RIDING WITH HARRIET BULLITT Y EVENTS CALENDAR
WENATCHEE VALLEY’S
NUMBER ONE MAGAZINE
November 2013
‘As far as I am concerned, I’m just recycling metal before it goes to China, but people tell me it’s
Art’
Price: $3
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Contents
page 8
5 photographers pack into nature
Features
12 horseback riding with harriet
Harriet Bullitt holds strong beliefs about her childhood adventure land on Icicle River — and the will to make them happen
15 yellowstone park in the winter
A winter trip to this premiere national park reveals a wonderland in a snowy landscape. Oh, and watch out for buffalo on the roads
18 junk? No, art
Kelly Hough wanders through old ranch sites and hits rummage sales looking for scraps he can repurpose into whimsical art
20 bucket list item checked off Visiting the model of plane Dad went to war in
22 touring the loire valley
Chance encounter leads to a land, water and air visit to the beautiful Chateaux area of France
25 rory’s retreat
The once elegant Wenatchee Hotel is mostly home to businesses these days, but there is this one, hidden apartment...
ART SKETCHES
n Wheat weaver Ernestine Eggers, page 34 n Wenatchee flutist Suzanne Carr, page 39 Columns & Departments 28 Pet Pix: Kidding around with tiny goats 29 Bonnie Orr: Sometimes, you can accept substitutes 30 June Darling: Finally, the secret to success 32 The traveling doctor: Visiting spiritual Iona 34-39 Arts & Entertainment & a Dan McConnell cartoon 37 The night sky: Month of the comet 40 History: Who was the first settler? 42 Alex Saliby: Evolution of a wine lover
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OPENING SHOT
®
Year 7, Number 11 November 2013 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: facebook.com/pages/ The-Good-Life Editor/Publisher, Mike Cassidy Contributors, Kirby Hoyt, Jerri Barkley, Al Piecka, Catherine Kent, Rick Klinge, Robert Scott, Donna Cassidy, Bonnie Orr, Alex Saliby, Jim Brown, June Darling, Dan McConnell, Susan Lagsdin, Peter Lind and Rod Molzahn Advertising manager, Terry Smith Advertising sales, Lianne Taylor 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, Walgreens (Wenatchee and East Wenatchee), the Wenatchee Food Pavilion, Mike’s Meats, LA Market at Pybus, Martin’s Market Place (Cashmere) and A Book for All Seasons (Leavenworth) 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
The Good Life® is a registered trademark of NCW Good Life, LLC.
Good morning, rainbow
What work photography is!
Wenatchee businessman and photographer Kirby Hoyt had to roll out of bed to take this photo. He explains: “I had to fight laziness in bed to take it! “We are blessed with a farm on the mountain just south of Wenatchee and our bedroom is laid out perfectly because if you sit upright in bed to read you look straight through a set of French doors that basically has the view in the picture. “We constantly thank the architect that laid out and built our historic Wenatchee house in 1929 as it is perfectly fit to the ground taking advantage of our stunning views up and down the Columbia. “I was reading, observed the stunning rainbow, and thought it was nice but not good enough to get up, get dressed, find the camera. I took a picture with my iPhone from bed and observed the rainbow was actually getting more intense and I could now see the colors reflected in the Columbia. “The iPhone picture did not do it justice... so I did get up, quickly dressed and found my portable but better resolution camera and stepped out the bedroom French doors and took the picture. “My wife and I have been in Wenatchee for about 12 years and being here from the first minute was like coming home. My mother was born here as my grandfather had a men’s store with sporting goods in Downtown Wenatchee in the 1930s. His half-brother had a women’s apparel shop just a few shops down called McBride’s and it
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was open as late as the 1970s. “Around 1940 my grandfather moved his family to Seattle but lucky for me my mother was very close to her Wenatchee cousins and we came to visit them every summer. “The cousins had a cabin on Lake Wenatchee that my parents honeymooned at and I suspect I was conceived at! Us attending the lake and Wenatchee
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was a yearly event at our house and I always looked forward with giddiness to summer and coming here.”
On the cover
Editor Mike Cassidy took this photograph of Waterville artist Kelly Hough with Rosie, the pig sculpture Kelly made from scrap metal.
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editor’s notes
MIKE CASSIDY
Seeing ourselves in Rosie “You should start a Good
Life magazine in Vancouver,” said my sister-in-law brightly about the Southwest Washington city she lives in. Then downshifting her enthusiasm, she added, “But we don’t have as many interesting people in Vancouver as you do in Wenatchee.” Now while it’s true I haven’t done a scientific study of interesting people in Wenatchee visà-vis Vancouver, I would guess a The Good Life magazine there would be as successful there as it is here. But I understand the kernel of meaning to her statement. By featuring so many interesting stories of individuals we do seem to have a community of adventurous people in the Wenatchee Valley. Could I go so far as to say we are little like Rosie, the pig on this month’s cover created by Waterville artist Kelly Houge? I’ve glanced at the art piece depicting a pig many times, but it was only when I was placing the photo of Rosie and Kelly on the digital page of this month’s edition that I really closely observed just how many diverse
objects went into the pig. Take another look at the cover: See the coil heating element of a kitchen stove, surrounded in a giant horseshoe; see the door plates, the C-clamp, the rusty old wrenches, a radiator fan, two types of bottle openers, a hand-operated meat grinder like your grandmother used to have, a hammer’s head, and so much more. OK, that’s enough about Rosie here (you can read Kelly’s story on page 18), and it’s probably time to wrap up this metaphor. My point is that in a true community, each of us is like one piece fitted into a larger whole, and while each of us has many dimensions and histories in our all-too-human personalities, together we weld together into an engaging interlocking whole. And in the case of our Wenatchee Valley area, maybe my sister-in-law is correct — people who live here make a pretty fascinating cast of characters. You are wild and fun people. Enjoy The Good Life. — Mike
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fun stuff to do suggestions from the wenatchee valley chamber of commerce
What would you pick to do this November? H
oliday season is closing in on us and we begin thinking about local seasonal favorites such as The Festival of Trees, Christmas Tree Lighting, The Nutcracker performances and choir concerts. Maybe you will be involved in volunteering, busy with practice or decorating, planning and participating in your family’s traditions. So much to do, so little time.
The PAC season has begun — Tickets are available
online or at the box office, in advance or on the day of, if you are willing to risk it. n JJ Heller will be returning to the West Coast this fall with The LOVED Tour. Also featuring Jonny Diaz, singer/songwriter of the #1 single More Beautiful You, this amazing night of acoustic songs and stories includes special guest Beth Whitney. Friday, Nov. 1. Cost: $17. n Jason and the Argonauts, A Van Doren Sales Family Fun Series performance, Sunday, Nov. 17, at 2 p.m. Jason’s uncle isn’t exactly lovable… he’s murdered his brother (the king) and stolen the crown and now no one dares stand up to him. Things are about to get a major shake up though because Jason is BACK! After being banished as a baby, our wannabe hero returns to claim his
rightful throne and make some big changes. However, in ancient times nothing’s that straightforward. (Recommended for ages 9-plus)
Wenatchee First Fridays Art Walk — Friday,
Nov. 1, offers unique, up close and personal artist-to-consumer opportunities. Usual participants include the Wenatchee Valley Museum and Cultural Center, MAC Gallery at Wenatchee Valley College, Caffe Mela, Lemolo Café & Deli and The Wenatchee Valley Chamber of Commerce Visitors Center. Other businesses have incorporated activities on the same night adding to the fun such as Tumbleweed and Two Rivers Art Gallery. Most venues open until 8 p.m. or later. Location: throughout Wenatchee. Cost: Free.
Holiday Wine Walk
— Saturday, Nov. 9. The Wenatchee Downtown Association and Wenatchee Wine Country welcome wine enthusiasts into downtown stores to taste wine, and get ideas for holiday gifts from 1 p.m. – 6 p.m. The fun starts at Davis Furniture (125 S. Wenatchee Ave.) and Pak-it-Rite (126 N. Wenatchee Ave.) where guests can pick up souvenir glasses. Participants
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can then visit downtown merchants for holiday shopping ideas and purchase wines for holiday entertaining. Info: 669-5808, or www.wendowntown.org. Cost: 10 tastes for $20.
Wenatchee Valley Symphony Orchestra Autumn Splendor Soiree
— Saturday, Nov. 16, 7 p.m. Join music lovers at the Symphony’s autumn-themed musical soiree featuring symphony soloists and ensembles, wine tasting, hors d’oeuvres and desserts. Location: Wenatchee Valley Museum and Cultural Center. Cost: $35.
The Icicle Creek Center for the Arts in Leavenworth has stepped up with some amazing opportunities in the arts this month. n The Confluence Film Series feature on Thursday, Nov. 7, will be A Farm for the Future. 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Wildlife filmmaker Rebecca Hosking investigates how to transform her family’s farm in England to allow the next generation to farm the land. n The MET, live in HD. Two screenings of the Nov. 9 performance of Puccini’s Tosca, one at 9:55 a.m. and one at 7 p.m., will cover just about any schedule. Location: Snowy Owl Theatre, 7409 Icicle Road, Leavenworth
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n Enjoy a little bit of progressive bluegrass with The Black Lillies on Thursday, Nov. 14 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Snowy Owl Theatre. Lively picking and strumming. n Monday, Nov. 18, the Icicle Youth Symphony under the direction of Dan Jackson will perform this favorite fall concert from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. in the Snowy Owl Theater as well. n Another opportunity to visit this venue would be for the Icicle Creek Chamber Players and their Big Works Big Ideas performance on Saturday night, Nov. 23, from 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. The evening is divided into three parts with Part 1 featuring great works of chamber music by the world class artists. Part 2 will be intermission with wine. Part 3 is a conversation between the artists and the audience led by the erudite and dynamic classical music spokesman, Timothy Christie.
Turkey on the Run
— presented by Vista Rehab Therapy, Thursday, Nov. 28, at 9 a.m. 5k and 12k and half-mile kids run. Starting at Rotary Park this event is also a way to collect canned foods for our local food banks so please bring three nonperishable food items to the race. Proceeds go the Women’s Resource Center in Wenatchee. Girls on The Run also participate in this event, which consists of hundreds of local girls ages 8-12 who will run their first 5k. Each girl has an adult running buddy to guide them through her journey of health and fitness. Perfect activity before the turkey, right? Info: www.runwenatchee.com. — Compiled by Jerri Barkley, Wenatchee Valley Chamber of Commerce
coming up Typhoon Nov. 8, 7 p.m. The first ticketed concert at Pybus Market. The market will close at 6 p.m. and reopen at 7 p.m. for the concert. Typhoon is an 11-piece orchestral, indie-rock ensemble. Vendors will remain open. Tickets $15 advanced or $20 at the door. Info: events.caffemela.com. Pybus Market in Wenatchee. Holiday Artisan Fair Nov. 22-24. Over 50 local and regional vendors including crafts, holiday gifts, dÊcor, jewelry, art and more. Live music on Friday night 6 p.m. – 8 p.m., Saturday throughout the day, and craft classes presented by the Craft Warehouse of Wenatchee. The Farmers Market has been extended through December at Pybus Public Market. Come by with the family, and stock up on fresh fruits, veggies, salsas, honey, crafts and more.
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A pack train of eight mules bring in camp gear, food and photographic equipment.
5 photographers, 4 days in the Glacier Wilderness
& one Fred Story and Photos By Al Piecka
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e mounted our horses and started toward the Trinity trailhead when Fred turned toward us and said, “We (Icicle Outfitters) like to think we run a class outfit so remember to yell, ‘Tallyho the Fox,’ not, ‘There goes the little Bast##d.’”
He then gave us our one and only horse safety talk: “If you want to stay on the horse, always keep one leg on each side and your behind lower than your head.” With that he turned and we were off for four days at Buck Creek Pass and the Glacier Peak Wilderness area. When you have a love of photography and live in the
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Northwest with all its great high country opportunities, life could not be better. That is until you get older, a little heavier and just a little out of shape. Geologists say the Cascades are a young growing mountain range and it is amazing how much they have grown in the past 40 years. Carrying supplies for four to five days and all the camera gear you’d like
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to have along have made high country photo trips pretty much a delightful memory. I still want to enjoy the wilderness and needed to find a way to make it happen... maybe some gym could whip me into shape... but, being honest with myself, that ain’t going to happen. I contacted Icicle Outfitters to see what they might have to offer.
They had a number of high country horse trips but nothing seemed to fit my desired format for a photo trip. When I had just about given up they said they could do a custom trip for me if I wanted. I needed four more people and they would put it together. My criteria were simple: a great photogenic high country setting, three to four days in a drop camp, no daily horse riding, just walking around taking photos or just kicking back to enjoy the views. Without hesitation they said it could be done. Buck Creek Pass has a perfect unobstructed view of Glacier Peak, many adjacent peaks, numerous glaciers, spring high country flowers and possibly some interesting wildlife. They could take us in on horseback, pack in our gear on mules, set up camp and come and get us in four days. Sounded pretty good except I wasn’t particularly fond of having to cook, especially if I was going to concentrate on sunrise and sunset photography... no problem, they responded, we’ll send in Fred to stay with you to cook. My obvious questions was, what does he cook? The answer was a little vague: “Don’t worry, you won’t starve.” Oh well, how bad could it be? At this point I needed four more people to make the trip. To my surprise it didn’t take much more than a day or two and we had our group put together:
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Our Fred — Retired rodeo cowboy, gourmet camp cook and accomplished cowboy poet.
