It’s hard to imagine what America’s prairies looked like when they were unspoiled. Today, more than 95% of our prairies and grasslands have been repurposed for agriculture. The last remnants are so highly fragmented that it’s a fight to keep non-native invasive species from taking over. Prairies and grasslands were once thought to be ecological wastelands, a monoculture of grass with not much productivity. From a distance, the prairie might seem like a boring place. But up close, prairies have the capacity to harbor more diversity than some forests. To really appreciate all that these grasslands have to offer, it’s best to visit in the spring when the sea of green gives way to shades of blue, purple, orange, yellow, and red. And it doesn’t just stop with color. Strange shapes adorn the prairie plants.

Take the Prairie Smoke (Geum triflorum) for example. This plant has one of the strangest looking flowers you’ll ever see. It’s not an easy plant to find, but I managed to come across a fairly large portion of its habitat while out geocaching on Sunday.

I had discovered a cache called Broken Top a few months ago when the area was still too snowed out to visit. I figured that now might be a good time to go before the temperatures became unbearable. I also figured that this would be the peak bloom for most of the wildflowers. I was not disappointed. I picked up Wesley in Moscow and we headed down to Waha Lake for a day of exploration and geocaching.

For Memorial Day weekend, Waha Lake was decidedly uncrowded. It’s a small lake in the mountains south of Lewiston. There is a small municipal park at one end that serves as a campground. There’s nothing special about it, but the camping is free and it seems like a nice place to just get away for a night. The cache “Broken Top” sits near the summit of one of the “peaks” near the lake. You could probably access it directly from the lake via ATV trails, but we opted to drive up to the Idaho Fish&Wildlife parking area. The road up to the “trailhead” is amazing. As you ascend, you can look over the Lewiston-Clarkston valley and onto the palouse. This time of year, it transverses some open meadows that are full of wildflowers. It was during one of these that I noticed the Prairie Smoke. I stopped the car and we got out to look closer.

There’s no real trail to the geocache, so it was quite difficult to climb the hill without stepping on something that isn’t grass. There were so many plants in bloom that if I had stopped to identify all of them, we never would have made it to the cache. But, of the flowers I could identify, we saw Arrowleaf Balsamroot, Lupin (possibly two species), Prairie Smoke, Paintbrush (at least 2 species), Larkspur, Camas, Wild Hyacinth, Cat’s ear, some species of milk vetch. This list is in no way exhaustive, and perhaps I’ll return when I get back from vacation and create a more substantial list.

The scenic views from the geocache are nothing short of spectacular. In addition to looking over the Lewiston-Clarkston valley and the Palouse, you look straight down in to the Snake River. Across the canyon, the tips of the Wallowa Mountains peak up above the western rim.

Wesley and I set out to hike a bit and find some geocaches. We ended up with a magical adventure. Idaho never ceases to amaze me. I’d like to think that the place we experienced resembles the unspoiled Palouse, though I realize that the meadows we explored weren’t completely unspoiled themselves, nor were we actually on the Palouse. But it must have been a wonderful place before it was turned into wheat fields.

For all intents and purposes, 2013 was a shitty year. Just when we thought things couldn’t get any worse, something else would go wrong. And, so the trend continued until the final months.

The year started out pretty good. Though we’ve been struggling financially since Erin lost her nursing job in 2011, by the fall of 2012, she had a job and had enrolled at the University of Idaho to finally earn a bachelor’s degree to get her into a new career field.  With snowshoes and a new (to me) pair of skis I acquired from the WSU swap in December, I vowed to stay fit during the winter so that by the time the hiking season returned, I could go farther into the backcountry than in previous years.

We had some early snowfalls last winter, so that by the time January rolled around, I was able to go snowshoeing with friends on a couple of trips. We started by taking advantage of the free day at the Idaho Park n’ Ski areas and headed up to Palouse Divide. Unfortunately, the trail we planned to hike had been cleared of snow as a logging road, but we had a good time. On the next trip, I headed up Spud Hill in Deary with CJ and ET. This is normally an easy hike, but with two feet of snow on the ground, it’s a good workout. We did make it to the summit for some awe inspiring winter views of the Palouse. The next week, we tackled the 5-mile Potlatch river trail. Our last winter hike would be to the Jerry Johnson hot springs near Lolo Pass. The snow on the trail turned out to be packed down, so we left our snowshoes in the car and enjoyed a nice walk through a winter wonderland with a relaxing soak in the hot pools. We finished January with a nice ski trip to Brundage with a large group of graduate students and post-docs.

