Good LIfe December 2011 by The Good Life

WENATCHEE VALLEYâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S #1 MAGAZINE

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Fr for esh id the eas ho me IN

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December 2011

Open for fun and adventure

year of the

chicken Backyard urban farmers find joy in raising fowl

plus > Father & son go ski-bumming > Touching tiny lives

Price: $3

OPENING SHOT ®

Year 5, Number 12 December 2011 The Good Life is published by NCW Good Life, LLC, dba The Good Life 10 First Street, Suite 108 Wenatchee, WA 98801 PHONE: (509) 888-6527 EMAIL: editor@ncwgoodlife.com sales@ncwgoodlife.com ONLINE: www.ncwgoodlife.com FACEBOOK: http://ncwgoodlife. com/facebook

wood duck at rest T

his beautiful Wood Duck, Aix sponsa, paused on its migration long enough to be captured by local photographer Matt Radford of Mad Rooster Photography. It was resting in the shallow ponds at the Horan Nature Area, near the confluence of the Wenatchee and Columbia rivers in Wenatchee. These small ducks nest and breed locally and also migrate through the area

on their way to winter in southern destinations. Matt had been involved with photography as a hobby since 2004. More recently, he has worked as a professional photographer and owns Mad Rooster Photography and Marketing in East Wenatchee. He specializes in outdoor, natural light images. Portraits, freelance work and pastoral themes are his favorites. To see more of Matt’s photos, visit his website at madrooster. smugmug.com, or on Facebook at facebook.com/madrooster-

photography. He can also be reached at madroosterphotos@gmail. com or 699-9738.

On the cover

Susan Ballinger holds one of her backyard fowl. “We don’t name our chickens,” said Susan, as they are not pets but workers — creating better soil through their droppings while supplying Susan and her husband, Paul, with fresh eggs. See her story starting on page 10. Photo by editor Mike Cassidy.

Editor/Publisher, Mike Cassidy Contributors, Matt Radford, Jeff Parsons, Brad Brisbine, Susan Ballinger, Jon Gallie, Madi Morrison, Chuck Dronen, Marshall Snoddy, Rachael Helsel, Bonnie Orr, Alex Saliby, Jim Brown, June Darling, Dan McConnell, Susan Lagsdin and Rod Molzahn Advertising sales, John Hunter and Donna Cassidy Bookkeeping and circulation, Donna Cassidy Proofing, Leslie Vradenburg Ad design, Rick Conant TO SUBSCRIBE: For $25, ($30 out of state address) you can have 12 issues of The Good Life mailed to you or a friend. Send payment to: The Good Life 10 First Street, Suite 108 Wenatchee, WA 98801 Phone 888-6527 Online: www.ncwgoodlife.com To subscribe/renew by email, send credit card info to: donna@ncwgoodlife.com BUY A COPY of The Good Life at Hastings, Caffé Mela (Wenatchee and East Wenatchee), Eastmont Pharmacy, Martin’s Market Place (Cashmere), A Book for All Seasons (Leavenworth) and the Food Pavilions in Wenatchee and East Wenatchee ADVERTISING: For information about advertising in The Good Life, contact advertising at (509) 8886527, or sales@ncwgoodlife.com WRITE FOR THE GOOD LIFE: We welcome articles about people from Chelan and Douglas counties. Send your idea to Mike Cassidy at editor@ncwgoodlife.com

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Contents

pages 8-12

editor’s notes

MIKE CASSIDY

Heading out on the road to bliss

comfortable with chickens

I’m in a grumpy mood this

Madi Morrison with 2 of her fine feathered friends Features

TIPS FOR BETTER PHOTOS

Use some of the principles of landscape painting

7 Introducing mother nature

Name is changed for Barn Beach Reserve but the mission of exposing kids and adults to nature remains the same

12 on a ski lark

A dad indulges his lifelong dream in the company of his son

15 TOUCHING TINY LIVES

Helping sick children in a small African nation

18 yoga in costa rica

Sounds like total fun but there was a lesson learned about the value of pain

21 A COMPASSIONATE FRIEND

Carol Sunada knows what it’s like to lose a child; now she helps hurting parents grieve

22 HEAVENLY UPDATE

1950’s house has view too good to leave behind so retired teachers go in for an artful refreshing of their home

26 good stuff

Feel like spooning up for Christmas? Columns & Departments 28 June Darling: Here’s the secret of life 30 Bonnie Orr: Making Christmas puddings 31 Alex Saliby: To serve red or white? 32 The traveling doctor: Staying young in the Alps 35-39 Events, The Art Life & a Dan McConnell cartoon 40 History: The ‘Hard Winter’ forever changed NCW 42 Fun Stuff: 5 activities to check out

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late fall Sunday afternoon, wishing I had a blanket for my cold feet, wishing the Seahawks could play a little better, ironically reading a book on happiness. The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner poses the questions: Are people in some countries happier than citizens of other countries, where are those locations, and what makes them happy? And no, the answer is not “Move to the beach.” It turns out that happiness researchers (yes, people are paid to research happiness) have found that people who live in warm, sunny places like Fiji and the Bahamas are less happy than people who bundle up in Iceland. Incidentally, Americans are not the happiest, or even close to the happiest people on earth. We’re kind of a good solid B, maybe a B+, on the happiness grading scale. Writer Weiner (pronounced “whiner” and a self-proclaimed grump) traveled to 10 happy and sad nations to offer a travelogue on the world’s emotional state, while providing insight into what makes people happy. Interesting to me is the elements that go into creating personal happiness so often match up to the characteristics displayed by the people in the stories in The Good Life. For example, Marshall Snoddy writes this month of volunteering for a medical trip to the African nation of Lesotho where he and fellow Wenatchee nurses Eric and Mary Cooper worked with endangered children. Doing an altruistic act makes us happy. The part of the brain

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that tingles when being altruistic evolved relatively early in humans — even before the part that controls speech. Another characteristic of a happy situation is one where a person gets closer to nature — Weiner says more people visit zoos each year than attend pro sporting events. Susan Ballinger and Jon Gallie each write a story this month about bringing more of nature into their own backyards through raising chickens. Susan likes to take her morning coffee among the chickens, while Jon enjoys eating the eggs and watching the little workers improve his backyard. Envying what others have and dwelling on money makes us unhappy. Relationships and family, on the other hand, are vital to our happiness. Chuck Dronen writes this month about a ski-bum trip he took with his youngest son. “It was a journey 45 years in the making,” he said of the trip he originally dreamt about in the ’60s that delivered “sheer joy of spending six incredible ski days with my son, Dave.” I have noticed it’s not where your feet are that brings happiness, but where your head and heart are. It’s not always cold feet that creates unhappiness, but mental “cold feet” that stops us from taking our next adventure. Doers are happier than doubters, at least that is what I think. There is more than one path to happiness — enjoy The Good Life. — Mike

snapshots

“Patriarchal Snag” — the main line has a strong, considerable slant. The irregularities of the log slow the eye’s travel to the convergence, accented here with a burst of yellow. All this must be balanced by the tree mass on the left. This is the diagonal or radiating line compositional form.

Brush up photos by using painting techniques By Brad Brisbine

ommuning with nature at an alpine lake nurtures my soul.

“Huckleberry Tarn” — huckleberry leaves are at their most brilliant when back-lit looking toward the sun. The consequence is a washed out sky. If the sky contrasts too greatly with the ground, I sometimes exclude it, preferring to do my photography in the field, rather than sitting in front of a computer later.

Len Lamb and Neal Slatta, my long-time hiking buddies, and I head out every October in search of color. This year, we took I-90’s Exit 80 up the Cle

Elum River Valley to Park Lakes Basin. I love every part of the fall hike, but my favorite part is making pictures.

More lights, less energy

The goal, though, isn’t so much the picture itself, but to enjoy the process of making art. I find natural beauty so inspir-

}}} Continued on next page

Let’s celebrate

Switch to LED holiday lights. Energy efficient Cool to the touch Long-lasting Cheaper in the long run

Learn more about LED holiday lights at www.chelanpud.org December 2011 | The Good Life

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“Park Camp” — this image provides the viewer a way out, letting the eye go to infinity. The depth is enhanced by the background being a cool color that optically recedes, and the foreground warm colors that advance.

“Dragon” — zoom in to isolate a scene to give a more abstract quality or to express a simpler idea. It takes very little of the view to make a complete picture. Here an ”S” or compound curve compositional form is used to slow eye movement.

}}} Continued from previous page ing that I feel compelled to express that love. Photography has been the vehicle for that expression for 35 years. A dozen years ago, as a way to further explore my feelings, I took up landscape oil painting. This has not, however, diminished my interest in photography; but it has made me a better photographer. The goal in composing photographs and paintings is the

same: we take God’s great outdoors and frame a rectangle that moves us. I find following a few rules learned from landscape painting helps my photos: 1). Keep in mind what attracted you to the scene in the first place. Zoom in to express your intention. 2). Simplify, to express one unified idea. One feature should be the main interest. In many photographs there is material for several pictures. It takes

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very little of the scene to make a complete picture. 3). Pay attention to the lines of the composition. Lines can impart feelings, such as: height, stability, nobility (vertical); repose and tranquility (horizontal); and movement and action (slanting or curved). Use the lines to move the viewer’s eyes through the composition, pausing briefly on the main interest. Broken lines can be useful to slow eye travel. 4). Shift your position to make interesting arrangements of five to seven shapes. These shapes might be sky, mountain, lake, tree clump and foreground. Ideally, these shapes are all a different color and coordinate into a

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lovely harmony. 5). To create natural looking pictures, use the principle of unequal measures. Position yourself where the shadowed parts and sunny parts suggest an unequal distribution. Avoid placing the horizon at the picture centerline or a tree at the vertical center line, opting instead for unequal measures. This should be at least a 40-60 split. Many artists use the natural-based Fibonacci sequence of 1 to 1.6. In time, just like a wellrehearsed golf swing, the artist doesn’t think anymore, he just feels. That’s when it becomes fun.

guest column // Jeff Parsons

Kids, I’d like you to meet Mother Nature L

ike many people my age, I began learning about the natural world as a child playing outdoors. From my early childhood in Tonasket, I remember a very brief encounter with a black widow spider in my sand box. I discovered prickly pear cactus in the vacant lot behind my house. I accompanied my father while he checked live beaver traps for the Washington Department of Game in the Okanogan. To this day, I think of my father whenever I hear the distinctive call of a red-winged blackbird. Later on in my childhood, while living in Spokane, I spent a lot of time outdoors climbing ponderosa pine trees. This left me with a permanent affection for the rich, unique scent of these beautiful trees on a hot summer day. I also have wonderful memories of riding my bike with friends to explore a wild, rugged, beautiful place 10 miles north of Spokane called Rattlesnake Gulch. Believe it or not, it’s now a gated community! Unfortunately, many people no longer have these kinds of experiences in nature. In part, this is the result of urban sprawl that leaves children further away from natural areas, but it’s also the result of lifestyle changes. Today’s children are spending more of their time in front of televisions and computer screens. That’s why the Barn Beach Trust and other community partners have collaborated since 2006 to establish and operate Barn Beach Reserve in Leavenworth as a place where school

children, adults, families and visitors can have direct, handson learning experiences in the natural world. The organization is now in its fifth year of providing educational field days at Barn Beach Reserve. During these field days, children from local school districts learn about nature and science by using tools such as binoculars and cameras to explore the Reserve’s natural areas. In the Barn, the Reserve’s green classroom building, children use microscopes and other resources to look closer at living things they find at the Reserve. In addition to serving school children, the Reserve also sponsors adult and family programming, including tours, field trips, lectures, slide shows and films. While the intent of the Barn Beach Trust board of directors always has been for the organization to serve the greater Wenatchee Valley, the name of the organization didn’t communicate that fact. At their most recent meeting, the board decided to adopt “Wenatchee River Institute” as its new organizational name. “Barn Beach Reserve” will continue to be the name of the place where the organization has its home and the educational mission and programs of the organization are unaffected by the name change. The name “Wenatchee River Institute” more accurately captures the organization’s geographic scope, as well as its mission of education and stewardship. The Wenatchee River flows by Barn Beach Reserve in Leavenworth and connects all of the communities the organizaDecember 2011 | The Good Life

tion always intended to serve, from Lake Wenatchee to East Wenatchee. In addition, the term “institute” is commonly understood to be a place Jeff Parsons, of learning, executive director a meanof the Wenatchee ing already River Institute, lives near Leaven- conveyed by worth with his wife a number of Chris. organizations with similar missions, such as the North Cascades Institute. A good example of why this name change makes sense is the Institute’s newest program, called Wenatchee Naturalist, scheduled to be launched in February 2012. This 12-week class will teach local people about the Wenatchee River watershed’s diversity of life, including its shrub-steppe area, low-elevation forests and rivers. The class is modeled after successful Master Naturalist programs in over 40 other states and aims to engage wellinformed citizens as volunteers in stewardship and conservation education projects. Susan Ballinger, a local biolo-

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Wenatchee Naturalist Program Overview

What: 60 hours of training (lectures, handouts, expert guest speakers, hands-on labs, and three all-day guided field trips) When: Meeting in Wenatchee 12 consecutive Wednesday evenings (Feb. 1-April 18, 2012) Intended class size: 25 adult students Cost: $300 Community service obligation: 20 hours during the next year

gist, naturalist and educator, has created this exciting new class and will be its main instructor. She is well respected for her depth of knowledge and ability to inspire her students. For the class, Susan has recruited some of area’s best scientists as guest speakers and field trip leaders. The class will be a launching pad to match the adult students with projects where their volunteer efforts will be significant. Anyone interested in the class can learn more by visiting barnbeachreserve.org and clicking on “Services and Projects.” One scholarship position is available and local teachers will be able to earn clock hours or credit. We invite any curious adult who enjoys learning about the natural world to become a Wenatchee Naturalist.

