The Visitors
Boys and Dogs
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Visitors
On Friday evening as I was closing the shades, I looked out the window and saw two small puppies huddled outside, looking forlorn, dirty, and lost. Tim and the boys went outside and brought them in, fed them some leftover turkey, and got them warm. They settled happily into life here, and the boys cherished great hopes of adding them to our family. Tim and I were up with the dogs three times through the night, cementing the decision we had made before they were even in the house, that they would not be staying. There were moments of wavering... however, the pups went to find other homes yesterday evening. Just in time for Christmas.
Boys and Dogs
Boys and Dogs
Friday, November 28, 2008
Happy Thanksgiving
A good thanksgiving day Thursday...
On Tuesday evening, Tim and I made pumpkin rolls, a favorite Thanksgiving tradition we inherited from his mom. This is a time consuming, though ultimately tasty process. It involves mixing and baking the rolls, then rolling them in floured towels while they cool, then unrolling them the next day and spreading the cream cheese frosting inside, then re-rolling, dusting with powder sugar, serving and eating! Here is Tim mid-process.
On Wednesday, the boys and I brought one of our pumpkin rolls up to our neighbors in Arlee, another special part of our Montana Thanksgiving tradition - and likely the thing we do that most closely parallels the traditional, though highly-revised, Thanksgiving story: The west-arriving settlers appreciate what they've learned from Native Americans regarding how to live in the New World. Every Thanksgiving, we too are reminded of our own gratitude toward our first Montana friends, Snuse and Christine McClure, who are native, and who taught us a good deal about what it is to live in the West.
Thanksgiving was a bright clear day and full of friends. Our good buddy, Steve, flew in from Vancouver to celebrate the holiday with us. There were 12 here for dinner, though, I think, we must have had food for 30. A warm, abundant, time, just as Thanksgiving should be.
A brisk walk along the creek on Friday (and a last piece of pumpkin roll) rounded out the holiday festivities, just in time for Advent to open before us.
Along the Creek
On Tuesday evening, Tim and I made pumpkin rolls, a favorite Thanksgiving tradition we inherited from his mom. This is a time consuming, though ultimately tasty process. It involves mixing and baking the rolls, then rolling them in floured towels while they cool, then unrolling them the next day and spreading the cream cheese frosting inside, then re-rolling, dusting with powder sugar, serving and eating! Here is Tim mid-process.
On Wednesday, the boys and I brought one of our pumpkin rolls up to our neighbors in Arlee, another special part of our Montana Thanksgiving tradition - and likely the thing we do that most closely parallels the traditional, though highly-revised, Thanksgiving story: The west-arriving settlers appreciate what they've learned from Native Americans regarding how to live in the New World. Every Thanksgiving, we too are reminded of our own gratitude toward our first Montana friends, Snuse and Christine McClure, who are native, and who taught us a good deal about what it is to live in the West.
Thanksgiving was a bright clear day and full of friends. Our good buddy, Steve, flew in from Vancouver to celebrate the holiday with us. There were 12 here for dinner, though, I think, we must have had food for 30. A warm, abundant, time, just as Thanksgiving should be.
A brisk walk along the creek on Friday (and a last piece of pumpkin roll) rounded out the holiday festivities, just in time for Advent to open before us.
Steve and Corin: Tree Climbers
Along the Creek
Monday, November 24, 2008
While Away
Last night, I returned from four days in Portland, OR. It was a perfect trip starting and ending with three hours of driving between Missoula and Spokane (from where I flew the rest of the way). Three hours of silence and solo time are a rarity in life and I was grateful for the time to be alone driving through the spare winter landscape of western Montana and the Idaho panhandle.
In Portland, I attended my cousin's sweet-heartfelt-joyous-fun-memorable wedding; huddled around a bistro table with my mother and Auntie Jill eating croissants; watched the mist rise on the Clackamas river; talked talked talked with far-flung family; attended church with my cousin Lukas and friend Suzy; walked around under arching empty trees with great black branches.