Ben Knecht, Terry Sorom, Jerry Billingsley and Karl Snyder. We had all done photo trips together over the past couple years — everything from Alaska to Peru. However this was a first. None of us are what you would call horse people any more. Terry and Ben said they would walk in if the mules carried their packs and so it was. The ride in was pleasant enough — for the first three hours. The next was a little uncomfortable, and the last half hour was spent thinking about the trip out and if I would ever
November 2013 | The Good Life
be able to walk again! The discomfort went away within a very short while as we began to set up camp. It took eight mules to bring in our camera gear, supplies and camp. The scenery was great but the real story ended up not being about photography as I had intended. Let me just tell you a little about how rough wilderness camping can get. You all know about freeze-dried foods, mac and cheese, Ramen noodles and other gourmet hike-in camp
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M-F 11 AM – 6 PM SAT 10 AM – 4 PM
tumbleweedbeadco.com facebook.com/tumbleweedstudio
Morning view of High Point Pass from camp. It was a great day hike to the other side to view glaciers of Glacier Peak.
}}} Continued from previous page foods? Well for breakfasts we had fresh eggs (any style) and hashbrowns, biscuits and sausage gravy with eggs and custom made omelets with potatoes. I’ll leave lunches for last as you will see why in a bit. Dinners were somewhat of a surprise. Try pork roast with red potatoes and fresh cut green beans and onions, blackened
chicken, green salad (tomatoes, onions, radishes, peppers, cheese, etc), chicken cordon bleu, rice pilaf, green salad. Now you can’t have dinner without dessert, right? We had the typical backcountry camp style desserts — freshly baked apple cobbler, peach cobbler (whipped cream included), and to top it off double chocolate pudding cake. The amazing thing is that all
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this was cooked in dutch ovens over/under charcoal. There was also always a large pot of camp coffee on the campfire. Guess I should also mention the merlot and cab wines and a little hard stuff to help us ward the flies off and help with my cough. (Ben and Terry are MD’s and said it would help.) I said I would hold lunches for later... well, although there was plenty for lunch, I don’t think
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anyone had room to eat them. We often had visitors for meals as the word quickly spread that Fred didn’t know how to cook for only six. Now as good a cook as he is, Fred has another amazing talent — story teller and cowboy poet. For four days he constantly had stories or poems about just about any subject we would be talking about. Again nearby campers would stop to listen
As the rain ended, the evening sky seemed to catch on fire.
to his cowboy poems. As for his stories, after he sucked you in thinking they were true, he always ended by saying, “I don’t lie, some things are just more true than others.” In between the eating and poetry, we did do some hiking and photography work. I can honestly say, it took back seat to just sitting around the camp. We have already decided that there is another trip somewhere in the high country next year. When it was time to pack up for the trip back, I could hardly contain my excitement looking forward to the ride. Surprisingly, it ended up being not as bad as the trip in. The only problem I had coming back was Fred kept leaning way over the side of his horse grabbing wild huckleberries from along side the trail and telling us how sweet they were
and how good his wife’s huckleberry pies were. Hey, if Fred could lean over the saddle to grab berries what the heck — then the safety instruction quickly flashed back about keeping your behind lower than your head! I’m convinced his horse was built differently than mine. I eventually did get one... somewhat smashed in the palm of my hand in the middle of a bunch of leaves. It was sweet! Al Piecka is a free lance photographer living in East Wenatchee who enjoys teaching and hosting photo trips. Contact abpiecka@hotmail. com.
After a hard day hiking and photographing the scenery, it was time to relax around the fire and enjoy some camp coffee and “cough syrup.” November 2013 | The Good Life
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Know of someone stepping off the beaten path in the search for fun and excitement? E-mail us at editor@ncwgoodlife.com
Happy trails up the Icicle Harriet Bullitt has been playing around these timbered trails since she was a girl... but she is serious about protecting and sharing this ‘beautiful part of the world’ By Susan Lagsdin
In faded blue jeans and helmet, Harriet
Bullitt mounted her Icelandic horse Leikn last summer, to guide her guest on the Fish Hatchery trails. Then she decided ambling at a walk was a waste of good pathway. “Let’s pick up the pace a little,” she said. “This is a good place for the tolt.” (The “tolt” is a lively four-beat gait, incredibly smooth and speedy). Secure on the little mare, she zipped ahead. When we came to the path angling to the shallow river crossing, Harriet slowed slightly to say, “This spot is a little tricky; it’s kind of steep, so watch out…” and then headed straight down. Yes, there are vintage bikers, hikers and skiers who’ve used the same cautionary words, but it still makes a person smile to hear them from a woman who’s been riding here since before the repeal of Prohibition. By the time a busy woman approaches 90, you’d think she’d rest comfortably on her laurels, let other people do the heavy lifting and indulge in some well-deserved recliner time. But Harriet Bullitt is going strong, with little hint of stopping. Harriet partially attributes her staying power to: “Luck to have good genes, to have been born in a home with a big garden near trees to climb and a beach to explore, and with freedom to do both.” When asked, “Where did you first ride?” Harriet quipped, ”On the front of my mother’s saddle,” but expanded with tales of beginner lessons at Jimmy Rainwater’s Olympic Riding Academy in Seattle, when
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Harriet Bullitt and Leikn, getting ready to go for a ride around her beloved Icicle River.
the north end of the city was pastures and timber. But when she was old enough, she thoroughly explored on horseback the timbered trails of the Icicle River. Just about every turn of every trail in the area is familiar to Harriet. It has been her playground, her home and her cause célèbre since the 1920s, when she and mother and siblings traveled from their Highlands (Seattle) home to spend vacations at the family retreat. Harriet said, “Mother told us there were | The Good Life
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four skills a girl needed to survive: play the piano, swim, handle a horse, and build a good fire.” She learned to do, and still does, all four. A sense of risky adventure may have come from that childhood, which involved tomboy pursuits and grew into independence untypical of the mid 20th Century. Her engineering degree work at the University of Washington halted in 1943 because, as she explained, “I was a girl, and they told me ‘these young men are serious students, Miss Bullitt, and must not be distracted.’”
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From an activist family, and firm in her own environmental ethic, Harriet works continuously with like-minded individuals and groups. After a time at Bennington College, marriage, travel, and medical coursework in Europe, she returned to Seattle in 1963 with two teenage children and reentered the UW for her Zoology degree. Single and self-supporting, Harriet was ready to leave city life in 1990. After selling her interest in the family broadcasting business (she stayed in the radio game with a few local stations here), she moved back home up the Icicle River.
ABOVE: The Snowy Owl Theater, a full-size performing arts venue with advanced seating, sound and lighting systems, opened this summer. It’s the third performance venue on Harriet Bullitt’s Icicle River property. Photo by Shane Wilder/Icicle TV. LEFT: Harriet created a nature design for her Empty Bowls work during the 2012 fundraiser. Photo by Michael’s Photography
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So began her proactive community involvement in Leavenworth and its environs. Knowing the 67-acre church camp adjacent to her family’s parcel was vulnerable to development, she purchased it and built Sleeping Lady resort as a retreat center and arts haven. From an activist family, and firm in her own environmental ethic, Harriet works continuously with like-minded individuals and groups. Her personal assistant for 13 years and currently the resort’s human resource director, Deb Hartl gave her this compliment: “When I go to work, I know it will be the same Harriet every time. No tiptoeing around, wondering… she has the same personality every day — what you see is what you get!” Harriet certainly doesn’t work solo, but she’s the driving force
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Harriet Bullitt }}} Continued from previous page in an evolving community. She acquired growth-threatened Barn Beach Reserve for nonprofit use, and she’s spearheaded a years-long fight to regain the integrity of the Icicle River she remembers from her youth. (“It’s not Icicle Creek, not Icicle Ditch!” she said) She remains deeply involved in the Sleeping Lady Foundation, the Icicle Fund (which supports the environment, the arts and history of the Wenatchee River watershed) and in the Icicle Creek Center for the Arts. Over the years, demonstrating her love of the arts and especially her unwavering support for musicians, Harriet has also made available to the public three performance venues on her property. The first was the property’s existing chapel, the second was the Canyon Wren Recital Hall and the most recent (inaugurated this summer) is The Snowy Owl Theater, a full-size performing arts venue with advanced seating, sound and lighting systems. Her visual arts life includes drawing, watercolor and especially pottery — she’s a constant learner in the studio built into the basement of her home. Upper Valley MEND’s Empty Bowls program is a perfect way for her to contribute (even more) to her community, and also indulge her lifelong love of wildlife with designs of horses, frogs and birds. Local potter and her ceramics mentor Terry Porlier tells the story of early on suggesting a technique to solve a problem with creating her bowls. Unknown to him, she actually conducted a series of experiments in her studio to test its effectiveness, and his expertise, before she accepted the advice. They remain friends and arts partners. Harriet, married again for 20
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We live in a beautiful part of the world... How lucky we are!” years, is engaged in the lives of her children and grandchildren, continues her active arts and civic life, walks the trails of home, rides her quick-stepping Icelandic ponies, throws pots, takes opera junkets to Seattle, and continues her active arts and civic life. She graciously underplays her two day jobs as “hospitality and broadcasting.” She penned for publication her personal hopes for Sleeping Lady in the far future: “I hope it will continue to improve in quality as a meeting place for people who wish to change the world and inspire themselves. I hope there will always be the peacefulness of nature, entertainment and great food, along with the creature comforts that everyone deserves. We live in a beautiful part of the world. I hope everyone takes care of it. How lucky we are!” Her friend Patti Erickson, also an artist and a horsewoman (and whose husband Ken manages the Sleeping Lady facilities) lives near the barn and arena and runs Mountain Icelandic Ranch with Harriet. Most days in three seasons, when Harriet’s ready to ride she’ll generally groom and tack up her own horse, but Patti accompanies her on the trails. She knows how much Harriet loves to re-explore the woods and paths of her childhood, and also understands how many demands there are on her time. Patti said, “Harriet is so involved in things, and she’s in contact with so many people — I realized part of my job is to shut out the world. Sometimes I have to say, ‘Put away the smart phone, Harriet. Let’s just have some fun on the horses.’”
YELLOWSTONE IN WINTER
By Catherine Kent
“They have
the right of way in the park,” said our driver Darla, slowing the snow-coach to a standstill. “Always.” We watched in silence as the bison made its unhurried way down the middle of the road straight toward us. Just before its big black muzzle touched the grille, it turned off to the right, passing the coach with a foot to spare. “They like to walk on the roads where the snow is packed down,” explained our guide Robin Park. “It’s easier for them to get around.” Our group was participating in Winter in Wonderland, a program sponsored by the Yellowstone Association Institute focused on learning, exploration and adventure in Yellowstone National Park’s winter wilderness. As a resident instructor for the Institute, Robin is a naturalist trained in geology, wildlife, general ecology and history as they relate to Yellowstone. She conducted our five-day program. Day 1: Our program began with an expedition to the Lamar Valley to view wildlife in Yellowstone’s Northern Range. A gathering of ravens in a small tree near the road alerted us to be on the lookout, and sure enough, down in the ditch I spotted a coyote on a recent road kill — probably a young elk. The coyote held its ground as we snapped his photograph
TOP: A Bison takes up the middle of the snow-covered road. ABOVE: Walkers follow snow-covered boardwalks at West Thumb Geyser Basin.