Year of the chicken The Wenatchee City Council agreed in early March of this year to allow chickens and other small farm animals in all city neighborhoods. Among the rules: n Only four small farm animals shall be allowed per legal lot. Lots one-half acre and larger can have 12 small animals. n Large farm animals shall be allowed on one contiguous half acre lot in size or greater at a ratio of one animal per 10,000 square feet of maintained pasture area. n No swine, peacocks, roosters or other male poultry shall be permitted. n Barns, pens, shelters or other structures for the keeping or feeding of large or small farm animals shall be no closer than 10 feet from any adjoining property. n The property shall be maintained in a clean, sanitary condition so as to be free from offensive odors, fly breeding, dust and general nuisances and shall be in compliance with health district regulations. The new rules are to be reviewed in the coming spring to determine how they worked.

Jon, Karen and little Leah Gallie: Raising backyard chickens is easy and enjoyable.

City chicks From amazing eggs to weed and bug control, these backyard fowl are a hit By Jon Gallie

My wife and I and have

always made big efforts to incorporate healthy local foods as the majority of our diet, and when chocolate and coffee can be grown in Wenatchee we will be thrilled. As such, we have a large garden, fruit trees and bushes, pick wild berries and mushrooms, and hunt for most of our meat. In this spirit, we sought out a local source of eggs and tried some from a friend’s farm. After a couple weeks, we were hooked on farm eggs. Coincidentally, this friend also was purchasing new hens for her flock and wanted to know if we were interested in buying our own hens in the same bunch.

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Nervously, we accepted having no idea what we were getting into. Following some frantic Google searches on how to build chicken coops and talking with other chicken owners about their basic care and maintenance, we felt ready for the new addition. We could not have made a better decision! Owning a backyard chicken flock has been more enjoyable and easier than we expected. They quickly were accepted into the family by our then two (now three) daughters and more importantly by our two large dogs, who barely pay them attention. The kids love to hold them (especially in front of guests who are not so sure about chickens), help feed them, collect eggs

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daily, and of course name them all. We have even trained one to come to us when we have a cup that we catch spiders and bugs in the house with. Everyone has a pair of “chicken shoes” to go in the run/coop with and we wash our hands after handling the birds and such. Our simple open coop houses them only at night and occasionally on really rainy or snow days (princesses). The eggs are amazing: Thicker, richer and darker than anything we have ever bought — just no comparison. Our birds provide all our eggs for about 10 months out of the year, outside of molting and winter months. We put out a light in the winter to stimulate egg-laying, otherwise they stop for the sea-

... we feed the weeds to the birds, and presto they turn into eggs! You can’t beat that. son. Most eggs get eaten as fast as they come into the house, but others are given to friends and neighbors or are bartered with. Once we had a flock and they were here to stay, our next thought was “What will the neighborhood think?” I can easily say that they have been a hit. First of all, eggs are a great icebreaker when telling them of the new fowl on the block. Several families have enjoyed watching and listening to them and watching us care for them. One neighborhood resident came up to us during a yard sale to tell us how much they enjoy walking by our yard and watching them. We even lent them out for a week for some tough weed control and tilling at our next door neighbors. It was an interesting daily routine to pass four hens over a six-foot fence to waiting hands and pass them back again each evening. While calming the neighbors was the easy part, watching for predators was something that we were not sure what to expect. We have not lost one yet; but did have a cooper’s hawk land by them and the dogs treed a raccoon by the hen house, so we have had some close calls, but generally in town, we feel pretty safe. The daily routine is about the same as owning a dog. In the morning, we feed them some grains and scratch in their outdoor run, provide fresh water daily, and then in the afternoon move them into the yard in their mobile pen. After they are moved, the kids

get the eggs (one to four a day). They go back to their coop at dusk. When the garden is not in, we just let them free range in the back yard. They have made a great addition to our “urban farm.” They have proven to be a valuable asset for the garden as they are part rototiller, pest manager and composter. They forage in the yard, eating grass, weeds, seeds and anything that crawls. As a bonus, our lawn went from a patchy, hard, weed infested scab to a lush, green and weed free. In fact, they respond to dandelions like children to candy, so we no longer break our backs pulling weeds all summer. We are also able to feed them kitchen scraps and any diseased and or pest-ridden fruits and vegetables from the garden. They also love to devour every garden pest, especially slugs and earwigs. When the garden is fallow, we unleash the birds to gorge themselves on weeds, seeds and bugs. They leave behind their manure, which goes right into the garden and compost, enriching the soil with nutrients and organic material. Weed-n-feed has a different meaning at our house. Rather than herbicide, we feed the weeds to the birds, and presto they turn into eggs! You can’t beat that. They also break down leaves and mulch in their run from their constant scratching. We

toss this mulch with a hefty helping of their manure right into the garden. Our soil and garden have never been better. Looking back, I cannot believe we ever doubted getting hens. It has been easier and more enjoyable than we thought. Anyone can do it. The biggest challenge is deciding where to have them in your yard, as they can be quite destructive in the garden, not to mention that while those little manure piles are great in the garden, they generate a much different reaction on your porch or on your child’s pants. Figuring out where to pen them up, a mobile coop or free-range design, is the biggest challenge. You will also need to find willing friends to “chicken sit” when you travel, which is a bit more to ask than just letting your dogs out. Needless to say, these are minor concerns that far out-weigh the benefits of owning your own backyard flock.

>> RANDOM QUOTE

In the end, it’s not going to matter how many breaths you took, but how many moments took your breath away - shing xiong

December 2011 | The Good Life

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A flock of fun We started raising chick-

ens because I am especially interested in birds and we also wanted to have our own fresh eggs. We weren’t really expecting how fun they would be to have. They each have her own personality and they are quite entertaining. When it’s warm outside, we like to sit outside and watch them. We usually get three eggs a day and they really pile up so we eat some and give some to our neighbors and friends (they are pretty happy to get them). The neighborhood cats did show some interest in them when they were small chicks but now they are much bigger so the cats don’t really want to mess with them. My dad and I are the main chicken caregivers. We fill up their food about every other day and change the water once a day. The eggs have to be collected everyday because one of our hens is very broody and likes to sit on her eggs a lot. If they pile up in the coop, then she will get very defensive around them. I would tell those considering getting chickens that they are worth having because of their interesting nature and they are never boring.   by Madi Morrison, daughter of Joe and Kristi Morrison Wenatchee

Paul Ballinger constructed a coop that could keep out our neighborhood coyotes, hawks, owls, raccoons and dogs.

Chicken Disneyland How a wenatchee couple came to drink their morning coffee among the hens By Susan Ballinger

t all began with more fall leaves than could be crammed into our backyard compost bins, and the fact that my husband, Paul, and I were newly emptynested. With the third child launched into college, we suddenly had more free time to devote to long-overdue yard work. As a biologist, I felt it was my professional duty to figure out how to keep perfectly good organic waste out of the landfill and cycle it back into my flower beds

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and garden. Mid-way through the leaf-raking process, our three recycled apple bins were full to the brim with maple, aspen and willow leaves with no room to spare. As “cold” composters, it was taking our bins two full years to turn it all into crumby black mulch. My chicken-mentor friend, Lorena, offered the solution: use potent nitrogen-rich chicken manure to rapidly “cook” my compost and allow me to fit more leaves into the bins. Hence, an early Christmas present arrived on my porch — 25 pounds of chicken manure.

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As I was out spreading the gift over slimy black wet piles of leaves, I remembered my then 12-year old daughter, Kristen, wistfully lamenting, “When I grow up, I’m going to have chickens like Diane (another chicken-mentor friend).” It hit me: we could raise backyard chickens and have a continuous flow of nitrogen to dump into the composter. Better yet, the large pile of waste lumber that dominated our view from the kitchen table could be used up in building a coop! Tricia, a Peshastin friend and life-long chicken rancher,

We’ve marveled over the miracle of life as tiny chicks grow into hens. offered us an easy-care starter kit: a mother hen with her own brood (unfortunately in April, a neighbor dog wreaked havoc with her coop and terminated the gifted quartet). My first task was to get Paul interested in building a chicken coop. He is extremely handy with boards, screws and a drill but his current obsession was fixing up old bicycles, which didn’t leave any time for a new hobby. An Internet search found an amazing website of urban coops, complete with photos, plans and tips. I eventually got Paul hooked on the website, pursuing the glitzy photo array of city coops and various predatorproofing strategies. Around February, he accepted the challenge to design and build a coop that could keep out our neighborhood coyotes, hawks, owls, raccoons, and our own two Brittany spaniel bird dogs. Our first step was to do a home tour of five local backyard coops. East Wenatchee chickenmentor friends, Jamie and Polly, showed off their ingenious selffeeder and waterer that could keep the birds provisioned for weeks. Their neighbors, Andy and Diane, let us borrow their stash of chick-sized feeder and waterer and recommended we get four chicks of different varieties — including one that lays green and blue eggs. April arrived and Paul put the finishing touches on our designer chicken coop, complete with a living roof carpeted with sedums (to keep the coop cool). With an apple box in the front seat, I drove to the feed store to pick out my flock of four chicks. Like first-time parents,

we coddled our chicks, hanging a shiny CD mobile to keep them entertained and held each one for bonding moments. We didn’t give them names, but found ourselves leaping out of bed each morning to hurry downstairs to check on our chicks. It was an exciting May day when we moved them out of the apple box nursery into their spanking new coop. Our Brittney spaniels spent most of their day staring in at the fluffy balls of feathers. Wisely, Paul reinforced the coop with horizontal wood strips just in case a dog decided to push into the interior. By June, the chicks were now teenagers, nearing adult size and ready to explore. We decided we could enclose a corner of our yard to create a Chicken Disneyland: a 20-foot by 20-foot yard complete with a dirt bath, compost bin café (earthworms and pillbugs galore), a shady apricot canopy to keep any neighborhood hawk from spotting the fluff balls, and a protective five-feet wooden fence. Paul transformed a large stash of out-dated but colorful skis into a picket fence with a gate to keep the hunting dogs at bay. We started sipping our morning coffee while seated on lawn chairs inside Disneyland. We ceremonially open the coop door and watch our hens parade out, flap and hop up to perch on the compost bins, and start munching on overhanging ferns. We were hooked on our new reality TV show. Paul marked Sept. 28 as the 20-week old date and we anxiously awaited the time for eggs to appear. Polly advised us to put a plastic Easter egg into a nest of hay in the laying box, and by early October we discovered our first egg! It took a week to accumulate enough of these first smallish eggs be able to whip up a Sunday morning egg-scramble. Somehow, the year has cycled round again to November, and we spent a crisp sunny Sunday afternoon raking leaves. December 2011 | The Good Life

A hen searches for bugs in the Ballinger’s lawn.

This time, we were accompanied by the soft conversation of egg-laying hens, busily scratching at the dirt as we piled yellow and red leaves into the compost bins. First, we had emptied the compost bins of their fall crop: a harvest of eight wheelbarrow loads of fluffy black compost to spread into our raspberries and onto the flowerbeds. As we pulled out the trays of chicken

manure and dumped it onto the fresh leaves, we were thinking about the tasty omelet that could be our dinner after a long afternoon working outside. We’re still in the process of becoming urban chicken farmers with the challenges of a winter ahead. But so far, we’ve taken great pleasure in spending more time outside every morning and evening. We’ve marveled over the miracle of life as tiny chicks grow into hens. We daily take delight in delivering tasty food scraps to the coop and seeing the hens come running toward us in anticipation of treats. As we watch their antics, we think about the long domestication relationship people have had with chickens, maybe second only to dogs. We are learning to live more sustainably on our own plot of land, recycling both kitchen and yard wastes into usable soil. And it all started with leaves!

