Life's a Stitch

In my last post I mentioned leaving for our third pilgrimage on the Camino. However, we’ve been thinking about it for months, weighing our options, lest you think it a totally impulsive move. On the contrary, we agonized over making a decision. At the ten day mark we jumped in head first, making travel arrangements. This time we are planning on 400k (250 miles) on the last bit of the Camino de la Plata from Zamora turning onto the Camino Sanabres after 40K, to Santiago.

It’s both easy and difficult to leave now that the house is so full and lively, reminding us how our home in the rain forest used to be. Our son’s friends affectionately dubbed it the Northvanage (rhymes with orphanage) knowing it was OK to join the family on a moment’s notice. We still laugh at the time our daughter’s American friend showed up to retrieve his replacement passport. He lost the first one while cycling here from the Midwest. When he came to the door I showed him to his room. A few days later, M called to see if he had picked it up. I told her how much we were enjoying his company. “What? I didn’t invite him to stay!” I just assumed an out-of-town friend meant he needed a place to crash.

Some of our recent visitors became enthralled with the fact that you can fish for crabs from the end of the pier, a mere eight minute walk from our house. And crab they did. Licences are cheap, as are crab traps and fresh turkey necks for bait. SIL KC on the pier:

Fresh crab, both Dungeness and red rock, fried ravioli and Caesar salad was a perfect communal meal.

I’m looking forward to the communal meals on the Camino. Tomorrow we’re off!

Many people believe that they are called to do a pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago. That might have been true with our first routes, but this time the “call” was very clear, and the timing was right as there are people staying behind who will take care of our house, so off we go. This will be a 250 mile route on a quieter, more remote trail, as compared to the main route that passes through towns and services throughout the day. It’s not without trepidation, especially with ten days lead time, but that’s part of the pilgrimage process. 

If you’re not familiar with the Spain’s Camino Santiago, go to YouTube and watch “the Way” with and Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez, a movie that’s an accurate depiction of the Camino, more or less. In fact, it’s the reason the main routes have gained popularity, not necessarily a good thing as it strains available resources during certain seasons. 

Posts from our previous Caminos are linked in the right column. I’ll be blogging this time, but due to the route, there will be days without reception, so there will be gaps and times of catching up. 

It’s been four years since our first Camino, three years since the second. You never know what’s in store so we might as well do it now while we can. Buen Camino!

Meet an ancient wall, located in Tarragona, Spain, a product of the Roman Empire during the 3rd century. 

Now mix it up with modern techniques. My specialty is watercolour painting on traditional cotton rag paper. Now it’s possible to apply watercolour to canvas, first covering it with a coat or two of “ground”, which dries to the texture and absorbency of paper. Using this  technique, here’s a piece of that Tarragona wall in progress. 

Cropped reference photo and beginning of painting:

Progress:

The best part of this technique is the ability to display watercolours without a mat, frame or glass.

My artwork has a lot in common with knitting. I seem to accumulate an uncomfortable amount of UFO’s (unfinished objects). This one, however, is close to being done. And I need to finish a few more because I’ve committed to participating in a show of ten artists in November. Yikes.

That’s the question asked particularly on the anniversaries of historically significant events. The following are at least fifty years in the past!

I’m dating myself to include the day Kennedy was assassinated. I had been sent into the hall for talking in class, no surprise, when a big 5th grader told me the president was shot. I was in a quandary as to whether I should inform the teacher, but figured I was in enough trouble as it was.

I remember Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King’s funerals because on both those days I was babysitting for the same family and one of the kids asked why every time I babysat there was a funeral on TV.

The moon landing where I was in Rome while on a high school art tour, an adventure with 43 teen girls, a young woman in her 20’s, one boy and two nuns. We got up in the middle of the night to witness the moon walk with many Americans and Europeans. I remember being naively shocked when the US national anthem was sung, followed by boos from the crowd, a political commentary of the times.

And of course there was Woodstock. The day they closed the NY thruway, was the day I arrived back to NY from that school tour. One of the nuns and the boy, her nephew, were supposed to be headed upstate to their home town. I guess they made alternative plans. I clearly remember the music and events surrounding the festival.

I think if someone had told me what my life would be like 50 years hence, I might not have believed it. The loves, the losses, the fact that I would be living happily in Canada. That in my 60’s I would walk 500 miles across Spain and 250 in Portugal. Sounds far fetched. That I would geocache (something that wasn’t in existence then) on six continents. That I’d have a rewarding career in social services prior to finally becoming the artist I wanted to be on that high school art trip.

A painting in progress:

I remember these feelings of the initial stages of grief from when my dad died when I was 16. It was a monumental event, but the world around us didn’t stop.  Our family was consumed in a vacuum of grief while the rest of the world continued on. Noises seemed louder, traffic quicker. Loss takes a lot of energy and moving through it can feel like wading through grey jello. 

This week we found comfort in a simple task – berry picking. It’s blackberry time in the Pacific Northwest. They’re sweet and juicy and the air is scented with fruit fermenting on the vine. I find their flavour heavenly, but the seeds annoying. Our solution is an amazingly simple seedless jam, made of three ingredients: berries, sugar and lemon juice. 

Naturally high in pectin, blackberries gel beautifully using a ratio of  under .25:1 sugar to fruit. I’ve seen pectin added recipes that require a 1:1 ratio of sugar and fruit. This recipe produces a burst of fruit flavour in a deep amethyst coloured seedless jam.