February continued by following in January’s footsteps. The snowshoe trips waned as time commitments made it more difficult to get out. But then, during a weekend ski trip, everything changed. Until this time, I had never really broken a bone before. Then, on the last run of the day, I ended up in the hospital with a broken arm, femur, and tibia. That ended my physical activity for the rest of the season, and dashed my plans for a productive summer of hiking.

For the next few months, I concentrated on recovery. I still got out in the woods when I could, even for short trips or drives. By June, I was able to start bearing weight on my leg and start strengthening it in Physical Therapy. However, due to all of the inactivity, I had acquired a kidney stone, which was not fun to deal with. Fortunately, I passed it by the time I left for the Evolution Meeting in Utah, and I was able to complete some short hikes. In fact, I was able to climb to the summit of Mt. Baldy from the top of the tram at Snowbird. This was a major victory for me.

Just as things seemed like they were getting better, we had a plumbing explosion at the end of July. Yes, we had not one, but three separate leaks. I was able to fix the one in the pump house myself, but the two in the kitchen required professional attention. In fact, that led us to getting a whole new kitchen and a string of headaches dealing with the contractors. And while we’re on the subject of our water system, we came home one day earlier in the spring to find that the water pump wasn’t working. It was a relatively minor problem that required a new electrical controller in the well, but it was still an expensive problem to deal with.

Finally, in September, Erin found out she was pregnant, only to find out a week later that she had lost it. While it was an early miscarriage, this was not her first, and she we had been actively trying to conceive for almost two years with no success. One more loss was icing on the cake.

So, it’s been a tough year for us emotionally, physically, and financially. But we’re pulling through. It hasn’t all been bad. I got my first peer-reviewed publication accepted, a project I had been working on since I started graduate school. I passed my preliminary exams and advanced to doctoral candidacy. And, I’m proud to announce a bit of good news as we head into the new year:

Yes, you are looking at that correctly. This is our child at 11 weeks. As of today, Erin is 13 weeks along and transitioning out of the first trimester. If all goes well, we shall be welcoming our first child into the world in early July.

Yes, 2013 has been a tough year, but it is ending with hope, promise, and optimism. This year shall be a valley as we climb forward through life. 2014 will bring challenges, but they will be good challenges, welcome challenges. I’ve been back on my snowshoes once this year and I’m looking forward to more adventures. My leg’s not quite ready to start skiing again, but I may give cross-country skiing a try, since there are so many great opportunities around here.

I stand here looking forward without looking back. Good riddance to the old year, and Happy New Year.

It’s been over a week since a Northern Hawk Owl was spotted hanging out across a busy street from a shopping mall in Moscow, Idaho, but the bird is still here and reliably seen in the same locations. I’ve now seen the bird four times and may continue to watch and observe it until it is no longer a novelty. Of course, that might be all winter, and the owl might actually leave town before seeing it is no longer exciting.

Today’s viewing was special. The sun came out and temperatures finally rose above freezing, making it bearable to actually spend more than fifteen minutes chasing the bird. Simon, a friend and coworker of mine, came out with me and brought some telephoto lenses to help us get some better photos of the owl. Unlike the images in the last post, these are not cropped.

Since we finished the interior of the house, it was time to clean up the garage and start moving everything back inside. This was also a good time to start tidying up the yard before winter hits. Last weekend, we took down an old dog house that we were using to raise chicks in since the chicks are now old enough to roost in the main hen house. When we picked up the structure, we found that the chickens weren’t the only ones using it for a home.

And now for some other cuteness:

Three months ago, we had some pipes leak in our kitchen that caused some damage to the flooring and the cabinets and resulted in us basically getting a brand new kitchen. We contacted State Farm to see about getting any coverage, and thankfully, they agreed to help cover some of the damage. So, we set about getting a contractor in to look at the damage and give us an estimate. We ended up using one that works directly with State Farm, a decision that may have caused us more strife that we were hoping to avoid, but after several delays, screw-ups, and mis-communication among the different workers, we finally have our new kitchen (and living room).