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on a SKI LARK FATHER, SON, SUBURBAN WITH A BED IN THE BACK AND A MAP TO 6 MAJOR SKI RESORTS — OH WHAT FUN! By Chuck Dronen

I’m standing in my skis atop

Storm Peak Mountain under an indigo sky at 10,372 feet elevation, looking at a 3,668 foot drop to the base. Glorious rays of morning sunshine wash over the Steamboat Springs, Colo., resort as I look down at 12-inches of fresh, untracked powder — ahh, this is skilarken to the max. Pure jubilation and bliss flood through me as I contemplate this once in a lifetime father/son ski bum road trip. And then I push off downhill to begin my run. I first dreamt of such a ski road trip back in the 1960s — but it took my youngest son, Dave, a lover of alpine skiing, to actually plan an economy ski vacation hitting six big name ski areas in six days in three states during last March. After poring over information on various destination ski areas on the Internet we decided our itinerary would include Sun Valley, Idaho; Park City, Utah; and Steamboat Springs, Breckenridge, Vail and Snowmass, Colorado. For me the dream began as a youth in the mid-’60s. Those were the days of lace-up leather boots, runaway straps and rope tows. I remember poring over my brother’s subscription to Ski Magazine viewing the glossy colored action photos of Stein Erickson, Billy the Kidd and Jean

Ski-lark \ ‘ske-lark \ vb (2011) 1: To ski with abandon & mirth celebrating the wonder and pleasure of gravity in an alpine winter setting, FROLIC, SPORT . Skilarker n, ski-larken & ski-larky. 2: An imaginary bird named Sven in a winter skiing cartoon entitled Ski-Larkey. Syn.: acting up on skis, clowning around on skis, fool or horsing around on skis, hot dog, monkey (around), showboat, show off, cut up – on skis. Claude Killy schussing down the freshly laid powder of America’s finest ski resorts. “Someday,” I thought, “I’m going to ski the big name areas.” In true ski economy vacation style, we decided to cut lodging costs by sleeping in our Suburban. We took out the rear seats, built a sleeping deck, created storage space and retrofitted the tailgate to accommodate a mobile kitchen. In keeping with Dave’s creative nature and sense of humor he dubbed the newly equipped vehicle the Skiburban. Dave also coined the word “skilarken.” On one of our ski trips last year I accused him of skylarking, an old Navy term for fooling around. Dave said, “No Dad, I’m skilarking.” At two in the afternoon on March 23, we motored out of Cashmere bound for Sun Valley, Idaho. Some 11 hours later, after braving drifting highway snow and Wal-Mart trucks, we arrived at

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Chuck Dronen lays out a meal on the tailgate of the Suburban — or Skiburban as his son Dave called it.

1:18 a.m. in the Sun Valley River Run B parking lot. After hunkering down for few hours of sleep in the Skiburban, we were up at first light to catch the Sleeping Bear Gondola at River Run Plaza thus beginning our six-day, sixdestination ski resort vacation. It’s an amazing experience seeing the sheer size of a true destination ski resort. For what we are normally accustomed to in North Central Washington, say a Mission Ridge or Steven

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Pass Ski area, one of our local areas would have to be multiplied five or six fold to compare in size and chairlift capacity. After an auspicious first day at Sun Valley we spent that evening driving to our next stop, Park City, Utah. Not having any housing reservations we quickly discovered the municipality of Park City did not cotton to any overnight parking anywhere, anytime within their boundaries.

We finally found a mere volunteer fireman 7-Eleven convenience and has a fireman volunstore about five miles out teer sticker on the back of town that offered a of the rig, we hoped we dark, unlit corner to nose might be welcome. Our into for the night. dinner consisted of preConsidering that we packaged food we could were planning to stay find on the dashboard; longer than we might the outside temperabe welcome I felt comture was six above and pelled to ask the night the snow was piling up employee for permission rapidly. to park or at least explain Dawn broke clear and to her what we were calm, the night’s monster doing. Discovering that storm had passed over she spoke limited Engus leaving a foot of fresh, lish I was hard pressed light, powder snow. to explain that we we’re We made our way “ski bums, just traveling to Gondola Square in through without housing the city of Steamboat accommodations needSprings, Colo., and eming a place to park for the barked on our third day night.” of skiing, where we were Hiking up the trail at Snowmass in Colorado: Another day, another perfect skiing opportunity. Her blank stare and treated to one of those lack of expression told me special days in the mounchallenge. limped into unincorporated that the message wasn’t getting tains where everything — views, Closing in on the Colorado Maybelle, Colo., about the same through. I finally said – “were snow conditions, terrain and border (listening to John Densize as Monitor. going to park our car down companionship — everything We hunkered down next to there,” pointing in the direction ver’s Rocky Mountain High, by was at a rare level of perfection. I intended and added, “it will be the way) the weather took a turn the Maybelle Volunteer Fire }}} Continued on next page for the worse. Darkness was Department. As Dave is a CashOK.” coming on and the sky began to After we set up our sleeping fill with swirling snowflakes. arrangements for the night I In short order Dave and I went back into the store to use found ourselves in a total whitethe restroom but also to give her out, snow blowing sideways and a box of Aplets and Cotlets — a road visibility nearly zero. candy greeting from our homeThe only way I kept the town of Cashmere. At this token Skiburban on the road was to of appreciation for her hesitant slow down to 10 miles an hour cooperation, I was thankful to and rely on Dave to guide us by see her finally smile. I smiled watching the ditch line on his and said “We’ll be customers in side of the car. At one point the the morning.” window wipers couldn’t keep up And so it went… skiing prime with the freezing ice, so Dave resorts during the day and crawled out the passenger side hunkering down ski-bum style window and slapped the wipers in the Skiburban on the cold on the window to break up the nights. ice. While skiing the steep Rhino We didn’t dare slow down too run at Park City, I did a face much or stop, fearing someone plant in three feet of powder. might rearend us, even though Momentarily, I had the panic of suffocation and couldn’t breathe traffic was light — only a semi truck and a few cars coming because my mouth and nostrils from the other direction. When were compacted with snow. I a vehicle would go by we could also lost one of my skis, which follow their wheel prints for a took about 15 minutes to find in mile or so before the track was the deep snow. obliterated by snow. After putting myself back After another 40 miles of together, Dave and I were back at it eagerly looking for the next white-knuckle driving we December 2011 | The Good Life

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Ski bums on a ski lark }}} Continued from previous page Finishing out our pictureperfect day at Steamboat we took what our family refers to as obituary shots or obits. These are the head only photographs that we jokingly plan to use for our obituary picture. If we’ve climbed a peak or are in a particular beautiful setting these are the occasions to “take the obit.” Our last ski vacation hours were spent soaking up the sunshine, cruising the ski runs and savoring the stupendous views of Brush Creek Valley and the surrounding area at Snowmass in Colorado. Because it was such a gorgeous day, we kept running into locals who were taking sick days on the mountain. One fellow — a local architect — regaled

us with local lore and at some point thought we were trustworthy enough to take us to a locals-only spot he called “the Pipe.” The run, somewhat hidden off one of the main trails, was a long narrow gully. The technique for the Pipe was to carve turns back and forth from one side of the high angel gully to the other. It was a lot of fun but I don’t think I could ever find my Dave Dronen gets ready to make the last run of the way back to it. We day at Steamboat Springs, Colo., on a run appropriparted ways with ately named Heavenly Daze. our architect friend and I’ll always aphad been our best. preciate that he felt compelled We had survived driftto make our visit to Snowmass a ing highway snow in Idaho, little more special. a Colorado white-out, a near Around 3:30 p.m., Dave and suffocating face plant in Utah’s I decided our last day of skiing feather light powder, boots that

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| December 2011

were too tight, losing Dave on the backside of Steamboat and marathon hours on the open highway. These things were mere minor inconveniences and only added to our ski bum road adventure. Sometimes traveling to a destination is almost better than arriving. On this trip, the bumming was part and parcel of the total ski experience. Our economy vacation was satisfying both on and off the mountain and proves luxury is sometimes over rated. For a few bucks and the right attitude a person can have fun at any cost, and we had fun. It’s hard to describe in words the exhilaration and sheer happiness I had enjoyed over the last six days — Dave and I had been more than a father and son, but soul brothers on a journey 45 years in the making. Chuck Dronen is a lifelong Cashmere Valley resident, local businessman and 49-year ski enthusiast.

Marshall Snoddy interacts with children at a safe house in the African nation of Lesotho during a morning play time.

Touching tiny lives nurses assist at a safehouse for endangered children in small African country By Marshall Snoddy

he little girl’s name was Tsepan and she arrived to the safe house a few days after we did. She was small and very underweight, but a beautiful child regardless, looking much like an adorable ebony China doll. Her mannerisms and interaction with the other children let us know she was much older than her size initially would lead one to believe. I was instantly struck by her. At first when the women of the safe house attempted to feed her, she would scream and turn away as if frightened. I was never quite able to decipher why she behaved this way, but with their patience over the next few days she became more comfortable

in her surroundings and began to interact with me... mimicking faces I made, coming to me when I put out my arms — and her appetite grew. She soon became the “champion” eater among all of the children, sitting in front of me during mealtime with one hand tightly gripping my pants leg December 2011 | The Good Life

and the other holding the edge of the bowl I fed her from. Every so often, if I seemed to be taking too long with the next spoonful, she would tip the bowl toward her to see if there were still food. As time went on she would blink her eyes playfully at me encouraging me to copy her, blow kisses or put her hands on her cheeks “Home Alone” style with a bright wide smile. Knowing I was giving her the help she so desperately needed gave me an overwhelming sense of pride and accomplishment. She completely stole my heart during the two weeks I spent at the Touching Tiny Lives safe house in the African nation of Lesotho (pronounced Le soo too).

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Touching tiny lives }}} Continued from previous page I was there because in late 2010 Eric Cooper, a registered nurse working at Central Washington Hospital emergency room, attended an informational meeting about Touching Tiny Lives — an organization founded by a Peace Corp volunteer that was seeking volunteers to help with the children at the organization’s safe house. He shared this information with his wife Mary and me, both of us also registered nurses working at Columbia Valley Community Health Clinic. We had each talked during our nursing training about the desire to do a medical volunteer mission when the opportunity presented itself, so we signed up to go this past September. Lesotho is a landlocked country within the country of South

A child who had been at the Touching Tiny Lives safehouse is returned to his family.

Africa with its own government, currency, native citizens and language. The entire area is at 3,500 feet or higher with the highest point above 8,000 feet.

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Many areas are accessed only by four-wheel-drive vehicles. It also has the unfortunate honor of having the highest HIV infection rate in Africa. The Touching Tiny Lives safehouse, which can support 20 children at a time, welcomes sick, malnourished, or HIV positive children and also little ones that have been orphaned because of the virus. Children are brought to the campus where their needs are addressed and then returned to family. Outreach workers return routinely to follow up on their status and to address any needs. Often the workers will travel several hours in one direction to provide food, medications, or to weigh and measure the children. On Aug. 23, after vaccines, typhoid medication and travel prescriptions, we left the States by way of Seattle traveling to Amsterdam, then on to Johannesburg, South Africa and finally a short flight of about 40 minutes to the capitol city of Lesotho called Maseru. There the Touching Tiny Lives safe house director Nthabeleng Lephoto met us.

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| December 2011

We loaded up our bags of medical supplies and hats, shoes, blankets and toothbrushes for the kids and began the five-hour drive, on less than stellar roads, through the gorgeous mountains to the province of Mokhotlong. This would be our base of operations for the two weeks we were there. Our accommodations were very comfortable despite the remoteness, with hot showers and a kitchen for meals. We stayed in a rondeval, which is the primary type of shelter not only for the local residents and outreach clients but also on the campus of the safe house. It’s a round stone or mud building covered with plaster and paint with a thick thatched, tin, or wooden roof. Over the next two weeks we stayed very busy. Some days were spent on long, multiple hour drives on outreach to check on, retrieve or reunite children. Other days we spent primarily on the campus helping feed the kids. Eric, Mary and I also worked on the donated solar panels atop each of the buildings to try to stop leaks that had

been causing a loss of hot water, which meant more propane had to be used to heat water. Several of the days were spent at the local hospital working in the outpatient department (essentially a walk-in clinic). From 8:30 a.m. until just before noon, each physician, all of whom are from the Republic of Congo, saw 35 patients. They work with great haste as many of the patients walk several hours to arrive at the clinic and must be on their way to return

before sunset. I was able to spend a day assisting in surgery with three separate procedures. It was a culture shock to be in a country that speaks Basotho with English as a second language and hearing the two surgeons speaking French and Basotho and English simultaneously. We also were able to begin a worming protocol for the children as well as performing iron checks and training the outreach workers to do the same.

December 2011 | The Good Life

We taught the outreach workers how to educate families if children were deficient in iron due to poor diet or as a result of their HIV status. As the two weeks drew to a close and we prepared for the trip back to Maseru, we imagined the kids grown, attending school, thriving because of the help we were able to give them — which was a rewarding thought for us. Director Nthabeleng said, “Just by being here you have had

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an impact, perhaps you do not see it now but you have changed these children’s lives and your own.” We hope her statement about the kids is true, but know for sure that we are different people now because of our experiences with the children. Touching Tiny Lives is always looking for volunteers, not just for medical work, but laypersons can help in so many ways. Visit the Touching Tiny Lives website at touchingtinylives. org or traveltoafricawithme.com.

