Morels in Our Big "Backyard"

It's morel mushroom season.

When I was growing up on this ranch, it was, "Don't pick the toadstools . . . don't even touch them," and being a dutiful child, I did not.  In fact, I barely looked at them, fearing temptation.  We know what happened to Snow White with that apple.  So, last year when the forester was surveying our land for some tree harvesting (a necessity to keep our timber exemption for tax purposes), and he said, "You know you've got some morels here," I was dumbfounded.  "I thought they only grew in the Cascades," I replied.  I may not have known what a morel was as a child, but I sure as heck learned about them when I married Jay, a gourmet cook.  "I found some on your neighbor's property," he said. So, we poked about the old apple orchard all May of last year, but nary a one did we see.  The loggers did their work, plowed trails along the hillsides, cut the big trees, did a bit of clean-up and left.  And lo and behold!  Where they left their "footprint," there are black morel mushrooms (morchella elata) popping up their delicious little heads, honeycombed with pits and ridges.  Ever a careful town-raised child and concerned we might eat false morels and die, Jay emailed photos (whole and sliced) of one of our finds to a mycologist at WSU.  His return email, said, "Looks like a black morel to me."  And so we've been enjoying them in a wine sauce over grilled sirloin, in scrambled eggs, and tonight in a cream pasta sauce.  Optimistic, Jay even bought a dehydrator (we can always use it to dry pear and apple slices).  And the morels have kept producing.

Research on the Internet tells us that burn areas and logging sites are great for black morels.  We've been very careful not to pull up the roots.  The question remains:  Will they be there next spring?  We aren't finding them anywhere but in disturbed soil.  Time will tell.  In the meantime - bon appetit!

Meadowgrass

Rained most of April, and the grass is coming up green and thick in the meadow behind our house. This evening, a herd of 13 cow and calf elk came for supper.

The Long Arc of Justice

President Obama announced tonight that a U.S. military operation in Pakistan killed Osama Bin Laden. To quote acclaimed political analyst Jim Carrey, "Well, alrighty then."

Sugar Time

What an odd day yesterday. Woke up after a good night's sleep, feeling good - then realized I hadn't plugged in my insulin pump when I went to bed. My blood glucose had rocketed to 388 ML/dl overnight, and it took all day to stabilize it. I figured a bike ride would bring it down, and, boy, did it. I started my ride into a headwind with my BG in the 200s, and ate half a Clif bar after 20 minutes. At the 10-mile mark I took mark, I sat down and did a finger stick - 60 ML/dl! Ate the other half of Clif bar and a Chocolate 9 gel, and started back, riding leisurely to keep my effort down. After a couple of miles, I was passed by a fit young woman in her 30s, riding a shiny new Trek carbon bike with a stock block. She gave me a cheery "On your left," and took off up the trail. I was feeling much better, with a lovely tailwind, started to reel her in, and flew past her on a sprinter's hill, offering a cheery "On your left." I powered back to my home in the next eight miles and wasn't passed again. Back at the car, my BG was 179 ML/dl. That was a surprise. Over the day, my BG dropped into the low 80s, and back to 110 by bedtime. Still a challenge.

So was my new heart rate monitor. My 13-year-old Polar NV died, and I decided it would be cheaper to buy a new HRM rather than send it off for repair. Got a Timex Digital Zone Trainer T5H911 Heart Monitor. It was pretty intuitive once I got it set up, but the out-of-zone alarm kept beeping at me every 2 seconds for an hour and 20 minutes. First thing when I got home - read the instruction booklet and turn it off. Looking forward to my next ride.

Our old Siamese cat, Blue, is still experiencing high BG with his diabetes. Took his sugar five times yesterday - 386, 376, 351, 415, and 596 before bed. This morning, he was 397. The 3 units of Lantus twice a day don't seem to be doing much good. I'll check with the vet on Monday.