— food was too precious to abandon — and we left him to his prize. Bison were everywhere, lone individuals, small herds quite close to the road, and walking in long leisurely lines through November 2013 | The Good Life
the meadow. Two cow elk sat in the snow watching them go by. A pair of coyotes kept one group company, while in another the young males played butting games that would become real enough when they were old www.ncwgoodlife.com
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enough to mate. Along the Lamar River, American Dippers stationed at intervals like a telegraph line bobbed and dove, never losing ground to the current, and emerged moments later perfectly dry and calling to each other. Day 2: Robin took us cross-country skiing along the Tower Trail. The intermediate-level terrain posed varying degrees of difficulty for the group, but Robin kept us all going with the help of an instructor from the ski rental shop. True, some skis were shed at steep or icy parts, but after a bag lunch at a picnic area, we were rewarded with wonderful views of the Yellowstone River and frozen Tower Falls from high above the valley. Day 3: Geyser day — Yellowstone Park is home to two-thirds of all the geysers on the planet. We headed south from the Mammoth area, past Roaring Mountain wreathed in mist, to Norris Geyser Basin, the hottest in the park. Just beyond the handsome, rustic visitor’s center we came upon Emerald Hot Spring, steam enshrouded and surrounded by hoarfrost-covered “ghost” trees. The water is only as acidic as tomato juice, but it’s hot. With a nifty laser device, Robin measured the temperature as just a little below boiling. The magnificent green color results from the blue of the deep water
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One ranger told me the story of a man who was seriously gored when he failed to retreat from an approaching bison on the theory that “he was there first.” }}} Continued from previous page
(about 27 feet) and the yellow of the sulfur that coats the sides of the pool. Further on Echinus Geyser seethed under its coat of dark mineral deposits thought by early explorers to resemble spiny sea creatures called Echinoderms. Once erupting regularly to heights of 125 feet, Echinus lost vitality in 1997, but it’s still considered the largest active acid geyser in the world. (Most geysers are alkaline.) Steamboat holds the record for the world’s largest active geyser with a steam phase that can be heard for miles around and plumes reaching 380 feet. It last erupted in 1991, and for our visit it sizzled and spit, emitting small jets of steam and trickles of boiling water. It seemed to say, “I’m not erupting right now, but I’m very much alive!” After lunch at the Madison Warming Hut, we continued South to Fountain Paint Pots in the Lower Geyser Basin where we found beautiful blue Silex Spring, named for the word “silica” in Latin. Further along, we came to Red Spouter, an aptly named combination of hot spring, mudpot and fumarole. A fumarole is a vent in the earth through which steam and carbon dioxide escape with sounds that vary from a snore to heavy breathing. It’s the third type of geothermal feature in the park, after geysers and hot springs. We watched as Red Spouter steamed and bubbled brick red
TOP: Circulating around the volcanic rocks below, the hot water in Silex Spring dissolves the silica that lines the bottom — which accounts for the beautiful blue color. ABOVE: Young bison tussle in the Lamar Valley.
blisters of mud. Clepsydra Geyser, named for a Greek water clock because of its regularity, sent clouds of steam sailing over much of the Lower Geyser Basin while splashing water a few feet high. That afternoon, we checked into the Old Faithful Snow
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Lodge close to the Visitor’s Center. Just beyond, Old Faithful was about to erupt. Its interval is anywhere from 35 to 120 minutes and the eruption lasts up to five minutes. We joined the small crowd on benches around Old Faithful’s plateau and watched water and steam
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rush into the air in a beautiful white plume 90 feet tall. Day 4: The program called for a crosscountry ski trip to Lone Star Geyser, but instead I decided to explore the Upper Geyser Basin — home to the largest concentration of geysers in the world — on my own. A short distance from the visitor’s center, I came upon the imposing gray cone of Castle Geyser. It is believed to be the oldest geyser in the park because of the time required to build up a cone fully 12 feet high and 24 feet across. Several people sat on viewing benches facing Castle, and one volunteered that it was scheduled to erupt within the next two hours. I sat down. Forty-five minutes later, we got lucky and Castle put on a sound-and-steam-and water show lasting more than 20 minutes. Back at Old Faithful, a crowd had gathered for the next eruption.. Just then a smallish herd of bison wandered over and park rangers rushed out to shoo the crowd a safe distance away. One ranger told me the story of a man who was seriously gored when he failed to retreat from an approaching bison on the theory that “he was there first.” Around behind Old Faithful and across the Firehole River I came to Anemone Geyser, two mustard-yellow rosettes, and waited 10 minutes for it to erupt with fountains of water a few feet high. Nearby, Beehive Geyser has a narrow four foot-high cone like the nozzle of a hose. Further
The snow stopped and a cloudy sun illuminated the glistening landscape and ice-sparkled trees. on, pale blue Heart Spring, about 10 feet across, shimmered in the general shape of a human heart. Then free-form Doublet Pool spilled out in a series of ledges pea-green to dark blue. I followed a sign for Ear Spring, and it really is shaped just like an ear about 15 feet from top to bottom. Orange and ocher ribbons of cyanobacteria An elk walks through the sunset near Mammoth Hot Springs. that can live in waters as hot as 167 degrees fanned out featured in the folklore of native “Hurry up!” he urged, “before from the spring. tribes. I could see why; no tellthe next one walks into the These living mats of color sup- ing what might come out of that lobby.” port several kinds of flies that hole. Catherine Kent was born in Philadelform the basis of a food chain Close by, the Mud Volcano phia and pursued a career in marfor mites, spiders, other insects lived up to its name with restless keting communications. She moved to Lake Chelan in 2008 and enjoys and birds. bubbles of gray goo. travel adventures of all kinds with Day 5: It was snowing when At the Upper Falls of the her husband, Fred Weiss. we crossed the Continental Dicanyon, the cascade was 109 feet vide on the way to West Thumb high and cloaked with frost. A Geyser Basin on the shores of lookout point offered sweepYellowstone Lake, the largest ing views of the canyon with its lake in North America above ice-clogged river, pink walls and 7,000 feet. mantel of firs. The snow stopped and a Further north, the Lower Falls, cloudy sun illuminated the at 308 feet, is nearly twice as glistening landscape and icehigh as Niagara. sparkled trees. We took the Darla’s snowcoach brought us snow-covered boardwalk past back to Mammoth Hot Springs Seismograph Pool, blue and irto conclude our Winter in Wonregular, named for a supposed derland program. ability to “register” volcanic There we found bison in activity. twos and threes plodding right Further along the lakeshore, through the hotel’s covered enshrouded in snow, Fishing Cone trance drive. Geyser emerged oval and elAware of who has the right of egant. way in the park, we waited until Robin explained that early they had moved off. visitors, fishing nearby, would Just as we began to unpack sometimes cook their catch by our gear, another wave of bidangling the fish right in its son drifted by both sides of the cone. coach. “Don’t move!” whispered Heading for the Grand Canyon Darla. of the Yellowstone, we stopped Not much chance of that; we at Black Dragon’s Caldron, a cave were frozen in place. The bison emitting gusts of steam, boiling kept coming. water and fearsome roars. When we were finally able to Definitely not pretty, but make a break for the entrance, impressive and prominently my husband Fred held the door. November 2013 | The Good Life
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Kelly likes his pieces — such as these old tools — good and rusty.
From one man’s
junk Kelly Hough makes whimsical
Art
By Susan Lagsdin
If you call Kelly Hough an
artist, he’s likely to playfully turn the word to artiste and squirm a little, in a kind of an aw-shucks demurral that belies his creativity. He maintains he’s “just a
Kelly Hough in his Waterville shop: Finding a creative use for other people’s throw-aways.
recycler” and “puts junk metal together.” It wasn’t until a few people he trusted (like the folks at Waterville’s Blue Rooster Gallery and a dozen more) told him he was an artist that he really started to believe it. By now, 600 and a few more objects d’arte into his retirement career, he’s finally realized he’s
onto something. Individual collectors keep coming back for his whimsical metal pieces. One ultimately paid $1,700 for found-object and antlered deer heads, and he’s sold dozens of cultivating disc and shock-absorber donkeys, half propane tank fountains and other arcane but recognizable figures — all from the stuff that
most people throw away. Kelly’s biggest and most visible claim to fame is his pig, Rosie, a commissioned piece that welcomes BBQ and beer patrons into Country Boys/Badger Mountain Brewery on Orondo Street in Wenatchee. Kelly labored on Rosie for three winter months in his small garageturned-metal shop.
A slideshow of Kelly’s art
From left: A pterodactyl (a flying dinosaur not often seen in Waterville) patrols Kelly’s yard; a rose with a shiny rusty oil can for a base and a roping cowboy.
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ville for an affordable place to settle down. Kelly found one such place. “I stood on this porch, looked out at the hills — there was no sound of kids, no sound of cars. It felt just like Winthrop in the ’50s. I said, ‘I want it.’” He moved in to his new house with an array Nose is the of antiques, oil center part of lamps, basketry an automatic and blued bottles, door closure. (“I western artifacts, used whatever I crosscut saws and can dig up,” said hand tools. Kelly.) And then he started in earnest to follow his Face is a number intuition. “Twenty2 shovel. The five years ago my cheeks have folks gave me a pair been polished to of these stork lawn give the sweaty ornaments someappearance body had made out of of a working metal. I figured, hell, musician. I can build something Lips are scraps like that!” from Barnes And so he did. Welding in He’s stayed close to home, Waterville maybe venturing out for oneleft over from day art shows to Lone Pine in making bearings. Orondo, Apple Annie’s in Cashmere, setting up his booth in the Waterville city park a few weekends a year. But people find him. Kelly remembers that a tourist, who’d seen his work one day in the Waterville park and missed him the second day, drove up to the house and said, ”I want your cowboy!” For $360 he got it. This self-taught welder and wielder of metal, lives computer free, devoid of art school artifice. He’s got the time and temperament to experiment hands-on. The mixed blessing of retirement (“That means now I work seven days a week,” he quipped) The completed Louis Armstrong: His means the luxury of messing horn is off an International wheat around with his stash of metals. truck, the mouth piece is from a His creativity is pragmatic, French horn Kelly bought at the Waand it gets results. terville thrift shop, and the rest are “You just pick up a piece, hold odds and ends from around his shop. it up — and maybe you say ‘hey, On a whim, he sold his two that ain’t gonna fit,’ and go get lots and house in Cashmere, and another one. Sooner or later it six years ago looked in Watercomes together.”
how kelly created louis armstrong’s face from scrap
“Twenty-five years ago Hair is a piece of my folks chain probably gave me a from an old piece of farm pair of equipment. these stork lawn ornaments somebody had made out of metal. I Eyebrows are figured, brakes hell, I can rubber off a bicycle. build someare fender thing like Eyes washers. that!”
“You should have seen Mouth is part of me,” he gestured to the a push rod from tightly packed shelves of the tappets of an tools and implements, the engine. welder, the workbenches. kinds,” he said, “I’d work on one side of her, rummaging through then roll ’er over a few feet and wood boxes in the shed, “and work on the other side. It was here’s a caboodle of screwdrivpretty close in here.” ers.” Not tools for working Keeping himself in metal piec- metal, but for creating figures. es doesn’t appear to be a probHe held up a massive and very lem, but he still cruises antique old monkey wrench. “Some guy stores, thrift shops, swap meets saw this and said, ‘Wait — you’re and farmer’s fields (by permisgonna ruin an antique!’ But, sion) for anything — really, just heck, it didn’t cost me much, about anything — that is metal and I figured it would’ve been and about to be trash. recycled to China anyway.” Shelved outdoors near his Kelly is a Winthrop native. He shop, 42 plastic bins are each attended high school there and jammed with discrete objects, worked road construction — the older and more decrepit the his last job before leaving was better. grading the right of way on the Any chunk or shard of metal North Cross State highway in can find a place at Kelly’s, but he 1974. Ironically, it was that year doesn’t buy new and he avoids that life changed in the Methow shiny. and for Kelly. On the outside worktable, a “I finally left when I could big metal bucket brims with his look up and down the street and magic rusting potion: pickling see 300 people and not recogsalt and water. He’s looking into nize any of them.” He worked upgrading to some of the DOT’s in the region fruit packing and road de-icer, guaranteed to in construction and eventually create a well-worn look on any figured he’d be able to find work piece of metal that missed out in Wenatchee. (“But then the on the aging process. slump came, and it was crawling “I’ve got a mess of tools, all with carpenters.”) November 2013 | The Good Life
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Herman ‘Dick” Klinge peers out from the pilot seat of his amphibious PBY Catalina.
BUCKET WISH LIST
Visiting an amphibious PBY Catalina — the plane Dad went to war in By Rick Klinge
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hen I was a boy, I listened to my dad talk about being a pilot in the South Pacific during World War II. And throughout most of my adult life I have wanted to see a restored version of the amphibious PBY Catalina dad flew. I had only seen photos of this plane my entire life. There just are not many around anymore. But on Aug. 12, I got a bucket list wish fulfilled by traveling to Moses Lake to see the last PBY to come off the assembly line. The plane is undergoing restoration at the airport. The timing was fortunate because I am currently struggling with a life-threatening bone marrow illness. Airport staff Carol Gibson and Rich Mueller accompanied my wife Rose, our neighbor, Dave Burnett, and me to view the Navy plane that was a workhorse in the South Pacific.
