Fresh basil from the window sill garden made the ingredient list complete for a peach cobbler I had been waiting some time to try. I planted the basil in october, and what little remained after a sprig here and there died off over the months of figuring how much or little to water and fertilize, I was ready to harvest. It didn't take but a slight tug to free the tiny stems, an already miniature basil variety, from the mossy soil that had so gingerly incubated the seeds. Watering the different herbs has required a tender hand on the pour, often resulting in pools that most certainly depleted vital nutrients. Nonetheless, the day had arrived to make the much thought about cobbler. A youtube video later, I was elbow deep in flour, sugar and a few non typical ingredients like cracked pepper and parmesan. Two cobblers were made, one made it to the picture round, the other was eaten too soon. It was a mixture of blackberry, raspberry and strawberry. Very good flavors on this unusual crust, but the peach with basil and pepper was also a winner and I just happened to snap a photo prior to cooking. No evidence was seen after they cooled off, not even a trace by supper time.
An odd thought struck me the other day. I churn inside when someone uses the term "outdoorsy" to describe themselves or their likes and or dislikes, but when did this term become relevant? If you think back a hundred years or not even, when was being inside an option? Everyone would have been classified as outdoors or nature oriented. Men and women alike would have led lives that should they have had the need to market themselves in any capacity, the term outdoors would not have occurred. It is possible that one might have on a bark piece of paper that they spent a year or ten outdoors, but the term to classify themselves as indoors or outdoors did not exist. Anyone that would say, much less use the term outdoorsy, is self incriminating evidence that they are in fact a house cat, a couch potato, a lover of walls, ceilings, floors and boundaries. Questions arise all the time such as, do you like the outdoors? Do you enjoy nature? and my favorite of course, are you outdoorsy?
I just don't know when the term was coined and accepted as a hobby, distancing ourselves from the life that seemingly every other person in history actually lived. Perhaps it started with the convenience of cars over horseback. I really can't say, but all I know is I cannot stand to hear people express the term as a hobby instead of a natural bent. Rants aside, the outdoors is not a hobby or a box that we check next to our likes or dislikes… It just is. The box should say "indoorsy". So the next time someone asks me if I am outdoors oriented or that dreaded other term with a "y", I'll know what to ask them in reply.
The weather is such a boring subject but its the most widely discussed up here because of its unpredictable change, what it allows and the chores that need tending to before a storm. The sun was in hiding for some length last month, and for a week now its been my daily companion. I'm very glad.
The neighbors had their arms wide open to receive me last Sunday for dinner. The trail down to their place is nearly nothing to follow, just a jumbled mess of fallen trees, alders and dry ground. I had been attempting to make it out of here and only got as far as the first creek that proved impossible to cross without some sort of aid. I built a bridge and thought I was bound for exploration and adventure. That might be glossing it over a bit, but cabin fever strikes without warning and preventative measures are always better than finding remedies. Sunday arrived and I bundled up head to toe, not an inch of skin was exposed to the sub zero temps as I double checked my gear and snow machine. I set off with a little too much enthusiasm to cross my less than safety approved bridge and wound up tossing myself off the machine when my glove gunned the throttle. Shaking the powder off, I got back on and set off. Bumps and bruises incurred through the gauntlet of branches and trees that poke and prod as I whip past in a frenzy for the open meadows. No sooner did my bridge come when crossing flawlessly, did another creek arise. The pounding rain storms and warm temperatures earlier had eroded every drainage that could have possibly been. If so much as a rock was out of place, it was ten times the hole and obstacle to swerve around. Trees had violently been heaved across the trail, some twenty feet or more from the splintered trunk that remained upright. Some of these massive spruce trees looked like prime candidates for a toothpick factory in China. Where one hurdle occurred, a new path was needed. Stuck here and there, lifting, pulling, pushing… all the while trying to keep from tipping over at every tree well, protruding stump or rock. Creek after creek, some of which I entered and shot out of, others I came to a skidding halt before nosing in the opposite bank. On one single occasion, I reversed the machine, aimed it at the nearest point across and gunned the throttle as if judges were about to score the jump for gold. My cargo included peace offering tortilla chips for the neighbors who love the finer appetizers of salsa and chips. I gave them what was left, certainly more smaller pieces than whole.
Nothing more than a few bruises, a small price to pay for a wonderful dinner with friends and some human contact amidst the lonely (in a good way) work of an Alaskan caretaker.
February had the best full moon all winter, thus far. It rose one night as if someone had stuck it on a lamp post right outside my window. The color was there, the size and it could have fooled anyone to think it was in fact a lamp. I caught it just after the tree line, which is hard to distinguish but the spruce silhouettes are there. Moon beams have often been a term I never have seen or recognized until this past month. I've seen a few hundred full moons, and never thought much about the beam. It isn't all that often that a picture captures sun beams, through clouds on stormy day usually or through cracks and crevasses here and there. Apparently the moon does the same, not nearly as sharp or lively, but poking through the clouds just right, sure enough there are moon beams. Watching the night light arch across the widest sky ever seen, casting shadows in frigid lands to see darker black upon black; calmly reflecting wrath from an inferno to be called a gentle glow; beams are bright and straight; a pitted and porous ball of dust, a controlling force, a brute of our world, haunting, lurking, sacred; a sad man
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