House Capuchin 3

Oops! This is late! There’s a good reason as you will see below in the descriptions of the trip and everything that Anja and Loren did over this past weekend. Not a lot got done other than the bamboo… 🙂

This week all meetings should be at the regular times.

• Herb Bunch – At Ancient Light, Saturdays, 11am-1pm
• Sewing Time – At Ancient Light, Saturdays, 3-5pm
• Project Day – At Ancient Light, Sundays, Noon to 6pm
• Cheese and Wine happens irregularly, usually announced with little notice on our Facebook group.
• Next Potluck – 4/21, 5/19, 6/16
• Winter Feast Date is 2/16/20 (assuming that there is one….)

Here is the direct Portfolio link which has all the past Project Day reports and various projects, original here:  https://housecapuchin.wordpress.com/portfolio/  and new one here:  https://housecapuchin2.wordpress.com/portfolio/ and number three is here: https://housecapuchin3.wordpress.com/portfolio/

Early Week – Loren and Anja figured out how to go to All Fool’s and a rock-hounding trip over the weekend and started prepping for it. Anja was also embroidering and they got some bone needles ready to go.

Amor, Sasha and Gudrun checked in, talking cookery and projects.

Cookery – Pickled eggs, dilly beans, a lentil pottage and an assortment of other nibbles got worked on this week. All are things we’ve done before so no pix or recipes. Use the search function if you need those, or comment and I’ll get back to you.

Sewing – Anja taught blackwork at All Fool’s (more below) Supposedly we have some pix coming from a lady who was there. Two/three beginners and a fluctuating group of between 4 and 12 people who were interested in the 2nd half of the class (“Now what do I do with it?” is what that part of the course is called.) 🙂 A lot of the projects that you’ve seen here over the last several months were displayed as part of the class.

Sundials, etc. – Loren did some more finishing work on some bone njalbinden needles and a fid and then Anja got them packaged for distribution.

Herb Bunch – Was all bamboo. …all week…. Tuesday Anja got in touch with a lady who has a stand that she wanted to thin. We asked for 12-20 stems. Loren went and picked it up and there were 20, alright. The stack was 4 feet thick at the leafy end!

As the week went on the stack was whittled down, first by cutting the main stems free of the small branches and setting those aside to dry after bagging the shorter pieces that were still green enough to turn into blanks for needle and other cases. Next, the shorter branches that were still large enough for beads and had a hole through were cut free of their twigs and leaves and then into bead blanks as long as they were still green enough.

Longer pieces that are left will dry for several months and (probably next fall) be cut down farther with a saw. After bamboo is no longer very fresh, it splinters instead of cutting and the bark will peel away in irregular spots. Once it’s dry, that stops happening.

Next was separating the leaves from the twigs. Twigs will go into recycling and into fire-starters, since you cannot compost bamboo without taking a chance on starting a new patch. By Thursday that’s what Anja was working on and that went on into Saturday’s workshop time. There’s one tote of twigs/leaves left still to be finished.

All Fools Trip, Saturday – 1/2 of our excuse for closing the shop and driving east on a weekend day was to do some rock-hounding for the shop while we were out in Eastern Oregon. Most of that is on Monday. Our main reason, of course, was that Loren has never been to All Fool’s nor had he been to Temperance and Tryggr’s place.

Saturday was crazy while we were still at the shop. Herbs Workshop went very well. We reduced what was left of the bamboo to a bundle of sticks, a tote of branches, another tote of not-quite-finished-yet and a bag of leaves to dry. One of the Herb Bunch people took the bits that won’t be used to put into her recycling.

Once we were done with that, she headed out and I got my packing finished while Loren did the same and then horsed things out to the car. We got nabbed by a spate of customers right at 2:30, just as we were about to close and head out, so we were actually on the road at 4:15.

It was dripping on occasion, but nice weather for driving with no glare or anything. We headed out route 20. I kept dozing off and then waking when something changed or Loren shifted lanes or slowed down for a light, so I only got glimpses up until we were up into the Cascades, already.

It was raining heavily at times once we crossed I-5. I started waking up as we were going through Lebanon. Loren took a turn that wasn’t on the directions and I was too dozy to realize until we had traveled some mile on the wrong road, but we got turned around and back on the right track fairly quickly. From that point it was just drive and drive up and over.

There were spots where the road was downright scary. There’ve been slides and the road had been re-built to get past them, and lot of places where there are no guardrails and on a wet road that had gravel and other skiddy things on it. I darned nearly panicked! I finally got calmed down when we ended up behind one the the snowplow patrols who crawl along very sedately, giving us the opportunity to let the cars just pile up behind whether they were intent on riding on our back bumper or not.

There was a lot of snow and the snag from the burns last summer sticking up black in the blue twilight. …and lot of cloud or fog. By the time we were coming out the far side of the mountains into Bend it was completely dark and we still had some more to go.

We did take a couple more wrong turns, but we got there at what Temperance said was perfect timing for supper coming out of the oven. Oh, that was a tasty meal! She made scalloped potatoes with white cheddar, a pork roast and some wonderful squash, with a carrot cake to follow. We sat and talked until midnight and then turned in.