Retired airport manager David Bailey said there had been as many as six PBY’s at one time at the Moses Lake Airport. They were used for fighting forest fires. The planes were fitted with a pipe that when lowered from the belly of the plane allowed the pilot to scoop up water from a river or lake while flying low. The water was held in the belly of the plane until it was released over the fire. Dad was Herman “Dick” Klinge, who graduated from Navy flight school in Corpus Christi, Texas on Dec. 7, 1941, the day Pearl Harbor was bombed. The past few years, I have reviewed my dad’s flight log that shows the hours of fly time, destination, crew and note on any passengers. Dad started his duties in the South Pacific by flying patrols around the Hawaiian Islands in March 1942. I remember my dad saying the U.S. military thought the Japanese
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would try to capture the islands after the destruction they did to Pearl Harbor. His first exposure to the combat was the Battle of Midway in May 1942 when his plane and crew were assigned to patrol duty around Midway and the rescue of any downed fighter pilots who ditched their battle damaged planes in the Pacific. Lt. Klinge’s PBY spotted and rescued Ensign George Gay of torpedo squadron 8 from the carrier USS Hornet. Ensign Gay was the only surviving pilot from the Hornet. Dad said the 1976 movie Midway was not accurate as the film showed picking up the downed pilot in a very calm Pacific Ocean. The reality was a large storm earlier in the week had the seas full of large waves. Both landing and take-off with an amphibious plane on a rough sea was very tricky. Dad also flew in the battle of Guadalcanal plus many skirmishes in the Philippines and
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Papua New Guinea Islands. One particular pilot rescue was off of the northeast tip of New Britain Island, part of Papua New Guinea. Escorted by 12 fighter planes, Dad and his PBY crew flew in to pick up a downed fighter pilot who was in his life raft a quarter mile from shore. As soon as the PBY landed on the water, the enemy shore batteries opened up. One threeinch shell hit in the plane and severed controls to the rudder and elevator. Three attempts were made to rescue the downed pilot but rescue was impossible due to the lack of rudder control. Then a second F4U fighter plane was shot down by the enemy. Meanwhile, with shells hitting the PBY, the plane started to take on a lot of water. With the possibility that Dad could lose his plane and entire crew, he decided to leave the immediate area and taxied with full throttle. The PBY became airborne as
Rick Klinge gets to tour a PBY Catalina undergoing restoration at Moses Lake. At left is a PBY in flight.
the crew tossed out everything heavy and water drained out through the new bullet holes. By alternating throttles to the two 1,200 HP engines the plane was flown back to an island base, landed on the water and beached before it could sink. The two downed fighter pilots were rescued by another PBY that day. Lt. Klinge was awarded the Silver Star for keeping his crew unharmed. The entire crew received Air Metals for their part in this attempted rescue. I remember my father saying of the 150 plus airmen in his flight class back on graduation
day in 1941, there were only three survivors at the end of the war. The PBY that is being restored in Moses Lake has an interesting history. It was delivered to the Navy in September 1945, a month after WWII was over. It was assigned to the Pensacola Air Station in Florida, then reassigned to Sand Point Naval Air Station in Seattle and then to Hawaii for a short time. Then for several years it was mothballed in the Arizona desert. Then there were several attempts to use the plane in non-military tasks by fighting November 2013 | The Good Life
forest fires, but was never fitted with the necessary equipment to collect water off a lake or river. For the past 15 years, the plane has been owned by a private individual. The plans for this plane are to restore it to the intended military capacity. It is fitted with a radar — a new technology for the Second World War — original old tube radios and the three defense guns. The plane has two 1,200 HP engines. My dad would praise the reliability of those two engines. Though the plane had a slow cruising speed of 125 mph — it would take nearly 20 hours to fly from Los Angeles to the Hawaiian Islands — it had a tremendous range of flight, 3,730 miles, close to 30 hours of flight time. The plane had a crew of seven, with a pilot, co-pilot, radioman, navigator, two gunners and a flight engineer. Other PBY’s that have been restored can be seen in the Tillamook Air Museum in Oregon and at the PBY Memorial Foundation at Oak Harbor. As I walked up to the plane in Moses Lake and touched the fuselage, it struck me how much time my Dad spent in this plane. His flight log showed a record of over 2,500 hours in a PBY as a pilot from flight school to the end of the war. The plane was his home, his office, his sanctuary, his command post for battle and his rescue station for those he picked up out of the Pacific. I wished I could ask him some questions as I stood next to the plane that was being restored. Seeing this restoration project brought back memories of our time together and made the visit all that more real for me. Rick Klinge worked as a fisheries biologist with Douglas County PUD between 1990 and 2009. His work addressed fish passage at Wells Dam near Pateros. He took an early retirement due to a bone marrow disorder. Today in his spare time, Rick’s enjoys water color painting. Rick and his wife Rose live in Wenatchee.
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TOURING THE LOIRE VALLEY chance encounter leads to an ‘insider’s’ trip to beautiful chateaux area of france By Robert Scott
B
y land, water and air I toured the Loire Valley in France this summer. This trip resulted from a chance encounter in a zoo in Cusco, Peru where I was volunteering this past January. There I met Manon, a young French woman who was also a volunteer in this zoo. Manon is a professional tour guide employed by RiverLoire, a travel agency located in the Loire Valley. This August she had a gap in her schedule and she offered to show me around. The Loire Valley lies in the central part of France, one and a half hour west of Paris by train, and about 200 miles from the Atlantic. This area is famous for its magnificent chateaux, which can be found up and down the Loire River and its tributaries. These chateaux, the majority of which were constructed from around the 1400s to the 1600s, are built on the sites of former fortresses. Originally serving as homes for French kings and noblemen, they are now in private ownership or maintained by the French government. During my 10 days in the Loire Valley, I was able to visit six of them, all of which were striking and each of which possessed
ABOVE: Floating over the Loire Valley, occasionally waving to French families enjoying a glass of wine in their backyards. LEFT: Robert Scott visits Chenonceau, which was once the home of the mistress of King Henry II.
unique characteristics. For example, the gardens of Chateau de Villandry rival any garden I have seen, including the Busch Gardens in Victoria. And the Chateau de Chenonceau spans the Cher River, a tributary of the Loire.
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Chenonceau has a colorful history. One of the initial inhabitants of Chenonceau was the mistress of King Henry II of France in 1547, but this chateau also served as hospital during World War I. And during the Second
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World War, Chenonceau provided an escape route over the Cher for the French seeking to evade Germans. A good half day is necessary in order to fully appreciate its many, exquisitely restored rooms, each telling a story of the multiple occupants who called Chenonceau home. During the hundreds of years these chateaux functioned as residences, they passed through numerous ownerships and each new resident remodeled his newly-acquired home in the style of the times. The Chateau Royal Blois dramatically exhibits these stylistic changes. From its courtyard, Manon with her art history background, was able to show me the Chateau’s four distinct
And with Manon I wandered over to Clos Lucé, a manor house in which Leonardo de Vinci spent his last three years. architectures; medieval, gothic, renaissance and classic. The paintings, tapestry and furniture found in the Loire Valley chateaux also reflect this same artistic evolution. Chenonceau is such a magnificent structure that I could not pass up the opportunity to see it twice, the second time from river level. So Manon and I together with her brother Yann rented a canoe at Civray-de-Touraine, got shuttled upriver to Montrichard, and then spent a leisurely day paddling 12 kilometers down the Cher back to Civray-deTouraine. There are two locks on this stretch of the river, one of which we floated over and the other we portaged around using a dolly provided by the outfitter. After stopping for lunch at an abandoned campground, we passed through an arch under Chenonceau, the same arch through which food staples were hoisted up to the kitchen when this Chateau was inhabited. This was Yann’s final fling
The Garden of Love at Chateau de Villandry lives up to its name.
before heading off to college to begin studying geology. And although Manon is fluent in English (as well as Spanish), I think she was grateful to have someone with whom she could converse in her native French. During my time in France I lived in Amboise, a small town lying on both sides of the Loire River. On foot I explored Amboise, walking its cobblestone streets to visit its most famous feature, the Chateau d’ Amboise sitting
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on a hill overlooking the Loire and dominating the surrounding country. And with Manon I wandered over to Clos Lucé, a manor house in which Leonardo de Vinci spent his last three years. On the grounds of Clos Lucé is museum containing working models of his numerous inventions, and I was amazed at how ingenious and farsighted were this Italian’s ideas. Another attraction of Amboise is its great farmer’s market.
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Open on Fridays and Sundays, this market carries fish from the Atlantic Coast, fine cheese from the local area, and fresh fruits and vegetables. I saw Bartletts, Jonagolds, Goldens, and Pink Ladies in this market, which is not surprising as Amboise shares the same latitude as Wenatchee and is immediately adjacent to France’s Anjou region. Amboise also has developed
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TOURING THE LOIRE VALLEY }}} Continued from previous page a well-deserved reputation as a cycling center. The terrain is virtually flat here, and multiple routes are available from the town. We rented bikes in Amboise and cycled 20 kilometers up the Loire to Chaumont, stopping for lunch in a small, day campground on the way. We crossed over the Loire at Chaumont and then turned south at Onzain to bike back to Amboise. This entire route is extremely biker-friendly; part of the trip upriver is on a paved cycling trail, and the remainder of the journey travels on back country farm roads where what little traffic one finds is very courteous. Cycling around Amboise enables one to see a portion of France’s extensive agricultural industry. We passed through numerous vineyards and fields of corn, melons, rapeseed and sunflowers. (Someone with a unique sense of humor had systematically removed seeds from several sunflowers so as to create smiley faces on these dinner-plate sized flowers.) Manon and I had previewed our cycling route the previous day, during an hour-long, hot-air balloon flight from Chaumont to Amboise. On a perfect Loire Valley summer evening we floated down-
Manon at Chenonceau — The author and Manon kayaked through one of the arcs the chateau.
river with 16 other balloonists, traveling leisurely over the Loire, rising as high as a 1,000 feet and then dropping down to under 500 feet to receive waves from folks gliding down the Loire on a tour boat and from families enjoying a glass of wine in their backyards. After an hour of cruising over picturesque, irrigated farmland and enjoying a glass wine provided by the pilot Federico, we bumped down in an uncultivated field just outside of Amboise. For visitors using Amboise as their base, a delightful change of pace is a visit to the Zoo Parc de Beauval, a truly world-class zoo
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an hour’s drive from Amboise. We spent an entire day touring Beauval, during which I saw my first snow leopard and enjoyed watching Beauval’s birds of prey and its sea lions entertain large crowds with their amazing acrobatic stunts. Although there are many towns in which to stay while visiting the Loire Valley, Amboise possesses a unique attraction. Each Wednesday and Saturday night during the summer the citizens of Amboise perform what they accurately describe as a “Spectacle.” For two hours more than 350 actors dressed in brightly
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colored period costumes depict a series of events in the history of Amboise from the 15th and 16th centuries. A La Cour du Roy (In the King’s Court) set on the grounds of Chateau d’ Amboise features acrobats, live horses, and exciting fireworks. However, the most fascinating aspect is its amazing light show, displayed in multiple colors over the walls of the Chateau. So spectacular was this light show I was compelled to see A La Cour du Roy twice.
Robbie Scott is a retired attorney who devotes his leisure time to outdoor activities and writing fiction and non-fiction.
RORY’S RETREAT THIS LAST LIVING SPACE IN A FORMERLY ELEGANT WENATCHEE HOTEL IS LOOKING AT A NEW LIFE By Susan Lagsdin Photos by Donna Cassidy
“Being right downtown is
great,” said Rory Turner of the old Wenatchee Hotel building at the corner of Wenatchee Avenue and Orondo. “You can just stroll out the door to the park, down to music at Mela, maybe catch a movie on the spur of the moment. And sometimes when I’m up at the new house mowing my lawn, I think — why am I doing this? Yeah, I really miss this place.” He gazed affectionately around the 900 square foot apartment he used to live in between work trips, his alwaysavailable but easy-care urban digs. Rory and his wife Laurel recently purchased a place near the west Wenatchee hills, but he still dreams of the future of this tidy little space, steeped in history, easy to love. Rory has been finding and improving properties for 35 years, fresh out of college at Central Washington University, and Laurel works in the construction industry. He’s a proactive landlord, and knows that
Gracious entry doors welcome visitors into the main social area — and it’s ready for anything from a special-occasion dinner party to a stand-up reception that spills into the hallway. Above is the exterior of the building, once known as the Wenatchee Hotel.
giving a hand up to small local enterprise is a way of growing Wenatchee.
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He also believes in “encouraging good people to settle into key properties in key locations
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— it’s a form of civic leadership.” Back in the Valley since 1995,
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it the 1960s) developers were bent on modernizing, and the demand for downtown housing, overnight or permanent, was plummeting. }}} Continued from This once elegant previous page Wenatchee Hotel, the couple’s combined built on the corner of energies are about hope Wenatchee Avenue and potential, and the and Orondo in 1910, currently unrented secwas severely remodtion of their old buildeled, as were many ing has become a pet of its peers, to proproject wide open to vide commercial space creative possibilities. and so became hardly In close proximity to a recognizable. The dozen contented tentwin towers full of ants (Sandberg Jewelhallways and guesters since 1940, more rooms were demolrecently North 40 and ished. The remaining India House), the small street front with its apartment that Rory retail tenants all in a likens to a European row (Tony’s Tavern, pied-a-terre awaits its Western Union, et al) future. But the building was clad in metal and definitely has a past to decorated with boxy contend with. Rory’s full of plans for this space and others, so the blackboard doodles in the kitchen are likely to faux roofs. In the dubious wisdom hold a good solution to some design dilemma, somewhere. But more recently, of a bygone era (we call historic preservation sensibilities coupled with a need for urban infill have led a series of owners to bring the Wenatchee Hotel (along with other buildings of its era) back to a semblance of its former glory — a dignified and respectable presence on the block. Rory is enthusiastic about the vintage charm and obvious utility of this particular ready-touse space. It once housed former owners on a whole floor, 2,000 square feet with a warren of living areas and hallways. But good tenants were found to fill many of the peripheral rooms, and so the apartment was carved down to a workable size. It now consists of one main drawing room/parlor/great room, a spacious open kitchen, and a diminutive sleeping space and full bathroom. That cozy guest suite, soon to include a hideaway Murphy-style bed, is tucked into a shallow alcove, with a gauzy copper curtain drawn across its archway.
RORY’S RETREAT
NCW Home Professionals
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The old hotel still retains signs of its early days. Here a pass-through clearly frames not only bricked-in windows but an iron ladder (workable but pretty awkward) to the roof.