Five pounds of berry goodness:

made five cups of delicious jam:

Simple Seedless Blackberry Jam

5 lbs blackberries

3 C sugar

juice of one lemon

1. Sprinkle the sugar over the berries and let sit in the refrigerator over night.
2. Prior to cooking, sterilize five 8oz jam jars.
3. Heat berries in Dutch oven until hot and soft.
4. Remove seeds by mashing through a metal strainer or using a food mill with holes small enough to trap the seeds. We also squished the leftover pulp through a fine cotton cloth.
5. Add the lemon juice to the strained liquid, bring to a gentle boil, and cook until thickened. This can take awhile, this batch cooked for at least 40 minutes. Use the sheeting test to determine when jam is done. It will continue to thicken once it’s in the jars.
6. Ladle into sterilized jars, cover with seals and rims, and process in boiling water for ten minutes. There are lots of online instructions for hot water bath canning. Don’t be intimidated, it’s easy and so worth it. I own no special equipment, using a large stew pot and veggie steamer basket for processing.

There’s  a lot to be said for comfort food.

Today we picked another seven pounds.

Though few of us old time bloggers are left, absences in posting leads remaining followers to imagine possibilities, tragic to amazing. In this case it is the former. 

Camping, 12 nights in a row, it’s my new record. You can teach this old dog new tricks. I’m enjoying it. There are a few things I didn’t like, as in one day of rain so heavy, we watched a mouse running from underneath one car to the next in WalMart parking lot, so as to avoid  getting drenched. And I could do without campsites that are nothing more than gravel parking lots, which only accounted for one night. Finally, abysmal traffic in Portland, OR, with no HOV lanes or public transportation from suburban communities.

There were far more highlights.  

Staying at the site next to Blogless Marsha and Dave, in their camping cabin at Dosewallips State Park in the Olympic Peninsula. It was there we saw a herd of 34+ elk, and a group of 18 bald eagles circling toward the shore.

Breathtaking Mount Saint Helens, from the observatory, on a clear day.

Being close to the ocean and indulging in halibut, crab cakes and pan fried clams.  

Walks in the woods, lots of opportunities for some Shirin Yoku of a couple of posts ago.  Woodworker C, was in his element, when by chance we pulled to the side of the road to eat lunch, and discovered the Burl Trail.

And the real highlight for me was the purpose of the trip. A four day course at the Oregon Society for Artists in Portland, with Lian Quan Zhen, the artist I studied with last year in Spokane. This class focussed on animals and landscapes. This heron is almost done.

It’s been great hiking weather in the Pacific Northwest, warm and sunny after some drenching rain, the perfect recipe for mushrooming. Two Sunday’s worth of walks in the woods produced fresh springtime Oyster Mushrooms.

These entwined trunks called for a painting. Might do this one larger. It’s a Sitka Spruce and a Cedar.

The biggest seasonal thrill was on the water as we watched  a pair of Grey Whales, right from our deck, two days in a row. They’ve been hanging out in our shallow bay on their way up the west coast. My neighbour, who has lived next door since the mid 90’s, said this is the first time she’s seen them. Turns out a major portion of their diet includes crustaceans and our local crab hit the spot. Maybe there are more available, after a section of our city’s pier was taken out by a major winter storm, and nobody’s able to crab from the dock.

The whales would not pose long enough for a photo while they were substantially above the water. But I managed to capture two fins.

I always knew a walk in the woods did something for me. Little did I know I was practicing the Japanese health tradition of Shinrin-yoku, forest bathing. This is an article from Time, that explains it well. It’s the one thing I miss from living in the rain forest, my almost daily forays onto the wooded trails. 

Living near salt water has it’s own therapeutic qualities. You can’t dwell on much else while watching whales so close to home. Granted it’s a rare event, but the ever changing sky and water are a feast for the eyes and soul for someone interested in colour and texture. There’s  probably already a Japanese term for walking by water.

Luckily there are parks and forests within a short distance, so thick as to form tree tunnels.

Here’s a tunnel of cherry blossoms, two blocks from home.

Last week, while walking the trails at Crescent Beach I saw this one:

It provided the perfect mix of passions: walking, forest bathing, tree tunnels and painting in my watercolour journal:

 

I thought retirement meant a more relaxed pace to accomplish the activities of daily life and extra time for the things you love to do. Problem is, my to-do list hasn’t retired and continues to grow daily, hence the title of this post. So here I am sneaking in a smidgen of blog time. 

An indication of busy-ness is the fact that’s it’s been a two pavlova month. One for Easter and the other, C’s standing request for his birthday cake. Two things you can count on in this family, Boston Cream Pie on my birthday and pavlova for his. The Easter one was huge. 

Here’s the recipe, so easy for such a decadent dessert.

Easter was packed with family time including four sessions of geocaching with my current recruit, grandson Rye.

Here’s Parker, demonstrating his three year old personality.

One more little travel journal painting, a combination of two photos I took in Suzhou, the Venice of China. Look carefully at the laundry on the left wall. It’s Chinese tradition, if this year on the Chinese Zodiac is the same as your birth year, you’re supposed to wear red underwear or socks throughout the year for good luck. One of our tour guides was born in the year of the pig, so we gifted him with autographed red undies. 

And I just finished a watercolour brush stroke class, where we learned to paint flowers to embellish cards and envelopes. It was calligraphy in watercolour. Not my usual style, but lots of fun and an opportunity to develop brush control.

In between the bills, taxes and insurance forms, there’s still plenty of time for the fun stuff.