Birthdays, mourning and cake

Butter, flour and parchment!

Tomorrow is my daughter's second birthday without her father. It also happens to be her 16th birthday. Rather than have some big blowout, she's opted for a quiet meal with family in our new home. I'm making salmon that my brother caught in Alaska, corn and this bread she really likes from a local bakery. And then there's cake.

My late husband was a master baker. Not professionally, just as a hobby, but he was quite spectacular at it. Birthdays were always a big deal around the house because it gave him the excuse to spend several days working on complicated new cake recipes.

Whip it good

He approached baking very much the way his computer science and cell and molecular biology trained mind worked - meticulously. And, after a multitude of years of practice, he had picked up quite a bit of knowledge of not only baking science, but just an inherent feel for it. 

I, on the other hand, never baked any cakes during the entirety of our marriage. That was his domain. But I did inherit a lot of knowledge just from listening to his many trials and tribulations, successes and failures. And, I inherited a kitchen full of professional baking equipment.

Last year, his death was too recent and too raw for us to have a proper birthday celebration for my daughter. I couldn't bring myself to make a from scratch cake so we went for something completely different. We went to the store and picked out a box cake and some pre-made frosting. It was so sacrilegious to the baking ethos of the house it was almost funny. We pictured my late husband rolling around in his cremation box. But, making anything better than that would have been just too heartbreaking.

Not too bad!

This year, we're in a much better place, both emotionally and physically. So, today I embarked on baking a proper cake, from scratch, as per my daughter's request - a Red Velvet Cake. Will it come out as good as something her father would have made? Probably not. I don't have that much patience. And, I don't like spending two full days baking things.

Was I melancholy while I was making it? A little bit, I have to admit. This is a significant milestone birthday - one of many events in my kids' lives that they will miss having their father with them. But, there's no way we could have done this a year ago. And, that really shows how far we've come along - with me stepping into this particular parental domain, and doing it with the happiness over the lives we have now.

Growing hops in high mountain country

Centennial and Nugget
hops

My partner, Daniel, was looking for plants that grow quickly to cover the side of his house in the mountains and he settled on growing hops. Okay, so 2200 feet isn't exactly Mt. Everest but, compared to my house in Seattle (at 200 feet), the growing conditions are very different. Add to the fact that his place is on the east side of the Cascade mountain range, and you have a radically different climate than maritime Puget Sound.

Varietals
I picked out two different types of hops and purchased two plants of each, hoping they'd do well in this area:

1. Nugget Hops - Humulus lupulus 'Nugget', an American bred variety for use in brewing beer. It is a bittering type of hop that is used in all styles of beer.

2. Centennial Hops - Humulus lupulus 'Centennial', an American variety that was also bred for use in brewing beer. It is an aroma variety that is very popular in American craft ales, stouts and porters.

The super grower!

Both types grow 15 - 25 feet per season and are hardy to 30 degrees F. They also die back to the ground each winter (I suspect this is the case for all hops).

One of the Centennial hops plants is totally kicking the other 3 plants' asses and is almost twice as tall as the Nugget hops. It's fascinating to watch them grow - we will literally place a marker where the plant has reached and come back up to the mountains a few days later and it's grown a half a foot or more.

We have the hops set up on a drip timer since half the week they are left to their own devices.

Reuse, reduce, recycle
In order to support the four plants, Daniel built a trellis system out of leftover hog wire and wood from one of his construction sites. And, some of the drip lines are also leftovers from a landscaping job or two. The upgrades he's making to this house is being done predominantly with found or leftover building materials. I'll be showing you more of what he's doing over the next few months!

What about the beer?!
Well, ultimately, I'd like to dabble making my own beer. I'm not sure if that's going to happen this year or not, but I have the summer to start fiddling around with small batches before these hops are even ready for harvest. I have so many projects planned for the summer that the brewing might go on the back burner.

But, in the meantime, we'll be drinking a lot of beer as research while we're perfecting our hop growing techniques. Which basically seems to be - plant in ground and watch grow. At the very least I'll be drying this year's hops for future use.

Mastering Grief - Death and the Dogwood

I was seriously considering starting a totally new blog titled "Young Widow Farmer" or some such thing rather than continuing in the vein of the Crunchy Chicken, but I didn't want my marital status defining me any more than my late husband wanted his fight with cancer to define him. He was, first and foremost, a husband, father, brother, friend, co-worker and an all-around exceedingly brilliant, hilarious, kind, humble and generous person. He just also happened to have a terminal illness.

My dogwood in bloom, 2019.

So, this dogwood. It's annual blooming is completely meaningless to anyone else besides me. Sure, it's pretty and everyone who sees it comments on its beauty, but it means so much more to only me. We bought this house with this dogwood tree when it was in full bloom back in May 2006.

I don't know at what point I started doing this, but every year since my late husband's diagnosis in 2007 I'd look at it blooming in late April and early May and think, "is this going to be the last year that this tree blooms and my husband is alive"? Some years we would be out of town when it was blooming and I'd miss most of the pink flowers and get anxious. That somehow that would portend his demise. It's weird how your mind, and your superstitions, work. And, each year he would somehow survive the torture and the treatments.

After a while, I'd kind of laugh at myself because 11 years of cancer survival is a long time. Worrying about the dogwood blooming and the link to my husband's survival seemed more ridiculous. And, honestly, last year I was feeling cocky enough to not go through the machinations of thinking the, "is this the last year this blooms and my husband is alive" routine.

