Bounty of the Season

This is absolutely my favorite time of year. There is still the feeling of life and abundance of late summer, but it's starting to slow into renewal and coziness. Every day reminds me of a being at a pumpkin patch as a child, standing in clean, thin air amid vibrant colors and drinking hot chocolate.

I have jumped into full-on fall mode, hauling firewood and wanting to preserve as much food as possible. I've been harvesting apples and pears and pressed them to make hard cider and perry. My roomate had a ton of tomatoes at all stages of ripeness, so we had a 2-day extravaganza of canning green tomato salsa, chutney, and red tomato sauce.

The Former Vegetarian in me Would be Shocked

Last weekend was the opening of deer hunting season, and I went on my first hunting trip. The former vegetarian in me didn't know what to make of it, but the current carnivore, and more importantly the local, seasonal, organic, foraging, self-reliant eater was excited. All in all it was a truly empowering experience. I didn't shoot anything, but was present for 2 kills, and mostly wanted to learn about tracking, field dressing, and skinning.

My step-dad and step-brother were gracious teachers, and extremely knowledgeable with their life-long hunting backgrounds. I think we both impressed each other- they to find that I (who they would call bookish) was such a brazen hiker and stealthy walker with keen awareness of my surroundings, and I (who would not necessarily call them environmentalists) to find that they are skilled naturalists and trackers. It was 2 worlds colliding in the best of ways.


I didn't know how I'd handle it all considering 1) I don't even kill spiders, and 2)I frequently faint at the sight of a small cut. Oddly enough, knowing that we were out there with the intention of killing changed my reaction to death. Upon seeing the first deer fall from a clean shot in the neck, I was filled with simultaneous horror and elation. "Yes, yes, yes! No, no, no!" said my heart. I said a prayer of thanks for the animal while a primal instinct to clean and preserve the meat set in. I was reminded that most basic parts of human survival are not bad or good, but a complex intertwining of sacrifice and vitality. Even childbirth, which is possibly the most miraculous gift in human existance, is wrought with pain and suffering. And the death of a loved one is sometimes the most profound celebration of life.

And so I watched carefully as my step-dad expertly gutted the animal, its still-warm insides steaming in the cold fall air. That was the absolute hardest part- the warmth of the body and the reminder of just how recently it died. I wanted to wait for the body to cool before handling it, so it would seem more lifeless, but they said No, the point is to cool the deer as quickly as possible by gutting and skinning it so the meat can start curing. We hung it in the garage, and they taught me to skin it, starting at the neck and working down. I skinned the whole thing myself, ending with a whole warm hide in my hands, feeling eerily proud.

A New Addition to the Family

After 9 months of excited anticipation, my sister Laura gave birth to a beautiful little girl on September 26. Welcome Emma Adalaide Smith! It was a hard 30-hour labor, and I give mad props to my sister for being such a brave mama, and to my bro-in-law Chuck for being such a supportive daddy.



She is about 4 hours old in this picture.



This picture is of the 5 generations of women in the family. I would like to point out that Emma is being held by her great-great-grandma, or her mom's mom's mom's mom. No joke.

Setting Sail

This week I head to Canada for a week-long sailing trip off the east coast of Vancouver island near Desolation Sound! I've been doing a lot of day sailing this summer on my sweetie's boat, but this will be my first extended trip. He has a 38 foot ketch, which means 2 masts and 4 sails, and I am just starting to get the hang of it.



There is nothing quite like approaching a place by water instead of land. I love anchoring in a new harbor and rowing to shore. Last week we spent a night in Bellingham Bay, off Boulevard Park. I lived in Bellingham for 6 years, and yet being there in a boat was a completely different view, different feeling.

More about the Yurt

I am sometimes met with blank stares when I mention I live in a yurt, so I want to tell you more about my little round home. Basically, a yurt is a portable, lattice-framed tent-like structure originally used by nomads in the steppes of Central Asia (thanks wikipedia). They are traditionally felt-covered, though modern American yurts use a waterproof canvas material. The word came to English from the Russian "yurta". Here is a photo of my yurt and the front yard.

My yurt is in a sunny clearing, whereas my property-mate Whitney lives in one next door in a nice shady spot.