The photo above shows what the kitchen used to look like, though the island had already been removed. It wasn’t a bad kitchen. In fact, it was originally one of the reasons we liked this house. There were a few things we had wanted to change eventually. The pantry on the left blocked one of the electric outlets and took away some valuable counter space. Mostly, though, we were getting sick of the color scheme. The green and yellow can be bright and cheery, but it was also getting dirty. It was left over from the previous owner, and we wanted something that was ours. Since the kitchen had to be torn apart, we took this time to re-paint both the kitchen and living room, which is really just one big room.

When the contractors first came out, we were under the impression that they would be able to get everything out and replaced before school started. However, we waited about 3 weeks before they even came out and started removing the cabinets and wet flooring. In this time, the smell of mold became more and more intense to the point where we had to call them to come out and remove the damaged pieces. They set up a containment tent with their portable air filtration unit to dry out the place and get rid of the mold. That lasted for several days, during which we were slowly moving furniture out of the living room since the entire floor would eventually have to be replaced. We had a plumber come in and replace all of the steel pipe with plastic tubing. After that, we found that we could drink the tap water right from the sink without any extra filtration. Turns out it was the pipes in the house that were causing us to have rusty water. No wonder the pipes burst.

The contractors finally came and removed the rest of the floor, but neglected to order the new flooring that we wanted. Instead, they kept bringing us samples that were darker than we desired. Finally, we went to Home Depot, chose the flooring and gave them no choice but to order it. The Vermont Maple Pergo® XP looks great, by the way.

The flooring wasn’t the only hang-up. We wanted to order some nice assemble-yourself cabinets that were cheaper than the custom cabinetry at any of the building supply stores have, but better than the pre-assembled cabinets in stock. They came in to measure the walls and gave us a layout using the in-stock cabinets. Apparently, they measured incorrectly the first time and we had to wait longer for the designs to come in. At that point, we begrudgingly went with the cheap in-stock cabinets. They were to paint them white. When they came and installed them, they were barely painted. We could see the wood grain through the paint, which was unacceptable. We were ready to get rid of these guys and call a new contractor to finish the job when they came and re-painted everything.

So, what we thought would be a two to three week job ended up taking three months. Last week, they came in and made all the final touches which left us with the task of finishing up any last bit of painting, which we did this weekend. We have one wall in the back bedroom to finish painting, but as that room is mostly storage at the moment, it’s not on the immediate priority list. We still have some little work to do such as painting the island white and installing handles on the cabinets. We now have more counter space, more cabinet space, a bigger and deeper sink with a working spray hose, a dishwasher, a fan over the stove, and a nice bright new color scheme. I present to you the new kitchen.

The tomato plants have fruit, but I’m awaiting them to ripen. The pepper plants are starting to produce. The strawberries are on their second round of harvest. In the mean time, the squash and zucchini are providing us with food of plenty. Yesterday I picked four zucchini, all from the same plant. This morning, I grabbed two more before leaving for work. This doesn’t include the half-dozen or so that we’ve already picked and are awaiting consumption in the kitchen. We’ve also got several variety of yellow summer squash as well as two green stripped squash/zucchini plants, both producing about a fruit a week.

It’s getting to be overwhelming. How are we going to keep up with all of this produce? Aside from Erin’s love of zucchini, we’re not eating it nearly as fast as we did last year. It looks like I’ll be breaking out the dehydrator again to make some zucchini chips, great for just snaking on while lounging around the house. Erin also made some zucchini break last night. She made one gluten-free and egg-free loaf that tastes good, but didn’t really cook through properly. But such is the plight of making gluten-free pastries without eggs. The regular loaves turned out great. I had a piece fresh out of the oven last night a la mode for dessert, and two more pieces for breakfast. With all this zucchini, bread might become a staple over the next few weeks.

This year, we planted some less-traditional squash. I say less-traditional in that they are varieties not often seen in the grocery store. Exhibit 1. Ronde de Nice. These are short, round summer squash that are supposed to be good for sautéing, baking, and stuffing. I plan to experiment with the latter. The idea is that you cut the top off the tops and scoop out the flesh leaving a hollowed out bowl. You then cook the flesh along with some other stuffing materials – onions, peppers, sausage, bread, or whatever you fancy, and return the filling to the squash before adding cheese and baking the whole thing in the oven. It sounds so delicious, yet time consuming. Thus, I haven’t actually proceeded with this plan quite yet, but the four squash I have picked are ready and waiting.