...And Then You Win Some

Four years. Four long years fighting to keep our rural valley in norther Idaho rural. And, now, we've won! Last night, the Kootenai County Board of County Commissioners voted 3-0 that the proposed wedding/special events center had no place in rural areas of the county - that it would fit in a commercial zone; that the commissioners wouldn't pass a text amendment to county zoning ordinances to facilitate commercial resorts, and would not authorize a conditional use permit to the applicants.

What did it take? Community organizing - all but one family in our valley was opposed to the "party barn," and registered their objections throughout the process. Effort - forming an association to challenge the county Planning Department (and win) in district court, meeting frequently and attending way too many hearings of government commissions and boards. Money - people throughout our valley (and a few from other parts of the county) donated tens of thousands of dollars to the fight. Persistence - going through county files and filing lots of public records requests. Professional help - a great attorney and an experienced planning consultant. The electoral process - the Board of County Commissioners granted the applicants a conditional use permit in 2009 on a 2-1 vote. In 2010, two commissioners were voted out of office - one supporter of the party barn and one opponent. They were replaced by two commissioners who saw to the heart of the problems with county planning processes and dragged along the remaining commissioner who had approved the project in 2009. So, a clean win.

And why does it really matter? I've come to cherish the rural lifestyle that has can be difficult to maintain, and easy to lose - the quiet mornings, punctuated by the calls of magpies, chickadees, and wild turkeys; the walks on our property, among the deer and the burbles of our spring, the breeze through the pines, firs, and aspens; the herd of elk that graze and then bed down for the night in the meadow by our house and on our middle hillside; neighbors who help you free your chainsaw from a tall tree, who ask your help to clear a line of sight for their satellite TV signal, who graze their cattle on your land and who graze your cattle on their spring grass. The enjoyment of neighboring children riding their horses along the county road and onto our trails.

This win also shows that, while you might not be able to fight city, you can fight the county - if you try hard enough.

Congratulations to everyone involved in our fight - and a big thanks to the Kootenai County Board of County Commissioners.

Back in the Saddle Again

As Gene Autry sang, I'm back in the saddle again. Today was the first truly lovely day for cycling in months. Sunny, in the upper 30s when I went out, just a bit of a breeze. I'd been out a few times this spring, but it was a fight against the cold and wind. A couple of tech notes: after riding with a Giro Helios for nearly a decade, this winter I picked up an Ionos from Colorado Cyclist. The helmet liner really obviates the need for a cap on other than really cold ear-frosting days. Very cool. And, having lost about 20 pounds this summer, my old Pearl Izumi cold-weather jacket no longer fit; the bottom leaked like a badly insulated door. Got a Castelli Spunto from one of my LBS (Vertical Earth, in Coeur d'Alene), and am enjoying a close fit and comfortable warmth - particularly with the fold-up collar.

It was a day to enjoy nature - the rushing noise of the Spokane River, filling with water from the Post Falls dam; the chickadees; the Canada geese one of which managed to perch on a topped pine-tree about 8 feet off the ground (must have been a fantastic landing); and a whole array of dogs being walked by their people on the Centennial Trail, including two different people with Schipperke's (I'd only seen one before). A bit of a tailwind out, a bit of a headwind in. About 3 miles from the end of my 26 mile ride, a young woman on a new Trek time-trial bike caught me, and we chatted for most of the way back about her bike and triathlon experience. Then, she took off, and I rode back to my car.

The critters have come out with the spring. The Tom turkeys are strutting around near the house, fanning their tails, which seem to tilt left and right to help them navigate, like a mainsail on a three-master. Wings dragging on the ground, their heads blue and caruncles red, they work to corral their hens, putting on quite the show. Whitetail deer graze in bunches of six or eight. A few evenings ago, 7 cow and 1 bull elk grazed and bedded down on a hillside that last spring was logged off. I think that's a sign that the altered landscape will be in good condition.

So much rain this spring. I had to mow the back yard last weekend, the earliest in four years. The ground is still soft in most places, and the state road restrictions are still in place for our county road. Karen's been stalking the hillsides and meadows with her weed-puller, clearing any mullein and thistle within eye sight.

