So what is this, the third photo of a boat, and the fifth sunset?  A bit unusual for me but the range of light and tone make them all interesting

The river drains a basin that is dominated by two mountains, Baker and Shuksan.  The two mountains are entirely different--Baker is a volcano, a real active volcano.  Shuksan is a geologic formation entirely different.  I have always collected rocks and it is interesting to see "cool" rocks.  On the river bed you can find evidence in the rocks of the diversity of their heritage.

Aspens flank the river, and I have made the 80 mile round-trip three times to try and catch the trees in their fall colors.  I haven't succeeded yet, but I will make one more trip to try and do so.

As impressive is the sheer scale of the scenery.  This vertical shot shows the photo that I can't wait to take.  It shows the really the four layers of texture and color that will make this photo...the stone, the small aspen, larger aspen and maple, and then a vertical slope of conifers.  Hopefully soon...I can't help but imagine this in color, printed as a 16X20 or larger.

While I have talked about the Nooksack River, I am going to post a few photos of the river and the area around the banks of the river.  It is a beautiful river and by far the most wild river I have ever seen.  The banks are littered with boulders and shattered trees...in fact, it is littered with shattered boulders as well.  The force of the river in flood season must be incredible, magnificent, and more than a little scary.  Yet because of all of the moisture and because the area is in the shade for most of the day, moss grows on the rocks along the river.  The river bed itself looks almost like a moon scape, yet 75 feet away moss-covered boulders frame an almost idyllic scene.

Once again, I prove that I am a sucker for bright colored trees.  These were just east of town.

And it is always nice to end the day with a great sunset.  This is off of my deck.

Rarely can you find such massive blocks of color.  I suppose I should have wondered out of town and towards the mountain, but I had to work today, too, and these were taken during a break in my day.  It is nice to know that parks like this exist in town.  This is about a 45 minute walk from my house, and the "trailhead," if you can call it that, is just few yards away from my favorite Starbucks.  The hike is about a two hour round trip, and it is a perfect break.

Another shot of one of the falls in the park.  Again, it was an absolutely perfect fall day.

I am not sure what tree shed these leaves, but you should be able to get some scale to their size by looking at my foot in the lower right.  Hey, everything is bigger in the NW...

This is further down stream, and shows the great color and the ripples in the creek.

It was a wonderful fall day...

It was beautiful fall day here, and I took a walk to Whatcom Falls park, and here are a few of the photos that came my way.  This is just below Denby Pond.

Ahhhh, mortality. Recognizing and feeling that you might be getting a bit older always makes you pause, and I have felt this several times this past week. And it is the unexpected that make me feel the creeping years.

I don't think that anyone who is my age has not worried about the financial mess that seems to appear, with increasing calls for panic, in each day's news. I have weathered downturns before, like 1987, 1992, the end of the dot.com bubble, and 9/11. But now, with less than two decades between income and retirement, losing a third of your net worth does seem more of a point to worry about. Maybe not. A third of not very much still is not very much, and it will over time rebound...sorry, I had force on these rose-colored glasses for that one. But it makes it easier to say that at least I have Social Security to count on!

That is the financial aspect of getting old. There is a physical aspect of getting old that also creeps up and then smacks you in the head. On Tuesday I slipped on some wet leaves getting out of my car so I could get my Starbucks. I felt something twist or pop in my back, but there were no immediate shooting pains, and I just stumbled in for my legal drugs. But after four hours of sitting in chairs for meetings I could hardly walk. By the time I taught that night, I was pretty seriously hurting--it really only hurt when I stood, sat, or moved around. My class noted that I was hobbling around and I explained that while I was diving in front of a bus to save a three year old and her puppy, I hurt my back. No, I told them the truth. So I was already feeling old, then one wit in class pointed out that I had to be careful, because at my age I could break a hip, and that would be bad. He doesn't know it, but he immediately flunked the class...ouch!

So today, when I stopped at Walgreen's to buy some ibuprofen for my still nagging back, I shopped for deals. I figured that I would/will need at least 100 caplets, and then I saw the store brand deal where you buy one, and get one free. Score!!!. This purchase, though, apparently triggered the store's computer that an old person was checking out on aisle three. The cash register quickly zipped out an application for the AARP. I guess that only old(er) people buy ibuprofen by the gross!

And so it goes. I honestly don't feel old, but I am sore. I see and hear about people my age who really are old, and I know that I am not one of them. But changing society's view that being closer to 50 then you are to 40 makes you old is very difficult. It is why I get ads for AARP, ads for drugs for old people, and spam 30 times a week for Viagra. Sigh...maybe I am getting up there, but I still am young at heart. That is a pretty good defense for the onslaught and the things that creep up on you.

Nega Files and other boxes: A recipe of our lives...

I love wooden boxes and have since I was way younger than I am now. There are probably lots of reasons--certainly I have been accused of compartmentalizing my life, but boxes also help organize, hold, preserve, and even hide parts of our lives. Lately I have been collecting wooden boxes and one company has partially inspired me. Nega File boxes are just that, boxes for negatives. They are beautiful boxes, dove-tailed and constructed of beautiful woods. E-Bay, the great democratizer of collectors, has allowed me to buy several, to share and to use.

In my quest, I have also bought several other wood boxes and among them were a few recipe boxes. I have always looked for and bought recipe boxes when I could and have for years bought them and often shared them with important people in my life. I love them--recipe boxes can be the history and soul of a family, and certainly can tell a great deal about what the family thinks is important. I have found whole recipe boxes filled with nothing but dessert recipes, and ones that are dominated by soup or casserole recipes. What does that say about the family that contributed all those recipes? Which family would I like to live with? Hmmm...