Rory led this interviewer through an easy maze: enter the garage with automatic doors on Orondo, walk down a hall past the utility room, go up a staircase, pass some storage cupboards, walk down the hall past a few tenants’ secondary exit doors. Or, step into the foyer on Wenatchee Avenue and follow the hallway back and back, around corners, to the same destination. Or take the alley door and step right upstairs onto the kitchen landing. Catch the faint but fantastic scent of tamarind sauce from the Indian restaurant, and you’re home. But at this point in time, Rory has a dilemma — having moved into a larger house and out of this part-time apartment, he is considering its highest and best use. Adding square footage back into the equation seems like an option. But because he champions small local businesses — having financed a few — and enjoys watching their success, he won’t disturb his retail tenants by expanding laterally into their sunnier rooms.
Vertical expansion is possible. The original owners used brick, lots of it (they owned the brick factory) and the building is guaranteed sturdy. He said, “We could go up. This building is strong enough to easily hold up another two stories. No problem.” Both of those options would take considerable time and toil, and Rory hopes for immediate use. Something that’s lacking, he explained, is an intimate space downtown, not necessarily an eating and drinking establishment, for business and non-profit groups to gather. He’d like to fill that need, so he’ll finish and furnish the suite and keep it flexible. Instead of enlarging, he’s enlisting his imagination to enhance the vintage-chic vibe of the place with its small footprint but tall (13 foot) ceilings and its walls of brick and stucco. Adding some 1920’s era tapestries and commissioned artwork are a possibility, or he might create wall art from several thousand volumes he inherited from a former bookstore. Maybe he’ll open up brickedin windows to reveal more sky, November 2013 | The Good Life
Speaking of the kitchen with its sunny lace-curtained window, Rory said, “This is really the heart of the place — it’s so easy to just settle in here and hang out for a while.”
perhaps curl a staircase from the alleyway entrance on up to the roof level. Whether close friends and family spend the night after a day of skiing, a new non-profit group hosts a donor party, or
a local winery shares its finest new bottles with buyers, Rory is sure this charming remnant of downtown’s past, the little space tucked into the back of the Wenatchee Hotel building, will take on a new life of its own. MOVING TO NEW ZEALAND Y ROBOT SURGERY Y BEST LOCAL EVENTS CALENDAR
June 2010 n Cover price: $3
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TEACHING THE OLD WAYS NATIVE LIFE UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL
PET PIX
Submit pet & owner pictures to: editor@ncwgoodlife.com
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n a fresh spring day Callie and I hiked up Castle Rock with friends. It was a fabulous hike with plenty of fascinating sights and smells for dogs. Here we are at the top of our world. Callie is my first dog and I adopted her from the Humane Society when she was one. She is a curious mix, possibly basengi and cattle dog. Favorite games include fetching the rubber tire, the ball, a stick, or anything that can be thrown well. She can also jump high, very high, for popcorn. Her mood ranges between happy and ecstatic. What could be better than a dog, a trail, and a sunny day? — Corinne Bassett
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his is my 9-year-old daughter Malia Mooney from Wenatchee. We were goat sitting for my boss, Dr. Shawna Bais, owner of Paws & Claws Veterinary Hospital located in East Wenatchee. These are her baby Nigerian dwarf goats. She has the goats for her kids to play with. The goat kids enjoy playing also. And they thought Malia tasted pretty good! — Joanne Renteria
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column GARDEN OF DELIGHTS
bonnie orr
Missing an ingredient? Subs to the rescue But for some, there are no substitutes
It only happens when you are
in a last-minute cooking rush — and you have not read all the way through the recipe before you started — and there it is — something that is not in your cupboard. And running to the store for merely one item is so 1990s! That is why you have a little cheat sheet of substitutes. For example, one cup of all purpose flour plus 1 and a 1/2 teaspoons baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon salt will replace the one cup of self-rising flour you need this morning at 6 a.m. to make those fluffy scones to-diefor to serve to your mother-inlaw. And 2 tablespoons cocoa powder plus 1 tablespoon butter will make one square of baking chocolate — thank heavens for that tidbit. Yes, there are times for substitution — and then there are times that there are no substitutions. I gathered thoughts from some of my cooking friends. They know some substitutions imperil taste and create a substandard result. That sounds so formidable doesn’t it? But it is true. Little ingredients make or break a dish. Thank heavens, I have a freezer so I can grab a pack of ingredients that I have frozen as individual cubes and placed in a Ziploc bag. I have frozen some things very flat in a Ziploc so that I can break off a few tablespoons of tomato paste, for example, that I need. I buy lemons or limes when
last much longer. We can grow most herbs in NCW. Drying the herbs causes them to lose much of their aroma and taste. Chopping and freezing will keep them useable for about seven months. Here are other ingredients that should not be substituted. n Balsamic vinegar n Sesame oil n Cilantro When you don’t have the exact ingredient that is called for in a recipe, it’s nice to have some n Actual vanilla possible substitutes on hand. bean they are plentiful in January, convenient, but provide a flat, n Angostora Bitters grate off the zest and put it in metallic taste to your dish. Use And, when it calls for shallots, a bag, and then juice the fruit, fresh garlic, produced in the use shallots. This onion family freezing the juice in an ice cube USA, or in your garden. member is sweet and hot and tray. (If you are lucky enough Clarified butter, known as has an incredible depth. to still have one.) An ice cube is Ghee in Indian cooking, is a Citrus zest means that you equivalent to 4 tablespoons. godsend. It does not burn and have taken a fresh fruit and Call me a fanatic, if you must, smoke. It is the perfect, tasteless grated off the colored part of but homemade chicken stock oil for so many dishes. and orange, lemon or lime. has no substitute for taste and Heat a pound of unsalted Dried zest sold in a bottle quality. butter in a large pan over low should be used for mulling wine I save up chicken parts — heat until it separates. Pour it or composted. backs, wings and bones — in the through cheesecloth or a coffee When you take the time to freezer. filter paper. cook, think about the quality of When I have lots, I bake them Be sure none of the white solthe taste. for an hour at 325 degrees, then ids are still in the oil. I love this Simple meals bloom with the boil them in water until all neutral oil that can be stored in proper ingredients. the meat falls from the bones. the refrigerator or on the kitchThese simple ingredients are I make a gallon of stock that en counter. the distinguishing markers I freeze in quart bags so it is One pound of butter will last between a quality home-cooked ready when needed. You will ap- you for several months. meal and something slapped on preciate the difference. (See The A spice is a seed; an herb is a the table because you are starvGood Life, April 2011) leafy something. Some cooking ing. Fresh garlic cannot be substigurus say you should throw out tuted for garlic-salt nor garlicBonnie Orr — the dirt diva — cooks all your ground spices every six and gardens in East Wenatchee. powder. These two products are months. Entire seed you grind November 2013 | The Good Life
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column moving up to the good life
june darling
Success & happiness? Research tells us... Why are certain men more
successful than others? This was the major question that led philanthropist and entrepreneur William T. Grant in 1938 to fund what has become the longest running study of human development ever undertaken. In the ’30s, researchers had an idea about what made some men more successful than others; it was their body type. They speculated that time would show that men with broader shoulders and thinner waists would become more successful than their peers. They were quite wrong. Today we might think we have the answer about what makes one person more successful than
the next. Surely it is their “intelligence.” The research indicates intelligence is not a differentiator. Those men with IQ’s in the average 110-115 range were making essentially the same amount of money as those in the 150+ genius range. Though the study continues, $20 million and 75 years later, the major researcher, Dr. George Vaillant has concluded what makes some people more successful (and happy) than others. It is… ... love. The 58 men in the Grant Study with the best scores for warm relationships made an average of $243,000 a year in contrast to the 31 men with the worst scores for relationships who earned
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an average maximum salary of $102,000 per year. (The participants were chosen while attending Harvard when sophomores in college and all seemed likely to succeed.) Vaillant sums up the research with an old Latin phrase “omnia vincit amor” — love conquers all. He tells the story of one particular case, Godfrey Minot Camille, who seemed to have it all. Ten years into the study, the researcher realized he was a narcissistic hypochondriac who later attempted suicide after completing his medical training. Camille, himself, tells how his family of origin was unloving, but through later encounters (after his suicide attempt) with others who loved him, he
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was able to unfold into a fully functional human being. He especially credits his children with teaching him “love.” Camille says that connectedness and belonging is what makes us “real.” He refers to the old classic children’s book, The Velveteen Rabbit. In the book the love of a child has the magical effect of turning a toy rabbit into a real one. I know exactly what Camille is talking about. I remember the tears that ran down my face when I read The Velveteen Rabbit to my young sons. I also remember telling others that reading The Velveteen Rabbit to my children and my children’s
affection is what did the most to make me a less narcissistic, more loving person. Love truly can change us. More than we can imagine. Consider the cutting edge genetic research which indicates that loving relationships and a sense of belonging actually affect how our genes express themselves so that our immune systems optimally function. Researchers like John Cacippo, Gene Robinson and Steve Cole say that stress has been implicated in most diseases, but that stress cannot hold a candle to the havoc that social isolation can wreak upon our bodies. Conversely even a small amount of connecting with others can turn our systems around. Cole says that our experiences today can influence the molecular composition of our bodies for the next two or three months and perhaps even for the rest of our lives. If love affects not only your success, but also your health, perhaps you might want to do some re-prioritizing and give getting together with others more time and emphasis. The upcoming holidays could be perfect for giving up your less connected, more isolated ways and setting your good intentions for connecting with others into motion. You might want to start by digging out The Velveteen Rabbit. Perhaps you would like to call up and get together with an old friend, or go out of your way to make a new one. As I have made this suggestion to others, they sometimes say, “Well why hasn’t someone reached out to me? Why should I be the one doing all the work?” If you want to change your life, it is your responsibility to take the initiative. Perhaps you will extend yourself many times before anyone ever reciprocates. Don’t let that hinder you. When it comes to Thanksgiving Day, make a mental reminder to keep Thanksgiving less
about the turkey and trimmings and more about connecting with the people around your table. You may want to be so bold as to invite someone outside your usual circle to dinner. Dr. Barbara Fredrickson writes in Love 2.0 that love doesn’t have to be passion or deep intimacy, it can just be a moment of positive resonance, of laughing together, just connecting. Eye contact, a smile, a greeting, a handshake, an unspoken wish for another’s well-being may bring about positive resonance, which Fredrickson calls micromoments of neural synchrony, that is, love. This sort of resonance can lift us and build the infrastructure for wider and deeper bonds. I’m reminded of Louis Armstrong singing What A Wonderful World, my positivity resonance may be aroused remembering the lines “friends shaking hands, sayin’ how do you do, they’re really sayin’ I love you.’” Just thinking of this caused me to say “hello” to two strangers I normally would not acknowledge. One “hello” led to a fun conversation and the other to a warm feeling for me and hopefully for them. As we all value friendships more, perhaps something magical will happen this holiday season. We may become more loving, maybe more wealthy, perhaps more healthy and miraculously more real. This holiday season how might you take advantage of opportunities for building positivity resonance with others and move up to The Good Life? June Darling, Ph.D. can be contacted at drjunedarling1@gmail.com; website: www.summitgroupresources. com. Her book - 7 Giant Steps To The Good Life can be bought or read for free at: http://www.bookemon.com/ book-profile/giant-steps-to-the-goodlife/285095
Got a good story to tell? email: editor@ncwgoodlife.com
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column THE TRAVELing DOCTOR
jim brown, m.d.