Tim and the boys held down the fort in Missoula. Their boy-time ran to more frozen pizzas and rootbeer floats than was strictly necessary, but, high fructose corn syrup aside, the boys had a wonderful time palling around with their dad. Tim and Than took them hiking up Mt. Jumbo on Sunday, which was deeply blue-skied, and at the house the boys invented games to keep them well occupied.
"We don't have a fire truck, but that's ok because we have a fire bike."
Fresh and Clean Menagerie
According to the church calendar, this past Sunday marked the close of the year. Advent, which begins next week, is the opening of the church year. Somehow my trip to Portland seemed a fitting end - a restful space - to close out the year and get ready to begin all things again.
In Portland, I attended my cousin's sweet-heartfelt-joyous-fun-memorable wedding; huddled around a bistro table with my mother and Auntie Jill eating croissants; watched the mist rise on the Clackamas river; talked talked talked with far-flung family; attended church with my cousin Lukas and friend Suzy; walked around under arching empty trees with great black branches.
Tim and the boys held down the fort in Missoula. Their boy-time ran to more frozen pizzas and rootbeer floats than was strictly necessary, but, high fructose corn syrup aside, the boys had a wonderful time palling around with their dad. Tim and Than took them hiking up Mt. Jumbo on Sunday, which was deeply blue-skied, and at the house the boys invented games to keep them well occupied.
Hiking on Jumbo
"We don't have a fire truck, but that's ok because we have a fire bike."
Fresh and Clean Menagerie
According to the church calendar, this past Sunday marked the close of the year. Advent, which begins next week, is the opening of the church year. Somehow my trip to Portland seemed a fitting end - a restful space - to close out the year and get ready to begin all things again.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Time and the way it bends
Recently, Corin has grown an interest in all things outer-space. The recipient of a closet cleaning, the dramatic play area of his classroom acquired several old computer screens, calculators and switch boards - enough to launch the boys' rocket ship fantasies (so to speak). As a result, along with a healthy dose of imaginary adventures to distant planets, Corin has a sudden and real interest in the workings of the solar system, the concept of living on a planet, the idea of the sun being one among billions of stars in a single galaxy among billions of galaxies. As someone with little knowledge of astronomy, I have turned to that ever-ready source of good information: youtube, in order to help my son (and me!) have a better appreciation of the universe and, as the Book of Common Prayer would call it, "this fragile Earth, our island home."
Here are two great videos to help put things into perspective. Or, if you are like me and rather prone to feel your sense of proportion and place go a bit wobbly when you start thinking beyond the planet, then these may serve to blow things right out of perspective.
Planets and stars in scale: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tfs1t-2rrOM
Journey to the edge of the universe: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zr7wNQw12l8
Annie Dillard writes in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek: "We must somehow take a wider view, look at the whole landscape, really see it, and describe what is going on here. Then we can at least wail the right question into the swaddling band of darkness, or, if it comes to that, choir the proper praise."
I had not thought of that quote in quite awhile and found it coming to mind after this little space odyssey that has been opening up before us. The thing is, the swaddling band is not dark but light - filled with stars and galaxies beyond counting - and somehow it seems like it would be easier to comprehend if it were pared down considerably: wonder gets a little dizzying when you start adding zeros.
However, taking the wider view does not necessarily demand astronomical forays. This very place is stocked with wonder enough. On a recent rainy Saturday, I took a small personal retreat with the Montana Natural History Center to go on a Glacial Lake Missoula field trip. During the last ice age, a large lobe of the Purcell Glacier impounded a vast lake behind it filling much of western Montana with water. This lake, known as Glacial Lake Missoula, contained more than 500 cubic miles of water which, when the ice dam broke, rushed to the Pacific, scouring and chaneling Washington and Oregon on its way. I do not understand the geology of all this, but am told that this happened many times over. Geologists dispute the numbers of fillings and emptyings of the lake, but agree that it happened dozens of times (I believe a conservative estimate is in the 40s). The land on which I walk about, I take my sons' hands to cross the street, I have made my home, this land was under more than 950 feet of water.
