Me Before You

I listened to this book on Audible.  It's very well read and very well written.

Our Souls at Night

I really enjoyed this book.  I listened to an audio version from the library and the reading was excellent.  You can listen to or read a sample at Amazon.

Here is a review from the New York Times.

The Utterly Uninteresting and Unadventurous Tales of Fred, the Vampire Accountant

I am really enjoying this book.  I borrowed an audio version from the library through Hoopla.  I think the narrator does a good job of enhancing the story.  Very fun.

Elizabeth Gilbert and Creativity

Elizabeth's most famous book is "Eat, Pray, Love".  She also wrote "The Signature of All Things", which I think is terrific.  Recently she published "Big Magic, Creative Living Beyond Fear".  I am reading it now and loving it.

Here is a wonderful Ted talk she gave several years ago.

Daily trip to Portland Nursery

We are still walking to Portland Nursery almost daily.  Our garden is pretty full but sometimes I find an opening.  Today's goal was fragrant Nicotiana and we got them!  We bought two Nicotiana Whisper Pink, one Nicotiana sylvestris and one Nicotiana aztec jasmine scented.

This is John carrying our babies home.

Sights at Portland Nursery today

Book Pile

These are the books in my book pile right now.  "Bungalow Kitchens" is a great resource for vintage kitchen ideas and it is also eye candy.  "Poets on the Peaks" and "Fire Lookouts of the Northwest" are old friends that I am enjoying reading again.  "Homesteading" is about life in the time and near the place where my grandparents homesteaded in Eastern Montana.  It makes me feel the wind howl in my soul.

Life as a fire lookout

Wildfires are on my mind a lot right now.  The Northwest is having an especially long dry spell plus it has been windy these past few days and predicted to stay that way through the weekend.  It's scary dry here.  It is still very much wildfire season.

I just saw this video on Portland Hikers that has some great footage of life in a fire lookout.



When I was a sweet young thing, one of my fantasies was to be a fire lookout.  I never managed to make it happen.  I am not so sure that I would have liked it.   I don't think the reality of that life was very much a part of my fantasy, although I think I would have enjoyed the solitude and I think I would also have enjoyed "playing house" in a fire lookout.  But the lack of fresh food and the difficulty of hauling water would be big issues and some of the work was probably beyond a small woman.

I've read a couple of books about life as a fire lookout.  One of them is about Gary Snyder and his beat poet friends who worked as fire lookouts in the North Cascades.  That was in the fifties, the hey day of fire lookout history.  It's a great book with wonderful black and white photos.  The book is called "Poets on the Peaks" and it is by John Suiter.  I just looked for it on Amazon and it must be out of print.  There are some copies available, but for a high price.

  link to 'Poets on the Peaks' at Amazon

The other fire lookout book I've read is called "Fire Lookouts of the Northwest" and it is by Ray Kresek.  It must be out of print too because it is also really expensive at Amazon.

 link to 'Fire Lookouts of the Northwest' on Amazon

This book has hundreds of fire lookout experiences with black and white photos, most of them from the fifties.  Most of the stories are pretty amazing.  Some of them are funny and some are tragic.  There was the fire lookout in Southern Oregon who felt his building swaying and looked out to see an elephant rubbing against his foundation.  There are many stories of fierce and frightening, and even deadly, lightning storms.  Fire lookouts were furnished with a lightning stool which is a wooden stool with big glass insulators on its legs.  During a lightning storm, the fire lookout stood on the lightning stool to keep from being electrocuted.  The air was so charged that your hair would stand on end and you would often get shocks.  I certainly would not have liked that.

Here is a photo of me standing on a lightning stool in a fire lookout.  I would like to have my own lightning stool.

I did get to stay in a real fire lookout once when we rented one for a few days.  That photo was taken then.  It was a cool experience.   The fire lookout had been beautifully restored by a group of people who just love fire lookouts.  The view was great.   You can see our photos here if you are interested.

Fire lookout stay

Porch reading

It's lovely on our front porch.  Here is my comfy spot and the pile of books I am reading and looking at.

 The books include:

• Bungalow Kitchens (with great photos of old kitchens)
• The Restless Northwest (a geology book)
• Daily Life in a Covered Wagon (a kids book about life on the Oregon Trail)
• Tender at the Bone (by and about Ruth Reichl)

And this is a rose in my front yard.  I love how it looks lit from within.

The Oregon Trail

The Oregon Trail fascinates me.  How did women pack up their lives and walk into the unknown like that?  They had so little information to go on and the journey was difficult.  How did those women manage day to day?  They wore long skirts.  They had to keep house in the dust and the dirt under very primitive conditions.  They had children to take care of, often including a baby.  They were usually pregnant.  They walked all day and then had to set up camp, make dinner and clean up after the dinner.  There were clothes to wash.  Illnesses to tend.  Firewood to gather.

Much of the time the women didn't choose to go.  Their husbands would announce that they were going.

The Oregon Trail makes walking the Pacific Crest Trail or the Appalachian Trail seem like a piece of cake.  On the Oregon Trail they couldn't ship things to pick up along the way.  If they were sick, they couldn't get off the trail for help.  All the wonderful lightweight watertight modern materials weren't available.  There were no convenience foods.  No water filters.  There were no good accurate guide books.  It was easy to get lost.  I could go on, but you get the picture.

My fascination with the Oregon Trail is long standing.  Recently I got a book that answers so many of my questions about how it was to travel that trail.   The book is called Women's Voices from the Oregon Trail by Susan G Butruille.

Here's a link to the book with some information about it.

Women's Voice from the Oregon Trail

And here is an Amazon link

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0963483986

Wild about Wild

I just finished Wild by Cheryl Strayed.  It's an amazing book.  She tells a really good story and it's a true story about her own hike on the PCT (Pacific Crest Trail).  I am amazed she survived.  Talk about ill prepared!

She did the hike and moved to Portland the same year we moved to Portland.  So I guess you could say we both died and went to heaven the same year.

Although I love to hike, I have zero desire to backpack the PCT like she did.  My feet hurt just reading about it.  I never liked back packing that much precisely because you have to carry a pack on your back.  Never liked that.  Hiking has never been about a sense of accomplishment for me.  It's just about being in beautiful places.  I am happy to do it in small doses.

Here is a link to the book


http://www.amazon.com/Wild-Found-Pacific-Crest-Oprahs/dp/0307592731/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1341073222&sr=1-1&keywords=wild