On a pilgrimage to tiny, spiritual Iona Iona, a tiny island, three
miles by one-and-a-half miles in size with only 120 permanent residents, is located on the west coast of Scotland. It is not that easy to get to, requiring a bus from Glasgow, an overnight stay in Oban, then a ferry to the Isle of Mull, another bus ride across the island and a final ferry to Iona. Despite that, over 750,000 tourists, day visitors and pilgrims come annually to this remote site. The island, long considered a sacred place, is known for its Celtic spirituality. Iona is described as a “thin place” where spirit and matter are separated by less than a thin veil. Hunters, gatherers, and farmers have lived on this isle since 3,500 years before Christ. Celtic peoples arrived there from the northern Alps several hundred years before Christ. St. Columba and his monks came in 562 AD from Ireland to start a monastery that sent out missions throughout Europe and as far as western Russia. In the 8th Century the Vikings ravaged the western islands of Scotland making the monastic life on Iona impossible, and the surviving monks departed back to Ireland. In 1203 a Benedictine Abbey was founded and the present non-denominational Abbey was built around 1420. You might wonder why Lynn and I decided to go to this remotest of places, 6,000 miles from home to be cut off from the world for nine days. We kind of wondered that, too, when we first saw the tiny island from the ferry. We first heard about pil-
This Classic Celtic cross is about 15 feet high and carved from stone.
grimages to Iona from Lynn’s life-long friend Sarah and her husband Bob. Sarah had informed us that she had been diagnosed with ALS, a fatal untreatable neurologic disease. Over a year ago as Sarah’s disease progressed, we visited her in Virginia, a few months before her death. Despite her diagnosis and knowledge of her impending death, she and Bob had a remarkable spirit and openness as they discussed their situation. The way they were facing their future was admirable, I thought. They attributed their peace to a pilgrimage they had taken to Iona three years earlier and gave us a book, Listening to the Heartbeat of God by John Philip Newell. The book had a profound impact on us. It is difficult to describe in a sentence or two Newell’s book, but what resonated with me was that in Celtic spirituality,
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God (or I prefer the term divine mystery) is not restricted to a church building or a certain book. The sacred is at the heart of all life, both the visible and invisible. All of life is sacred — every day, every hour, every moment. Bob called us a couple months later and said there was going to be another pilgrimage on Iona in September 2013 with the same leaders they had in their time there. He suggested if we were interested, we should sign up immediately as it would fill up fast. We did. Our friends Jim and Robin Gates from Wenatchee also signed up and joined us there. Our two amazing leaders were writers, philosophers, scholars and thinkers. John Philip Newell, a poet, theologian and Celtic scholar, was with us the first few days. Internationally acclaimed in the field of Celtic spirituality, he is an ordained minister in the Church of Scotland. Though he lives in Edinburgh, he also leads retreats every July in New Mexico. Newell emphasized the need to be grateful for every day and every moment of life. Whatever happens to a fellow human being somehow affects me. We cannot hate the “other” and still say that we love God, the sacred mystery in all of life. Jerry Wright, an ordained Presbyterian minister with a doctorate in divinity and now a Jungian psychologist and analyst in North Carolina, conducted the majority of our sessions. He leads workshops throughout the Southeastern USA and is on the staff of the Haden Institute in North Carolina. As a Jungian analyst we
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learned much about Carl Jung’s ideas about our personal and collective unconscious. We all have a religious unconsciousness, whether we acknowledge or recognize it consciously. Religion that is destructive says “we” are the chosen people and all others are wrong. Wright feels that this kind of thinking contributes to much of the violence we see in the world today. In addition to the talks by our leaders, we had the option to attend the 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. daily services at the nearby ancient Abbey. We spent each morning in silence until 8 a.m. in addition to one day of solitude that lasted from daybreak until 5 p.m. For many that was the most memorable day of their pilgrimage. I hiked up to the top of Dun I (pronounced Dunee), the highest elevation on the island with its panoramic view of the entire island. I spent my time in mediation and contemplation there in solitude. I can’t remember having a similar day like that in the busy world that I normally live in. Going on a pilgrimage requires a different mindset from traveling as a tourist. It is not so much a goal to see as many sites as possible, but more a goal to savor and find meaning what is presented to us each day. You may have heard of “slow food.” A pilgrimage is a slowing down each day. It was a very meaningful experience for me. Being fully alive and grateful in each present moment is not something we do very often but it is an important part of a pilgrimage. We tune our senses
to appreciate the moment. On my third morning I wrote this: A New Paradigm As I looked out my window this morning, Mist and fog greeted me, The coastline o Mull barely visible, Normally I would say, “Oh, darn” No sun today, another gloomy day, Strangely I thought, this is interesting, I wonder what this day will bring, I am grateful to be alive, To be in this place called Iona, I look forward with expectancy, To this day’s wonders. In my daily life at home I have been accustomed to and have felt a need to be busy at all times. Slowing down for me hasn’t seemed an option. I thought I needed to be connected to and informed about all that was going on in the world, much of which is upsetting and actually can be a distraction from getting to know who we really are. In Douglas Rushkoff’s new book, Present Shock, he talks about the new “now.” “With the Internet everything is live, real time, and always on. It’s not mere speeding up, however much our lifestyles and technologies have accelerated the rate at which we attempt to do things. It’s more of a diminishment of anything that isn’t happening right now — and the onslaught of everything that supposedly is.” He later says that with everything happening so fast in real time, there is no “now” anymore. “Now” immediately is already in the past. Iona offers an antidote to this. Despite being an Internet junkie, I decided to disconnect from the world while on this pilgrimage. There were no television, radio, or newspapers available to me on Iona. WiFi was available, but I chose not to log on it until the last day
Iona has long been considered a spiritual place. The Abbey was constructed around 1420.
when I needed to make sure there had been no changes in our airline schedule returning home. The longer I was there, the better it felt not knowing what is going on anywhere other than where I was at that moment. Fortunately I missed hearing all the political wrangling going on in Washington, DC at that time. When we got home nothing been accomplished anyway.
Introducing a new addition to our Cardiology ser vice line.
Not only was this experience very freeing, but it gave me time and solitude to get to discover more of my inner self. Now that I am home, I am determined to spend more time in silence and in meditation to enjoy the sacred that is in all nature and universally in all people. John O’Donohue wrote in his book, Anam Cara, “Behind your image, below your words, above
your thoughts, the silence of another world awaits. Another world lives within you. No one else can bring you news of this inner world.” Only you can explore and discover your inner world. It is an exciting journey Jim Brown, M.D., is a retired gastroenterologist who has practiced for 38 years in the Wenatchee area. He is a former CEO of the Wenatchee Valley Medical Center.
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John Rowles, MD Mark Levinson, MD
Derek Allen, PA-C
Corinne Biggar, PA-C
The Cardiothoracic Surgery Team provides expert care to individuals with both operative and non-operative heart and lung conditions such as:* An affiliation between Central Washington Hospital & Wenatchee Valley Medical Center
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We are ready to work with your provider to bring you the highest quality care.
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Wheat weaving — a dying art form By Vicki olson Carr
Life for pioneers on the Waterville Pla-
teau was hard. The land is dry and dusty. The wind blows. Summer and winter temperatures are cooler and colder than elsewhere. Turning this inhospitable land into productive farmland took a toll on the early settlers who tackled the job. Hang out in Waterville over a cup of coffee long enough, and you’ll hear a tale or two about someone who was up to the task. Stories are still told about one such pioneer, Henry Prange, who farmed a couple of miles southwest of the community of Farmer. The Pranges had seven children to raise in the early 1900s. Henry and his sons tended to their farming in the summer. But in the winter, Henry worked at a brickyard in Ellensburg — and he got there by walking over the Colockum Pass from the Wenatchee Valley into the Kittitas Valley, leaving his wife and children to fend for themselves during the long, cold winters. The weather, the work, raising gardens, hunting for game, taking care of the horses and farm equipment was taxing enough for homesteaders. Other dangers were also at hand. Three of the Prange’s grown-up sons died within 10 days of each other in the 1918 flu epidemic. Shortly after World War II, grandson Lawrence Eggers was operating the family farm when he married Ernestine Syring, who was born in Topeka, but had come out West to
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This year, Ernestine Eggers was the only weaver to display her art at the NCW Fair in Waterville.
Ernestine: “You know, this art goes way back to ancient Egypt.”
Wenatchee during the Great Depression as the family sought work. The new Mrs. Eggers soon was a busy farm wife and mother with two sons and a daughter. She volunteered to be a 4-H leader and Lutheran Sunday School teacher. Then she got interested in another hobby: wheat weaving. “I’ve always been intrigued with fields of | The Good Life
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wheat with the beards blowing in the wind,” she said. “And I just thought wheat weavings were pretty. It was a cheap hobby and there was lots of material available. “You know, this art goes way back to ancient Egypt,” Ernestine said, pulling out a three-ring binder of books on the subject. “They pressed grain stock heads into their pots and jars before they were fired. Later, in northern Europe, the women in the fields would sit down and do a little weaving on breaks, while the horses were fed and watered and allowed to rest. “Grain weaving was popular in the British Isles,” she added. “It was a popular courting gesture. The girls would wear their weaving in their hair and give the boys one to fasten to their waistbands. They were pinned on horse harnesses in parades, and wheat weavings are also part of myths and legends. If you brought a wheat weaving into your house, you’d have good luck — and it might also enhance your fertility!” Ernestine explained more about the history of her art. “Corn” was the term used for any kind of grain or grasses with hollow stems that could be woven into designs. A “corn dolly” was a long narrow weaving that could be dressed like girls do today with their dolls. Scotch, Welsh, Irish and English immigrants brought the art with them to the New World. Mennonites did a lot with the art as well.
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“There was a revival of wheat weaving in the ’70s and ’80s, and there were about 20 of us from around the county that used to meet...” In modern times, mordifords — a term for heart-shaped weavings — are woven for Christmas and home decorating. Angels,
swans, candlesticks, dolls, roses and wreaths can also be created. Preparing the grain shafts for weaving requires quite a bit of work, the weaver said. The stalks must be dried, peeled, then soaked to make them pliable. The moist stalks can be kept in the refrigerator for several days, but not in the spring, Eggers warned. Oddly, even in the dark, the grains will sprout. Changes in wheat farming are cutting into the craft. “The farmers started growing the new wheat with shorter shafts. They just wanted the
heads,” she said. “A WSU county extension agent used to plant a plot of old-fashioned Turkey red wheat. That’s my favorite. He always threw some extra seed out on the edges, so we had long-shafted wheat to use for a while,” Ernestine smiled as she remembered this kindness. “I used to find long-shafted wheat in craft stores and mail order catalogues. North Dakota used to have long, black beard wheat too. It’s difficult to find suitable wheat now. “You can weave with short stems, but it takes a lot of splic-
savor the setting… The Kingfisher Restaurant & Wine Bar offers gourmet meals crafted with superb local ingredients. To enjoy the freshest cuisine in Chelan County, reserve your table for our Thanksgiving Feast at SleepingLady.com or call 509.548.6344.
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ing and extra work. “There was a revival of wheat weaving in the ’70s and ’80s, and there were about 20 of us from around the county that used to meet — but that just kind of wore out,” Ernestine said quietly. This year Ernestine was the only weaver to display her art at the NCW Country Fair in August. Wheat weaving is dying out, it seems. Vicki Olson Carr is a retired Alaska high school teacher who has returned to the Lake Chelan Valley where she had a happy childhood, and where she is now enjoying the Good Life again.
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WHAT TO DO
We want to know of fun and interesting local events. Send info to: donna@ncwgoodlife.com
Wenatchee Valley Farmers Market, every Saturday & Wednesday, 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. Locally grown and raised fresh fruit, vegetables, baked goods, preserves, produce, flowers, crafts and jewelry, home and garden items. Fresh and wholesome right from the farmer. Pybus Market parking lot. Cost: free. Bubbles & Heels, every first Friday of the month. What could be better than sipping bubbly, chatting with new and old friends and wearing your favorite shoes? One Wines, Inc. 526 E Woodin Ave, Chelan. Cost: $10 per glass. Info: onewinesinc.com. Cashmere Art and Activity Center, needle art every second Tuesday, 1 p.m. Pinochle every fourth Tuesday, 1 p.m. Hat Group every Thursday, 1:30 – 3 p.m., knitters, crocheters and loom artist welcome. In October through November featured artist will be Vic Detering. Spotlighted artist is Ben Ellis. On 11/9, 5-8 p.m. a recep-
tion will be held. Refreshments and music provided. Info: 782-2415. NCW Blues Jam, every second and fourth Monday, 7:30 – 11 p.m. Clearwater Steakhouse, East Wenatchee. Info: facebook.com/NCWBluesJam. Improv/Acting Workshop, 7 p.m. Every Tuesday night with theater games for novice and experienced players. Fun, casual and free. Riverside Playhouse. Cost: free. Info: mtow.org. Marci Franklin, November. The Wenatchee Watercolor Society presents a new exhibit at the Wenatchee Valley Clinic Cancer Treatment Center. Marci Franklin is the featured artist through November. Wenatchee First Fridays ArtsWalk, 11/1, 5 - 8 p.m. Check out Wenatchee’s arts scene. Venues and exhibits change monthly. Self-guided. WVC Campus and Historic District. Cost: art-walk free, after-events may have admission fees. Monthly info: wenatcheefirstfridaysartswalk.tumblr.com. Two Rivers Art Gallery, 11/1, 5 – 8 p.m. Ken Duffin will present his watercolor and oils plus over 40
local and regional artists show their work here. Wines by Bella Terrazza and complimentary refreshments. Music by guitarist Kirk Lewellen. 102 N Columbia, Wenatchee. Cost: free. Info: 2riversgallery.com.
which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for drama. The comedy is an endearing 50-year love story told through letters. Dinner, dessert at intermission. Tsillan Cellars, Chelan. Info: chelanvalleyplayers.com.
Tumbleweed Bead Co., 11/1, 5 – 8 p.m. Kasey Koski will be showcasing her handmade, retro wool hats. Jess and Jessica Butcher, owners/creators of Butcher Built and Butcher Beer will be showcasing their unique, craftsman style shelving and offering homebrew samplings. Refreshments served. Cost: free. Info: tumbleweedbeadco.com.
Presentation, 11/8, 7 p.m. Wenatchee River Institute and book signing, 11/9 1 p.m. A Book For All Seasons. Shannon Huffman Polson will be on hand to sign her new book North of Hope: A Daughter’s Arctic Journey.
Presentation, 11/1, 7 p.m. Leavenworth Library and book signing, 11/2, 1 – 3 p.m. Book For All Seasons. Erin McKittrick will be signing her new book Small Feet, Big Land. A book about her adventurous trek with her husband and two small children across the wilds of Alaska. Honoring the Truth of One’s Heart: Mediation Series, 11/2, 9, 16, 23, 2 – 3:15 p.m. Join Kari Lyons Price in a class focusing on meditation with some energy medicine teaching and gentle yoga postures. iLa Yoga Studio, 13 Orondo Ave. Cost: $76. Info: ilayoga.com/ upcoming_events.php.
