I am an Author, a horseback rider, a hiker, a democrat, a wife, a mother, an environmentalist and an historic preservationist.Charlottesville, Virginia
Starting more than a year ago, I began organizing a trip I’d long to take for some time – a week on the Inland Passage of Alaska with The Boat Company, a non-profit educational foundation that exists to educate those on board about the delicate ecology of this temperate rain forest.
I recruited grandparents to bring a grandchild, planning to take our 7 yr. old grandson, Nate, off his parents’ hands for ten days since they just had another son, Will, in March. After hearing about the trip for months, they allowed as how they would like to come too, so their whole family is with us!
The boat, “The Mist Cove,” holds 24 passengers, and right now we are preparing to go to the boat from our hotel in Sitka. A week from now we will disembark at Juneau. Every day I will write about what we’re up to, including the two days we spent first with my cousin on Salt Spring Island, in the Gulf Islands off of Vancouver, an incredibly beautiful spot itself.
Because we will be incommunicado for a week, I will write every day, but the blog posts won’t go online until next week. I’m going to try the Dickens’ approach of just posting a manageable amount every few days when we return, so blog readers won’t get overloaded – so tune in later!
IF THERE HAD BEEN A BOOBY PRIZE WE WOULD HAVE WON IT!
This is coming to you thanks to my new four-hoofed keyboard. Has your rider ever decided to take you on an AMERICAN COMPETITIVE TRAIL HORSE ASSOCIATION ride???
Now you should know, I’m a hunter, and a good lookin,’ fat and sassy, ornery one if I do say so myself; so what was my rider doing signing us up for this? Don’t you thinks she might have noticed that no one from our hunt rode on it – they were all helping out as judges instead?
NOPE, she just took me up to the big ring a week before the ride to practice some of the “challenges.” I didn’t worry too much about it, because it wasn’t a windy day (that always gets me revved) and we had all the time we wanted to practice silly things like my rider grabbing one end of a stick off a barrel and then persuading me to walk a perfect full circle around the barrel without the other end of the stick falling off.
Now, I ask you, when in the hunt field would you EVER need to do this? Anyway, I humored her and did it O.K., even as I began to think less of her intelligence.
I also agreed to walk across a sheet; and for another challenge my rider had to pick up a sunhat on the ground with a hockey stick and put it on her head. In the hunt field that trick might come in handy one day, but they’d have to use a crop with a handle because you don’t just find a hockey stick laying upside of a tree when you need it.
So I guess I gave my rider a sense of false confidence going into the actual ride. At the first challenge we had to walk into a narrow “L” made of poles, and then back out. I’m good at backing, but maneuvering my large rear end around the turn when I couldn’t see back there, for crying out loud – maybe she thought I had one of those rear end cameras like new cars. So we stepped on a few poles, and believe it or not they were TIMING us – can you imagine? How picky can you get??
Next stop was a mailbox we had to sashay towards (they have some fancy eventing term for it) and stop. My rider opened it up, got the mail out, and handed it to the judge. Well I mean, durrrr, any moron can do that.
After these two challenges things went downhill fast. I won’t bore you with all the details, but I have to say all those poles were a pain in the tush. When you step on them they roll; it was all I could do not to fall down.
I did get a chance, though, to show those judges how fast I can go backwards. It happened when we rode up to a rope hanging on a jump standard. My rider was supposed to pick it up and pull on it. But when I noticed it was over a tree limb, and was attached to an empty water jug on the ground I got out of town, Brown, and took off backwards at a trot. We never got near that rope. Oh, did I mention, I’m a redhead?
As it turned out we weren’t the worst in our division, we were second to the worst. My blacksmith must have felt sorry for us because he and his horse did worser!! My rider said she wouldn’t give me an apple I’d been so bad; but she forgot and and gave it to me anyway.
Has your eye adjusted to unfurled leaves in the trees, to the greenest of grass so thick it is like a cushion underfoot, to the jungle-like tangle of new growth and to dense shade along city sidewalks?
I love the cool, wet spring we have had so far, and I am still in the stage of wonder that is our reward for going through winter – eat your hearts out, Californians!
Before we get used to it some time in May, the reawakening of our senses of sight, smell, hearing and even taste (try some young dandelion leaves in your salad) is the best treat of springtime. If I saw the small, delicate Virginia poppies in the fields all year they wouldn’t race my motor; but to see them out right now is thrilling BECAUSE I know that they will be gone in two weeks and I must carry their saffron beauty in my mind all winter.
Of course there IS a cloud hanging over all of this. It is called summer, which in Central Virginia with its heat and humidity can be in any one of three categories: hot, terrible hot and insufferable. We can always hope for the first category, but what I really hate is drought, which often develops in mid-summer, replacing green with gray and wilting our spirits along with the wildflowers.
Well, I KEPT MY PROMISE, no blogging without something to say. Long silence from me after doubling my quota of grandchildren…from one to two!
