Curtains, estuaries, and delicious food, plus more food.

Another month at home brings us more of the same. We hike; we eat; we do chores. My mother helped us by sewing new curtains for the bathroom out of some pillowcases that had been hand embroidered by my great-grandmother. They had been sitting in my linen closet for years, but now I am able to enjoy them every day. She also made throw pillow cases from more of them for the bedroom. I do know how to sew, but my mom is a real expert. Russ' mom is also an expert seamstress. I like the idea of it, but don't like the process, so I stick to knitting and crocheting. We fixed fried green tomatoes for lunch after she measured and finalized the finished length. Green tomatoes are a childhood favorite of both me and my mom.

I love the heirloom embroidery.

Perfect length. The old curtains were too short.

Fried green tomatoes.

Mom enjoys her reward.

I've continued to work on learning Spanish every day using Duolingo. I recently reached a streak of two years of doing at least one lesson every day. I am improving, especially at reading and translating in both directions, but I haven't done what I need to do in order to speak fluently. I need to talk to people more, until it hurts, really.

Russ and I have continued to get out. Recently we hiked at the Nisqually Wildlife Refuge. It is quite close to where we live, just 20 miles south on I5. The land has been restored from a farm to a natural salt/freshwater estuary over the past 25 years. It is amazing now. We enjoy bird watching there. This time the local sea lions were in Medicine Creek. It was funny how they kept pushing each other off smaller and smaller hummoks as the tide came in up the creek. I was unable to get a good photo with my phone, but Russ managed some nice shots with his telephoto lens.

Mount Rainer across the estuary toward the Nisqually River.

They replaced part of the old farm levy with this boardwalk.

Trees from the old farm were mostly killed from salt water intrusion.

I'll finish up this post with a random collection of other things we've been doing, plus food! We stay busy, even as we stay near home and socially isolate. I try not to get lazy about making dinner for just two people. Usually, I can make enough to freeze for lunches.

We drove past Seattle. I love this view from the Ship Canal Bridge.

Crab-Stuffed Peppers with a Horny Toad Cocktail.

Salad Nicoise.

Summer vegetable tart.

I thought this was funny and managed a picture at the stoplight.

We hike with a friend every Friday (wearing masks). This part of the old trail eroded over the cliff.

Mushroom ragout with polenta. Tomatoes are from my garden.

Chambers Bay Golf Course. There is a path around the course that is well used.

Greek pasta. It's a favorite with feta, fresh tomatoes and basil.

This hummingbird perched in front of me while I meditated.

Russ looks at the moon. We used the telescope to see Comet NEOWISE.

Fresh basil pesto with zucchini and chanterelle mushrooms.

Paul Peak, Peak Flowers, and Favorite Foods.

It has been a strange time. I think that is true for everyone, but I feel especially grateful that we have no worries about finances. I used to be concerned that we would retire into a recession, and boy have we ever, but because it was a concern, we planned for a long downturn early on in our retirement. Planning for the worst has paid off. Of course, we also are not spending on travel as we had expected, which helps. We are staying close to home, but trying to enjoy what is right in our backyard.

Our first mid-week adventure turned out to be on a rainy Tuesday. We planned to go to Twin Falls at Snoqualmie Pass, but it was raining so hard that Russ just said he wasn't going to hike in misery and kept driving. He drove all the way over the pass until the rain stopped at Cle Elum, Washington. We hiked the hastily found Coal Mines Trail, which turned out to be a gem.

An old coal tailings pile.

We have started to drive slightly longer distances to hike in some of our favorite areas: Olympic National Park, Mt. Rainier National Park, Snoqualmie Pass, and at Wright Park and Point Defiance (city parks). When we went up the Mowich road at Mt. Rainier, it had just opened, but the last five miles were closed because of snow, so we chose the Paul Peak trail, which goes around Paul Peak and down, down, down to the Mowich River Camp on the Wonderland Trail. We did this section of the Wonderland years ago (backpacking), and I remember climbing up the ridge to finish our hike at Mowich Lake. I definitely remember how sustained and steep the last uphill push was. It wore me out! The Paul Peak trail was marvelously soft and great hiking, but down to start and up to finish trails are my least favorite. It was still a great day out!

Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie River

Upper Twin Falls.

Lower Twin Falls

Lower Lena Lake in Olympic National Park. Russ models his mask.

Selfie at Lower Lena Lake during our lunch break.

Friends we hiked with to Lower Lena.This pic is the only one I took without masks.

Me standing on Cathedral Rock with Lower Lena Lake.

The Paul Peak Trail and Mt. Rainier. Log Bridge.

The Mowich River. We hiked down to it.

Mr. Rainier from the Paul Peak trail.

We hit peak wildflowers at Paul Peak.

I infused more vinegar for cleaning the kitchen. I use the lavender from our yard to improve the fragrance of the vinegar. The internet suggestions were to use either lavender or rosemary. I find the lavender works better to take the sharp bite out of the white vinegar fragrance, plus I like that it turns bright purple.

Before.

After one week.

 

This should be enough to get me through to next year, which is good, since the lavender plants are looking like they are done for the year. I've continued my cooking adventures. My garden tomatoes are ripening, so we are moving into a new season of old favorites.

The first two. I always grow cherry tomatoes.

Caprese salad with fresh mozzarella from the farmers market.

Green chile Boca burger with Tim's chips.

Fresh blueberry pancakes with fake link sausage.

Salmon chowder with toasted garlic bread.

Whole wheat crust pizza with zucchini, spinach, and chanterelle mushrooms.

 

I'm amazed, a bit, with how much time I use to just keep our regular home life going. The routine chores, making yogurt, making vinegar, refilling bird feeders, shopping, preparing food, keeping the tea pitcher full, laundry, cleaning. I sometimes try to remember how I got it done when I was working a full-time job and had a 3 hour total daily commute. Mostly I remember that I did less. We went out to eat a lot, plus the house was never really clean. Maybe it was tidy... as minimalists, we don't usually have excess stuff around cluttering up our space, but the floors got cleaned once per year if I was really disciplined during the winter holiday break. I'm discovering the pleasures of simple chores done regularly.

Life at Home: Contractors and Cooking

We have settled in to a new stay at home routine, but it hasn't gone as smoothly as I would have hoped. It's been difficult to adjust from our initial two-week self-quarantine to a slightly looser, mostly at home approach. The contractor hired by the city to put in our new sewer main and hook up the side sewers is now finished, but we are still waiting on the final permits to demo our retaining wall and move it to widen our driveway. The main permit is approved, but the right-of-way permit for the new driveway apron and drain needs additional paperwork.

Excavating!

They had to go very deep to find the side sewer connection.

The yellow natural gas line as moved out of the way.

Final connection under the street.

These are the pipes for both us and our neighbor.

The contractor did replace the curb and driveway apron to the new width, which was a big relief. I did not want to have to demo their freshly completed work to do our next steps.

The new, wider driveway apron and replaced curb.

Since we returned, I've been very appreciative of our full-size kitchen and it's counter space. I've tried to step up my cooking game and make all the favorite recipes that need an oven. I am a seasonal cook, too, so it is marvelous to have our local, fresh produce after months eating the winter storage vegetables.

Meat-less meatball sub sandwiches with green salad and quarantinis

Happy hour with beer for Russ and a local berries sangria for me.

Asparagus and mushroom risotto with wine.

Asparagus and morel bread pudding. So good!

Grits and greens breakfast. I used spinach for this one.

Asparagus-gruyere tart with green salad.

We have also been hiking and walking some of the parks and trails close to home. I haven't taken too many photos of these, since the areas are all very familiar to us, but I have tried to get a few shots with the expectation that I will post them here. We've also been using our copious free time at home to read, so I finally replaced the cover for my Kindle. The old one has been disintegrating since our trip started, and I finally was home long enough to take delivery of a new one. This one is an improvement in many ways: it's lighter, it can stand up the Kindle for reading at a table, and it has an elastic strap to hold the Kindle from behind when reading.

Flowers at the train tracks. Chambers Bay.

Snake Lake from the Scott Pierson trail.

Not from a hike. The new Kindle cover.