I grabbed a picture of berry blossoms and ripening berries. I am not even sure how many berry varieties we have — quite a few indeed. We have several varieties each of strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries.

We haven’t ventured out on our coming-of-age walk with Alastair. It should be some time in the next week. We are busy planning a “Tooth Fairy Trap,” another story entirely.

The cool fall day was exquisite.

Two years ago I would have had “stings” from the nettle right through my leather garden gloves as I harvested.

It doesn’t seem possible, but if you are sensitive to nettle and have picked much of it, you know of what I speak. My rash would linger for a few days. It was always made worse by the inevitable bit of bare skin that I didn’t realize was bare — that spot would be quite uncomfortable from the burning sting of nettle for as long as five days.

This harvest was different. I was armed with a homemade extract of lambs quarters. A friend suggested the lambs quarters remedy in the spring and it worked so well, I threw some lambs quarters in vodka in an attempt to preserve the remedy. The lambs quarters extract has helped fight itch as well — in another strange Sequoia tale here.

Add to the lambs quarters and vodka extract that I’ve been eating lambs quarters soup, I was loaded from the inside out with my favorite stinging nettle remedy.

With the feeling of invincibility of a 17 year old with a new sport’s car, I lifted a sprig of nettle with my gloved hand and wondered if I could harvest gloveless. I touched the nettle with my bare hands as a test.

Indeed, gloves are still a really good idea.

If you touch the extra-spiny stems with your bare hands, a lambs quarters extract may keep you from crying like a baby but you may have a reminder for a day or two that stinging nettle stings.

If you would like to harvest nettle and want to be able to identify it by something other than its sting, here’s a quick video:

Never has so much fun been had over what is a fairly small patch of dirt.

Set back by illness and by a toddler who could get really lost on The Lost Road, our Lost Road explorations came to a halt sometime in 2010, much to my chagrin. (We had so much fun.) The road is seasonal to start. Friends have visited in the summer ready for a hike on the famous-to-some road only to change their minds when they realized the path was populated by poison oak and snakes. Poison oak is dormant in the winter and yet still carries a bite, but somehow not actually being able to see the leaves makes the hike a bit more enjoyable (though perhaps more risky if you don’t have a good eye for bare red sticks).

In any case, the cold months here are the months of The Lost Road. Its time has come again.

In a fun “coming of age” moment, I sat the former-toddler-turned-preschooler down with his Lost Road-experienced brother and we read the old posts about our adventures. I deemed Alastair old enough to join us if he could follow instructions carefully and promise never to go by himself. he has some understanding of “death by wild animal” growing up in a forest and displays some general caution. He seems to be ready.

Fingers crossed.

Read the highlights from the past:

• Found: “The Lost Road”

• Our First Attempt: “Mama, This Was A Mistake”
• Exploring the Road, a New Tradition is Born

I felt convicted by the story: If it helped me in the summer, why am I no longer soaking?

It was 60 degrees after all, not exactly frigid. Sure, it had snowed once and snow melt was pouring down those creeks, but wasn’t that the point — to get really cold?

In a moment of apparently too much bravery, I set out to soak up to my waist. I didn’t have a lot of time (or supplies apparently). I had a towel in the car and I reasoned that since my plan was to sit in a shallow part of the creek, the long shirt I was wearing would cover my chones and no one would ever show up at Tyler Creek anyway on that weekday in November. Why bother driving home for actual swim wear? Really, who has time to cross every T, right?

My car was the lone car in the turnout at Tyler Creek when I ventured into the creek. I left my pants on a nearby rock and gasped as I put my feet into the snow melt. It’s bad enough in the summer but it’s a whole new experience in 60 degree weather. Already largely committed, I walked further into the creek and further from my pants. Almost immediately I changed my goal to soaking up to my knees. Waist-deep was far too much for a first-timer like myself.

As I stood knee-deep in the creek, I heard a dog barking.

A hiker had arrived and the hiker’s dog found me first. I estimated that I had 60 seconds before the hiker would be in sight.

