Between Every Two Pines

Between every two pines is a doorway to a new world.  John Muir

I found this wonderful quote by John Muir for the booklet I did for Mom's memorial service. It's something like the way I always felt, thinking about going back into the woods on my own, when I was a kid.

I took the picture in a graveyard up near North San Juan, after another funeral; I was looking for two pines.

Now I have made it a transparent picture for dark t-shirts, and like this for cards and journals. (Photoshop online made available by the college, whose students can't come to campus to the library now.)

Maybe with the quote below it instead of interrupting the sky...

Stay Warm

Lassie on heater, probably spring 2011

Doesn't she look grumpy? And she is looking down. I think someone might have been there to dispute the possession of the heater with her.  She is glaring "Don't you push me off!"

This is probably the kittens' first year, spring or early summer 2011. She doesn't have her adult color green eyes yet. And that year they were kept in the bathroom with a heater, separate from Rex. That was the year that they were all on my lap in the chair, and we were enjoying a fire in the woodstove - on June 2nd!

We had a dry December this year - bad news in case we go back to drought conditions without fully recovering from the last one. We haven't had snow yet here, but back east they are having feet of snow in a winter cyclone, and record low temperatures.

I recently asked myself, "what do you do when the power goes off?"

And the answers I immediately came up with:

What do I do when the power goes out?
I get a fire started in the wood stove, (and if it happened today I’d be cursing myself while I cleared away the clutter in front of the stove) and be sure to cook dinner over the stove before dark. And go bring in more firewood before dark. Before it rains. Or snows.
Or dye some fabric, or take a bath, or wash the dishes with the last warm water in the water heater.
Or put extra blankets on the bed, and curl up in the dark and call my mother, whose phone number was the one I knew in the dark.

Seriously. There are lots of things to do to take advantage of/survive the situation. Those with a live-in lover have another option. Why they have lots of births 9 months later in cities.

Those answers are in reverse order, most recent to oldest, of things I have actually done over the years. It depends a little on what time of year, and time of day it is. But the latest wisdom I learned several years ago, when my power was out for more than 3 days.

[That is common enough here that it is necessary to have another source of heat and cooking, and lights, handy for when it happens. The bus driver, a few blocks away, had his power out for 2 separate weeks that year.]

That time, after a couple of days I had used most of the wood I had inside, and was wading through a foot of snow carrying firewood. And the lights I had were not bright enough to see what I was doing if I had to cook dinner after dark.

I learned to bake bread the summer I turned 16, at the cabin in Northern Idaho. In a woodstove. And the little woodstove heaters don't channel heat to the top the way a cookstove does. Much harder to cook over.


The next time the power went out that year, it came on only a few hours later. But by that time I had started a fire, and heated some leftover soup, and was having dinner.


2020 Last October, 2019, PGE turned the power off 6 times -- more than 10 days off total! We all, including grocery stores, lost freezers-full of food. There wasn't any rain all month, some wind -- not necessarily where the power was off. They were doing planned maintenance.

Lost Cat, May 2014

She's gone. She was my mother's cat, born in her house, slept on her bed. She was beautiful. And before anyone else moved in here, she used to sit on my shoulders.* She was  the mother of my darling "kittens" (3 years old now, still act like kittens).

She was probably gotten by a wild animal the first night.** It rained. She might have tried to come back in through the hole in the screen where I had left the door open for her, and gotten chased off by the Horrible Roomer's cat or dogs. She wasn't very old, maybe 1 or 2 in 2010, so 6 now, or less.

A disadvantage of indoor cats is that they may not really learn to come when I call. She hadn't. (My outdoor cats came running when I called them.) So when they're hiding out or lost, I don't have that second chance for them to find their way back, to my calling. I called. I looked.

She liked being out on this screen porch, she and her friend Sugar Mouse, that first summer, before they had kittens. (My mother's cats had not been fixed nor had shots.) She was a good mother, protecting her kittens from their father and everything else. Once a kitten made a squeak when I was near it, and she flew at me to protect it.

