Oat Bread Days

  

              In our house, we rotate through seasonal foods. First the fruits and veggies, eating whatever is ripe and fresh every day until it is out of season (or every other day, when it is zucchini). But we also have seasonal baked goods, like pies and quick breads. It started years ago, when there were too many yummy things in December and Mark suggested that we just shift some of them to other seasons. Now, we spread various lentil soups out over months of winter and early spring and quick breads each have their season. We just finished the zucchini bread season, and I broke out the oat bread recipe last week, before we went camping. It is perfect because we are often purchasing fresh oatmeal and wheat berries in late September, so it reflects the harvest season.

Oat Bread

1.5 c oatmeal

1.25 c buttermilk

6T oil

.5 c brown sugar

2 eggs

1.25 c fresh ground whole wheat flour

1 t BP

.5 t salt

1t BS

1 cup small dried fruit—currants, blueberries, raisins….

Soak the oats in the buttermilk for a couple of hours. Mix in wet ingredients, then the dry. Pour into a greased loaf pan and bake in 400 degree oven until done.

Metolious Preserve

Around the Equinox—and the time college students come back to school, but have nothing productive to do at night—Mark and I head to the Metolious for the weekend. We camp at Camp Sherman, buy a sandwich from the store and eat it while watching salmon come up stream, have morning campfires, and take long walks. It begins to bring our world back into balance after the chaos of school starting, both my job and the university.

This year, we decided to walk over to the Deschutes County Land Trust’s Metolious Preserve. It’s a lovely, diverse patch of Eastern Oregon forest, right on the dividing lines of Doug Fir and Ponderosa bioregions. From the campground, it is about two miles to the north trailhead, and then there are several miles of trails within the preserve, wandering over the three forks of Lake Creek, then off into the dusty pines. Black Butte, absolutely symmetrical, rises on one side, glimpsed through the trees.

This year, we spent some time considering regeneration after what appeared to be a controlled burn on the way over. Tufty grasses and wildflowers were looking beautiful—it had rained recently—and the underbrush was coming back. Dogbane and bitterbrush were sprouting new shoots from the bases. Baby ponderosa trees rose up in the middle of the trail.  We’ve seen this pattern before, the regrowth after fires, but we always find it fascinating. And, if you are really lucky in the high country, you might be hiking through regrowth at the peak huckleberry and blueberry production years. We keep our eyes out. This is a fire ecosystem.  Even devastated areas, like the gorge, return with time.

The Preserve, was, as always, almost empty. One car in the lot, three people on bikes. Mark worked on his evergreen identification skills: Douglas Fir, Ponderosa Pine, Larch, Lodgepole Pine, Noble Fir, Grand Fir, and one small Juniper. Pacific Ninebark and roses were in seed and the snowberry was covered in white, often twinned, berries. Some summer blooms, encouraged by the rain, were blooming again—phlox, lupine, yarrow, and scarlet gilia. The sky was cloudy and the air misty as we walked into the center, where there are benches to look through the trees while you eat lunch. We have seen deer in the distance there on another visit, but never people. While we ate lunch, the rain began. True Oregonians, we munched our peanut and apple butter sandwiches in the drizzle, hunched in raincoats. After lunch, we walked over to a shelter and changed into rain pants. “I think it’s stopping,” Mark observed. Just to be on the safe side, we kept the rain gear on.

Walking back, we moved a little more slowly. The world was still and quiet. The rain stopped; in places it looked like it had never started. When we came into civilization, we passed people and their dogs, families gathered at the store, campers watching the river flow by. Our fire pit was sodden from rains, so we set up our campfire and chairs in the CCC shelter, which has one of the best fireplaces—and views—in the country.  The stars came out right before we went to bed.

Moon Walk

Last night was the full Harvest Moon and the clouds broke in the late afternoon, so that we could hold our annual Moon Watch. Usually we make dinner and drive to Chip Ross Park, where we eat, watch people and their dogs come and go, and wait for the moonrise. Last night, we decided to walk. I packed cheese rolls, salad, corn on the cob, and chocolate into our day packs, grabbed an extra layer or two from the drawers, and we headed uphill.

                It was a lovely warm evening. The light was golden as the sun set; the air was still and quiet; the ground smelled of dampness from a recent rain. We walked from our densely populated neighborhood through Ranchland, and then into the undeveloped area on the hills, finally cresting into the park. The world dropped away and we arrived at the picnic table a little after seven.  Dog Walk time. The world grew dimmer. People came out of the park and pulled away. The church let out around eight and all of the cars left, taillights bright in the darkness. We were alone, standing on the gravel mound, waiting for the moon, which was, as always, later than expected and NOT where we were watching. When it finally appeared, it was bands of deep orange light, blocked by the ridges of clouds backed up against the Cascades. As it rose, it rapidly shifted in color to yellow, then cream emerging about the distant clouds.  We cheered,  picked up our backpacks, and started down the trail.

                Gravel crunched underfoot. Crickets and birds called back and forth as we walked the broad trail into the park. Up and down the hills, watching for the high point where the trail back to town drops off the side of the slope. There—right after the dark space of trees, two posts. Down. We leave the gravel behind, walk down the dirt, worn by both feet and mountain bikes. A bit of a gully.  On the south side, the moon, huge and creamy, peeks between the huge twisted branches of the oaks and then disappears again. Stars wink above. Below, we can see the lights of town, moving from curving roads of the hillsides to the straight runways of the older gridded streets. The slight breeze has died. The air is warm and still. Down, down, down, we drop, feeling our way. I can barely see Mark in front of me; he does not always notice when I stop to watch the moon. The slope opens up, moonwashed, into a meadow and the trail ahead is clear. We swing to the right, towards a wash of willows, blackberry, and fir, knowing that the trailhead is not far away. As we move through the wash, we can barely see. Mark pokes ahead with his walking stick; I follow my memory. In the brush, a deer jumps up and runs away, startled by our presence. Mark jumps. “It’s a deer,” I say, “not the cougar.”  One more small meadow, then civilization.

                Even when we move onto sidewalk, the evening is still and silent. It could be one AM by the traffic. No one else is out on this beautiful evening; we have the sidewalks to ourselves.  Moon and street lights create our shadows, dappled in leaves, moving quietly downhill.  

September Gold

One of the hardest things about early September is having to move back inside for hours on end. We all feel it; even the cat is more inclined to sprawl in the sun, soaking up the dry heat before the long damp season begins.

It is the golden season. The light is a clear, liquid gold, pouring over the landscape. Everything turns golden—the fields, the leaves, the crops, the flowers, all gather in this light and reflect it back. In my garden, small pumpkins emerge from the tangle of green leaves—there are eight?! I had only counted five all summer long. Three were hidden. Sungold tomato vines sprawl over the others, small golden suns everywhere. We eat them constantly. The goldenrod is blooming and every pollinator from miles around is collecting on it, so it hums.   My fall crops are growing madly; they are in the brightest bed. Along the fence, one volunteer pumpkin vines is making a final run for it; it has grown three feet in the last two weeks and has a tiny fruit hanging from it. We will see if anything comes of it.

Harvest is everywhere. Last summer vegetables compete with the early squashes in the Farmer’s Market. All sorts of fruits spill over, all ready to be processed for winter. We bring in the potatoes and onions, dried beans and corn. The time of reckoning…what went well? What did not? It’s serious for us, home gardeners, far more serious for the local farmers. These six weeks between Lammastide and the Fall equinox determine how well we will eat this winter. Soon, we will break out the wool socks, start the wood stove, consider baked beans for dinner. Until then, though, I am stretching my bare feet towards the sun, holding onto these golden days as long as possible.