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Tosca, 11/9, 9 a.m. – 9:30 p.m. The Met: Live in HD. Snowy Owl Theater. Info: icicle.org. Book Signing, 11/9, 10:30 a.m. Kimberly Rose Johnson will be on hand with her new book The Christmas Promise. A novel set in Leavenworth. A Book For All Seasons. Cost: free.
U-Press cider, 11/2-3, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. Press apples into delicious, fresh cider using our hand-crank presses. We provide the apples you provide the elbow grease. Sunshine Farm Market, Chelan. Info: lakechelan.com.
Downtown Wenatchee Holiday Wine Walk, 11/9, 1 – 6 p.m. Taste wine and get ideas for the holidays. Starts at Davis Furniture or Pak-It-Rite. Get a souvenir glass and 10 tastes of wine for $20. Info: wendowntown.org.
Coal, 11/7, 12/5 and 1/9, 7 p.m. A monthly documentary film series promoting critical thinking and moral deliberation on the issues of the day. Snowy Owl Theater. Info: icicle.org.
Live Music by Brian James, 11/9, 2 – 5 p.m. Originally from Washington State and currently living in Nashville, Brian James wrote hit songs for four years. His six-string pickin’ enchants the crowds wherever he plays with some Stevie Ray Vaughn style and sound. Silvara Vineyards, Leavenworth. Info: silvarawine.com
Love Letters, 11/8, 9, 6:30 p.m. The Chelan Valley Players will perform Love Letters by A.R. Gurney,
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Typhoon, 11/8, 7 p.m., the first ticketed concert at Pybus Market. The market will close at 6 p.m. and reopen at 7 p.m. for the concert. Typhoon is an 11-piece orchestral, indie-rock ensemble. Vendors will remain open. Cost: $15 advanced or $20 at the door. Info: events. caffemela.com. Pybus Market in Wenatchee.
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WHAT TO DO
We want to know of fun and interesting local events. Send info to: donna@ncwgoodlife.com
Veteran’s Day Parade, 11/11, 11 a.m. The Chelan VFW Post 6853 is sponsoring the Veteran’s Day Parade in downtown Chelan. Wenatchee AAA GO Show, 11/12, 6 p.m. Obtain an insider’s view of unique attractions and the best ways to experience top destinations including Italy, France, Great Britain and more. Industry professionals from AAA Travel and Trafalgar will also discuss 2014 travel trends and reveal hot destinations to consider when planning your next vacation. Free. 221 N. Mission, Wenatchee. RSVP: 665-6299 The Black Lillies, 11/14, 7 p.m. Rustic roots concert. A little bit country, lively picking and strumming and delicious vocals. Snowy Owl Theater. Info: icicle.org. Free Pizza, 11/14, 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. Crafts, and photos with Santa. Wenatchee Convention Center. Info: wendown.org. WVC Women’s Luncheon, 11/14, 11:30. Edna Maguire will be honored for the Jack and Edna Maguire Scholarship awarded more than 80 times to WVC students since 1996. Wenatchee Golf and Country Club, East Wenatchee. Info: wvc.edu/ foundation. Shrek, 11/14-16, 22-23, 7:30 p.m.. Saturday matinees at 2 p.m. Wenatchee High School auditorium. Tickets: 888-0780. Presentation, 11/15, 7 p.m. Wenatchee River Institute and book signing, 11/16, 1 p.m. A Book For All Seasons. Dennis Dauble will be on hand with his new book The Barbless Hook: Inner Sanctum of Angling Revealed. This is a collection of 26 stories drawn from a lifetime of fishing experiences. Marc Broussard, 11/15, 7:30 p.m. Live performance. Performing Arts Center. Cost: $20-$35. Info: pacwen.org. Autumn Splendor Soiree, 11/16, 7 p.m. The Wenatchee Valley Symphony Orchestra performs at Wenatchee Valley Museum and Cultural Center. Cost: $35 includes food and wine. Info: wenatcheesymphony.org. Jason and the Argonauts, 11/17, 2 p.m. Recreation of the classic Greek myth, Jason and the Argonauts. Jason sails The Argo across the world to find the Golden Fleece,
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column the night sky this month
Peter Lind
Month of the comet is here The month of the comet has
finally arrived. The long-awaited predawn appearance of Comet ISON (C/2012 S1), potentially one of the brightest such objects in many decades, is finally here and it’s bound to cause quite a buzz in the astronomy community. As twilight comes in November, Venus shines bright low in the southwestern sky. The brilliant planet actually climbs higher in the evening sky as the month progresses. On Nov. 6, a waxing crescent Moon passes 8 degrees north of the planet. That would be a good evening to cross the river and drive up high to the east for the best view. Mercury enjoys its best morning appearance of 2013. It passes near both Saturn and ISON late this month. The brightness of Saturn beside Mercury will be a real treat to see. Once the night sky grows completely dark, Neptune becomes a great target. This distant planet lies due south and nearly halfway from the horizon to the zenith. It lies in the central part of the constellation Aquarius, Neptune glows at magnitude 7.9, however, so you will need to study this region in some detail, with binoculars to find the bluish tiny disk. The best time to view Uranus is when it lies highest in the battling monsters, dragons and harpies so he can unite the people against his evil uncle. Recommended for ages 9 and over. Performing Arts Center. Info: pacwen.org. Alzheimer’s Café, 11/18, 2:30 – 4 p.m. Mountain Meadows Senior Living Campus hosts a cafe the second Tuesday of every month. This is a casual setting for folks with Alzheimer’s, dementia, their loved ones and caregivers. Desserts and November 2013 | The Good Life
south, around 9 p.m. local time in mid-November. The magnitude 5.8 planet travels slowly westward in a rather barren region along the border between Pisces and Cetus. This is a barren part of the sky so there are not many reference stars to help locate the little jewel. On cold November nights, the familiar constellation Orion the Hunter emerges above the eastern horizon by around 9 p.m. local time. Jupiter and its host constellation, Gemini the Twins, peaks above the horizon to the left of Orion less than an hour later. The giant planet shines brilliantly at magnitude 2.5, so there’s no mistaking it, as it is the third brightest object in the night sky, right behind the moon, and Venus. Comet ISON should be a fine target through binoculars and telescopes before dawn, and a spectacular naked-eye object late in the month. The comet will streak from Leo, through Virgo, and into Libra as it heads toward its closest approach to the sun on Nov. 28. Along the way, it passes Virgo’s brightest star, Spica, on the 17th and 18th. The following week, it appears near Mercury and Saturn. The comet’s formal designation is C/2012 S1. The “C” indicates that it is non-periodic, or not reoccurring on a regular babeverages will be served free of charge. Entertainment and activities for those wishing to participate. Join us to meet new friends and share experiences. Located at 320 Park Avenue, Leavenworth. Info: 548-4076. Compassionate Friends, 11/18, 7 - 8:30 p.m. A grief support group that assists families toward the positive resolution of grief following the death of a child of any age
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sis, followed by the year of discovery. The “S” represents the half-month of discovery — in the case of C/2012 S1, the second half of September — and the number “1” shows that this was the first comet found in that half month. The addition of “(ISON)” after its name merely identifies the organization where its discovery was made, the Russiabased International Scientific Optical Network. Two Russian astronomers discovered Comet ISON (C/2012 S1) on Sept. 21, 2012. On Nov. 28 of this year, ISON will lie closest to the sun — a scant 680,000 miles (1.1 million kilometers) from its surface. Consider that the Earth orbits the sun at about 93 million miles it is going to get close. Depending on the composition of the comet it could release enough debris to be visible in daylight hours. Finally, although comet ISON may win this month’s grand prize for magnificence, a total solar eclipse on the Nov. 3 in Africa will rank a close second. Star charts are readily available online to help find all the objects mentioned here. Peter Lind is a local amateur astronomer. He can be reached at ppjl@ juno.com.
and provides information to help others be supportive. Focus of this meeting is getting through the Holidays. Grace Lutheran Church, 1408 Washington St. Info: 665-9987. ICYS Fall Concert, 11/18, 7 p.m. Young artists of the Icicle Creek Youth Symphony performs. Info: icicle.org.
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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 Banff Mountain Film Festival, 11/19, 6 p.m. Beverages and refreshments, silent auction, movies start at 7 p.m. Raffle prizes given out during intermission. Leavenworth Festhalle. Cost: $13 adults, $8 kids, at the door: $15 and $10. Info: skileavenworth.com. Environmental Film Series, 11/19, 7 p.m. The Perpetual Farm and New Green Giants. The Perpetual Farm is a half-hour film that poses the question, Can we farm forever? It is designed to stimulate thinking among both producers and consumers about what it really means to grow food sustainably. The New Green Giants looks at a number of new and old organic corporations and shows how they are managing or in some cases, failing to live up to the idealistic dreams first espoused by the back to the land folk of the late ’60s and early ’70s. Wenatchee Valley Museum and Cultural Center. Jenny Pratt of YWCA, 11/20, noon. Jenny Pratt will speak on what the YWCA does for the women of our community. Free lunch. Community Foundation. Info: Terri Miller tm@mjnealaiz.com or 663-6455. Festival of Trees Viewing, 11/21, noon - 6 p.m., 11/22, noon – 6 p.m., 11/23, 10 a.m. -5 p.m., 11/24, 1 – 3 p.m. Explore a winter wonderland of Christmas trees, mini-trees and wreaths. Performing Arts Center lobby. Info: pacwen.org. Holiday Spice, 11/21, 7 p.m. A poignant holiday revue, featuring the area’s best performers, saluting the season in their own way. Performing Arts Center. Info: pacwen.org.
Holiday Artisan Fair, 11/22-24. Over 50 local and regional vendors including crafts, holiday gifts, décor, jewelry, art and more. Live music on Friday night 6 – 8 p.m., Saturday throughout the day, and craft classes presented by the Craft Warehouse of Wenatchee. Pybus Market in Wenatchee. Writers Workshop and Presentation, 11/22, 6 p.m. Leavenworth Library and book signing, 11/23, 1 p.m. A Book For All Seasons. Scott Driscoll will be on hand with his new book Better You Go Home. Little Black Dress Party, 11/22, 7 p.m. Grab your girlfriends and get ready to welcome in the holiday season. Put on your party dress, sparkling jewelry and your dancing shoes. Performing Arts Center. Cost: $25. Info: pacwen.org. Festival of Trees Gala, 11/23, 5:30 p.m. Support the PAC at the live auction and multi-course benefit dinner. Bid on the festival trees. Cocktail hours starts at 5:30 dinner and auction 6:30 p.m. Performing Arts Center. Cost: $125. Info: pacwen.org. Icicle Creek Chamber Players Concert, 11/23, 7:30 p.m. L. van Beethoven: Sonata for violin and piano in A Major, Op. 47. Info: icicle. org. Gingerbread Factory, 11/24, 12:30 and 2 p.m. The PAC will supply all the goodies needed for you and your child to create your very own holiday house. Photo with Santa included. Performing Arts Center. Cost: $10. Info: pacwen.org. Turkey on the Run, 11/28, 9 a.m. – noon. 12k and 5k. Begin and end at Rotary Park on Wenatchee’s western edge. The course travels through neighborhoods and for the 12k up Number One Canyon. Info: wenatcheevalley.org.
Fall Barrel wine tasting, 11/29 – 12/1, 11 a.m. – 8 p.m. Taste warming reds right from the barrel and linger over a sample of what could be a double-gold winner at future wine competitions. Lake Chelan Wine Valley, 102 E Johnson Ave, Chelan. Info: lakechelanwinevalley. com. Holiday Xtravaganza Bazaar, 11/30, 9 a.m. – 3 p.m. Manson Grange Hall, 157 Wapato Way. Info: 687-3113. Calendar Signing, 12/2, 4:30 p.m. Dan McConnell will be on hand to sign his 2014 calendar at A Book For All Seasons. Confluence Film Series, 12/5, all day. Snowy Owl Theater. Info: icicle. org. Christmas lighting, 12/5, 6 p.m.
Santa arrives on a fire engine and lighting follows at the City Hall in East Wenatchee. Journey to Bethlehem, 12/5-8, 5:30 – 8:30 p.m. Experience the town of Bethlehem as it was the night the Christ Child was born. Dress appropriately for the weather. Seventh-day Adventist Church, 5th and Western. Cost: free. Info: j2bwenatchee.org. Backcountry Film Festival, 12/5. 10 films highlighting the beauty, diversity and fun of the winter backcountry experience. Submissions come from worldrenowned filmmakers and from grassroots filmmakers who take a video camera out on their weekend excursions and submit their best film short. The Film Festival benefits El Sendero’s efforts to protect and conserve winter recreation areas for non-motorized users. Cashmere Riverside Center in Cashmere. Doors open at 6 p.m. and films start at 7 p.m. Cost: $10. Rob Ickes and Jim Hurst, 12/6, 7 p.m. Two master musicians, singers, songwriters will perform. Snowy Owl Theater. Info: icicle.org. Holiday luncheon, 12/7, 1 p.m., A fund raiser for the Wenatchee Valley Humane Society that includes lunch, holiday craft project and wreath raffle. Wenatchee Golf & Country Club. Cost: $25 prior to 12/1, $30 after. Info and tickets: 662-9577.