When she got frightened, she and Mousie, her companion, they used to squeeze into the little drawers on either side of the kitchen sink. She was frightened by someone just before she vanished, and hiding in there. And I took a picture of her. With a flash. She maybe thought it wasn't a safe hiding place anymore.


**Dogs and cars kill more cats here, though.

*This last year and a half it has been too unpleasant here for me to sit with her at all, in this part of the house, with the Roomer here. I really missed that, her sitting on my shoulders. I'm afraid she missed it too.


I learned later that the low-life slime who lived here, guest of a renter, the one who had kicked out the screen in the kitchen door, had deliberately chased Patches out to die. 
I learned it when he tried to do it to her companion Mousie too. But Mousie was too smart for him; she hid where he couldn't find her. And I locked him out forever. (They were already supposed to have moved out.)

Mom's Applesauce Cake 12/10/2011

batik furoshiki from Japan

No, this isn't applesauce cake. This is a gorgeous hand-painted batik furoshiki she bought the year we were in Japan. I've always loved it, from long before I ever tried to do any batik.

Her applesauce cake recipe was in her old hand-written cook book, with notes for instance on how she cooked the turkey each year when I was a kid. She knew right where it was on a shelf when I asked her, and I made the cake the first week I was there, when she could still enjoy it.

The unfamiliar ingredient in this recipe is cornstarch. What is cornstarch doing in a cake recipe? Well, I think it is like putting it in apple pie; the cake can have lots of applesauce in it, and be moist, without falling apart. This recipe is from long before things like carrot cake and zucchini bread.

In fact, her cookbook says her mother got the recipe from Mom's godmother Mrs Dorsey Ridge.


Mom's Applesauce Cake      ( from Mrs. Dorsey Ridge, approx 1920)

Put in large bowl, then sift together:

2 cup flour
2/3 c sugar
1 tsp soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cloves or allspice
1/2 tsp nutmeg
3 Tablespoons powdered chocolate (or cocoa is ok) (Kelvin doubles this)
1 T cornstarch
(pinch non-refined sea salt?)  (Her recipe did not call for any, but it seemed a little bland last time.)

Add and mix in:

1 c nuts  (she used walnuts) optional
1 c raisins

Add and stir in:

1 1/2 - 2 c sweetened applesauce  (1 1/2 may be more like she made, she said.)
1/3 c oil or melted butter  (Or I substitute yogurt sometimes.)

Turn into a buttered loaf pan.
Bake at 350°F for 45 minutes to 1 hour
until toothpick comes out clean.
Maybe cover with aluminum foil at the end, if it is getting too dark before the inside is done.

When I was a kid, she kept a canister of 6 times the dry ingredients mixed up. Then she could quickly take 3 cups of that mix to make a loaf.

Great toasted with butter for breakfast.


After Thanksgiving, when she was in the hospital bed, and had stopped eating solid food, I was heating in the microwave a piece of this cake I had made for my brothers' visit, and I heard her call loudly from the bedroom "Cut the bread! Cut the bread!"  I took a piece in there, and broke off a small corner to put in her mouth - and she smiled... so beatifically.


Dec 11, 2011
Just got the oven fixed, after more than a year when I couldn't bake. And the first thing I made, to take to the last day of class, was this applesauce cake. She always used to make it during the holidays, for my sister's and brothers' birthdays. 

Yesterday it was 2 years since she died. Just since the end of summer am I starting to get things done again.


July 13, 2013
I just made applesauce cake again last night. It's funny, I follow the recipe, but it isn't the same as her dense, dark cake. I even put in walnuts this time, like she did. Maybe it's the type of chocolate/cocoa. (I have Guittard, I think she had Hershey's in her cupboard.) And maybe she used her home-made applesauce. . .

The cake keeps well and stays moist.

Remembering Tigrr (Musketeer) written June 15, 2011 8pm

Tiger (Musketeer) on my jacket - afternoon Dec 10 2009

This is Tiger in Mom's house, after I had come back from a long picture-taking session down at the beach, and a walk.