I did fall asleep and long after Loren was snoring I was lying awake, so I finally started rehearsing my stories for the bardic competition. At about 4:30 I finally dropped off. We got up at 9, having intended to get up at 8.

We had a lovely dutch baby pancake breakfast and headed for the event…and I’ll pick up there tomorrow!

Project Day – Didn’t happen this week since Anja and Loren were out of town.

All Fool’s, Corvaria, Sunday, April 7th – Loren’s views – (Will be added later, as he’s out of time today, and it’s already Tuesday!)

All Fool’s, Corvaria, Sunday, April 7th – Anja’s take

Yesterday was a long tiring day, but so much fun! Loren and I ended up driving way the wrong direction for the event site, but we finally got turned around and got to the event in plenty of time for a laid-back kind of event.

When we got to the site I got the food taken care of right away, although Loren had to finish part of the thawing of the soups, since I was already teaching my blackwork class by that point, and I got the pickled mushrooms and pickled onions set out, later. I had two students and at least a dozen people that stopped by for a look and an explanation.

We stopped class when the bardic competition was getting ready to start, since I was one of the entrants. I hadn’t been planning to enter, but got talked into it since there weren’t a lot of people signed up. One lady played her violin, two of us told stories and one young man, who also had been in the blackwork class, read some of his own poetry. …and I won the competition. I did not expect to since it mandates me being back for next year’s…. Well…. we’ll cross that bridge later. The poet won the youth prize.

I came home with a notebook to add my stories to and a beautiful drinking horn, both of which will be passed on next year. There’s a cloak which Temperance is still working on that will also be passed on and a lovely scroll done by the “other Anya” from Corvaria. (No pix of the cloak, yet. Check back later…..)

I got to spend some time with my SCA brother, Moudry, which was wonderful, since we see each other once a year, at best. I also got to talk to a lot of other friends and acquaintances that I see nearly as rarely.

It was a tasty feast, but as usual, I got something that set off some allergies and Loren is swearing up and down that one sneeze blew him off his seat! Afterwards was cleanup and saying goodbyes to friends, and then we headed back to Temperance’s for the evening. Anya made a pork roast that she especially left the pepper out of so I could have some. There was a yummy-smelling shepherd’s pie, another chicken and vegetable soup and a crab salad, a fruit bowl, some summer sausage, a plate of assorted cheeses, and a couple of cakes for dessert!

We sat and talked for quite some time, and they showed us pictures and we showed them some, too. 🙂 Tryggr had gotten back from up north (Baronesses’ War) in time for the feast and was limping from being tripped during a bout, so he sat with alternating ice and heating pads while we chatted and then all had carrot cake and cheesecake as a snack. We all headed off for bed fairly early for us, but they had morning classes to teach!

All Fool’s Trip, Monday –

This was a *very* long day. Temperance and Tryggr had headed out for their classes before we got up (…we had said our goodbyes the night before…) I fought the computer for awhile, then gave up when it was taking 4 minutes to let me type two words….. We got our stuff into the car, wrote thank you’s and left them some goodies, closed the house and gate and headed out.

I dozed off at the wrong time and we ended up going in circles in Bend….. We found a mall with a grocery, so Loren ran in and got some munchies and we found rt 20 heading east, right away, only to discover that it doesn’t seem to go through. Business 20 vanishes with no signs to tell you how to get back on highway 20! We finally ended up heading back towards where we had been and finding the turn that we missed because I was asleep….

…and the Google map directions took us onto an unpaved road…. We turned around and re-traced our steps finding where we had been the night before and following *that* out to Hwy 20, only to see the other end of the unpaved road about 5 miles to the east of where we got back on. <grump, grump> That was ….annoying….

So then, there were miles and miles and miles, of sagebrush, and juniper, and more sagebrush, and a loading pen, and more sagebrush and juniper and a house and barn, and then just for variety, juniper and sagebrush, and a cow or three…. and a bull with some really long horns… and more sagebrush…. you get the idea.

We stopped in Brothers to use the rest stop facilities and to gas up, since we were lower in the tank that we’re happy with out in eastern Oregon, and discovered that the gas station there was closed. They said there was a new one in Hampton, which is only 10 miles from Glass Buttes, so we kept on to there and got gas.

It had been damp, but not raining in Bend and for most of the trip out, but the skies were dark and we could see rain showers against the silhouettes of the distant mountains in all directions. Eastern Oregon is *not* flat, even with the miles and miles of sagebrush. ….but as we were gassing up the sky opened up and the occasional drippage turned into a drown-pour. The poor attendant was soaked and Loren wasn’t a lot better. He steamed up the car windows when he got in and we had to sit while that cleared before we could go on.

The sign is gone for the site…. We drove through the area that we know is the Glass Buttes monument, but every single road heading up was a mudpit…. and without the sign we weren’t sure which was which…. I didn’t check which mile-marker it was supposed to be, either, so we didn’t have that clue. It’s probably a good thing, rather than a bad, because we would certainly have tried it…. well, we kept on driving…and driving… the terrain had changed from just sagebrush and juniper to sagebrush, rocks and juniper. We kept pulling over and looking at the various access roads to the south and none of them were right, so we kept on driving.