What brought me back into action was the arrival of spring. Along with the flowering redbud and dogwood come shad, making their way up the rivers to spawn. With the female of the species comes shad roe.
It is available in Florida in late January, and in the Carolinas in February and March. Virginians must wait until April. Shad roe comes in two half-moon shaped crescents of small roe that is held together by a thin filament. This is called “a set.” Early in the season a set can cost $12.99. At this time of year, when shad roe is local, the cost is down around $7.00.
The Garden Club of Virginia Cookbook has the simplest way to cook shad roe. You sever the filament that holds the two pieces of the set together, and then wrap each of the two crescents in a slice of bacon. Put both in an iron skillet that you’ve sprayed lightly with oil and put the skillet into a COLD oven.
Bacon-wrapped Shad Roe
Turn the heat to 375 degrees. Cook from 30 to 50 minutes, depending on the size of the set. If this your first time cooking shad roe, ask the person behind the counter about the size. Serve with lots of lemon wedges.
Cora Jones’ method takes more time, but insures that the interior of the set stays moist. Poach it at a slow simmer in water to which you’ve added a tablespoon of vinegar (this help it stay in one piece). Let it simmer five minutes for a small set and up to ten minutes for a large one.
Pat dry, smear with melted butter and put it in a pan under a hot broiler. Broil it only until it turns golden, don’t leave it in the oven so it dries out the roe. Again, serve with lots of lemon, or make up a mayo/yogurt/sour cream/caper/lemon sauce to go with it.
Shad Roe and lemon
My Godchild, Georgina, is an inspired cook, and she came up with this combination. For two people, cook ½ lb. of angel hair pasta. Melt a generous amount of butter in a sauté pan and on a very low flame gently cook the set in the butter until it is barely done. Remove it to a chopping board and chop it six ways from Sunday.
Georgina tosses the pasta with olive oil, mixes it with the shad roe, some light cream, salt and pepper and then sprinkles on chopped parsley or chives for color. I often use a little store-bought Tzatziki (a yogurt and cucumber mixture) revved up with hot sauce, lemon juice and green onions, to mix with the shad roe.
Again, chopped parsley is a must for color. When we have the luxury of shad roe, this is my favorite way to eat it.
Quick! Hustle on down to your favorite seafood store before shad roe disappears for another eleven months.
I came out to Salt Lake City to help our daughter and son in law with the birth of their second child, which they already knew was going to be a boy. I thought my job would be as companion to Nate, their first child and my beloved grandchild.
Nate’s birth had been terrifying in that three-fourths of the way through delivery his heart rate had plummeted, resulting in a wild dash down the hall and an emergency C-section. Both parents were anxious not to repeat that scenario, so this time a C-section was scheduled ahead of time in the interest of a calm, orderly process that would result in the arrival of a calm, orderly baby.
I arrived Tuesday, and immediately fell into the routines of a family just about to expand. The crib was up, room painted, black-out curtains lining the window. Searches for the car seat, the baby Bjorn, the baby clothes etc. dominated. She and I were busy with last-minute shopping trips, laundry and walks with the dog before the Thursday, 5:00 p.m. scheduled C-section.
On our walk she said her contractions were five minutes apart, but she had been instructed not to pay any attention until they were painful. This is someone who has known what real pain is from an awful riding accident, and what she was feeling was definitely not pain.
You’ve probably guessed that when we arrived at the vast campus of the Intermountain Medical Center she was already in full labor. Her OB encouraged switching to Plan B and had the flexibility to cancel the C-section.
Anxiously the parents agreed, which meant an entirely new plan for Nate for the night. I could have gone home to stay with him, but instead was privileged to be asked to stay and help with the birth. A family friend stepped in so I was able to be there with them and witness the birth of Will about six hours later.
It doesn’t matter how often it happens, and it happened nine times that night in that hospital, birth is a miracle every time. A fetus, in the course of a few seconds, leaves its watery cocoon and becomes a baby boy. I was allowed to cut the umbilical cord.
Numbed by awe, we were only wakened to the nurses concern when they swooped up baby Will, lying on his Mother’s chest, and removed him to the suction table on the other side of the room. He had been trying to cry, but his lungs were not working properly and his color had a grayish tinge. His ribs were heaving from the effort of trying to breathe.
The congratulations turned to silence, and fear took a hold of me as I shot arrow prayers skyward. Will didn’t improve enough for their liking, and the next thing we knew he had left for the NICU.
The room emptied of nurses. We reassured each other halfheartedly, and then sat there silently in the semi-dark of the room while our imaginations raced. When twenty minutes later Will was wheeled back in, bright pink and lively, we were flooded with joy. I was thankful beyond words at the same time that I had an inkling of the sorrow of parents whose vigils didn’t end as happily. It made me shutter.
Mother and baby come home tomorrow. We seldom realized how precious normalcy is.
