look like a muddy rat.  Oh, no, you haven’t been in the carrot bed, again, have you?  Even after I put up the pest netting?  Shame on you.”

            I knew she was mad, but I still didn’t understand why, so I grinned happily and wagged my tail again.  Maybe she would forget about it if I was cute enough.

            “Georgia, you have little bits of orange stuff in your teeth.  You HAVE been in the carrot bed again!”  Emily stomped off to inspect the carrot bed.  “Oh, Georgia, what am I supposed to do with you?  Look at this mess!”  She pointed to the little, neat holes I had dug in the dirt, and the ends of carrot fronds spread around the bed.  Emily looked so sad, that I couldn’t help but feel bad.  My tail sagged, my ears drooped, and I looked down.  When I looked up to see if Emily was still mad, I wagged  my tail apologetically and promised not to eat any more carrots.  At least not today.  

Checking out Emily's Horse Quilt.  Looks like it will be big enough!

The Great North Woods

Humboldt County Huckleberries!

First, a dish chock full of huckleberries!   A delightful distraction of late.  Not sure what I enjoy the most....the act of picking berries, enveloped in dappled sunlight or soft fog...or the time spent sorting and cleaning the picked berries back home...or the enjoyment of sweet-tart huckles in baked goods.  I am making a huckleberry pie tonight, so it can bake while I work on transcripts!!!

Second, pretty plant distractions.  I have a sweet patio garden full of potted plants. Tending this small garden every day helps me get my garden fix without getting lost out in the back yard, like I would at Whitmire.  The people I rent from have a tremendous garden, and every now and then they leave a pretty bouquet on my doorstep. This week I found a gorgeous arrangement of reds and yellows.

My patio Garden.

Flowers from the family I rent from.

Third, the rather significant distraction of this month: finishing the painting I began last summer, on my childhood home.   When my brother and I were growing up, our mom moved us to this small house nestled in the redwoods. On the front door, she painted a white square and wrote the words "Great North Woods."  My brother has requested I put that back on the door after all the work is done. I am waiting until his next visit to do the square.

Trinidad House, May 1969.

The sides of the house are old-growth redwood tongue and groove siding.  In many places, the original paint (from perhaps 1968?) was completely gone, with solid, shiny redwood gleaming through.  A testament to the quality of true old-growth redwood, eh?  As I worked on the house, I learned that the house was once white with red trim, and yellow with green trim before being painted a brown, with white trim, before we moved in, in 1969 or 1970.  I repainted the home with the same color paint (a "redwood" paint!) and a antique-white type trim.  However, first I coated the whole thing with a solid layer of oil-based primer. The paint guy at my local Ace tipped me on to tinting the primer so it was easier to cover with the true paint.    Primer can't be tinted very dark, so you get something that is in the same color family as the main paint, but quite light.   For this house, the primer was tinted a salmon pink!

  Anyway, here are some pictures of the house, before and after the painting.  If you look close, you can see Arcy and Georgia in some of the photos.  Those are the ones from last summer. Oh, and I have Nine transcripts left to do!  I'm chugging along at a good pace now.  :)

Front of House, before.

North side of house, Before.

Front of house, Before

South side of house, Before

South side, During Painting (see salmon pink primer?)

Front of House, After

North Side, After

Back of house, After

Back of house, After

South Side, After