I looked across the creek at my pants and decided that it would be far worse to be caught putting on pants then to be seen soaking in a creek even if the whole chones part was obvious.

As the hiker passed I waved and shouted “I know I must be crazy — I’m soaking my knees!”

“I’m sorry about the dog!” she called.

Well played on both sides.

No mention of the chones.

Most of you know Mat as “that cyclist who leaves me in the dust,” “that really cool guy at Trader Joe’s” (in Hollywood and then Portland), the author of the Ted the Terrible Superhero comic series, or more recently, the Portland cyclist in a serious cycling accident. I know Mat because he was married in this house four years ago.

There aren’t many guys who get married in a brothel.

The brothel wasn’t actually open for business four years ago, certainly not during the wedding and not even in the summer weeks before the event. The house’s brothel days date to the 1920s. Legendary hands of poker were played during Mat’s wedding reception, but as far as I know, that and the wedding kiss was as racy as it got.

How Mat managed a brothel wedding centers on his wife, Jessica. We have known Jessica since she was a beach ball on her mother’s front and she spent many memorable holidays here during the house’s “redeemed” era, as my father calls it. (It was a Christian retreat facility.)

Mat’s father-in-law Chris called me in March of 2008 for the ask: Could Jessica and Mat get married in the house? (Jessica’s father is Chris Gonzales, former owner of Toppers Men’s Store in Delano, CA.)

Chris knew we didn’t have weddings here and, the fact is, there were only a handful of people who could have gotten an answer other than a “Gosh, we’ll be in the middle of major construction all summer long.”

To everyone’s surprise, we said yes. Chalk it up to hormones (I was pregnant at the time and didn’t know it), but we had the time of our lives that summer preparing for the big event. We met some great people and wore ourselves out completely. (If you were at the wedding and met a woman, grumpy, nearly too pregnant to walk, and having practice contractions, then we have already met. It was nice to meet you.)

Mat, a proficient cyclist, suffered a spinal cord injury in a racing accident during Portland’s Short Track Series on Monday, June 11. He is now paralyzed from the chest down and the doctors say that his paralysis is permanent. We know that with extreme work, people suffering from spinal cord injuries can far surpass the expectations of doctors. Mat has already done so, coming from surgery with injuries less severe than expected and being removed from the ventilator the next day. You can follow his recovery journal on Caring Bridge. I particularly like the Caring Bridge update about hospital staff removing the ventilator: A nurse urges Mat to take two deep breaths and he takes three. This is the spirit and determination of a person who is about to exceed medical expectations. As a bonus, Mat has legions of people praying for his recovery.

Unfortunately, recovery takes time and resources even under the best of circumstances. Mat and Jessica have health insurance but anyone with major health complications knows that insurance is simply a good start. There will be an additional mountain or two of expenses and I am asking you to donate to Mat’s recovery fund to help defray those additional costs. If you are reading this post and have not donated to his cause, simply click through to this website, find the PayPal button, and donate what you can. Leave a note of encouragement.

If you know me through our common interest in food, then you should know that Mat is part of our community. He worked for years at Trader Joe’s and, in a memorable moment with the bridesmaids at his wedding, some stumbled onto neglected gallons of water kefir and asked me what I was fermenting.

Q: Who appreciates over-brewed ferments?

A: Mat Barton’s wedding party.

Whether you are an avid foodie or a friend from Delano, thank you for your support. If you have found this website through an Internet search for “brothel wedding venue,” we only consider inquiries from people who have donated to this cause: http://www.bartonpdx.com/

You should also know that the house hasn’t actually been a brothel for at least 80 years and, of course, we are undergoing massive construction projects on the property for the foreseeable future.

Check back for more photos shot by the brilliant Holly Carlyle. I’m hunting for poker pictures, an event we may need to revisit on the five year anniversary (when we should have a lower per capita population of pregnant home owners).