I recently found two recipe boxes that have intrigued me and made think about life and family, and how these boxes of artifacts share a great deal about what life is like for all of us. The one before me tonight is from the heartland, Minnesota, and it reminds me so much of where and how I grew up. The box is mostly filled with recipes that were hand-0uts from companies and newspapers. Provided monthly in gas bills by Minnegasco, they tell a great deal about the times. According to the little tiny date they spanned the 1960s and it was the era of the internationalism of our dinners. The Minnegasco recipes encourage Minnesota Norwegians to try more than Lutefisk and lefse. Tetrazzini and lasagne and tuna Mediterranean casserole and even pizza burger recipes spiced up these Minnesotans' lives.

This was also when Asian food was introduced to much of the Midwest and the box references to this, albeit with a twist. It includes recipes for turkey chop suey, Oriental port chops, sukiyaki, and beachcomber Cantonese spareribs. What is so interesting is the scope of the world that is covered in this box. There is a recipe for Hungarian sauerkraut, and beef Bourguignon, which promises to make a delicacy of beef stew. If that doesn't work for you and you are hankering for French cooking, there are directions for beef en casserole Parisienne style. In case the former owners forgot their heritage, there is even a recipe for Swedish Meat Balls! For those more adventuresome, there is Svickiva Pecene--don't ask, unless you like beets and a cut of beef that I have never heard of before.

Some simply defy explanation. Why would a box like this include recipes for ham loaf, veal loaf, liver loaf, two different meat loafs, tamale pie made with corn flakes, and corned beaf and cabbage? There are three recipes for stuffed things, turnips, onions AND peppers. And two recipes that include tongues of some sort as the main ingredient. Who knew that there was a difference between ox and beef tongue, and that you could buy smoked and un-smoked ones? There were five recipes that include hot-dogs, included a tasty barbecue feast and the inevitable pig (s?) in a blanket recipe. Lastly, if any one is possibly looking for one, I do have a recipe for broiled sweetbreads and mushrooms. Just let me know, and I will send it out right away.

But the recipes can teach you more than how many cans of Cambell's mushroom soup are involved in the "busy day oven bake." (there are two, but the recipe does note that it is easily doubled for a large family What I found most interesting could be found in the authorship of the recipes. For example, can you imagine today saving recipes sent out in our utility bill, or the ones you get from Exxon Mobil when you bought gas? Something else really popped out, a contradiction that I don't fully know how to explain. In amongst the commercial recipes, Mrs. Edwin Johnson hand-wrote her " Famous Lemon Bars" recipe and in the same moment creates and then denies her identity. They are her creation, but it is not her name but rather her husband's name which gets the credit. Who was this woman who loved lemon bars enough to make them famous? A small point, perhaps, and one certainly influenced by presentism but why didn't she write HER name?

I suppose that in Mrs Edwin Johnson's world, it wasn't herself that was most important. More important were the consumers of her bars, her family, and her friends who she trusted enough to share her famous recipe. My mom, in her life, signed her life with Mrs. Kenneth R. Tetzloff, and I can somewhat see why women who were married in the 1950s did that, though presentism makes me cringe to see the sublimation of a person in someone else's identiy. Can you imagine that today?

But you can't help but to see the love that it takes to construct and then save a box full of recipes, especially one that contains and then shares the knowledge of how to make Mrs. Edwin Johnson's famous lemon bars.

I certainly would like to take that from this recipe box, and skip the sweet bread recipe.

OK, this place probably does not have the best coffee in this town of coffee extremists, but you have to love its style.  And Freud would probably have at least one or two things about this...

It has been awhile...

So this may be my "better get used to it!" moment.  Today was a gross, gray, very wet day.  I am sure that I have messed with reality by posting so many photos that have been of sunny blue skies and stunning views.  We have been blessed with a wonderful fall, but I have been assured that fall is more like this picture.  People now walk around with appendages of different colors and shield themselves with rain coats.    But only for the next 5 months or so.

It has been a very busy few weeks around here, and it has gone fast. I am surprized to realize that it has been two weeks since I had posted.  I am trying to think that what I have done in that time period that would be "postable" but I am struggling to think of much.  I was gone for three days to Yakima, and almost by definition going to Yakima is not memorable.  I have been assigned more duties at work, which was inevitable, but my days are increasingly filled with meetings, leaving little time for reflection or actual work--my days have gotten longer.  Still, that is more my fault.  Teaching probably was not a good idea for this semester.  Taking out 10-12 hours a week for the drive down, class, the drive back, and then preparing for class is taking its toll.    It is still worth it, and I wouldn't trade it.

One interesting thing that I have been assigned is the Interest Based Bargaining Team for negotiating the next union contract with the faculty.  While I have been intimately familiar with faculty contracts for years, negotiating one is a step into a different world, one not always tied to reality.  There are countless stories to this, and probably more to come.  It is also five more hours gone from my week.  Another irony that is funny--because I am a teacher at Everett, I am a member of their faculty union.  I am not sure that it is a conflict, but it is kind of funny.

I have taken only a few photos.  In part it is because of time, but I am really waiting for the aspen to turn colors.  It will happen soon, though with all of the rain we may just skip fall.  I need a project, but I am still struggling with what that might be.  I have thought about several things, but I am not set on which one.  I need to take some people pictures, though.  I love the scenery and the outdoors, but I like taking pictures of people.

This post is less than some others but it is more to let you know that I am alive and well.  More soon...