PAIN as a

MOTIVATOR WAKE-UP CALL LEADS TO thinking how to live a full life By Rachael Helsel

“Wake up, chica! Your

class is in 15 minutes!” My roommate turned off my alarm that I had slept through and crawled back into her bed. I am not even close to being a morning person, and a twohour yoga practice beginning at 6 a.m. each day for the month of January in Costa Rica seemed much easier in my head than it was in reality. Just a few days earlier I had left my house in Wenatchee for my last day at work bundled up in fleece layers, and today I was setting out from my bungalow in Nosara in a tank top and Havanas for my first day of yoga teacher training. The Nosara Yoga Institute was about a 10-minute walk along a jungle path outside my door, and low bellows from the howler monkeys in the trees above kept me company until reaching the school’s entry arch. Warm summer air on my face, I made my way up the tiled steps that led to the main studio, spread my mat on the wood floor and looked around at the other 50 students in the training. Don and Amba, founders and primary instructors, were seated at the front of the room and welcomed us all with the words:

Yoga on the beach: Moving slow to be in the moment.

Rachael Helsel: From the cold of Wenatchee to the Costa Rican tropics.

“Pause a moment to look around you and see where you have landed.” Brass fans hung from the vaulted bamboo ceilings overhead, and I could see bright tropical plants and flowers through the glass walls. After a moment of silence, they outlined our schedule and curriculum for the next few weeks, explaining that it was arranged to honor the time and space that it takes for the rhythm of the self to come into harmony with the rhythm of nature and the voice of wisdom within each of us.

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They closed on a lighter note of advice: “And try to breathe with your mouth closed – sometimes the lizards on the ceiling drop surprises!” After morning practice, we had time for a beach meditation walk and then breakfast (it didn’t take long for me to become addicted to coconut smoothies and coffee at this time of day) then afternoon class was from 11 until 2, followed by free time until the last session from 6 until 9. I used my afternoon freedom to begin my love/hate affair with

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surfing. Andrew from Tico Surf School gave me my first lesson and demonstrated how to read the wind and the waves with illustrations in the sand. I didn’t really retain much from his diagrams, but the one tip I used every time I went into the ocean was to shuffle my feet as I waded deeper in order to avoid stepping directly on top of a manta ray. After the lesson I met up with my roommate, and we walked to the beach (Playa Guiones) for sunset. On our way there we almost felt famous because so many people walking or driving by would smile and wave at us enthusiastically. Sometimes they would even cheer, “Pura vida!” This expression is almost a mantra for those who live in Costa Rica — it means “pure life” or “living the full life.” Everything moves at a slower pace, and you are invited to be in the moment and take in your surroundings. After a few evenings, we realized that watching the sun go down was a daily community ritual. Around 5 o’clock each day people gathered at the main entrance of the beach to mingle and watch surf-

I was hosting a black-tie pity party for myself when... ers catch the last few waves. Days feel like minutes when they are filled with deep yoga, companion walks on the beach, long swims in the ocean and intense surf lessons. For our last evening class of the first week we had Satsang, which means “true company.” It’s time set apart for all of the students and teachers to come together to share their experience and their truth with each other. Our teacher, Don, opened the discussion by asking what resonated with us in the lectures so far, and his words from the morning session came back to me. He said that some people tend to run away from physi-

cal and emotional pain without any questions — the moment it comes into view they immediately begin to look for a detour. He encouraged us, saying, “Pain brings increased awareness.” His words took me back to my first yoga experience in my second year of Wenatchee Valley Community College. I was trying to fold down and away from life in the same way that I drop out of downward facing dog yoga position when my arms are tired — my diagnosis of melanoma cancer was still sinking in, and even though surgery had been successful, I was facing a long stretch of chemotherapy. I was grateful that it hadn’t spread and the phrase “six months left” had been taken off the table, but I was still scared and sad with constant thoughts of the next few weeks or years. My nurse advised anti-depressants or a yoga class to counteract depression, and I chose the

December 2011 | The Good Life

latter. Over the next few weeks, it became an hour of refuge from the storm in my head. Where there is breath, there is no room for fear. Kahlil Gibran said, “Pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding,” and as I sat cross-legged in Satsang with my fellow students, I began to see my melanoma as a life prompt that began my inquiry deeper into who I was and how I was living. After my last yoga class was over, everyone dispersed toward their housing, and I rolled my bike towards the beach since it was smoother than the jungle path. It was dark, and I was exhausted — I would have given anything to skip over the next 20 minutes to the time where I would be blissfully falling into bed. As I began to pedal forward, half of a shell caught on my front tire, letting out all the air.

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Feeling as deflated as my tire, I was hosting a black-tie pity party for myself when something coming out of the ocean caught my eye. There was a full moon that night, and when its light landed on the phosphorescent sand moving in each wave, it seemed like constellations were washing up onto the beach. Moving slowly out of the water, a huge sea turtle the size of a barrel crawled out towards me. It was magnificent. And I almost missed it. Now that I’m back home, I want to keep that awareness of the present moment with me — that turtle on the beach probably isn’t the only thing that I could speed right by without a glance of wonder and appreciation. Experiencing “pura vida” in Nosara made me realize that “the full life” is also in my backyard… if I take the time to look around me and really see where I have “landed.”

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Volunteers

Compassionate friends for when a parent is really hurting By Donna Cassidy

arol Sunada knows grief. In 1996 Carol’s 19-year-old son, Jiro, died suddenly. “Grief never goes away,” said Carol. “Losing a child is horrific. I spent hours at the funeral home. I just couldn’t let go.” Eight months later her husband died. “I wanted to hit someone. I knew I needed something. I just wanted to take a pill and make it all go away. And nothing can fix this,” she said. If it weren’t for The Compassionate Friends in Seattle where she was living at the time calling and asking how she was doing weekly, she doesn’t know where she would be today. Now years later moving back to Wenatchee Carol has started The Compassionate Friends chapter here. “I looked around and found there was a need. Twelve families had recently lost a child. I held a meeting and five showed up. That was five years ago. We are helping 200 families right now,” said Carol. The Compassionate Friends is a self-help support organization that assists bereaved families toward a positive resolution of grief following the death of a child. It is an international, non-profit, non-denominational organization offering friendship, understanding, grief education and hope for the future to all families who have experienced the death of a child at any age from any cause. The Compassionate Friends are seasoned grievers, having

lost children of their own in their past. “Grief is intense. Families do not want you to cry, do not want you to hurt. They want you to just get over it. That’s where The Compassionate Friends comes in. “The first thing I say is, ‘I am very sorry you lost your child.’ (And I am very sorry.) “Then I give them a hug. If we’re on the phone I tell them I am giving them a hug right now. I give them time and I let them cry. “I talk a lot on the phone. I listen. I ask the right questions. They have to know it’s okay to cry. It’s normal to cry. We might meet for coffee. Sharing experiences helps,” said Carol. Carol said she is working right now with a woman who had a miscarriage and she is pregnant again. “Her fears are great. And we are helping her get through this.” Carol said volunteers help people get back to work and are trained to recognize the threat of suicide. The local organization has no office, no membership fees and

December 2011 | The Good Life

lighting a candle to remember

The grief of losing a child is intense and takes a while to get beyond it, said Carol Sunada, who knows this from experience.

the library is in Carol’s home. The chapter meets once a month at various places. They celebrate birthdays for those who have passed and release balloons with love messages. For further information, contact Carol at 665-9987. Contributions are voluntary. The chapter helped 800 families last year, but Carol said, “If I can help just one person it is all worth it.”

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The Compassionate Friends will be hosting its annual Candle Lighting ceremony Dec. 18, at 6:30 p.m. and the Candle Lighting ceremony will be at 7 p.m. at the Church of the Nazarene, 1011 S. Miller Street, Wenatchee. There will be a memorial program in remembrance of loved ones who have died with refreshments and a time to share memories. Anyone who has lost a child, grandchild or sibling is welcome. Those attending can bring a picture of a child to share and place on the chapter’s Memory Board. The regular monthly meeting of TCF will be Dec. 20 at 7 p.m. at the Grace Lutheran Church, 1408 Washington St. This meeting will focus on gifts for Christmas. “Bring a gift your child would have liked to receive. We will wrap the gifts and give them to a local charitable group. We welcome people from the Wenatchee area but also those living in Cashmere, Chelan, Leavenworth, Waterville and all surrounding areas,” said chapter leader Carol Sunada.

heavenly make over An ‘ok’ 1950’s-style Family home gets an artful refreshing

The 1950’s style two-floor ranch house extends for the sunset views.

Story by Susan Lagsdin Photos by Donna Cassidy

Thirty years ago, Phil and

A big hall coat closet (see the dropped cedar ceiling ) was removed, opening up the entryway into the living room and the clean-lined galley kitchen.

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| December 2011

Bonnie Yenney were seeking a larger house with more space for their two young children, and they couldn’t quite find it. Having grown up on a sprawling Walla Walla ranch, Phil Yenney said, “I knew, after living in two other houses in Wenatchee,

ABOVE: A fraction of the wide view from the west side of the house. The view is important to Bonnie and Phil, at right. The family’s much-loved Walla Walla wheat fields are replicated with clumps of wheat at the lot’s steep edge.

The original cedar ceilings extend floorward in some rooms. This family space features two walls of windows with quick access to both deck and patio.

that something just didn’t feel right. And then I realized — there were no sunsets!” The couple yearned for views like both their parents’ homes had. They got the whole package in a downtrodden East

Wenatchee mid-’50s ranch (maybe overpriced at $50,000) on a steep two-thirds-acre lot, part of a windswept and lonely three-home complex optimistically named Earhart Heights Sub-division. They took a chance buying on the barren hillside above the orchards at the north end of Eastmont Avenue where the road bumped onto Badger Mountain and Waterville. The

sunsets were the big bonus. Now, of course, they are surrounded by million-dollar beauties, beside, below and way above them. But the flat-roofed ranch house with a comma-shaped driveway tucked into Skiview Avenue had good bones, and with the Yenney’s meticulous care and creative flair it proved its worth, and its value, over the years.

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A garage was added, with an attached studio. Pocket gardens were formed, arbors and gates designed, trees planted, a sauna built in the top garden, a swimming pool placed off the lower patio. The house helped raise a family with the standard threebedrooms-in-a-row, two-bath configuration typical of its time. The couple is now retired from long-time teaching at East-

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Delight in the new addition sparked resolve to refresh the rest of the house... }}} Continued from previous page mont High School, Phil as an art teacher, Bonnie as a math teacher. They consider their tastes in design an amalgam of both disciplines. “And we both love houses!” Bonnie said. “We used to drive around, pull up to a house we liked, and ask to see inside it.” (“We never got a turn down,” added Phil. “But that was in the ’60s!”) They loved their house “as is” and it wasn’t until four years ago that the Yenneys, with a yard serendipitously opened up by

The master bedroom addition created lots of space for some of Phil’s own art pieces, which look brand new with the enhanced wall colors and more light.

the loss of nine massive trees in the windstorm, and encouraged by their architect daughter (Kara Walk with Swalling Walk of Olympia), realized that “OK” could be changed to “heavenly.” So they initiated a major bedroom addition for themselves,

followed closely by an updating throughout. The 1957 structure seamlessly supports the 2010 interior. “I know there’s a difference between ‘modern’ and ‘contemporary,’ but we don’t know which to call this remodel,” Bonnie

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admits. “Let’s just say, this is… newer-looking.” The separate master bedroom suite anchoring the north end of the house is 693 square feet of wide-open, calming luxury, and a pocket door from the existing living room makes it almost invisible. The Yenneys chose chocolate and lime green wall colors and sleek dark wood furnishings, but the main attraction is the wall of windows, unadorned, that faces west. Their long rectangular closet room sensibly houses a washer and dryer. “Why not?” Bonnie speculates. “Is there any reason to have the laundry so far away from the clothing?” The master bath is pale tile and glass, with a tall boxed skylight: Simple and spacious. One west side sink faces a wall with a mirror; one faces a big square window. Bonnie laughs, “Phil decided that rather than look in the mirror in the morning, he’d rather look straight out, check the weather and decide — skiing today? Paddling? Or hiking?” Delight in the new addition sparked resolve to refresh the rest of the house, with help from Concepts Kitchen and Bath of Wenatchee. The kitchen was originally (and remains) galley style, and to keep the views intact, Phil and Bonnie re-emphasized the

A wraparound remodel: sleek utilitarian shelving of white granite starts in the galley kitchen, above, continues around a wall into the dining area at right. Terra cotta and cedar complement the dark chocolate tones.

long slim line of it. Shiny gunmetal gray tiles, matte glass cupboard fronts, dark walls and cabinetry, and a commitment to mess-free, straight line white quartz countertops all widen the space visually. Good ingredients are there for the ages: the flat roof with deep sun-defying eaves, original nine-foot tongue and groove cedar ceilings throughout. With the main remodel came rooms of big square diagonally set terra cotta tiles underfoot. At almost 4,000 square feet on two floors, this discreetly tucked away house has an unpretentious low front profile from the street and a bold back with a house-length deck that opens to the sun and mountains Chic colors, new millennia materials and re-thought spaces are brave new additions, but a big part of the home’s lasting impression is the artwork on the walls. A granddaughter’s paintings are framed, and close friend Ellisa Kline (Carole King’s personal manager) has sent dramatic photos from the singer’s Idaho ranch.