When she took him from me (1996), I had named him Musketeer, because of his gorgeous Puss-in-Boots coloring. (And he was an exhibit in my list of cat-names-as-self-fulfilling-disasters, since as he grew older he started beating up on everyone.)

I had picked him up (literally) at the feral cat feeding station, behind where I worked, after he'd been there a couple of weeks. Clearly he wasn't wild. Mom had driven down here; I offered him, but she had turned him down. And I was glad, because I was quite fond of him.

But on the day she was leaving, after I had left for work, he jumped up into her arms - and she just took him. Didn't even leave me a note. Took my cat carrier too, although I eventually, years later, got it back.

She sent a couple of pictures of him - all ruffled after the 2-day drive, and calmed down later. And a note written from his point of view.

When I got up to her place in fall 2009, her favorite cat had had to be put down, and Tiger was coming out and sitting on laps and being friendly. He spent a lot of time on her lap at the table, and then on the bed with her. She said "Tiger is trying to help". She also said, looking at her array of pills on the table"I don't know whether I'm supposed to take these pills, or give them to the cat"... Then he started losing weight, and his eyes became totally dilated, but he apparently could still see.

The vets up there and down here did not figure out what was wrong with him, but it may have been a version of the FIP that probably killed Sugar Mouse. It has been amazing that he lasted so long, as skinny as he was. He was eating a can or more of cat food a day, or when he stopped eating that sometimes, baby food.

This week was supposed to be a trip again to Camano, but it got put off. Good thing, because I needed to be here.

Once he stopped being able to walk around, and stopped eating for the last time, I locked the others out on the balcony, put a clean t-shirt on his reflective warm pad on the kitchen floor near the heater, and tried to spend as much time in the chair nearby as I could. School over for the spring, and unemployed. I slept in the chair mostly - and came to really hate that chair. (When I'm tired I get very crabby, and that thing would easily go into an uncomfortable position, but only with great difficulty into a comfortable one - and then it wouldn't stay there.)

He was mostly asleep, but the first several days, he would wake up every couple of hours, and could drink some water put into his mouth with a syringe. Then he slept for over a day, but did wake up one final time and take a little water, the morning of the day he died.

Over all it lasted about 6 days. I wasn't there when he died, but away for a couple of hours.

We should all be so lucky, going quietly and peacefully, in our own home, not thirsty, and with company nearby.

Between every two pines...

"Between every two pines is a doorway to a new world."
(John Muir)

This picture is of Mom in 1946, a few months after her marriage, taken by her father.

It was her Celebration of Life today; it was beautiful. RevAmanda was wonderful, Mount Baker out the window was as beautiful as anyone had ever seen it. I had found Celtic music to play (Turlogh O'Carolan played by Patrick Ball & Aine Minogue), since she had wanted one Celtic piece for herself among my sister's country music at my sister's memorial service. Many people got up to light a candle and tell Juanita stories.

My stories:

- When my brothers were young, to ensure fairness, she used to weigh the bowls of ice cream. And being Juanita, first she weighed the bowls, then the bowls plus ice cream.

- I live in the house she was born in, in the Northern California foothills. It is surrounded by tall trees, Black Oaks and Ponderosa pines that were mature when she was born. They dwarf the 3-story house. Once when she came to visit, she got out of the car, looked around, and said "You need more trees". At first I thought she was joking.

- In her last weeks, when she didn't really remember people, she would always ask "Have I met you before?" But if you were wearing purple, you were her friend instantly.

- When she was perhaps pregnant with the elder of my brothers, and I was barely tall enough to see over the counter, I had asked the 'where do babies come from?' question. Maybe in the form "Is the new baby going to come out of Mommie's tummy?" The answer I got involved diagrams of cell division, and I swear, when I got to the subject long later in biology class, the words 'meiosis' and 'mitosis' were strangely familiar...


For 'going away music': the Huron Carol, played by John McCutcheon, and Farewell to Stromness, by Peter Maxwell Davies, among other nature themed songs.

I had spent the time since she died finding photos & writing a memorial booklet about her life, and found these two John Muir quotes for the covers.

"Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.
Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees."
(John Muir)

I was alone today

Picture from 12/12/2009, 5:04 pm.