My dogwood started becoming pink this last week. And, shit, it hit me again. The old mental routine. Except, this year, I already knew the answer to the question. You never really master grief - it just changes color, flavor and texture. I know this from my own father's death back it 2011, just as my book was published. Grief is a strange thing and is different every time. But, this time around, I'd actually been grieving my late husband's death since his diagnosis.

I stopped blogging shortly after my Dad died, so it seems somewhat fitting that I'd restart blogging after my husband died. And, as I head into a weekend in my "new life", with a new partner, and the possibilities of a new future and all its adventures, I can't but help also be tethered by the familiarity and routine of the old to ground me and remind me that life is tenuous. The dogwood is just one of the many things that strikes me into remembering. And, because of that, each day I take nothing for granted.

Log Cabin in the Little Woods - Checking out rural properties

Log Cabin - Cle Elum, WA

Back when I was blogging regularly, one thing I always dreamed about was moving to a more rural area on several acres so that I could garden and raise critters to my heart's content. Several things prevented me from living out that dream, primarily location to work, daily accessibility to the cancer treatment center and willingness of the whole family.

Since I have been working 100% remotely from home for almost the last year (and not working the last 2 months), that first barrier isn't really an issue anymore. I don't need to be within driving distance of downtown Seattle. Both of my high schoolers are homeschooled, so that isn't so much an issue now either and both of them are interested in being on more land.

It dawned on me the other night that, when I was working full-time and in the thick of being the primary caregiver for the whole family as well as the primary stable bread winner, the one thing I wished I could do instead of working in software development was write full-time and try to live the lifestyle that I talked about so often.

Being shell-shocked after my husband died, I wasn't really clearly seeing my options and, after I got laid off from work, my knee-jerk reaction was to jump back into a tech job. But I don't have the same constraints anymore. I don't have to spend 10 hours a week sitting in traffic going to a tech job I don't really have to have anymore. I can do something else. And maybe that something else is the thing I dreamed about for so long.

Last night, on my way to Roslyn with my new man friend, Daniel, (more on that later 😄), I went out and looked at a rural property that just came on the market. Two areas of the state that I had my eye on years ago for where I'd like to live is the Skagit Valley (north of Seattle) and Cle Elum (90 minutes east of Seattle).

This property is in the Cle Elum area. It's a little over 7 acres, has a number of outbuildings on it in addition to the home itself and has a canning shed, for crying out loud. When we drove down the gravel drive, the owner came out to greet us. He was probably wondering what the hell we were doing on his property at 7 pm (there's no way you'd accidentally go down the drive), but most likely figuring he had a live one looking at the property.

The owner offered to give us a grand tour of the house and the rest of the property and really took us in, explaining the history of the land, his wife's family's ownership, who lives where on the original 35 acre property as well as their own history and interest in retiring to Yakima.

It wasn't a property I was interested in pursuing (the house is very small and dark, the acreage is a weirdly unusable strip of land and it is too far from town), but the overt friendliness of the owners was really refreshing. I couldn't help but think their real estate agent would be horrified to learn they are divulging all the property's secrets, but maybe that's just the city girl in me.

At this point, it's just exploratory looking - I have no concrete plans to move out of Seattle immediately. My goal is to have a better idea of what I want to do over the next 6 months to a year and figure out how to get there. But, knowing me, who knows. It might happen sooner than I think!

Earth Day - Blogging Update

Getting Crunchy, 2019.

I can't believe I started this blog a little over 12 years ago. A lot has occurred since then. Most notably, in the last year my husband passed away from cancer. I know a lot of my readers followed the early days of his diagnosis and treatment and provided me with so much emotional support. I can't even relay to you how important and meaningful that was for me to be able to mentally survive such an excruciatingly difficult ordeal for my family.

After 11 years of fighting multiple myeloma, my husband passed away peacefully at home, surrounded by family. I didn't post about it here because, honestly, I found it harder to tell you all than it was to just do a brief post on Facebook months after the fact and then take a long break from social media and figure out what I was going to do next with my life, without making too many big decisions.

In the intervening time since his passing, I was also laid off from work. I've spent the last two months taking a long-needed break, spending time with my kids and trying to regroup and recover from so many years of medical trauma and stress.

It's been such a roller coaster over the last year. I had switched jobs from a very stable government position to a volatile startup. During my first week of work, my husband's health dramatically took a turn for the worse and he never recovered. In the last year I've gone from having two sources of full-time income to none but I am, fortunately, in the position to take my time to discern what the next chapter of my life will look like.

On one hand, my identity is very much associated with my skills in software development. But, my heart truly lies in the realm of sustainability, green living and engaging with the rest of the world on these topics. So, it seems more than fitting to restart up my blog on Earth Day.

My goal over the next 5 months is to get back into blogging and see where that leads me. One of the reasons I stopped blogging before was because I didn't feel like I had anything new to say or contribute. Because of the changes in my life that, too, has changed and I have a lot I'd like to share with you all and can't wait to tell you all the things I am doing and have planned.

Harkening back to my first blog post, not much has changed and I hope to continue the engagement and, hopefully, the entertainment!

"This blog will cover my various wanderings through trying to add sustainable habits to my life. Things that make me feel less like I'm treading all over mother nature and perhaps lessening my footprint, carbon emissions and all that fun stuff.

In the meantime, I'll try to keep things marginally entertaining."

- The Crunchy Chicken, March 2007