I fear, like most of my landscape shots, this picture does not do the scene justice.
Many mornings, while Spokane (elevation, 2000ft) is tucked away in a blanket of clouds, we (2500-3000ft) are poking out, with our hillside, into the morning sun.
This was one such day, as we were traveling down the road, on our way into town, down from our sunny vista, and into the grey blanket that still had Spokane bundled in bed.
I used Molly Wizenberg (Orangette)’s recipe from A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table
The biggest problem with ratatouille is that it involves both eggplant and zucchini, which, if you follow the recipe closely, will both end up rather well done (read “smushy” “mushy” “slippery” or “goopy”).
Since no one here except me likes “overcooked” zucchini, I sauteed it alone so I could add it into the ratatouille separately.
Joel Fuhrman cites eggplant and mushrooms as good mouth-feel meat substitutes. This really only works, on the eggplant front, if you don’t cook them to “mushy.” These eggplants were destined for my ratatouille, where they were a little on the “done” side, but still quite tasty.
It was a riot of colour, but the flavour really left something to be desired . . . kind of bland, really. I guess that would be appropriate for April 15th.
Apparently, there are lots of folks who think that where I live is way out in the country . . . it really isn’t. I’m 17 minutes from a mall, and equally close to a Wal-Mart . . . in my mind, that doesn’t really qualify. In a little less than a week, though, city folks, of the sort who think this is way out in the country dumped two vehicles. The first was a small trailer, that ended up in the middle of the road. I think the dumpee meant for it to roll down the very steep hill and off the edge, but the trailer got caught up on its stabilizing wheel, and stopped in the middle of the road, which is what my mother said about it when she told me, “There’s a trailer in the middle of the road.”
Since it was a little trailer, I pulled it off the side of the road into the very shallow ditch, and called the county. The cops showed up the next night, and called it in to be towed, as it turned out to be stolen. I suspect it was either a landscaping trailer or a 4wheeler trailer, and what was really being stolen was the equipment that was on it.
Not a week later, a car ended up off the same hill.
What city folk don’t understand about living way out in the country is that disturbances in the landscape are our landmarks. This is why your country friends give weird directions that never include street names, but often include fields of cows. We notice when cars go off the edges of cliffs. We notice when trees fall. We notice disturbances in the side of the road that signal that a car went off. We don’t have gas stations and billboards and Wal-Marts all screaming for our attention on our little windy back roads, so change is what we see.
We also don’t just ignore cars off the sides of the cliff. We crawl down the damn cliff and make sure the city folk aren’t still in the car, slowly bleeding to death. Because, some day, the car off the side is going to be us.
And that’s exactly what we did in this case: sent Farmergirl scrambling down the precipitous hillside to make sure the car was empty.
It was. But there were also some strange things about the case:
1) There were no other footprints in the soft dirt of the hillside except Farmergirl’s.
2) There was a large rock in the driver’s wheel well.
3) The window was down (and it had rained, and rain was in the forecast).
We took pictures of the car, and the registration, and the VIN, and called the insurance company. They asked if they could give the owner our info . . . we declined.
We suspect that it was the owner who fell behind on the payments, and sent the car over the edge.
But listen up, city folks: we live out here, and we pay a LOT more attention to change . . . and we’re neighborly, so we’re not going to just leave your stupid car down the hill, alone, with you potentially in it. We’re going to climb down, we’re going to check it out, and we’re going to call your stupid insurance company, the county, and the cops.
If you want to lose your car, park it on a suburban street, or in longterm parking at the airport, or in the mall parking lot– or Wal-Mart’s parking lot–these are places where cars aren’t out of place.
Don’t dump it in the forest.
Spinners, weavers, scrapbookers, knitters, crocheters, quilters, beaders, writers, embroiderers, card makers, felters, poets, . . . whatever your craft, come join women from the Inland Northwest at beautiful Camp Cross for relaxing weekend of crafting, reading, and hanging out.
Register here for the Crafting Retreat, June 5-7.
My friend Molly writes on her Facebook status:
Molly is having a bluegrass good friday, with a cup of coffee in a wood hut in a marine camp out in the desert. strangely pleased to be miles and miles away, for the first time in 4 years, from holy land easter season theatrics. no crazy barefooted, robed tourists dragging crosses around here. nope. just ralph stanley and the clinch mountain boys. nice.
Farmerteen and her friends are a little iPod crazy, but she conceived and created this card for her friend’s birthday.
She and her father worked on the ratio and aspect (lots of math!), and fought valiantly with the computer to get a picture that would work. Then the worked out the math to size the wheel, and Farmerteen cut it out and did the lettering.
The Inlander’s 101 word fiction contest results are in.
And runners up, which includes one from yours truly.