When we hit Riley, (which is where you turn onto 395 to go to Rabbit Hills for sunstones) we fknew we had gone *way* too far. (btw, still pouring rain…) We decided to go in to see if they had a map, which they did…. we had needed milepost 77 (Riley is past mile 100). They also told us that no one’s been able to get into the area for a couple of months without ATV’s because of the amount of rain and snow that there’s been. We’ve never been out that this early in the year. When we did this trip on May, there was no problem, but it was also a dry year. So we bought a couple of ice cream sandwiches and headed back.

We pulled over at the mp77 access road and yeah, that was the right one…..with a puddle at least 8×10 right in the opening and ruts in mud that were over 8 inches deep. So we cussed a little and headed back west. No obsidian…. <sigh> Loren didn’t want to stop anywhere to look for juniper berries or juniper tears because of the mud, so we drove through the miles and sagebrush and juniper, through the Oregon Badlands (which are spectacular if you even get out there) and into Bend without stopping.

They’re working on some of the main roads and the detour doesn’t have the marker for where to turn back onto Hwy 20…. so we drove around in circles again for awhile, gassed up, drove around in circles for a little longer, finally found 20 and headed up over the mountains. There were still piles of melting snow in the Bend area and we saw more and more as we climbed.

It was still daylight, so the driving was pretty easy, even if it was quite wet, yet. When we got to Sisters, we stopped at the McD’s at the west end to use the bathrooms and then thought about it and nabbed some burgers, then headed up to Tombstone Pass (Elev, 4262). Every parking lot in Sisters had a big pile of the snow that had been plowed up during the winter still, a couple of of them more than 6 feet tall…. and more and more white showed up between the trees as we climbed. The piles along the highway were showing sedimentary layers, sometimes with 6-8 or more inches of snow between one “graveling” and the next. They use a red (local) gravel up there for road safety and it’s really visible at this time of year.

About 1/2-way to the Summit the rain started splotting on the windshield and within a couple of 100 feet of elevation it was coming down as a thick snowfall. The hills were white…and black… with trees that have burned over the last several years sticking up from the snow. I love getting to visit the snow. It was just warm enough, even in the pass, that it was melting on the roadway and not making it slick, falling just hard enough to make the view misty and lovely, and not disturbing driving, so I sat back and just enjoyed. The snow in the mountains loves me, too. 🙂

How many places named tombstone-whatever are there in the US? Likely lots… but Tombstone pass is really beautiful. One the way up there are views of Mt. Washington’s unlikely spike of a peak, Suttle Lake and other campgrounds and waterways. Across the high elevations it’s all snow-parks and trees and frozen lakes. Coming down the far side, waterfall after waterfall, from little pencil-sized trickles to 10-foo-wide torrents come pouring down the mountain-side, sometimes even splashing onto the highway. The scary “falls” though, are rock, mud and trees. In several places you can see where they’re had to re-build the roadway, and *very* recently, and the stuff that came down lurking above the roadway on the mountainside and the stuff that spilled over falling away below.

On the way down, as we lost elevation, the piles beside the road got shorter and shorter and the road gutters were running bank-full and occasionally dragging pieces of the piles with them. There were places where everything merrily overflowed and left running water on the road surface that hummed as we splashed through it. The light was turning golden through gaps in the clouds as the sun lost elevation, too.

We were almost down to the Valley floor when Lorenpoked me (I had dozed off again) and said, “Look at that sky!” There were burning patches of orange pink around all the gaps in the clouds and some where a higher layer of cloud blocked the blue with its conflagration! The colors lasted until we were through Lebanon. We missed the turn for rt 34, probably because of looking at the sky colors, so had to go out of our way, taking 20 through Albany and then back south as it goes through Corvallis and meets up with 34, heading home.

The last part of the trip was, “I’m tired.” “I’m cranky.” “I’ve got car buns.” “I want to be home.” driving wearily through the dark with me dozing off again, frequently.

We got in around 10:15. I sat down to tell people we were home safely and then to get yesterday’s newsletter out. Loren offloaded, then got us some supper, of soup and toast. The newsletter posted a few minutes later, and then I started trying to write today’s, but after the third time my head bounced off the desk I gave up and went to bed.

Miscellaneous pix

Music – 1-3 of 12

Funnies 

Anja, Loren, Sasha (V), Amor (V), Gudrun (V), Herb Bunch (2)

Largesse Item Count – (includes gifts, prizes, auction items, etc.)

• ASXLVII = 24
• ASXLVIII = 88
• ASXLIX = 794
• ASL = 2138
• ASLI = 731
• ASLII = 304
• ASLIII – 111+35=146 plus 25 pouches for block-printing, 8 bookmarkers, 22 unfinished pincushions, 1 sewing kit (except for bone needle), varnished stuff (124)

Total as a Household = 3830 handed off

In ministerio autem Somnium! Anja, graeca doctrina servus to House Capuchin
Page Created 4/1/19 & published 4/9/19 (C)M. Bartlett
Last updated 4/18/19