But Phil’s own considerable body of artwork takes the places of honor. The home’s entryway, recently purged of a massive in-your-face closet, now reveals staircase walls and a vertical cluster of Phil’s oils. A painting on copper is positioned above the liv-

ing room fireplace, and a “backyard” work, stylized rows of ornamental grasses, hangs on a family room wall (“My own ‘amber waves of grain,’” he quips). The masterpiece on the wall of the master bedroom is a bold triptych. Adapted from Phil’s long-ago Fancher Heights sketch

of the looming mountains to the west with the Wenatchee River shining through them, it brings their view inside. It’s a reminder of why this honest old house (at first bought to be “flipped,” they finally admitted) has been the home of their hearts for 30 years.

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good STUFF // Ideas for the home

Kitchen tool smith Christopher Koontz began selling wood carvings at the Leav-

Christopher Koontz makes about 30 different kitchen utensils from ladles to slotted spoons to pie servers and whisks. He has also started a second business making walking canes.

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enworth street fairs made with a hatchet from burning pile scraps when he was 14. A decade and a half or so later, the self-described “kid raised in a blue-collar family” decided he wanted a life of “making something,” and that’s what he has done until, now at age 62, he figures he has made and sold a couple of hundred thousand finely crafted wooden utensils. And he doesn’t see retiring anytime soon. Christopher and his wife J.R. own Wild Cherry Spoons and Spatulas, along with another business called American Cane. He makes the cherry wood utensils (and in the past 15 years, heavy and handsome wooden canes) from his shop — a converted chicken house — 100 feet behind his house at the end of a side street in Waterville. Sales come through his Internet sites, from gift gallery stores (often in tourist destinations like Boulder, Colo.) and farmer’s markets,

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From a simple shop behind his Waterville home, Christopher makes nice tools for the kitchen.

such as the one in Wenatchee during the summer and fall. The urban grocery, Whole Food Markets, uses his spoons in its olive bars. Asked how he has stayed with such a niche small business for so many years, he joking replied: “Anything but to get a real job.” Actually, though, the artisan business has taken him in travels around the U.S., allowed him and J.R. to live in a remote cabin up the Entiat River, in suburban Seattle and now Waterville for the second time, (“I can be anywhere where there is UPS service and I can buy wood.”), and has created a collection of stories about customers, street fairs and characters. Christopher makes about 30 different utensils, from dipping spoons to a whisk, to spatulas and pie services to even a left-handed sauté tool. Most are carved from cherry wood (“it’s a tough, sweet, traditional wood,”) with a metal working end. The handles are most often curved with a copper loop at the end for hanging. Christopher sees his creations as functional art that feels right in the kitchen — “people like nice tools,” he said. To see more of his tools, and for other information, visit: www. wildcherryspoons.com.

December 2011 | AT HOME WITH The Good Life

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column moving up to the good life

june darling

Get ready to learn the secret of life “D

o you know what the secret of life is?” asks Curly (Jack Palance) in the 1991 movie, City Slickers. He answers his own question “find your one thing” and stick to it; the rest is meaningless. (The actual dialogue is more … colorful.) I figured that Bill Murray — an active member of my Rotary club — knew the secret and had found his one thing. His eyes shine with interest, humor, curiosity. His smile is easy and authentic. When I cornered him at Caffé Mela, he was open and clear about what the good life was for him. As it turned out it was four things, but they seemed one to him. Bill easily expands on all four things with gusto. He has meaningful work (helping people with multiple handicaps) that he’s good at and that challenges him. He loves his family and parenting his two children. He’s comfortable with his faith. He enjoys being a Rotarian service club member. For him it’s all connected through living the golden rule — looking beyond self. Bill’s lucidity came through an epiphany. We often think of epiphanies as profound “aha’s” — deep insights that are difficult to describe to others. People experiencing epiphanies seem to suddenly see how the whole puzzle fits together. They gain an enlightened perspective that allows them to make large leaps. They are able to perceive what is truly essential, significant and meaningful. Often epiphanies are thought of as sudden flashes, but Bill’s revelation took about a year. He began to ask himself big

Bill Murray: Why not be smiling?

questions about life after being diagnosed with a terminal illness. He wanted to examine what was truly important to him. He evaluated whether he should make some changes. As Bill looked as his work, his relationships with his family, his faith, and his service to humanity, he could hardly believe that he was exactly where he wanted to be. He was shocked. He thought he was striving to get to the next place, but in reality he had already arrived. Bill says he knew he had those four things, but he just “didn’t

| The Good Life

get it.” He was happy! Recalling those days, Bill says with a twinkle in his eyes, “I’m in constant pain, going to die, and I’m happy. How damn lucky am I?” And Bill really IS happy, has found answers, and DOES feel lucky (his demise seems to be indefinitely on hold — he’s been cancer-free for over five years). I really envied Bill’s breakthrough, but I wasn’t too keen on his process. Even though life’s answers to the big questions may be in front of us, must we have a terminal illness to understand them?

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| December 2011

Many psychologists I have since queried seem to think that profound insights often do come at critical moments in life although many people experience crises and receive no revelations. Traumas and big life upsets are simply opportunities for deep awareness and growth. Crises jerk us to attention. We have a special receptivity to staying engaged with big questions and answers. Our storytellers seem to agree. Think of A Christmas Carol’s Ebeneezer Scrooge and George Bailey in It’s A Wonderful Life. Most of us would opt for less traumatic ways of learning the secrets of life. After perusing much of the epiphany related literature, I have a few ideas that might work and even if they don’t, could be interesting and fun (also useful if you ARE having a crisis). Mark out 20 minutes each day during December to engage by yourself with The Big Questions, such as: “What’s really important?” During that time write quickly without editing for five minutes whatever comes to your mind. Then set your timer for 10 minutes and close your eyes. Meditate, pray, or gaze at something pleasing in nature. Afterwards take five more minutes to write any impressions you felt. Don’t worry if nothing happened, just relax and enjoy yourself. Take frequent walks in nature. The Loop Trail is great for this. Specifically look at the mountains, the river and the sky. Go out and look at the stars at night. Ask yourself, “What’s really important?” Look to others for insights. Leavenworth Summer Theatre

December isn’t just about cooking, cleaning and shopping; it’s really the perfect month for asking big questions ... will be presenting It’s a Wonderful Life. Miracle on 34th Street can be rented. Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, is easily found at the library.

After watching and reading whatever material you choose, discuss your question with others. Especially look for people like Bill. Invite them to coffee. Talk about your big question, your process, and your answers with each other. Socrates is quoted as saying, “The life which is unexamined is not worth living… the greatest good of a man is daily to converse about virtue.” December isn’t just about cooking, cleaning and shopping; it’s really the perfect month for asking big questions

and receiving epiphanies. This holiday season, how might you move up to The Good Life by asking big questions?

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June Darling, Ph.D., is an executive coach who consults with businesses and individuals to achieve goals and increase happiness. She can be reached at drjunedarling@aol.com, or drjunedarling.blogspot.com or at her twitter address: twitter.com/ drjunedarling. Her website is www. summitgroupresources.com.

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column GARDEN OF DELIGHTS

bonnie orr

English Christmas pudding made easy T

his is the season for those English favorites: Christmas, plum and other steamed “puddings.” They are not actually a soft, gelatinous pudding but rather a cake. The British word for many types of dessert is “pudding.” Christmas pudding is essentially a fruitcake that is steamed rather than baked. It is always served with hard sauce— named because it’s hard to the touch, not because it has brandy added to it. The sauce is essentially lots of butter, a little powdered sugar and some brandy, so it is a solid rather than a runny sauce, and it melts on the warm cake. Grandmother Orr spent a week every fall making a dozen Christmas puddings. After she passed away, every Christmas for the next eight years, we shared our memories of her as we enjoyed one of her steamed puddings — the cake does last a long time! (I think we put them in the freezer after a few years.) Every time I read a recipe for Christmas or plum pudding, I get stuck on two things: the mold and the suet. Suet is hard to come by since we do not have neighborhood butchers who will save it for us. Also, eating a cake made with a cup and a half of suet — which is beef-fat — has gone out of style. The mold is a metal container with a tight fitting lid that is placed in a water bath in a very large container so that steam can circulate around the entire mold. I have never owned a mold, but I decided to make a steamed pudding for Christmas, modern style. For a “mold” use a couple of 46-oz. tin juice cans or one-

1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda 2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice OR 1 teaspoon ground cloves AND 1 teaspoon grated nutmeg Blend together all the wet ingredients. Blend together all the dry ingredients. Mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl. The batter will be very moist but not runny. Pour one half of the batter into each Christmas pudding is really more of a cake, and can include fresh garden ingredients such as prepared can or into carrots. A re-used juice can covered with foil tied on by string serves as the mold. your mold. Fill the molds twopound coffee cans. I tightened thirds full so there is room for the pudding to rise. aluminum foil over the top of With gently boiling water, steam the two juice cans and tied one with pudding for 3 hours. Check the level white twine and the other with of the water several times during the Start the water to boil, and asa silicon band used when you cooking period. bake or barbecue chickens. Both semble all the ingredients before you begin mixing them together. Grease systems worked well to make a If you use one large mold, steam the mold thoroughly and place a tight seal. for 4 hours and check for doneness. round piece of parchment paper or The steamer can be a very Place a long skewer clear to the botwax paper on the very bottom of the large soup pot or a canner/boiler container so the cooked pudding will tom of the mold through the dough. or a canner/ steamer with a solid slide more easily out of the mold. If it comes out clean, the pudding is lid. Place a rack on the bottom cooked. The recipe makes two quarts of of the pot so the steamer does Remove the puddings from the batter. steamer. Take off lids. Let cool slightly not rattle for the hours of cookWet ingredients: before removing them from the 2 cups grated carrots ing. The water should not come molds. 1/2 cup brown sugar up more than one-third of the The pudding can be re-warmed by 1/4 cup orange juice height of your mold so water wrapping it tightly in foil and heating 6 oz. (3/4 cube) melted butter will not splash over the top of it in the oven for 30 minutes at 200 1 cup raisins the mold. degrees. 1/2 cup chopped dates I still have root vegetables Hard sauce if you wish: Cream 4 large eggs beaten mulched into my vegetable together 3/4 cube butter, 1 cup pow2 tablespoons fresh, grated ginger garden and I wanted to use the dered sugar, 1 tablespoon brandy. 1/2 cup chopped almonds sweet carrots for my “pudding.” Melt it on each slice of the warm Dry ingredients: My Christmas pudding is moist pudding. 2 cups flour and tasty and won’t give you a 1-1/2 cups coarse homemade Bonnie Orr — the dirt diva — garsugar rush. The breadcrumbs breadcrumbs dens and cooks in East Wenatchee. 1/4 teaspoon salt add texture.