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The Art Life
// SKETCHES OF LOCAL ARTISTS
Playing a flute is about more than just playing a flute T
he New Yorker magazine used to post a disclaimer about starting times in its entertainment listings, apologizing for musicians. But forget any quips you’ve heard about unstable or casually irresponsible musicians. Suzanne Carr, Wenatchee flutist, is proof that it takes an orderly mind, a strong work ethic and unerring time management skills to maintain a musical career. And that’s not just about a making a living in the professional music world — she’s referring to even the local amateur music scene, where three under par performances could conceivably get you fired from an allvolunteer orchestra. “Oh, there’s always another flute player (drummer, violinist, etc.) lined up to take your place if need be.” “For years and years I’ve practiced, and it’s paid off. In a group, everyone expects everyone else to be up to tempo and in tune. You have to get it right, know what you’re doing.” Serious musicians pay attention to details. She knows the territory, having played in the Seattle Philharmonic and the Wenatchee Valley Symphony Orchestra (where she’s been principal flutist for three years) as well as years of other community concerts and pit orchestras for musicals. Suzanne describes the daily drill: “For every rehearsal and
Suzanne Carr plays in the park: She takes flute music seriously.
every performance, you need to gather your music, your outfit, and your keys; get there on time, park the car, walk in, set up, sit up and be absolutely ready to play when the conductor raises his baton.” That’s one reason music often takes a starring role in debates over the value of the arts in the schools, Suzanne maintains. It’s not just the fact that musical theory complements math acuity but that rigor complements life. Her years of teaching, most recently here with the Columbia River Conservatory, confirm for her that practicing and playing music instill responsible habits that last. Suzanne refers to herself as a “paper-trained” classical musician, which means she can play anything she can read. She doesn’t play the flute casually (the request for a little riff for the interviewer was politely declined), feeling it shines best as a counterpoint to other instruments. She doesn’t even listen to November 2013 | The Good Life
classical music, her preferred repertoire, for pleasure. “It’s too important to me; I listen too critically. For pleasure I listen to rock ’n’ roll!” First enthralled by the flute since she heard one played in a quartet at the age of 12, she went on to earn a B.A. and an M.A. in music performance and pedagogy. She owned a music store and later juggled child raising, playing and teaching flute, leadership in professional groups, and selling point-of-sale cash flow systems. (“We used to call them ‘cash registers,’” she said.) A move to Wenatchee and a second marriage 10 years ago to her musician husband Glen opened up opportunities first at the Woods House Conservatory of Music, later with the Symphony. Now 62, retired and with more freedom and flexibility, Suzanne continues to play and teach regularly and even does a little composing of her own works for her younger students. Devoted heart and soul to the www.ncwgoodlife.com
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flute, she’s aware that it’s not for everyone. “It’s amazing how people fit their instruments. Watch children first exposed to all the orchestral instruments as fifth or sixth graders,” she describes, “…the sounds and the way they feel — they’ll automatically gravitate toward the one that suits their personality. You can immediately spot the energy in the drummers, the romantic turn in the violinists… and the love of precision and order in the flutists.” Those lucky students who chose the flute may have Suzanne Carr as their teacher. She’s positive (“You can do it!”), she’s exacting (“Be the very best you can be!”) and she knows that young musicians are getting a head start on success beyond the concert stage the moment they pick up an instrument. — by Susan Lagsdin To inquire about Suzanne’s adult flute choir being formed this season, email her at suzanne.flute1@gmail. com.
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column those were the days
rod molzahn
A dispute over who was NCW’s first settler Hiram “Okanogan” Smith
is generally credited with being north central Washington’s first white settler, claiming land just south of the Canadian border along the east side of Lake Osoyoos. Cullen Bash tells a different story. Bash was the United States customs agent at Lake Osoyoos in the 1880s. According to him, John Utz had claimed and fenced 12 to 14 acres on the east side of the lake before Hiram Smith arrived and settled on land between Utz’s cabin and the lake. That was, most likely, in 1860. The federal census 10 years later listed Utz, then 45, as a saloonkeeper, a mystery since there were no saloons in the Okanogan at all in those years. The same census listed Hiram Francis Smith, age 40, as a retail merchant. He had built a store/ trading post on his land, land that still belonged to the Okanogan Indians. Smith strengthened his claim to the land by “marrying” a 14-year-old Indian girl named Mary then purchasing the land from the Okanogan chief, Tonasket. Smith and his wife had two daughters, Julia and Lizzie.
John Utz had disappeared from the public record and from his cabin by 1880 when Cullen Bash reported using the building as his customs house. Hiram Smith lived out his life in the Okanogan developing farm land, cattle herds, stores, orchards and hard-rock mining operations. He served as the representative from Okanogan County in both Washington Territorial and State legislatures and became known throughout the state as, simply, “Okanogan” Smith. At the age of 20, in 1849, Hiram Smith had followed the gold rush to California where he stayed for nine years until the stories of the Frazer River placers and the Cariboo mines drew him to the British Columbia gold fields. Like many of the miners he found the riches of gold elusive. He returned to Lake Osoyoos, a beautiful place that he had passed along the Cariboo Trail on his way to the Frazer River two years earlier. There he built his cabin on a gentle hillside looking west across the lake, directly in front of John Utz’s cabin and his view. In a profile Smith wrote for the Washington State legislature of 1889/90 he describes
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himself as a miner, storekeeper and rancher. He had served first in the territorial legislature’s House of Representatives in the 1864/65 session. By 1870 Smith owned three stores: one at his Osoyoos ranch, another at Rock Creek, a mining area just north of the Canadian border where his friend and sometimes bookkeeper, Frank Streamer, said Smith had losses of $30,000. His third store on the Frazer River at Hope, British Columbia was destroyed by fire sometime in the early 1870s. Smith had developed hardrock mines, both silver and gold, at Rock Creek in Canada and along the Similkameen River on the United States side of the border. In a February 1870 letter he complained that flume building was running behind at Rock Creek and miners had produced no profits yet on the Similkameen. He wrote, “There is not, at present, a dollar in the country; and will not be until it is taken out of the ground.” He told the miners that, “their only salvation was to get out $3,000 by the first of June.” In spite of Smith’s claim that, “There is enough silver in my Similkameen mines to pay off the national debt,” the
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mines there and at Rock Creek never lived up to Smith’s hopes and expectations. In the spring of 1892 Hiram Smith was the Okanogan County Representative in the third Washington State Legislature. During a recess he traveled to Spokane then returned to Osoyoos Lake and his Indian wife, Mary, and their daughters. Sitting next to him in the wagon was his new wife, Nancy Baker, recently divorced in Spokane. She was described as, “white, young and blond.” She was at “Okanogan” Smith’s bedside the next year in September when he died in a Seattle hotel room where he had been ill and bed-ridden for three months. Nancy Baker Smith produced a will dated July, 1893 that left $1,500 to each of his granddaughters, children of his deceased daughter, Julia and the same amount to his daughter, Lizzie. Five thousand dollars and the Osoyoos Lake ranch were left to Nancy Smith who was also named executor of the will. Nothing was left to Mary Smith. When Nancy arrived to take possession of the ranch she was
Mary Smith was washing dishes in a wooden pan. She threw the dishwater over the girl, knocked her down and began to beat her. “driven off violently by Mary.” Harry Stanton, a boy living with his parents in a tent at Oro, gave a more detailed and entertaining account of the meeting between the two wives. Nancy Smith “drove out to the ranch and dismissed the buggy. Mary Smith was washing dishes in a wooden pan. She threw the dishwater over the girl, knocked her down and began to beat her. Luke Ewing stopped the fight. Nancy fled on foot, hysterical, waded the river and staggered into my parents’ tent in Oro. She was glad to leave the country.” Hiram Francis “Okanogan” Smith was buried in Lake View Cemetery on Capitol Hill in Seattle two days after his death. Cemetery records do not show a payment for the $200 burial plot. Evidence strongly suggests that Smith’s body was disinterred sometime within two years after the burial though cemetery records do not show that. It’s not known where he was reburied. Mary Smith lived on at the Osoyoos Lake ranch with her two grandchildren and her daughter, Lizzie. Mary was drowned sometime later trying to cross the Okanogan River in her buggy.
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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. November 2013 | The Good Life
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column ALEX ON WINE
ALEX SALIBY
The evolution of a wine aficionado Life was easier before my
wife found wine. Dinner was simple: green pepper steak, rice and fresh green beans and a salad or a casserole or roast or seafood. Beverages were simple: milk for the kids, water for all, and coffee for me. She drank no coffee then, nor does she now. I’m not exactly sure when things changed. We left Michigan, moved to California, and had our first Thanksgiving in San Jose, eating turkey at my sister-in-law’s. She served us our first wine, Pink Chablis. My wife decided then and there she would not become a wine drinker. Later she discovered Bali Hi and then Weibel’s Green Hungarian. The Weibel wine was a game changer. I’m not sure anyone makes a “Green Hungarian” wine any more. I’ve also no idea what grapes went into the making of that wine or why it was called Green Hungarian. Those were the early days of California’s Napa Valley wine, and not even a Robert Mondavi winery back then, but there were lots of grapes in Napa and around the state. We lived in San Jose, but we drove to Napa to visit a few wineries and sample. My favorite winery back in those early days in the mid ’60s was Louie Martini Winery in the valley. Actually, I’m still a fan of the Martini family wines, though I’ve no idea if there are any Martini family members still involved with the winery. That was then, when we arrived in California. A few years later Napa began to change. Wineries were popping up in all kinds of places in Napa Valley,
It was a Delta pilot neighbor who brought us our first Washington wine, a Chateau Ste Michelle Sauvignon Blanc. and the mogul, Robert Mondavi opened his winery in 1965, in the Oakville district. Change was good. We visited the Mondavi tasting room one day. We arrived, walked into an empty tasting room and looked around wondering what was up. Robert himself entered. He handled the tasting bar, took us outside to the production facilities and spoke almost to himself about what the plans were for the facility and the grounds. I’m not totally sure of the dates, but I think that was in 1971. By this time, our interest in wine had begun to develop; at dinners and at gatherings with friends and family, the beverage of choice had shifted from water and coffee to wine: white wine with fish and chicken, red wine with everything else. Also, at this point, the wine was often Gallo’s Hearty Burgundy or the jug wines from either Almaden or Carlo Rossi. Back then, a bottle of Mondavi’s Reserve Cabernet was $5.99 and a gallon of Carlo Rossi was sometimes on sale at $.99. Clearly the bottle of wine was for special occasions and the gallon was for sharing with friends at a party. Even at this point, we were not yet addicted to food and wine pairing mandates; frankly, we rarely drank wine with meals
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except for holiday and special occasion meals. Wine was more a social event beverage. Then came Georgia. We moved from California to Georgia in the mid ’70s, shipping in the moving van cases of the gallons of Almaden red wine and a few cases of special bottles from the closet floor in our California home’s master bedroom At this point, we were still not really wine folks, but this is the beginning of the shift from simple to complex in the food and wine pairing meal mess. Neighbors, who became friends and remain so to this day, were from everywhere in the country: Illinois, Colorado, Kansas, Connecticut. Atlanta and the South were becoming civilized, thanks to air conditioning. One of our new neighbors returned to the U.S. from his work assignment in Johannesburg, South Africa. He and his wife brought home with them South African wines. Thanks to their cellar, I tasted my first Pinotage (a kind of grape) wine, and with Ben and Jutta came many friendly evenings and talks about wine and food. It was a Delta pilot neighbor who brought us our first Washington wine, a Chateau Ste Michelle Sauvignon Blanc. At this time his scheduled route was Atlanta, Seattle, then Seattle, Dallas, Atlanta. We had the Sauvignon Blanc at his house. He had prepared a meal of grilled lemon chicken and grillfried potatoes and onions. Here too there was talk of food and wine and what went together and what did not. Our move to the N.Y./Connecticut area brought with it three additional aspects of wine and food enjoyment. The
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northeast has a rich Portuguese/ Spanish, Italian and German heritage population and of course wines of the countries. Here, we really opened our eyes to the international wine world and I drank my first Ribera del Duero wines. Also, our son’s girlfriend at the time worked at an upscale restaurant and often brought us some of the wines they served. Those were the real eye openers. By the time we moved to Washington in the late ’80s, we’d been not only educated, we’d been indoctrinated. And after we joined the Wenatchee Enological Society in the early ’90s we became interested in all aspects of wine other than just the drinking of it, and began to research and study it. It’s impossible now, for example, for us to just toss chicken thighs on the grill, cook ’em up and serve them without fretting over what wine to serve with the meal. How is the chicken prepared? Are there sauces with specific flavors or aromas? Was the chicken marinated in a red wine, or an Asian spice? What were the principal spices in any marinade? Will there be heavy greens as sides? And on and on. As I said at the beginning, life was easier before my wife discovered wine. What I didn’t say was how much I appreciate her skill at sorting through the details and creating wine and food pairings that always please us and our friends.
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.
“Giving is what makes all of us happy people.” —Thea Fager, Philanthropist
Celebrating Community Foundation Week November 12-18
www.cfncw.org