Phew!

Finally made it to the end of the semester so now I can enjoy Christmas shopping and hanging out with friends. I do have a few more finals to grade but I think I can knock them off in one day.

We've been drinking various holiday brews at get-togethers with friends and eating cookies, getting fun cards with pictures and lettters, and making lots of trips to the post office. The only thing we're missing is snow, which I hear we'll get plenty of when we get to D.C. on Thursday. Instead we still have to water our plants out on the patio as the drought and warm weather persist. The natives only know icicles of the plastic and electrified variety. The neighbors don't rake snow, but fallen palm fronds from their roofs. California, ha ha ha!

Merry Christmas!

(These pictures are from our Memorial Day 2008 backpacking trip in King's Canyon N.P.)

Thanksgiving '09

This year we rented a cottage in gold country in the northern Sierra. The resort we stayed at was in Downieville on the Yuba River. It's a really cute historic gold mining town: with a population of 325, it's the county seat of Sierra County. We passed on the opportunity to pan for gold in the river right outside our cottage since the water was so cold. But the guy running the resort had all the gear (pans, a sluice box, and even a now-banned dredger) and said that guests collect flakes of gold on a regular basis.


We considered bringing the canoe here to Bullard's Bar Reservoir on the way up, but it's a good thing we didn't. The water was very low which makes for ugly scenery.

But there was fool's gold everywhere!!!

This Steller's Jay visited us each morning. I don't know if he was scared or just showing off, but he kept puffing up his feathers for us. These birds are pests from the crow family and are always scrounging around for food at campsites and picnic areas.

We went for a hike, partly on the Pacific Crest Trail and otherwise just relaxed. We saw lots of bear tracks and mistletoe as we followed along the Yuba River. There was snow on the trail but nothing major.

Views from our hike.

Crossing route 49 on the PCT between Sierra City and Sierraville. Everything's very Sierra-ish here.

Sorry, I'm taking over the canoe blog.

Since Scott is on to less crafty adventures lately, and we haven't taken the canoe out in a while, here is a picture of my new project - a Dresden Plate quilt.

Of course this part is fun - making the quilt top. We'll see what happens to the pace once it's time to applique all these plates onto the background. Then there's the quilting...groan. I'm planning for this to be smaller than twin size but bigger than the batik mat.

Happy Halloween!!!

Quilted Mat

Here's a project I started this summer after I bought a jelly roll of bright batiks. I didn't really know what a jelly roll was. It's a bunch of small strips of fabric of a certain size rolled up and sold in a bundle. The fabrics aren't necessarily up my alley, but after lots of playing around, I came up with this baby floor mat/stroller blanket that used up the whole roll. I had to buy the red fabric for the back and the binding separately. I really love the way the turquoise quilting looks with the bright prints. I did all the quilting by hand since I only have a Featherweight sewing machine.

Now... who do I know with a baby that would appreciate my handiwork and doesn't mind the tropical look? It's pretty stain-friendly :)

Redwoods National/State Parks

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!

We spent a 3-day weekend in the Redwoods north of Eureka. On the way we saw lots of grapes being hauled in and out of the vineyards in big buckets on trucks. We also saw some exciting forest fire-fighting action (CalFire planes and helicopters)!


From Elk Prairie (where we camped) in Prairie Creek Redwoods we hiked in a big loop through the big old trees to Fern Canyon, then along the beach (from which we could see another forest fire to the north and lots of seals and pelicans in the water), to Gold Bluffs Beach, back through the trees to camp. CLICK THIS to see the map. I guess the hike was about 12 or 15 miles. The redwoods are impossible to photograph since they're so big.... HUGE! and amazing! Here's a lichen-covered specimen that dripped on our tent loudly all night the first night. We moved to the open meadow for the second night.


The car camping was pretty luxurious; smores, fresh fruit, clean dry clothes, no heavy pack, woo hoo!



At Elk Prairie there are lots of chances to view the Roosevelt Elk, if you can spot them through the fog and the ferns. Zoom in on this shot to see a nice rack ;)

Hardly Strictly

We went to the free Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in Golden Gate park yesterday. There were a lot of great acts in an amazing setting. We saw the Old 97's, Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder, and Gillian Welch, with a special treat, a few songs with Emmylou Harris! Even heard a few strains of Steve Martin on the Banjo through the trees. There were going to be some great shows on Sunday too, but SF is a bit of a drive for us. Despite the high winds and lots of pot smoke, we had a great time with Nate and Jude.