Steamed Christmas Pudding

| The Good Life

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| December 2011

column ALEX ON WINE

ALEX SALIBY

Red or white, and which red or white? You’ve invited friends to

dinner — people whose company you enjoy and with whom you are certain to have a pleasant evening. But then, with the menu decided upon, you face that nagging question, “What wine will I serve?” Here at home, we decided to follow the advice from an old Ricky Nelson song. “But It’s all right now I learned my lesson well You see you can’t please everyone so You got to please yourself ” That’s the first rule for having a successful wine and food pairing dinner party: please yourself. Serve foods you enjoy preparing and eating — while taking into account friends’ food allergies and sensitivities — and you’ll be off to a terrific start. “But what about the wine?” you ask once again. The easy answer to that question is to rely once again on that bon vivant and wine writer Hugh Johnson when he orders us, “…to serve both red and white at the table…” Some people, no matter what they are about to eat, just don’t drink white wine. I know some of these people personally. Serve up the seared scallops, finished in your orange juice, shallots and white wine sauce with that dash of cayenne, and these diners still prefer to wash it all down with a red wine. Others truly dislike, or have reactions to, drinking red wine. So, rather than dictate which beverage your guests must drink with dinner, offer a choice and allow the guests to decide for themselves. I know, I know, you still pon-

der the larger question of which red and which white. Here again return to rule one above and please yourself first. Put wines out that you’re comfortable drinking with the food you are serving. It’s autumn, and you’ve opted for a simple roast chicken with roasted root vegetables: carrots, potatoes, onions, perhaps a parsnip, and maybe even a rutabaga or a turnip tossed in for good measure. You’ve eaten this dish often over the years, and you favor washing it down with a Dry Riesling or lightly oaked Chardonnay. You know that the carrots, onions and parsnips are sweet when roasted, so you want one that is not bone dry, but not one of those with high residual sugar, either. In fact with this meal, you’ve served Tsillan Cellars estate Riesling and found it pleased both you and the guests that evening. So there you have the white wine conundrum solved: something white with just a hint of sweetness to complement the sweet of the vegetables, but with enough acid to counter-balance their natural sugars. This meal you’re about to serve will also stand up to a red wine, but not to a red fruit bomb. Opt instead for a lighter, more delicate red. A Benson Pinot Noir, a Chateau Fair Le Pont Pinot Noir, or a Bella Terrazza red — the Cab Franc, the Lemberger, or the blend will work. My Good Wife’s favorite at the moment would be a Baroness Cellars Grenache. Better still, your choices here play again right into the orders of Hugh Johnson who insists that, “…one should always prefer local wines with local foods…” December 2011 | The Good Life

What could be more local than root vegetables from the farmers’ market? If all this sounds overly simplified, it’s because the selection and serving of wine is really that: simple. Do yourself a favor and don’t complicate the process. Here are a few, simple guidelines that might help further simplify the selection process: n The old adage: Red meats for red wines; white meats for white wines is still a good guide, but it is a guiding note, not an Edict or Command from on High. n For pairing, you have two major choices — contrasting or complementing — so if the food is hot and spicy, opt for slightly sweet and spicy like a Karma or a Mellisoni Gewurztraminer, or a Chelan Ridge High Hawk Riesling. All will contrast nicely in this situation. With a creamy dish or sauce, the smooth creaminess of a lightly oaked Chardonnay complements the food. But also remember that contrasting or complementing are very personal preferences, so again, rule one comes into play: Please yourself. n Temperature of the wine is critical, for wine, like food, has a temperature floor and ceil-

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ing. The best temperatures for wines, reds and whites are between 45 degrees F and 64 degrees F. Whites offer more aroma and flavor when served at 50 and 55 degrees, but they tend to warm up in the glass; reds are best between 55 and 64 degrees, again depending on personal preference. If you keep your in-house temperature at 72, you’ll need to remember to keep the wines in a cooler location prior to putting them out. Again, please yourself and your guests. Some I know drop an ice cube in their red. What is the saying? “If you haven’t tried it, don’t knock it.” Selecting a beverage that will please all at the table doesn’t have to be an ordeal that brings on any stress. Remember, it’s a dinner party. There will be food, friends and frivolity. Let there also be enjoyment in the wines offered with the meal. Alex Saliby is a wine lover who spends far too much time reading about the grapes, the process of making wine and the wines themselves. He can be contacted at alex39@msn. com.

column THE TRAVELing DOCTOR

jim brown, m.d.

Staying younger by hiking the Alps

think that traveling out of the country can help you stay younger. Experiencing different cultures helps one appreciate different perspectives. The challenge involved in traveling to new places stimulates thinking. Traveling seems to slow time down. We are always amazed at how much we have done and accomplished in what seems to be a relatively short time. Last winter, a brochure came in the mail from the Road Scholar program promoting a hiking trip in the Dolomite Mountains of northern Italy and the Alps around Seefeld, Austria. Road Scholar is the new name for what was formerly called “Elderhostel.” I believe Elderhostel changed its name in order to appeal to a wider audience. This would be our third trip with them. Road Scholar is really a broker. They advertise and plan the trips, and then another local company with whom they contract takes over in the country

you are visiting. Generally these other companies are experts in the area you are visiting. On our recent trip we were led by European Walkers with whom we had previously hiked around Mont Blanc in 2009. On this trip there were 20 people who came from Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, California, Ohio, Michigan, Oregon and Washington. All but three were retired. It was an interesting group. Among them were a women’s world games gold medalist in the over-70 division who won the hurdles and pole vault; a woman who emigrated from Hong Kong at age 22, who earned a Ph.D. in history and then taught American History in college; a New York dance instructor; a federal labor lawyer; an Oregon man who builds his own canoes; and a Korean woman who remembered the terrible hardships of the war before she came to the U.S. and earned a doctorate. Road Scholar rated this trip at a difficulty level of 5 out of 6, but

| The Good Life

we were not all seasoned hikers. My wife said she prepared for the trip by extended standing (at an art workshop). We flew on Air France nonstop overnight from Seattle to Paris and then on to Munich.

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| December 2011

We went a day early to get a good night’s sleep before we met our group the following day at the Munich airport. A bus took us to Castlerotto, Italy, a small picturesque, village of 2,000 people nestled in the

TOP LEFT: Cows graze in the beautiful Dolomite country. TOP: In Austria, this man carries his horn in pieces up to 7,786 feet where he assembles it and plays.

Dolomite Mountains. Recently the Dolomites were selected as a UNESCO World Heritage site because of their exceptional beauty and unique landscape. The mountains are made up of a unique limestone and are widely regarded as among the most attractive mountain landscapes in the world. Only 6 percent of the area is inhabited. There are several small villages in the area connected by a wonderful bus system —no car is needed here. Every village has numerous hiking trials leading outward and upward from the village center. Each village center has its own tall church steeple so it is easy to find. The high plateaus are very

lush and green, and even at 5,000 to 8,000 feet, cattle are grazing with their cattle bells tinkling. In September all the cows are brought down to their farmer’s village and, of course, that is cause for celebrations and festivals. Italians seem to love festivals. When we were there, a special festival was going on that involved introducing all the village bachelors. There was a church parade around the town square with banners, a giant angel and a cupola over the priest. A brass band accompanied them. The young men were dressed in local attire and looked quite serious. After six days in Castlerotto, we headed for Seefeld, Austria —about three hours away by December 2011 | The Good Life

LEFT: Lynn and Dr. Jim Brown pose on a mountain trail.

bus. Seefeld is a Tyrolean ski town 40 miles from Innsbruck, so it was a great base for hiking in the Austrian Alps. We spent six nights here and hiked on five of those days. One day we took a local train about 30 minutes away to Garmisch, Germany, where we hiked up the beautiful Partnachklamm, which is a deep gorge and one of Germany’s natural wonders,. You can walk the length of the gorge along a pathway with tunnels cut into the limestone rock just a few yards above the glacier-fed river. On our last day in Austria, we hiked to the Spitze (peak) of a www.ncwgoodlife.com

mountain that at 7,786 feet had a 360-degree view of the Alps as well as a view down on Seefeld below. We took a small train called a funicular from Seefeld to the ski lodge at 5,000 feet and from there we hiked up the remaining 2,776 feet. It was a steady uphill vigorous hike. At the top we were entertained by a gentleman blowing on a 10-foot long alpine horn that he had carried up unassembled in a pack. He and his wife also yodeled in a beautiful serenade. What lucky serendipity! The next day we returned to Munich by bus as we were all

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We enjoyed listening to the oompah band while eating typical German food along with beer brewed on the premises at the huge Hofbrauhaus restaurant. }}} Continued from previous page flying home the day after. It was 9/11 when we were in Munich, and we were surprised to learn there was a gathering of world religious leaders of all persuasions who came, specifically on that day, to discuss world peace. President Merkel of Russia was scheduled to address the conference. It was heartening to know that the terrible tragedy of 9/11 is marked by other countries as

Clouds settle in over Castlerotto, Italy.

well. Of course, we enjoyed listening to the oompah band while

eating typical German food along with beer brewed on the premises at the huge Hofbrau-

haus restaurant. It was a fun way to end our trip. Although Munich is a city of 2,000,000 it seems smaller. It is quite attractive, in part because buildings cannot be over five stories high. Munich was gearing up for its 201st annual Oktoberfest, which is held the first two weeks every October. This is Germany’s most famous event and the world’s biggest fair, attracting over 6 million visitors. During that period there will be 7 million liters of beer sold (all of which has to have been produced within Munich’s city limits), in addition to 90,000 liters of wine, 1,000,000 liters of water and lemonade, and 500,000 chickens consumed. I have no idea how many sausages will be eaten. I’m glad I was there before all this started. The next day we all flew home. It had been time well spent, filled with memories and new friends whom we will cherish. Jim Brown, M.D., is a semi-retired gastroenterologist who has practiced for 38 years in the Wenatchee area. He is a former CEO of the Wenatchee Valley Medical Center.

| The Good Life

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| December 2011

WHAT TO DO

We want to know of fun and interesting local events. Send info to: donna@ncwgoodlife.com

Journey to Bethlehem, 12/1 – 12/4, 5:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. This Christmas season, experience the town of Bethlehem, as it was the night the Christ Child was born. The journey begins indoors with live Christmas music. A local Bethlehem resident will guide you to many shops, scribes, tax collectors and an innkeeper. Ponder with the Wise Men as they follow the Star and see the shepherds and the manger where the Christ Child was born. See the living nativity with sheep, goats, donkeys, chickens and a camel. (Dress appropriately for the weather.) Wenatchee Valley Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Fifth and Western, Wenatchee. Info: www.j2bwenatchee.org. Wings and Wishes Christmas Tree Lighting, 12/1, 6:30 p.m. Christmas carols, tree lighting, refreshments and Santa. East Wenatchee City Hall. Holiday Spice, 12/1, 7 p.m. Big band and a collage of the area’s most talented performers sing-

ing, dancing and all around entertaining. Performing Arts Center, Cost: $25 adults, $12 seniors and students, $10 16 and under. Info: pacwen.org. Pet Photos with Santa, 12/2, & 12/9, 11 a.m. and 12/3 & 12/ 10, 3 p.m. Have your picture taken with your pet and with Santa. Petco. Cost: $8.95 includes framed photo. $5 from each photo will be donated to the Wenatchee Valley Humane Society. Info: 662-9577. Sergio and Steven with CLF, 12/1, 8 – 10 p.m. Local musicians with jam to follow. 10 Below. Cost: free. Info: 665-8737. Inspecting Carol, 12/1,2,3,8,9,10, 7:30 p.m. A Music Theater Production. The cast for the Soapbox Playhouse is going through the motions for its annual production of the Charles Dickens classic, A Christmas Carol, when troubles begin to multiply. Bad goes to worse when the cast learns that the theater is flat broke, and worse goes to disastrous when they learn National Endowment of Arts is threatening to pull its grant unless their inspector finds artistic merit in their lame production. Will they pull it togeth-

December 2011 | The Good Life

er or implode under the pressure? Riverside Playhouse. Cost: $10, students 18 and under $7. Open House, 12/2, 2 – 8 p.m. Door prizes, tours and activities. SAGE, 710 N Chelan Ave. Wenatchee. Info: 663-7446. A Step Above Gallery, 12/2, 5 p.m. Rob Blackaby is the guest artist. Rob is known for his paintings for the Chelan Murals Project. Gallery is located at 34 N Wenatchee Ave. Cost: free. Michael Lewis Band of Nashville, 12/2, 9 p.m. – midnight. 10 Below. Cost: $5 cover or free entry if you have dinner at the Applewood. Loyalty badge from Foursquare gets free entry. Holiday Luncheon, 12/2, noon. Enjoy a live ornament demonstration and make your own to take home. Wreaths will be raffled off. All proceeds benefit Wenatchee Valley Humane Society. Wenatchee Golf & Country Club. Cost: $25. Info: wenatcheehumane.org. Gallery 4 South, 12/2, 5 – 8 p.m. December showcases the wonderful, whimsical world of artist Wendy Zupan-Bailey. Wendy’s detailed,

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magical art dolls will carry you to another time and place. Meet the artist, enjoy the art, conversation and hors d’oeuvres. Cost: free. First Friday at Two Rivers Gallery, 5 - 8 p.m. 12/2. Holiday gift show continues through December. Friday’s reception presents Judith Frisco & the works of over 40 local artists. Live music by guitarist Kirk Lewellen. Complimentary refreshments. 102 N Columbia, Wenatchee. Cost: Free. Christmas Lighting Festival, 12/2 – 4 and every Friday, Saturday and Sunday until Christmas. Downtown Leavenworth. Info: 458-5807. Wenatchee First Fridays, 12/2, 5 p.m. – 8 p.m. Walk downtown for art, music, dining and entertainment. Downtown Wenatchee. Santa, 12/3, 5 p.m. Stanley Civic Center Fountain Plaza, 12/20, 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. Free pizza and 12/ 17, 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. Free photos with Santa in the Convention Center. Icicle Brewing Company Tours, 12/3, every Saturday at noon through 12/31. Curious about the brewing process? Learn more about

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WHAT TO DO

We want to know of fun and interesting local events. Send info to: donna@ncwgoodlife.com

}}} Continued from previous page the history of beer and explore the world of craft brewing. 935 Front St., Leavenworth. Reservations and info: iciclebrewing@gmail.com. Wenatchee Riverfront Railway, 12/3, noon – 4 p.m. The miniature train in Riverfront Park runs on a figure-8 course of rails, bridges and trestles along the

Columbia River. Rides are fun for all ages. Info: 663-2900. Cooking Class: Holiday Tarts, 12/3, 2 p.m. Jam tarts and butter tarts will be made. Chateau Faire le Pont Winery. Info: 667-9463. Terry Holder in Concert, 12/3, 7:30 p.m. Singer/songwriter Terry Holder will perform at Grunewald Guild in Plain. Cost: $10. Winter Craft Fair, 12/3, 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. Wenatchee Golden Apple Band Boosters will provide a wide variety of crafts created by more

than 50 vendors. Items for sale will include jewelry, stained glass, quilting, Christmas decor, team/school items, scarves, blankets, pillows, hand painted items (wood, metal, glass), soaps, baked goods, baby sweaters and hats, wooden toys, and art. There will be a wide variety of items and gift certificates from local restaurants, specialty shops, and more. Also, pastries from local bakeries and other refreshments. Wenatchee High School Commons. Info: Dianna Williams 630-6252. Family Fun Day, 12/3, 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. It’s a sure way to catch the holiday spirit with crafts, activities, yummy treats, museum tours and photo with Santa. Wenatchee Valley Museum and Cultural Center. Cost: $5 adults, $4 seniors, $2 kids 6-12, $10 family. Info: 888-6240. Holiday Bazaar, 12/3, 9 .m. – 4:30 p.m. 18 artisans and crafters along with a raffle for a lap quilt. Rolls available in the morning, lunch in the afternoon. Chelan Senior Center. Info: lakechelan.com. Common Bond 5, 12/3, 2 p.m. & 7 p.m. Wenatchee’s popular gospel group will perform its annual Christmas concert. Performing Arts Center. Cost: $15 advance or $18 at door. Info: pacwen.org. Holiday Bazaar and Bake Sale, 12/3, 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. Sights, sounds and tastes of the season. Start your holiday shopping. Light lunch served, crafts, hand made items, music, goodies and fun. Lake Chelan Eagles, 209 East Woodin Ave. Info: lakechelan.com.

| The Good Life

Monday of the month. Bring your own instrument or voice. Drums and PA provided. Caffé Mela. Info: Tomasz Cibicki 669-8200. Cooking Class: Stovetop Steaming, 12/6, 5:30 p.m. Steamed pork buns (Char Siu Bao), steamed mussels with chive butter, Asian aromatic chicken, steamed Wasabi salmon with ponzu sauce, shrimp and mushroom Sui Mei and steamed egg custard will be cooked at The Ivy Wild Inn. Cost: $40 single, $105 for series. Info: theivywildinn.com. Blues Guitar with Nic Allen, 12/7, 9 – 11 p.m. 10 Below. Cost: free. Christmas Candlelight Centerpiece, 12/7, 5 – 6:30 p.m. Learn how to create floral arrangements with candles. Chateau Faire le Pont Winery. Cost: $25 for instruction, $50 to take your centerpiece home. Info: 667-WINE. Chumstick Liberation Front, 12/8, 9, 8 – 10 p.m. Local musicians with jam to follow. 10 Below. Cost: free. Holiday Concert, 12/8, 2 – 3:30 p.m. Organist Erich Knapp will play the Liberty Theater Pipe organ. Wenatchee Valley Museum and Cultural Center. Cost: by donation. Village Voices Christmas Concert, 12/8, 12/12, 12/13, 7:30 p.m. Church of the Nazarene, Ski Hill Road, Leavenworth. Cost: $14 adults, $12 students. Info: 5488058.

Opera and Cabaret, 12/3, 6 p.m. Icicle Creek Center for the Arts presents Ciao Bella, highlighting arias, duets, trios and ensembles from Rigoletto, La Boheme, don Giovanni and more. Candlelight supper, fine wines, dessert and cabaret seating. Canyon Wren Recital Hall, Leavenworth.

GWATA Holiday Social, 12/8, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m. Network with other entrepreneurs and tech enthusiasts, bid on silent auction items, enjoy a glass of wine or beer and delicious hors d’ oeuvres, listen to great live music, and enter to win a door prize. Caffé Mela. Cost: $5 for GWATA members; $10 non-members. RSVP at info@gwata.org.

It’s a Wonderful Life, 12/3, 8 p.m., 12/4, 1 p.m. 12/9, 8 p.m., 12/10, 1 p.m. and 8 p.m., 12/11, 1 p.m., 12/16, 8 p.m., 12/17, 1 p.m. and 8 p.m. and 12/18, 1 p.m. Festhalle Theater, Leavenworth. Info: leavenworthsummertheater.org.

A Christmas Story, 12/9 – 10, 6:30 p.m. Chelan Valley Players will perform a live radio show/ phone-a-thon complete with dinner at Tsillan Cellars. Cost: $50. Info: chelanvalleyplayers.com.

Night at the Museum, 12/3, 12/10, 12/17, 7 p.m. Enjoy local wine and cheese and guided tours given by the Nutcracker Lady, Arlene Wagner. Live music. Leavenworth Nutcracker Museum. Info: nutcrackermuseum.com.

Icicle Creek Piano Trio Concert Showcase, 12/10, 7:30 p.m. A Christmas concert with Jennifer Caine, violin; Sally Singer, cello; and Oksana Ezhokina, piano. Icicle Creek Center for the Arts, Leavenworth. Cost: $20 adults, $16 seniors and students.

Wenatchee Blues Jam, 12/5, 7 10 p.m. Open blues jam every first

Beth Whitney in Concert, 12/10, 7:30 p.m. Singer/songwriter Beth

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| December 2011

The Art Life

// SKETCHES OF LOCAL ARTISTS

if All the world is a stage, she’s the dancer with the sizzle Wenatchee dancer Serena

Fiacco is many things but one thing she is NOT is timid. She’s bold about her artistic choices, frank in her philosophy, and stunning in a stage persona that is way below skin deep. “I love performing. The adrenalin, the excitement from the audience… it’s addicting,” said Serena. Even watching her warm up in the wings before a number, it’s clear that this woman is a professional. In the spotlight, she’s drop-dead sexy. Not a vamp, not a tease, just blissfully in tune with her body, very aware of her moves and their effects. She’s at a crossroads now. “I really feel like I am an artist because I don’t have a set plan and I don’t need one — I let opportunities present themselves and decide if I’m going to bite.” She’s grounded in dancing, teaching, choreographing. How will she best use herself? Serena is energized by performing solo onstage, full lights, big crowd. But she realizes she’s also been a teacher all her life, even when that’s not her official job description. And choreography — her new venture — grabs her interest too. “I love watching what I envisioned being played out: the choreography is my paintbrush, the dancers my paint, the stage my canvas.” Whitney will perform at Grunewald Guild in Plain. Cost: $10. Holiday Adopt-A-Thon, 12/10, 11 a.m. The winter months are cold, and hundreds of unwanted pets find relief from the frosty temperatures in the Wenatchee Valley Humane Society’s shelter every year. Enjoy a holiday cookie while you look at all of the wonderful animals anxiously awaiting a home

Lifelong lessons at home, and plenty of work in Wichita, Jackson Hole and San Francisco gave her a solid background in many dance forms, from Irish dancing (“I gave it up… just couldn’t keep my arms down!”) to ballet, belly dancing and flamenco, with jazz and modern dance predominating. “When I first went off to college, I stopped dancing; I thought it was time to be an adult with a ‘real job.’ Something was missing… I started dancing again — and there it was!” Serena, 32, made her entrance onto North Central Washington’s arts stage five years ago. After doing musical theater choreography — first time ever — in Omak and Chelan, she’s got the theater bug. Serena hopes to nurture her local cabaret troupe, Silhouette Society, The cabaret/burlesque genre she’s costumed for and seek out more here is just one of many dance forms in Serena venues. Fiacco’s repertoire. She’s taught Hip for the holidays. Wenatchee Valley Humane Society. Info: 662-9577. Bomber Wing Benefit Dinner and Auction, 12/10. Get some holiday shopping done while supporting your local ski racers. Proceeds from this event go to help the Mission Ridge Ski Education Foundation subsidize all programs and provide scholarships to the 70 athletes enrolled in the various proDecember 2011 | The Good Life

grams offered by the Mission Ridge Ski Team. Fundraising also provides for race grants, safety equipment, vehicles, gates, and coaches for the kids. Auction items include: Tickets to Dancing with the Stars, North Face gear, cooking class at Ivy Wild, Steamboat Springs getaway and much more. St. Joseph Church. Cost: $50. Info: www.mrst. us or contact Andrea Baker at 8811592 or andrea@mrst.us.

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Hop to Health with kids, staged Thriller Flash Mob this Halloween at the Wenatchee Racket and Athletic Club (WRAC), entertained at a Good Sam Rider event and wowed Twisp audiences at a gala fundraiser with “Burlesque,” a sexy homage. She believes anyone who can hear a beat can dance (but sympathizes with some people, especially men, whose fear of dance actually makes them clumsy) and so she plans a “Tango Date Night“ for couples a little shy of dancing but willing to try. Her day jobs keep her on her toes, literally and figuratively. She’s reaching and teaching others as an instructor in dance and fitness as well as group fitness coordinator at the WRAC. And with an anthropology degree and doctoral work in human sexuality, she is slowly growing her total health consulting clientele, melding mental and physical wellness. In her dance life, there’s some pain with the gain — sore muscles, pulled muscles. And especially with the burlesque genre, some flak from dance audiences who may be leery of on-stage sensuality. But Serena (well named) is quietly confident in her path and accepting of detractors. “If people are disturbed by something I have performed,” she explains, “it means I have touched them in some way, caused them to think and question. And that’s good,” she said with a smile. — by Susan Lagsdin Kids at Heart, 12/11, 7 p.m. The Wenatchee Apollo Club will perform at the Performing Arts Center. Cost: $15. Cooking Class: Street Foods, 12/13, 5:30 p.m. Travel the world and try some foods you find not in a restaurant, but from a street vendor. Tacos al pastor from Mexico, arancini rice balls from

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WHAT TO DO

We want to know of fun and interesting local events. Send info to: donna@ncwgoodlife.com

}}} Continued from previous page Italy, chicken tagine from Morocco, bahn mi sandwich’s from Vietnam, lahmajun, a flat bread with a thin layer of meat, tomato, onions, peppers and parsley from Turkey, and a taste of Greece with some Baklava. The Ivy Wild Inn. Cost: $40 single, $105 for series. Info: theivywildinn. com. Back Country Film Festival, 12/15, 6 p.m. Films highlighting the beauty, diversity and fun of winter ski, snowboard, snowshoe experience. Door prizes, free coffee and dessert items. Cashmere Riverside Center. Cost: $10. Info: backcountryfilmfestival.com. Mission: Improv, 12/15 & 12/29, 7 p.m. & every Thursday. Free open workshop, theater games for novice and experienced players. Fun and casual. No workshops on 12/1, 12/8 &12/25. Riverside Playhouse. Info: www.mtow.org. The Nutcracker, 12/17, 1 & 5 p.m. The Academy of Dance and

Performing Arts students perform at Wenatchee High School Auditorium. Tickets at the door. Info: 665-8796. Michael Lewis Band of Nashville, 12/17, 9 – midnight. 10 Below. Cost: $5 cover or free entry if you have dinner at the Applewood. Loyalty badge from Foursquare gets free entry. Celtic Christmas, 12/17, 2 p.m. & 7:30 p.m. An evening of contemporary Celtic music celebrating the season of Christmas with Windham Hill/ArkMusic recording artists, Jeff Johnson (keyboards & vocal) and Brian Dunning (flutes & whistles) with Wendy Goodwin (violin). Icicle Creek Center for the Arts, Leavenworth. Info: arkmusic.com. Wenatchee Valley Symphony Orchestra, 12/17, 7 p.m. & 12/18 at 4 p.m. The sounds of Christmas featuring the Columbia Chorale. Performing Arts Center. Cost: $20 adults, $10 students, $25 balcony. Info: pacwen.org. Candle Lighting Ceremony, 12/18, 6:30 p.m. The Compassionate Friends will be hosting a Candle Lighting ceremony in remembrance of loved ones who have died. Any-

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one who has lost a child, grandchild or sibling is welcome. Church of the Nazarene, 1011 S. Miller St. If You Give a Moose a Muffin, 12/19, 2 p.m. & 6 p.m. A Magik Theatre Production. If a big, hungry moose comes to visit, you might

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| December 2011

give him a muffin to make him feel at home. If you give him a muffin, he’ll want some jam to go with it. When he’s eaten all your muffins, he’ll want to go to the store to get some more muffin mix. In this sequel to The Magik Theatre’s 2009 runaway hit If You Give a Mouse

WHAT TO DO

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a Cookie, the young host is again run ragged by a surprise guest. Performing Arts Center. Cost: $18 adults, $15 senior & students. Info: pacwen.org. Mannheim Steamrollers, 12/20, 7:30 p.m. Christmas show. Town Toyota Center. Info: towntoyotacenter.com. The Compassionate Friends, 12/20, 7 p.m. Bring a gift your child would have liked. We’ll wrap them and give them to a local charitable group. Grace Lutheran Church, 1408 Washington St. Vineyard Snowshoe and Dinner, 12/26, 12/28, 12/30, 4:30 p.m. Journey into a breathtaking winter wonderland with a guided vineyard snowshoe trek with winemaker Don Wood. Ending with fireside dinner at log home winery by Smokeblossom. Icicle Ridge Winery, Leavenworth. Info: 548-7019. Battle of the Bands for New Year’s Eve, 12/31, 8 p.m. Michael Carlos Band, Queens of 7 will be playing at 10 Below. Cost: $10 cover with Foursquare Loyalty bonuses all night including free entry. New Year’s Eve Bash, 12/31, 9 p.m. Party will feature The Kennedy Brothers and Junk Belly. Hors d’oeuvres, dancing, party favors and champagne toast at midnight. Campbell’s Resort, Chelan. Cost: $55 in advance or $60 at the door. Info: 682-2561. New Year’s Eve Night Skiing, 12/31, 6 – 9 p.m. Annual torchlight parade will be 9:30 p.m. The Lodge Eatery will be open. Echo Valley Ski Hill, Chelan. Cost: $15 skiing and tubing hill, $8 tubing hill only. Winterfest Fire and Ice Festival, 1/6 - 8 & 1/13 - 15. Visitors will marvel as ice sculptures come to life, relax in a sleigh ride through charming historic downtown Chelan, warm up around a giant bonfire and be dazzled by the magic of fireworks. Info: lakechelanwinterfest.com.