Yesterday, we were working on the hillside, Karen clearing weeds, I trimming off ankle-biting, eye-poking hawthorn branches, when a county pick-up appeared above us on the driveway leading to our putative home site. It was Jerry from the timber and ag department, coming to get the status of our grazing plans. I walked him through the meadow we're going to fence off this year, and the one we used last year (and will use again this year). We added a steer this year to our neighbors' herd, and we'll move them on to our place in a few months, when the meadow grass comes up ("meadow grass" always reminds me of Tom Rush's version of "Urge for Going." Blue, our diabetic Siamese, was with Karen; the twice-daily insulin shots have been doing him a lot of good. But, he's growing visibly older, and I don't know how many years we'll have with him. We're going to try to enjoy the summer together.

Finally

I do believe it's finally spring. A soaking rain yesterday dissolved nearly all the snow that had stacked up during the past few weeks. Still a chill in the air, and today was intermittently sunny and partly cloudy, with some breezes. I had a chance today to check some of the wind damage: large- and medium-sized willow branches littered the front yard. A sign out on the county road marking the telephone right of way had blown loose from its metal post and lay in the borrow ditch, one nut resting on the sign, the other nut and the bolts nowhere to be seen. I found a couple of license tag bolts in the garage and put the sign back up.

The ground was mostly marshy, though the grass is coming up on the trails created by the loggers last spring. There are some small red flowers, though no buttercups yet. And, there's mullein everywhere. Kerry's been using a weed puller to attack the mullein infestation, but there are years of work ahead.

The meadow up from first hill was dry, as was the slope down from the gravel road. I bungeed the chainsaw to the front rack of the ATV and headed to the meadow to cut down about seven small pines that dotted the flat. I also wanted to clean up the partially-consumed burn piles from fall and haul the wood up to a consolidated burn pile where the road switches back from north to south. Took about five trips, and I'm not quite done. Following my diabetes coach's instructions, I dialed back the basal rate on my insulin pump to 50 percent, and ate about 12-15 grams of carbohydrates every 30 minutes. When I got back down, my blood glucose level was 88. Right in the sweet spot.

While I was loading wood from the meadow into the trailer, one of the neighbor kids rode up on his horse. Carlos lives about three properties north, and we'd often see him riding along. His parents are friends of ours, members of our neighborhood association. Kerry had offered his parents that he could ride on our 66 acres. Mom and dad had brought him up right. He'd stopped at the house and asked Kerry if he could ride our trails, and she, of course, said "yes." And, so, he stopped to talk with me as well before heading up toward the barn, from east of which several good trails fan out. He was dressed in casual cowboy style, boots, vest, cowboy hat with a stampede strap. For a while, last year, his parents had made him wear a lacrosse helmet after his horse bucked him off and returned home without him. Carlos had sustained a broken arm, but with dad working at the hospital in Coeur d'Alene, he got good care. No helmet now. As I was unloading wood from the trailer to the burn pile, I saw him walking his horse down along the lower spring and toward the peony beds. Later, I saw him galloping back toward the barn; maybe the stampede strap helped, but the Stetson stayed firmly in place. The horse seemed to have a smooth gait, and Carlos had a good seat. Kerry said it was nice seeing a neighbor's kid on the land. It was.

A long two hours, and the nap afterward was welcome. A short nap, though. I had to take Blue's blood glucose level at 4, and it was an astonishing reading of 168, much lower than the upper 200s and lower three hundreds. That must have been an outlier, as his 8 p.m. reading was 322. I'll call the numbers in to the vet tomorrow; I suspect she'll increase Blue's insulin from the current 2 units, twice a day. He's taking his shots like a brave little cat soldier, though he's not fond of the ear pricks necessary to measure his blood glucose.

This week? The first of two administrative hearings with my health insurance company to try to resolve a billing dispute from back in July. That should be interesting.