Before getting too distracted by the idea of poker and brothels, here’s the donation link again: http://www.bartonpdx.com/.

Please share it with friends.

Thank you.

More:

• Bike Portland on Mat.

• Portland Local News on Mat.
• Jessica made an appearance here on the house blog in 2009 exploring “The Lost Road” with her brother Matt and nephew Elijah.

Minimally, it’s really cool to save seed.

I did a little video on the sauerkraut crock in our kitchen.

This beloved and beneficial garden insect definitely becomes more “bug-like” as it creeps down your shirt and up your pants should you happen upon a large colony. Find a colony at White River Campground during the summer and fall, just 30 minutes past California Hot Springs in the Sequoia National Forest.

Despite the two votes in our household that the Forest Service carve a tunnel through the massive tree trunks (that tower 18-feet as they lay across the trail), the Forest Service has decided to build a boardwalk alongside the lower edge of the trees. The boardwalk will allow visitors to experience the expanse of the Giants as they move across the area that was disrupted by the fall.

The Forest Service released their plan outlining the various proposals to reroute the trail and their decision. The suggestions are mapped in the graphic below, save my suggestion to join the trail between marker #6 and #11 (not that it was the very best idea I’ve ever had and it was delivered via a tipsy “Tweet,” so I didn’t hold a lot of hope for it).

The fallen trees are the big green rectangle, the proposed boardwalk the blue rectangle.

Though my boys were strong on the tunnel plan, we all look forward to a new boardwalk and plenty to talk about in our weekly visits to the Trail. As a memento of our days at the Trail before the fall, we have discovered a video in our family archives — “The Boom Boom Bridges,” bridges I honored in my previous report of the fallen giants.

In our time there, we discovered that there are areas along the half-mile trail where tourists like to congregate, creating a natural rhythm to the short hike. In a one-time visit to this historic trail, it would be easy to miss the flow of the Trail and the importance of the two famous and now-fallen trees.

Trail marker #1 is the first opportunity to explore a Giant Sequoia up close and walk through the hole in the bottom of the tree left by a fire. At this tree we tell people that the black sticky stuff is not actually ash from the fire but a scar created by the tree protect itself from more damage. Giant Sequoias are nearly fire-proof as a result.

At trail marker #3 you will find a limb struck by lightening that impaled itself in the ground and stands sticking up like a tree unto itself. Most people pass #3 without realizing what they are seeing. My boys and I make a point of stopping tourists and explaining excitedly, “If you hear thunder while you’re here, run!”. We do take our own advice: I have myself run out of the grove with a toddler in a backpack as lightening flashed.

Marker #4 offers a cluster of trees you can squeeze into and find yourself in an open room with only one redwood exit. Early people used such trees as pens for geese and other animals. My older son was in the “goose pen” one day when we met a man walking real live geese.

Marker #9 is the next natural place to congregate. It has offered two trees grown so close together that their base became one. The trees stood in a well-lit portion of the path and a fire 200 years ago burned out a portion of their base. The light against the deep black color of the scarred Giant Sequoia made it a perfect spot for tourist pictures. The nearby foot bridges made the area particularly quaint.

Through much of 2010 the trips to the Trail with my toddler son involved walking straight to marker #9 and walking back and forth over the wooden bridges listening to the echo of our own footsteps. “Boom! Boom! Boom!,” said the bridges to the delight of my toddler. We spent hours listening to our steps and I took many pictures of tourists that summer posed in front of the two burned trees. We named the bridges affectionately: “The Boom Boom Bridges.”

Those tourists may never know that they are pictured in front of trees that are no longer vertical.

One of the two trees at marker #9 has been leaning for some time, but we noticed a dramatic change in mid-August. My mom, toddler, and I headed to the Trail early one August morning to take pictures of the fire debris that threatened the grove in late July. As we approached marker #9 we were struck by how much one of the trees was leaning. We stood back marveling at the angle and wondered out loud why we had not noticed it before. The morning light shone bright on the leaning tree making the angle hard to miss. “Maybe it’s the light this morning. Perhaps it has been leaning this much all along.” Not appreciating the significance, the leaning tree only made its way into the side of one of our pictures.