You can see the wooden lattice on the inside and the various windows. It's been a dry, cozy spot for the summer. Mine is a Pacific Yurt and here's the website for more info: http://www.yurts.com/

Hitch-hiking

As a rule of thumb (hah!) I rarely hitch-hike, and never alone, but the San Juans are my exception. As I don't have a car, the roads are aweful for cycling, and public transportation is nearly nonexistant, I rely on hitching quite frequently out here. It is a pretty ingrained and accepted part of the island culture, to the point of having an official hitching post, like a bus stop!

It's been a great way to have conversations with random people that I would otherwise probably never have the chance to talk to as well as learn a lot of history. I've met business-owners, sailors, carpenters, musicians, travelers. Two days in a row I got picked up by two different men who moved out here years ago because they were hired to build staircases from beaches up to people's homes. Who would have thought? I've met residents of surrounding islands such as Waldron and Crane. I met a woman who grew up on the island and moved to L.A. as an adult and became a stripper. She had recently moved back to return to her literal and spiritual roots and become an artist. I've hitchhiked with a carful of children gleefully covered in strawberries and offering me some at the height of the season. I've hitch-hiked with a bucketful of seawater and 2 big dungeness crabs and no one batted an eyelash.

I've gotten to the point where I know some of the people who stop for me, but most the time of course I don't. You're always taking a risk, and in my experience not so much for safety as for social comfort. One time I got in a big fancy SUV with leather interior, carrying my big backpack, and between my hurry to get in and the tall seats... I slid right back out. The man driving looked at me in distain. He was middle-aged, wearing a woven Guatemala-type tunic, long blond hair, and tons of necklaces, driving one of the nicest cars I've seen on the island. I just couldn't connect with him, and our conversation was painfully awkward all the way to Deer Harbor on the other side of the island.

Of course, one golden rule is not hitching when you have a time limit. Expecting a car to stop because you have a schedule is setting yourself up for a bad or tense experience. I leave myself plenty of time, and so far have always had a quick, safe, and interesting ride.

Latte Art

Being a barista again has given me ample opportunity to practice my latte art. The leaves are intentional, but occasionally I get a surprise animal, like this eagle, or cat.





I have one Canadian customer with a dry sense of humor, and we agreed that all these leaves and animals are too cutesy. For him I do frowning faces, broken hearts, or skull and crossbones.

Playing Outside!

Here are some photos thus far of this fair San Juan summer. I am living with my friend Whitney (Osa) on a property where we each have our own yurt. This is the outdoor kitchen that we share.



A sunset kayaking trip.



Sailing on my sweetie's boat.



Starts I planted on the organic farm.



The garden I've been doing with Whitney in town.



Kids at Cascade Lake.



Bicycling in the morning mist.

Home Sweet Home

The rest of South America was a blur. I said goodbye to Beth in Valparaiso,Chile and headed to Argentina. Upon arrival in that lovely country, I was immediately kicking myself for not going there sooner. Argentina was everything that the other countries in South America weren't- organized, friendly, and with consistently good food. Well, maybe it's not fair to say the other countries weren't those things, but rather that the beauty and ease of traveling in Argentina really stood out. People stopped to chat all the time, happy to give advice or suggestions. I made friends with some artisans in a cooperative in Buenos Aires, and got a little lesson in silver-smithing. Of everywhere I have been in the last few months, I am really only drawn to go back to Argentina. I have more slang to pick up from their crazy dialect, artisans to learn from, yerba mate to drink, and malbecs to try. Otherwise, I am pretty happy to be home.

I didn't realize what a psychological effect this trip had on my sense of safety until I got back. I was on my guard against getting robbed or hurt or cheated every second of the day. It has been hard to unwind from that feeling. At restaurants here I nervously keep looking at my purse on the chair next to me; the other day when I didn't have my wallet, I assumed it was stolen when really I had just left it at home.

I am living on Orcas island for the summer, and being out here is slowly negating that sense that everyone is out to get me. It is the most nurturing and safe place I could imagine being right now. Among other things, I am really relishing not having to carry a bike lock...

Valpo

I have wanted to visit Valparaiso, Chile, ever since I found out years ago that Pablo Neruda lived here. As an important port town, it is the oldest city in Chile, now chalked full of art, amazing architecture, and history. Although only about half a million people large, it is considered the cultural capitol of the country and is a UNESCO World Heritage Sight. The best parts are the hill neighborhoods or cerros, where you have to climb steeply through cobblestone streets, windy staircases, beautiful graffiti art, crumbling buildings, cute bars, haphazard walls, stained-glass churches, and hole-in-the-wall artist studios. You get lost in the labyrinth of streets, whose designers clearly didn't believe in right angles, and find your way not by street names, but by the artwork. "I know I've seen that horse mirror mural, but never the winged lady..."