We walk about on an old and vast lake bottom. Perhaps, this is nothing so very wonderful, the world has long been changing and will continue to do so given the arc of time. But somehow, when I take my boys up on the surrounding mountains where the lake surface used to lap and when we run our fingers over the rocks, ridged and rippled by that long ago water, the place stretches me, even as it destabilizies my capacity to "look at the whole landscape, really see it, and describe what is going on here."
Whether wondering at a landscape that was filled and formed by water, or losing my senses to the vastness of our solar system, (...much less our galaxy, ...much less our universe), I feel the stretch and bend of things that extend so endlessly beyond my small concerns, and somehow through this I meet again, as if for the first time, the here-now of my own life and home.
Here are two great videos to help put things into perspective. Or, if you are like me and rather prone to feel your sense of proportion and place go a bit wobbly when you start thinking beyond the planet, then these may serve to blow things right out of perspective.
Planets and stars in scale: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tfs1t-2rrOM
Journey to the edge of the universe: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zr7wNQw12l8
Annie Dillard writes in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek: "We must somehow take a wider view, look at the whole landscape, really see it, and describe what is going on here. Then we can at least wail the right question into the swaddling band of darkness, or, if it comes to that, choir the proper praise."
I had not thought of that quote in quite awhile and found it coming to mind after this little space odyssey that has been opening up before us. The thing is, the swaddling band is not dark but light - filled with stars and galaxies beyond counting - and somehow it seems like it would be easier to comprehend if it were pared down considerably: wonder gets a little dizzying when you start adding zeros.
However, taking the wider view does not necessarily demand astronomical forays. This very place is stocked with wonder enough. On a recent rainy Saturday, I took a small personal retreat with the Montana Natural History Center to go on a Glacial Lake Missoula field trip. During the last ice age, a large lobe of the Purcell Glacier impounded a vast lake behind it filling much of western Montana with water. This lake, known as Glacial Lake Missoula, contained more than 500 cubic miles of water which, when the ice dam broke, rushed to the Pacific, scouring and chaneling Washington and Oregon on its way. I do not understand the geology of all this, but am told that this happened many times over. Geologists dispute the numbers of fillings and emptyings of the lake, but agree that it happened dozens of times (I believe a conservative estimate is in the 40s). The land on which I walk about, I take my sons' hands to cross the street, I have made my home, this land was under more than 950 feet of water.
We walk about on an old and vast lake bottom. Perhaps, this is nothing so very wonderful, the world has long been changing and will continue to do so given the arc of time. But somehow, when I take my boys up on the surrounding mountains where the lake surface used to lap and when we run our fingers over the rocks, ridged and rippled by that long ago water, the place stretches me, even as it destabilizies my capacity to "look at the whole landscape, really see it, and describe what is going on here."
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Rainy Day
It has been a blustery day here, one in a string of several we've been experiencing. The wind has been pulling the last few leaves from our apple tree though a handful of apples continue to cling. A pileated woodpecker visited our tree again today. The boys and I sat watching him, our elbows resting on the low sill. His bright red head flashed amid the gray branches and gray sky, a welcome visitor, surely.
Here are a few recent pictures.
The boys looking very serious.
The four of us at Rob and Becky's wedding last month.
Corin and I enjoyed canoeing in New Hampshire.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Welcome
This blog is a new undertaking for the heretofore blog/vlog/twitter/facebook/myspace -phobic Iudijoss clan. However, it has come to our attention that we do, in fact, enjoy checking other people's blogs and find it a good way to get a sense of the day-to-day with at-a-distance friends and family. Thus if you are interested in checking in on us via the blog, we welcome you.
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