Know of someone stepping off the beaten path in the search for fun and excitement? E-mail us at editor@ncwgoodlife.com

The Art Life

// SKETCHES OF LOCAL ARTISTS

After a career of perfection, painter enjoys his freedom K

en Duffin says his Tuesday painting buddies at McDee’s Art Center tease him about his brand of Wenatchee Valley landscapes — seems he has trouble keeping man-made structures (barns, sheds, fence lines) out of his scenes. “It’s hard not to paint them,” he admits. “It’s really what I’m used to doing.” His flair for featuring photorealistic buildings is a natural consequence of the commercial art and architectural renderings that earned him a comfortable living, first in California and later in the Seattle area, for almost six decades. The walls of his Briarwood home in East Wenatchee are now a gallery of pure nature, landscapes freely painted, mostly plein air, without any client or employer or project deadline to cramp his style. They celebrate the beauty of the sunlit hills, orchards and cliffs of Wenatchee, his and his wife Glen’s chosen home for the last four years. Ken’s tidy studio also displays past artwork he’s proud of. One mid-’60s work, a framed painting of a yellow jet above the clouds, is the Boeing 707 just off the production line. A fat album contains dozens of photos of his original illustrations, many of industrial developments and dazzling new architecture (think: “an artist’s conception of the proposed civic center...”) “In commercial art, you always had to please somebody.” His eyes twinkle as he reveals, “at the San Francisco firm our manager was always so critical, even if something was perfect, December 2011 | The Good Life

Ken Duffin will paint long into the night when inspiration is flowing.

that we learned to make an obvious mistake — one we could fix easily after he found it.” The meticulous handwork that was honed at art school (compliments of the post-World War II G.I. bill) came naturally to him. “I was always a realistic artist — even in high school when I did sports illustrations for the school paper.” One pin-up girl painting he did pro-bono as an aircraft mechanic on the nosecone of a fighter plane was even featured in a book about that wartime art form. He acknowledges that art design has evolved, but is concerned that young illustrators and designers today “don’t ever learn to draw — they go right to CAD and Illustrator (computer graphics programs) without learning any of the basics.” Ken, at 90, paints most days, sometimes long into the night if he’s enjoying the challenge, and, using long held wood crafting skills, also mats and frames his own work. Ken sometimes turns to slow www.ncwgoodlife.com

drying, layer-able oil paint for very detailed subjects. But, he explains, at his best he’s a very fast painter, and he most often revels in the wash of colors and lively light quality of sheer watercolor. “I love the freedom of doing my own art now — any subject I want, any way I want to see it. But it’s still hard for me to break the rules.” He chuckles at one dilemma — a dark shadow in the fissure of a Columbia River cliff side. “It was really hard for me to admit that it was wasn’t an ‘earth tone’ at all. It was pure blue. But I just put ultramarine blue in there and it seemed to do the trick.” Ken enjoys his recently found artistic freedom, as do the admirers who seek out Duffin paintings. His watercolor work has drawn Best of Show accolades, and he’s pleased to be invited back to galleries in Chelan, the Methow and Wenatchee, where he’s often seen in Gallery 4 South and Two Rivers. — by Susan Lagsdin

column those were the days

rod molzahn

Froze out — the Hard Winter of 1889 Island across the Waterville plateau and into the Okanogan. Two feet of snow fell across the area on Nov. 7 and temperatures dropped into the teens. The snow kept falling as did the temperatures into December. By Christmas four to five feet of snow covered the ground. Mike Horan had come to the valley in early 1889 to build a home for his wife Margaret and their new son William. He put up a four-room house alongside his meat market. His family arrived in September, just two months ahead of the snow and cold. The Horans spent the winter living in just one of their four rooms — where the stove was. Mike Horan remembered that the snow cov-

ered the second string of barb wire on the fences. There was a short-lived thaw at the end of the month then conditions got worse. In January temperatures plummeted to 10, then 20 and 30 below zero, covering the snow with a hard thick crust that the stock could not dig or move through. Mike Horan recalled that there “was a crust on it that would bear up an ox over the entire county.” Everywhere cattle, horses and sheep began to starve and die. Horses ate the manes and tails of each other and cattle ate the hair from dead animals’ hides. They ate brush along the creeks and pine needles.

Farmers dug any forces have infludown through enced the development of North the crust and Central Washington. snow in the Geologic events created topoghopes of findraphy, soil and rivers. Early seting a handful of bunchgrass to tlers built farms, businesses and keep a starving animal alive for roads and the railroad brought another day. Men snowshoed distant markets in reach of the over Colockum Pass to Ellensarea’s agricultural bounty. burg to carry back sacks of flour That bounty, however, would for bread to feed to the last of not be what it is without the their cattle and horses. winter of 1889/90. It was called Cattle died by the thousands. the “Hard Winter” and the Norman Tichenal recalled that, “Heartbreaking Winter,” and it “Ninety per cent of the stock changed forever the character of died. They were piled five and North Central Washington. six deep all over the range.” Since white settlers had begun Near Ephrata, William Pate arriving in the early 1880s the lost all but 800 of his 4,000 winters had been mild with sheep. little snow and moderate temAt Rock Island, James Keane peratures. Cattle and horses lost his entire herd of nearly could graze all 2,000 Angus cattle. winter. Bunch grass The Browns in grew in abundance, Monitor, along taller than the with Jim Weythhorses’ knees. A man, had bought little could always 60 of Keane’s be cut for winter cattle the previous feed. summer. Only one It seemed an survived, saved, it’s ideal country for said, when George raising stock and Brown fed it the when the winter of straw from Weyth1889 began, large man’s mattress. herds of cattle and On Badger horses were comMountain the 30 A sparse and cold downtown Wenatchee in the 1890s offered little shelter from the storm. Photo from mon from Rock head of fine horses Wenatchee Valley Museum & Cultural Center #94-31-4

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| December 2011

People perished as well. Mr. Caruthers lost his life when he froze to death trying to snowshoe 20 miles from Waterville to his farm on Christmas day. given to William and Elizabeth Estes by her father for their wedding present all died. People perished as well. Mr. Caruthers lost his life when he froze to death trying to snowshoe 20 miles from Waterville to his farm on Christmas day. The Columbia River froze over. George Washington Blair, who, along with his partner, Christopher Columbus Rickman, operated the stage line between Ellensburg and Waterville recalled, “I was carrying the mail to Waterville. The Columbia froze over after large chunks of ice had broken and jammed. Chunks of ice were stacked four or five feet in the air. I had to pass between canyons of ice.” In February a storm left another four feet of snow in a single night and the temperatures stayed well below zero. Mrs. Virginia Herrmann in the Okanogan called it, “the severest weather known to presentday inhabitants. The thermometer must have been at 40 below zero and there were 13 successive days of blizzard.” Benedict Gubser in Conconully wrote in his diary that Frank Dudley had died of exposure. He had started on snowshoes from Loomis, taking a flask of gin with him, which was found empty about 30 steps from where the body was found. In Wenatchee, on the 17th of February, Philip Rose was born in the house his father, Conrad, had built the year before with

green lumber hauled from Ellensburg. Elizabeth Rose had tried everything all through the cold and bitter winter wind to plug the holes left by the shrinking and twisting lumber. The Rose family struggled to stay warm and finally resorted to burning their fence posts. In April there were still four feet of snow on the ground and settlers all across North Central Washington were running out of flour. Mike Horan recounted that, “George Blair, with the aid of his noble beast, Old Sam, and his freight wagon broke a road through the snow banks, 10 to 50 feet deep, across the mountains to Ellensburg where he loaded the enormous cargo of 1,000 pounds of flour. People came in row boats from so far away as the mouth of the Okanogan River to take some up the river with them.” The snow stayed on the ground till May. It had been 180 days since that first November storm. The “Hard Winter” had won and change came quickly to the valleys and plateaus of North Central Washington. In Monitor, George Richardson had planted apples instead of raising stock. Now as the bones of thousands of cattle, horses and sheep lay bleaching across the hills, Richardson’s apple trees thrived and his neighbors noticed. In the valleys fruit trees began to replace cattle. Leitha Coonan wrote of the Badger Mountain settlers, “After this heart breaking winter, their minds turned to raising wheat.” The “Hard Winter” of 1889 and ’90 had left its mark on the people and the land of North Central Washington. Historian, actor and teacher Rod Molzahn can be reached at shake. speak@frontier.com. His third history CD, Legends & Legacies Vol. III - Stories of Wenatchee and North Central Washington, is now available at the Wenatchee Valley Museum and Cultural Center and at other locations throughout the area. December 2011 | The Good Life

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FUN STUFF // check out these activities

A Wonderful Life on stage — Good Life

5 reasons to venture out The holiday season can be so

hectic — between checking off your Christmas gift list, planning the seasonal feast, dressing up the house, and this year, apparently shoveling snow so guests can come over. Sometimes, we get so busy that we forget that holidays should be fun. Yes, you read correctly: Fun. Between all of the have-tos and stress this month brings, give yourself permission to have some plain old-fashioned fun. And while we have a bundle of activities in this month’s What To Do list starting on page 35, here are a few that caught our eyes:

Smile Rover —

We always had trouble getting our kids to sit up straight and smile when having a photo taken with Santa, so now we are glad to see an alternative: Having your pet

photos taken with Santa. Petco invites you and your pet for a picture with the Jolly Elf on Fridays, Dec. 2 and 9, at 11 a.m. and Saturdays, Dec. 3 and 10 at 3 p.m. Cost is $8.95, with $5 going to the Wenatchee Valley Humane Society. Info: 662-9577.

It’s snowing crafts — Craft fairs are

big this time of year (what else are you going to get Auntie?), and one of the biggest is the Winter Craft Fair put on by the Wenatchee Golden Apple Band Boosters. More than 50 mostly local vendors will provide a variety of jewelry, stained glass, quilting, Christmas decor, team/ school items, scarves, blankets, pillows, hand painted items (wood, metal, glass), soaps, baked goods, baby sweaters and hats, wooden toys, and art. On Saturday, Dec. 3, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Wenatchee High School Commons. Info: Dianna Williams 630-6252.

columnist June Darling writes this month on the secret to life (see page 30), and makes a suggestion to see It’s A Wonderful Life. You could rent the movie, but you could also see a live version by Leavenworth Summer Theater at the Festhalle Theater in Leavenworth the first three weekends of December. Info: leavenworthsummertheater.org. Feel the message (and feel the goose bumps) when the angel tells the hero: “You see George, you’ve really had a wonderful life. Don’t you see what a mistake it would be to just throw it away?”

Festival on screen — Film festi-

vals can be great venue to see non-Hollywood movies made by dedicated filmmakers with something to say. The Backcountry Film Festival is a traveling event that promotes the work of grassroots filmmakers who tell compelling and entertaining stories of backcountry, non-motorized recreation and environmental preservation. (That last bit was a quote from the website, but you get the drift.) Thursday, Dec. 15, 6 p.m. at the Cashmere Riverside Center. Cost: $10.

Want jam with that muffin? —

Looking for an activity for kids? You might try If You Give a Moose a Muffin. In this sequel to The Magik Theatre’s 2009 hit If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, the young host is again run ragged by a surprise guest. Performing Arts Center. Monday, Dec. 19, 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. Cost: $18 adults, $15 senior and students. Info: pacwen.org.

Know of a special experience we should check out? Eating, drinking or playing, we want to know. Send us an e-mail at editor@ncwgoodlife.com

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