More Moon

 The moon is almost full and with the cloudy weather we have been having, it has been beautiful.

Manzanita Cider

Joshua and I made manzanita cider over the weekend. We started Thursday by picking berries. Manzanita berries are very sticky and soon our fingers were covered in stickiness and everything was a sticky mess. 

Back at the ranch house, we rinsed the berries, which really didn't do much because they are so sticky, then we poured boiling water over them.

After letting it set for 20 minutes, we mashed the berries. The next step was to let them set for 24 hours.

Friday we strained out the berries, and all the steams, leaves, and other stuff stuck to the berries, and covered the cider to let it stand overnight.

By Saturday, it had settled quite a bit, so we strained the cider through a coffee filter and left the sediment on the bottom of the jar. I should mention that up until this point, the cider smelled pretty bad. By letting it settle and straining it, we removed a lot of the tannins, which is a bitter plant compound. This improved the smell, mostly by making it milder. We decided to let it set overnight again to see if anything more settled out.

By Sunday, it looked about the same. So, after work, we tried some. First, we just drank it straight.

It was, um, refreshing? It really wasn't very good. Drinkable, but rather sour and it had a weird flavor.



We added sugar, but that was worse than plain. Then we heated it with cinnamon and cloves for a hot spiced cider. That smelled really good, but the taste was about the same. That night we tried it again with a couple other girls and added honey. Not that exciting either. So, it wasn't bad, but it wasn't good and, other than that we had a fun time experimenting with making it, probably not worth the effort. But the point was to make a batch, and in that we succeeded. We have many more things on our list of stuff to make from the plants around here, so be on the lookout for more posts on that in the weeks and months to come.

Living the Good Life

We didn't have to wait long to have our first storm of the season. Yesterday at lunch it started to rain! It was a perfect day for it, the power was out due to a planned outage, we didn't have any guests coming until the evening, and we were having a chill day on Accommo. We knew there was a possibility of rain, but when we heard the sprinkles, we all ran outside to soak it up. It smelled so good. It's amazing how quickly the feel of camp changes when it rains. The rain itself didn't last for too long, but the rest of the afternoon was cloudy and windy. It was wonderful.

 

A Successful Failure

Josh and I started work early so we could help with the guest group last weekend, so we got two days off during O-week. The first was Wednesday and we decided to go on an adventure and try to find Iron Lakes. We packed a picnic lunch, hopped in the car, and turned left at the bottom of Calvin Crest road. It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed the drive; however, we reached the end of the road without noticing the turn off for Iron Lakes. So we found a pretty spot to pull off the road for lunch. Although we didn't make it to the lake, we obviously still had a beautiful place to picnic.

Josh put together this panorama of the view.

All in all, we had a great adventure and when we got back to camp, we found out we were on the right road and had just missed the turn off because it's not marked. But now we know, so we are planning to try again soon.

Seasick

I had more visitors Saturday through Monday, Jaime and her mom came up to switch back cars (Jaime had to drive my car to Nevada last week because hers wasn't done at the mechanics when she needed to leave). It was great to see them and they brought me all kinds of goodies. Jaime helped me get more settled into my room, which is still a work in progress but I'm hoping to take and post pictures soon.

Starting Work

Here is a not very good picture of a common occurrence: cows walking through the yard. There are free range cattle that get dropped off above us and then wander through camp on their way down the hill. Cow chasing is a frequent activity because we don't really want them around and pooping everywhere. This picture was taken Saturday morning, which was my first official day on Accommodations. It went great. No pictures of that, but I did take pictures that night of the tree line by the lake.

First Visitor

I moved up to camp on Thursday and started getting settled into my room (more on that to coming soon). Friday we kicked off the fall season by watching the sunrise from the AIM tree. Back in my room, I couldn't resist taking a picture of the morning sun streaming through my window and the vine growing in.

My friend, Janelle, came up to visit for the day and we went on a hike, had a picnic lunch, put up pictures in my room, drank tea and ate cookies, went on another hike, chatted on the green, and had dinner in Oakhurst with Josh. It was an enjoyable day.

The Beginning of Another Adventure

I'm packed and ready for the move up to camp. I feel like I'm taking so much stuff, but I have to remind myself that I'm going to be living up there for nine months. That hasn't completely sunk in yet and is a little weird to think about still. But I'm excited. I'm looking forward to the opportunity to serve God, be part of an amazing community, and live in the mountains.

Morning at Slick Rock

Attempt Two

Since our first attempt at hunting crawdads this summer was unsuccessful, we decided to try again this weekend. Josh was visiting for the weekend, so he, Jonah, Michelle, and I went down to Mill Creek and began the hunt.

The creek was down and soon Jonah found and caught the first one!

Michelle soon found one too and caught it herself.

We worked our way up the creek, through a few tunnels, including one we heard bats in. It got pretty deep in some places, but overall, the depth was good for catching crawdads and we were able to get a number.

The feed itself was delicious, of course. I don't have pictures of that, but I'm sure Heather will be posting hers soon.