Here's an approximate recipe for the city of Valparaiso...

Ingredients:
* a Tim Burton film set
* massive amounts of brightly colored paint
* many of Chile's artisans and visual artists
* garbage and industrial grime
* a handful of slick, petty thieves (they got another wallet of mine, dammit!)
* old port area with precarious stacks of shipping containers and military vessels
* stockpiles of pisco (white grape brandy) and hot mulled wine (vino navigante)
* a dozen colleges and subsequent students (who by the way, have a very distinct style- sort of makes me think of if The Clash moved to South America and got into hip hop and plaid scarves)
* clouds and fog of the Bay area

--Combine ingredients and pour onto steep coastal hillside. Let contents settle and enjoy for 500 years!--

A few other random facts about Valpo- it can claim Latin America’s oldest stock exchange, the continent’s first volunteer fire department, Chile’s first public library, and the oldest Spanish language newspaper in continuous publication in the world.

So about Chileans in general- they are so hard to understand! I've been studying and speaking Spanish for over 10 years, and I had little trouble communicating in Peru, but here it's a constant, "Como? Como?" Oh, maybe it's because they don't finish their freaking words! They take the 's' off the ends of words and drop it like it's hot. For instance, 'mas o menos' (more or less) becomes 'mah o mayo'. There are words here I have never, ever heard of that they don't say anywhere else. I was struggling to understand a man at the store the other day, and his coworker said it well, "The poor girl speaks Spanish, not Chilean!"



I am staying with a high school friend, Elizabeth, who is living here teaching English at a college for a year. It has been absolutely wonderful for several reasons. It's great to see an old friend, and one who speaks Spanish and has similar interests. Her apartment is amazing- centrally located, beautiful bay view, and q u i e t. I have slept better here than I have in all of South America (excluding the quiet of camping on the Machu Picchu trek).

She also is a fabulous cook and has kept me well fed. To back up a little, I have to say that my taste buds have been seriously neglected the last month. After I left the fresh seafood and tropical fruit of the northern Peru coast, the cuisine took a turn for the worse. Through southern Peru, Bolivia, and northern Chile, my standard diet has been (dubious parts of) chicken and plain rice, with a lot of gummy boiled potatoes and sometimes fried fish... Some meat soups, an alpaca steak, mushy spaghetti, and occasionally "salad" which is a lot of raw chopped red onion with a tiny bit of limp lettuce. I generally eat where locals do, at little restaurants, stalls, or markets because the food is cheaper and more authentic than the touristy places and usually delicious. It's funny that the ONLY time I got throw-up sick on this trip was from a nice gringo restaurant in Huaraz when I thought the chicken curry and mango chutney would be a nice change of pace. I had a night of sleeping by the toilet to regret that decision. Later, for more variety I tried some nachos in a gringo restaurant in Copacabana, and they were so bad. The tortilla chips were stale Doritos covered in cheese and greasy shredded chicken.

Anyway, here with Elizabeth I have finally found redemption- she's made hearty egg and hashbrown breakfasts (including bacon, which we had to go to 3 butchers to find, and finally ended up paying $18 for a half kilo, apparently it's rare here), curried garbanzo and spinach pitas, salmon lasagna, bruschetta, and green salad. There are really good restaurants, some foreign-owned- all with ocean views or great ambiance or funky decor-and we've had Spanish tapas and wine, seafood soups, tofu burritos, and saffron rice balls. Well, it hasn't all been that varied or healthy. Elizabeth did have to introduce me to Chorillana- a quintessential Chilean dish which is a HUGE pile of french fries with chopped onion, beef, and fried egg. No condiments. If you ask for ketchup or anything they just stare at you. There are restaurants that serve nothing else, and is often the Sunday family meal after church. You can only order by number of people, so we obviously had to get a Chorillana plate for 2, which by my personal calculations could have easily fed 5.

Finally, I have to mention some of the big current events going on. There's a drought, and subsequent power shortage since much electricity comes from hydro plants. There are big student protests going on in Valpo about transportation and other things, and a bunch of colleges are "en toma", or in take-over. The students literally have seized control of the schools, keys and all, and some haven't held classes in over a month. Finally, the volcano Chaiten is erupting after being dormant for thousands of years. The nearby cities are having to evacuate, and relief has been a national effort. We donated to a victims of Chaiten food drive yesterday. Here's a picture of it.