Exhibit 2. Kabocha Squash. Specifically red kabocha squash. These look like pumpkins and are sometimes referred to as pumpkins. These winter squash originate from east asia and are supposed to be very pumpkin-like in usage. They’re sweet and can be cooked down and used in pies, soups, pastas, and stir fries. In fact, when looking up these squash, one of the first things I found was a recipe for kabocha squash with thai curry. With so many options, I’m not sure how I’m going to use the few that I have. But these squash seem to grow better than the pie pumpkins around here, so I think we’ll look to put more in next year.

We tried growing watermelon this year. Erin bought a variety that doesn’t grow very large, though I was expecting fruit a bit larger than what we produced. But we actually did get some watermelons and tried the first one Monday night. It was either not ripe enough, or too ripe. I’m not sure. Much of the flesh hadn’t turned pink yet (or maybe the rind grew too thick?) and it just didn’t taste sweet. I maintain that we took it off the vine too early, though Erin thought they were ripe. We have a second one that we’ll wait to cut into, hoping that it will ripen more off the vine. Overall, the watermelons didn’t do so well. One pile of plants barely grew, the other grew sufficiently, but the leaves were always curled, a sign of not getting enough water. I think that the location of our property is just too dry to support a crop that needs a lot of water. Maybe I’ll try again next year, but it won’t be a main focus of the garden.

Overall, we seem to do well growing squash and leafy greens such as lettuce, spinach, and chard. The greens are particularly happy early and late in the season when temperatures are cooler. I’ve already removed several rows of lettuce that have bolted, but replaced them with new seeds that are already sprouting. We should have lettuce well into the fall when everything else has succumbed to the frost. The sugar snap peas grew well once we were able to keep them from getting eaten. Next year I’ll try using peas and beans to shade the lettuce. Tomatoes and peppers always struggle to ripen as the growing season comes to a close. But I love growing them, and one of these days I’ll figure out how to get them to harvest early on. It’s funny that we’re only 25 miles away from Moscow and not much higher, but the growing season is significantly shorter.

Because I was laid up and out of commission for much of the spring, I wasn’t able to work on expanding our garden much this year. Last year, I built a third 4×8 foot box and a 2×4 foot box which were meant to be tiered for planting small annual herbs in large quantities. I never got that box filled with dirt, so that will have to wait until next year.

In the mean time, we’ve planted our usual array of crops in the two 4×8 foot boxes with limited success. Erin had bought some tomato plants in April, and although I warned her to wait, she planted them anyway. We had one last frost in early May which killed the plants, so we had to start over again. We bought a lot of plants toward the end of may: 3 tomatoes, 4 peppers, a whole bunch of squash, and a few more strawberries. We also planted spinach, lettuce, basil, cilantro, parsley, peas, and chard seeds directly into the beds. A few days later, we noticed that the chickens had somehow gotten into the garden, eating most of the seeds and stirring up our nice rows. It took us a few weeks before we had the time to go back and plant again. In the mean time, a few seeds remained and sprouted. I carefully dug up the remaining plants and re-arranged them into rows while we put the rest of the store-bought plants into the beds. After a week of constant rain, most of those seeds have started sprouting, so we’re bound to have some crop this year.

Meanwhile, the strawberries are happy as ever. We’re getting a bowl-full each day, somewhere between half and one pound. Though the berries are smaller than the ones you find in the stores, they pack much more flavor. Of course, it wasn’t always this way. When the strawberries first ripened, I would pick a few here and there, but find most of them had already been eaten. I had noticed a robin hanging out by the strawberry bed, so while I was away at Evolution, Erin bought some mesh netting to throw over the plants. Since doing that, we haven’t had a problem with the birds. I think we might try to double our strawberry patch for next year in order to produce enough to make jam. We’ve also started some raspberry vines, which aren’t looking so great this year  because they sat in a bucket too long, but they’re starting to put out new shoots and leaves, so next year we should have a small harvest.

One of my projects this year is to eliminate the grass between the boxes, putting in nice walkways instead. I’ll use a combination of cardboard, newspaper, and straw to mulch over the grass and eventually cover with wood chips. This should help keep weeds down, eliminate the need to whack back the grass, and create aesthetically pleasing walkways. By the time we leave this place, we should have built up a nice productive garden for the next occupants to use. Maybe I can even get a greenhouse.