In our picture from August, you can compare the angle of the Giant on the left side of the photo to other trees in the redwood grove. In just a six week period, the massive weight of the tree worked together with gravity to break the shallow root system of itself and its redwood companion. The two trees fell together on September 30. The crushing sound was captured on video by a tourist as the trees fell, destroying a “Boom Boom Bridge” and a significant portion of the Trail.

“Boom” indeed. Marker #9 at the Trail of a Hundred Giants is in deep need of revision.

Forestry leaders are looking for public feedback on what to do about these fallen trees. The tree bases tower 18 feet and block a significant portion of a trail that had been accessible by wheelchair and, when no tourists were present, by young boys on scooters. How will Sequoia National Forest recoup this accessible trail? Should the trees be removed from the grove entirely? Should massive saws cut out slices that cross the Trail to allow people to pass? Ought a tunnel be carved out through these immense logs? The Forest Service is seeking feedback.

I put the question to my 9 year old son who has likely been to the Trail more than any 9 year old on the planet. Lately the Trail has been boring to him. The fire this summer got his attention and was good for a couple of complaint-free hikes. Holiday weekends work well too because he becomes a tour guide of sorts helping others discover the best trees to squeeze into or the easiest way to climb roots of other fallen trees. However, in August when we noticed the leaning tree, we left him home to play video games, to our disgust. This week I described to him the fallen trees and the new dilemma faced by the Forestry Service. I laid out the options for making the Trail accessible again. He lit up at the idea that there might be a redwood tunnel on the Trail, fully accessible to wheel chairs (and scooters). His young brother agrees.

It makes you wonder if the real reason for the fall of the two Giants is a kamikaze-like attempt of the Trail to compete with video games. The Trail will certainly have a new, exciting rhythm, at least for two boys.

There will be a public meeting at the Trail on October 22 at 10 a.m. so that people can see the fallen Giants and discuss the possibilities for making the Trail accessible again. Two young boys will be there, with a renewed sense of excitement, casting their votes.

These compost bins house spring-time grasses and other miscellaneous yard waste. What they are missing is strong guys with free time to turn them. We are growing our own: two boys, aged 9 and 2. We’ll see how they do as field hands.

We enjoyed this soup while filming the video course on bone broth and soup-making which you can find for free this summer on our Facebook page.

Liver pate wrapped in thinly-sliced zucchini makes a fine meal.

A symbol of summer and perhaps my favorite flower.

We had a long season of grass this year here in beef country. There are definitely “happy cows” in California.

Oh, how the sunset gives everything a new look, even these 25-year-old falling-apart and rat-infested utility cabinets made of plywood by my non-carpenter father. I should take a picture of the inside in full day light.

The garden had a late start with cold temperatures through May, but it was worth the wait. The harvest begins.

Located in the southern Sequoia National Forest, this fully handicapped accessible trail winds through a grove of Giant Sequoia trees. Among these massive trees, a small child runs back and forth across a bridge saying “Boom, boom! It’s a boom, boom bridge!” and, somehow, gets more attention from tourists than the trees.

Clean out the chicken cavity and stuff it with an assortment of vegetables and herbs. Cook until done. Eat.

Chickens really do need leaders because these chickens at our son’s home school charter school are as close as this toddler has gotten to chickens lately. Our own chickens learned first-hand about the “state of nature” when a large animal tore open their outdoor run and marauded their coop at night. We are now chicken-less for the first time in years.

It is a great science project for middle schoolers: place a raw egg in vinegar for a couple of days and the vinegar will eat up the mineral shell and leave you with a squishy raw egg protected only by the egg’s membrane.

On a lark, we used all of the vinegars in our household and a cheap red wine as a “control.” What was amazing is that one of our vinegars wasn’t actually vinegar. Check out the video: