Birthday Day

Last tuesday my friend Cindie and I went up to Union Creek to celebrate our two birthdays...Mine is in June, hers in November...we have been talking about this since June, and so we finally did it. Our original plan was to just go up and have pie, but since Butte Creek Mill was so close to our turn off to go to the Upper Rogue, we started there. Here is the url to Butte Creek Mill if you want to read more about it! http://www.buttecreekmill.com/

A stone engraved with the year that Butte Creek Mill was built.

The entrance to the mill was all decorated with fall colors,

lots of pumpkins and corn stalks everywhere - it was very festive looking.

This display was to the left when you walked in the front entrance, the thing that interested me was the poster on the wall with the Cowgirl on it for Golden West Coffee.

What a beautiful advertisement!

This stairway was closed to the general public but it goes down to the bottom floor of the mill...

But there was another stairway down and once at the bottom we could walk around to an area where you could see the creek rushing under the mill through the slats on the floor. This open window was pointing out to the river below, that the creek poured in to! It was very beautiful and I was unable to catch the morning light with my camera.

Can you say CHEEEEEESEBURGER and fries please????

Pie mmmm....it's marionberry with loads of whipped cream...Thanks to Barbara up at Beckie's Restaurant in Union Creek for quick service and a smiling face!

We finally got up to the Gorge above Union Creek and walked along the river. All the Vine Maple was starting to turn color and it was a beautiful fall day!

The foot bridge going out over the Rogue River at the Natural Bridge hike.

The river narrows as it gets ready to shoot through the underground lava tubes at the Natural Bridge...
Up river a bit it widens out and is quite slow and not so deep so you can see the bottom of the river in places.

Vine Maple (Acer circinatum) leaves already fallen off and wasting away into the ground, but look at the beautiful colors they are still showing!!!!

When I saw this tree, I said....This is OLD GROWTH FIR!!!! I didn't know we still had trees this size in Oregon. I was so excited, I asked Cindie to shoot this picture of me standing next to it!

This is a picture I took standing next to the tree looking UP!!!!! Isn't that wild?

These are beautiful mushrooms!!!!

Emetic Russula (Dangerous, Toxic, Poisonous)

Standing inside of a hollowed out Fir Tree

This is a big beautiful snag next to the river.

I love seeing these as I know they will provide awesome bird habitat!!!!!

Apple Cider mm mm mm

So....I'm not going to write too much because I have these two cool friends who wrote about our Apple Cider Pressing day.....first is Suzanne....then there will be a few words from the leader of our group day JAKE...his writing style is really pretty charming...I hope you enjoy the pictures....that's my contribution of this blog post...Oh and I helped cut up the apples that my husband David and I picked out of our small garden orchard....

from Suzanne -

"A couple of years ago, my friend Jake mentioned to me that he had built himself a cider press for extracting the juice from apples. He built a cider press!? From scratch?? How cool is that?!

This summer after picking blueberries together, my friend Yvonne and I were continuing a long chat at her kitchen table and she talked about wanting to find a cider press for the apples on their trees without spending $300 on a new one. I told her my friend Jake has a cider press he built… Upon inquiry, he was very gracious about allowing us to come to his house to do a pressing.

So on a recent Sunday morning, we arrived at Jake’s house bright and early, armed with apples, knives, wine, and a few nibbles. We were prepared. :)

The apples had been gathered a couple of weeks prior, giving them an heady apple fragrance (and a few fruit flies!) and had allowed them to "sweat" a bit, soften up some, and made them easier to work with.

Next, we began cutting. These were organic apples (unsprayed) and thus were not the "perfect" specimens one expects to buy at the store. No matter. I am a minimalist when it comes to food and when we can be close to the source, I believe it gives us a connection to the whole life cycle we otherwise completely miss out on. I miss this about not living on a farm.

Jake has fashioned a grinder comprised of a garbage disposal (new!) built into a smallish table which is counter height. We quartered the apples, cutting out the dark spots, and fed them into the grinder. Mush came out the pipe underneath the table and dropped into a strategically placed bucket.

When the bucket was about a third full, Jake dumped the contents into a cloth bag which lined the press. He twisted the bag shut, fit a round lid inside the press, and turned a handle, bringing pressure down to squish the lid against the bag and this really fantastic brown juice seeped through the staves of the press and was captured in the wooden tray below which had a small notch cut in and the juice was captured in yet another strategically placed bucket.

The day was one of those awesome Indian summer days – blue sky, warm sun, cool air. It brings to mind the reason for seasons; autumn is for harvesting the bounty of the goodness of summer. It makes me grateful for the perfection of God’s creation and the food He offers that provides perfect nutrition for us. Putting up food for the winter makes me feel rather like an industrious squirrel, and seeing filled jars on the shelves and boxes or bags in the freezer gives me a sense of warmth and comfort.

Working together with friends makes it even better. Since I secretly believed I should have had the life of Laura Ingalls Wilder while growing up, I’m all about “sustainable living” and also really like the idea of barn raisings, quilting bees, and harvest parties. What a bonus: getting one’s work done and having social interaction at the same time!

Thank you Jake and Yvonne, love you guys!

Suz"

From Jake -

"I have always had an interest in home-brewing and wine making. The whole process of fermentation is fascinating to me. It is a completely natural occurring process that results in a compound that we as humans have come to develop entire industries around. You take sugar and add an organism that can metabolize this basic ingredient into carbon dioxide and alcohol as its waste products. It can't be any simpler. Nature has been doing it for eons. Humans have utilized the process for thousands of years, but only understood it for a few hundred."

From Jake -

"Several years ago I got it into my head that I wanted to make hard cider. I purchased some books and read up on the process. It is very similar to making wine from grapes. The apparatus is just a little different due to the properties of the fruits. I checked stores and the internet for pricing on apple presses and they seemed high. I knew what the finished product (apple juice) was and looked at photos and models on display at the stores and decided that I could build one. The wooden framework was easy. The screw portion that exerts pressure across the pressing plate was more difficult. I was working on a bridge project and saw that some of the concrete forming hardware would work for the main screw. The screw is built of 3/4" acme coil thread and a coil nut attached to the crossbeam of the press. These products are used in the structural concrete industry because of the steep thread pitch and how quickly you can screw a nut onto the rod. The steep threads also are self-cleaning if concrete gets spattered on the threads. I "borrowed a section of coil rod and a two coil nuts to build the press. One nut is attached to the crossbeam and the other is attached to the bottom of the coil thread. When you turn the screw, downward pressure is applied to the bottom nut which is then transferred to the pressing disk.

I built the wooden framework and the pressing basket out of maple, which my wood supply shop told me is the only wood allowed by the USDA for food applications. I also learned that maple is a very neutral wood and would not impart any flavors into the juice."

Ok....We had to take a break....and we needed some energy....what????

We all had a glass, but Suz was the poser!

From Jake -

"Another necessary piece of equipment when pressing apples or pears is a grinder. Internet research told me that lots of people use a garbage disposal for this. The idea seemed sound to me and I bought a sturdy unit with stainless steel internal components. I made a table for it to mount to and wired it accordingly with an on/off switch."

From Jake

"After the press and grinder were built all I needed was a pressing bag, collection vessels and fermenters; all of which I had from making beer earlier. Other than that, my only other comment would be that pressing apples, pears, etc. should be a group effort. There is a lot of work involved and is time-consuming. It definitely makes the process a lot less tedious and monotonous when you have such good company and take frequent breaks. I look forward to next year's crop and doing this again. What a good time I had!!"

Here's Jake showing off that he can tighten down the press

using only ONE finger...such TALENT!

mmmmm....more energy food....the little tomatoes were soooooo good!!!!!

Pouring the finished organic apple cider into clean jugs!!!!

It takes a strong steady hand to hold that funnel!

(I know my description of the press and the process is pretty analytical, but that is the engineer in me) By the way...drunkenness was key for these activities back in the day. It helped to mellow out an otherwise difficult existence. I see no problem with imbibing while toiling away as we did. And nobody got cut or their hand mangled in the grinder!

Jake

Suz at the end of the day....boy did we have fun! We also got a tour of his farm, and got to play frisbee with Jake's Blue Heeler 'Sapphire'!!!! I also can NOT wait for next year, in fact I hope we get to try pressing some pear cider as well!!!!!!

Hummingbird Baby....

I was lucky enough to be at the right place, at the right time the other day...sitting on my yaw yaw in the office and I saw movement out of the corner of my eye, I grabbed my camera and went right out the front door...ever so slowly to get the shots...it was a hummer baby getting lessons from it's mum and also getting fed a bit too....so cool...learning how to hover, but most of the time hanging onto the flowers and leaves with it's toes!!!!

Baby is on the left, mum on the right

Baby

Baby

baby....this is how I identified it as a Rufous hummingbird

by looking at the tail feathers and also at the chin and belly colors~

Mount Ashland revisited

Mickey and I decided to go on a hike again yesterday. We had originally planned on going to Denman Wildlife area near White City, but with the weather so hot we would have melted, so she suggested going back up to Mount Ashland. I jumped at the chance and picked her up at 6 a.m. We went into town and grabbed coffee at Dutch Brothers first...for her a cold triple iced mocha and for me a white chocolate raspberry sugar free skinny HOT one! Then back onto the 'five' (interstate 5) to Ashland, taking the Mt. Ashland exit...the first thing we saw were YELLOW lupines in bloom....beautiful....then we stopped for some amazing views of Mt. Shasta and Shastina!!!!

On up we drove past the ski chalet area, hoping for the gate that opens to travel toward Grouse Gap to be open! Luckily it was and we headed along the road, not getting far before the mountain meadows of wild flowers lured us to stop and get out to see all the flowers in bloom since our last visit.

Columbine was not only in bloom but there was this area of massive amounts of these plants...I've never seen so many all grouped together in bloom all at the same time!

There was Western Wall flower in bloom here and there adding a splash of yellow.

And also Indian Paintbrush here and there...

We saw many little birds and butterflies and I wished for the day to never end. We went from burying our noses in the flowers and bugs below us to standing in awe of the vistas of forest and mountains all around us. The weather was perfect - my car thermometer said it was a 'balmy' 66 degrees...hah! I think the only thing that coulda made the day any better woulda been a tunafish sandwich with dill pickles, chips and a V8!!!! (next time)!!!!

I posted all my pictures to my FACEBOOK if you want to see some of the birds and butterflies.