I was alone today, in this house where we often spent Christmases together, Mom, my sister Tina and my two brothers & I - and one memorable year, Mom's niece & her son Jeff, plus Tina's husband and my brother's wife. Mom, Tina & Jeff are all gone now.

My brothers were here for 2 days on the weekend, and they will be back for a couple of days for the memorial service. Otherwise the cats & I are alone here. They have started sleeping with her teddy bears on the chest that used to be at the foot of her bed. Except Tiger who has lost a lot of weight for unknown reasons, and seems very ill.

I should have called my family, I know. I didn't.

My friend called in the evening at his usual time.

The teddy bears miss her

Picture from Friday 12/11/2009, 3:07 pm.

The coverlet here was her favorite color.

Ice-fishing

That's a blue heron on that log out there, in the patches of floating ice. The rough-looking areas are ice too. I think the flat white patches may have finally floated loose from where they were stuck to the beaches, underwater, after the very cold middle-of-the-night low tides we have had for several days. The days have been in the 30s°F.

Picture taken 12/12/2009, 5:02 pm.

I am working on a memorial booklet about Mom, like she & I did for my sister, except that in the several years since my sister died, I have gone to school for three years to learn how to do this. Unfortunately, technical difficulties prevent my moving forward very quickly until more RAM arrives for her computer. Meanwhile I am getting an obituary out to the local newspapers.

You just have to keep moving

This picture was taken 12/10/2009, 4:13 pm.

You just have to keep moving to not freeze in place, like this little bird striding along the frozen shore.

Mom's computer guy was here this afternoon to help me get her computer able to use Photoshop & InDesign so I can do a booklet about her, like she & I & my brother did about my sister.

And he showed me that there is a street named after her!

Swimming in the sky

Picture taken 12/10/2009, 4:30 pm.

The light was amazing yesterday afternoon, with clear reflections of the colors in the sky on the glassy surface, and with spreading ripples made by little birds swimming through the sky reflections.

Ice on the beach at sunset

Picture from 12/10/2009, 5:34pm.

Everyone has come and gone, and I am alone here now with her cats. My brothers will be here for a few days, not this weekend, but next. It's finals week.

Frozen wave

Picture taken 12/10/2009, 4:21pm.

I spent a couple of hours this afternoon down at the shore, taking pictures. It was very cold, and bright, with new clouds coming in, in the distance.

It has been very cold at night during the low tides, and the seawater has frozen onto the beaches, underneath the returning tidal water. I've never seen underwater ice before.

And here, visible during this afternoon's low tide, a wave that froze as it came up onto the exposed beach.

Calm Seas

My mother died this morning.

She was breathing peacefully & quietly all day yesterday, and last night, when I whispered "Goodnight, love" at about 2:30 am.

She was gone this morning at 8:30.

Goodbye. We love you.

The tide is far out now

Picture taken 12/9/2009, 5:51 pm.

She has been breathing peacefully and quietly all day.
No one will be here with us tonight - the car won't start.

Bright, clear, calm

Picture taken 12/9/2009, 10:42am.

She is breathing more quietly now.

Red sky in the morning

Red sky in the morning.
Photos Dec 8, 2009, 9:24am.

She has been breathing harshly all day

Dec 7 Waves

Gentler waves on the beach.
Photo Monday Dec 7, 2009, 3:26pm.

Difficult breathing.

Dec6 09 Waves

Wind and waves on the beach.
Photo Sun Dec 6, 2009, 1:34pm.

Difficult breathing all day.

Cruel & unusual

The mountain is beautiful...
(Picture taken 12/1/2009, 1:10 pm.)

She went to law school when she was 60. She said that the thing which frustrated her and her classmates, was that in all the case law they studied, the precedent-setting cases, justice was nowhere considered, or fairness, or redress for wrongs. Only precedents of law.

"Help help help.
No no no.
Stop stop stop.

Cruel & unusual."

When I told Hospice that, they raised the dosage.

"I can't drink it right now."

That was the last clear thing she said, and couldn't really drink anything after.