Friends

“Acquiring a dog may be the only opportunity a human ever has to choose a relative.” Mordecai Wyatt Johnson

I come from a long line of people who love dogs.  We like cats too and have had a few as pets over the years, mostly as ranch cats who keep little critters away.  But dogs have been key companions for almost every member of my family for generations.  They have all been on my mind a lot lately for many reasons, and were the inspiration for our new Dirty Dog Soap.  We’ve had a special affection for herding breeds, but really any four-legged friend has been welcome.  Some have been shelter dogs, some have come from breeders, and one was even found as a puppy, abandoned, covered in mud and left in a parking lot in a cardboard box.  Her name was Molly.   Many of them have been working ranch dogs, a few have been city dogs (who love to visit the ranch), and one was a wild coyote dog who adopted the family all on her own.  See if you can figure out which one she is. 

One of my grandmas fed the ranch dogs pancakes and kibble every morning for most of her life and all of theirs.   When she was planning to be out of town on a trip, she would cook large quantities of pancakes and put them in the freezer to be doled out daily during her absence.   She wanted to make sure they were taken care of.    

We’ve loved them all…  

Sambo

Flicker

Don "The Wonder Dog"

Mischief

Robbie

Honey

Oh, how I wish I still had that belt.

Woodrow

He was named after a character from Lonesome Dove.

Chico

Gillie

Dexter & Molly

This was our holiday card picture one year before the kids were born.  We don’t usually dress up the dogs.  I don’t think Molly was very keen on her hat, but she did look pretty fancy.

Ruben

Sometimes special eye protection is necessary if we’re driving really fast though!

Lois

Zeeko

She was the happiest, sad-looking dog I’ve ever met.

Murdoch

His nickname is Barky McBarkypants.  He is a great protector of the homefront.

A happy lady and two puffballs: Mac & Missy

There are others that I don’t have photos of, but I wouldn’t want to overlook:  Lady, Skxx, Chief, Caesar, Tammy, Bo, Gypsy, Blanco, Shawn, Cody, Herman, Duke, Chloe, Ranger, Ringo & Daisy.  Most of them are are gone, but not forgotten.

This poem by Jimmy Stewart pretty much says it all.  Get a tissue.

Have dogs been important in your life?  What are their names?

Family Camping Essentials List

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Dead Fiddlers Society at the Five Suns Bluegrass Festival

This is my brother John's band Dead Fiddler Society.  Awesome.  I LOVE it!

And here are links to the rest of the performance: Part 2  Part 3

The Flying S

I’ve had folks ask me a number of different times about my company and blog logo and “What’s up with the little horns on the Ss?”  Those little horns are actually wings, and this is their story:

In the late 1930s, my grandparents became ranchers in Idaho.  The family had lived in several different places in the West and Midwest over two generations.  They had started out in Minnesota, homesteaded in Montana, and spent time running a livery stable in Zilla, Washington. 

My grandparents on their wedding day.

My grandfather John Engwald Sylte, who was the eldest of five sons, once traveled by train through northern Idaho during the tail end of the Dust Bowl years.  He was enticed by the surroundings where the lush green of the Selkirk Mountains met the open grassy space of the Rathdrum Prairie.   

My great grandparents and their five sons, with my grandfather in the middle.

He had been a soldier in the US Cavalry in Montana and loved horses and working with animals, in general.  He and my grandmother settled the family in Idaho and started the ranch that I later grew up on.

My grandfather (& buffalo) at Fort Meade, Montana.  

At that time, all ranches had a livestock brand.  It was a way of identifying which animals belonged to you, as well as a way to deter theft…or just make sure that your cows didn’t get mixed in with the neighbors’ if your fence went down in a storm.  They are a mark recorded by the state livestock agency.   

I would love to know exactly how my grandparents settled on our particular brand, since there were so many possible variations and combinations to choose from at the time.  Brands in many ways resemble hieroglyphics with (sometimes strange) combinations of letters, numbers and symbols that become more “readable” as you get used to them.  My grandparents had a shotgun rack in their front sitting room where they displayed all of the brands of friends and neighbors.  I remember sitting there on their smooth naugahyde davenport, staring at the marks and trying to decipher each of the symbols, with the smell of my grandmother’s chicken and dumpling soup hanging in the air.

What they came up with is called the “Flying S”.  Since the family name is Sylte, the S part is pretty obvious.  I think that adding the wings to the top of the S was a nice touch and seems appropriate, given my grandfather’s tendency to dream big and help foster a love of adventure and inventiveness in future generations. The risk-taking has mostly served us well, despite some noteworthy episodes worthy of Icarus.  For many years, the cattle on the ranch all carried the mark on their haunches, and it can still be found all around the ranch on gates, signs and other less predictable locations. 

I have now spent many years living away from the ranch.  Even though my business is not located in Idaho and has nothing at all to do with cattle or ranching, I carry the spirit and history of it all with me as I go about my life.  So there you go…they’re not horns, they’re wings.

Holiday Rumination

I dare you to try and fit the word rumination into conversation tomorrow.

I have a favorite holiday.  That spot used to be occupied by Christmas, until the commitments and complications of adult life knocked it off it's pedestal.  I still love Christmas for its message and meaning, but boy,  what a lot of work!  

I've never been a big fan of Halloween.  There's too much emphasis on candy and too many scary masks for my taste.  We do have a great neighborhood trick-or-treating tradition that I thoroughly enjoy, though. And there was that one year that my 4 year old daughter dressed up as Princess Leia (with a home-made costume) and my 1st grade son as Darth Vader.  You should have seen me trying to get the hair right.  That was a high point.  

The 4th of July is always associated with beer and boating and sunburns for me, and New Year's is just too late at night for me to get into very easily...I'm getting old, I guess. 

So that leaves my favorite:  Valentine's Day.  For me, it's less commercial and cluttered, and focuses on flowers.  I like flowers, especially in February.  We celebrate it as a family holiday, not so much a romantic one.  The kids get small gifts and we have a nice dinner together.  There's no expectation about some large family gathering with extended relatives or some massive and complicated meal to prepare.  It's just our little family enjoying some good food and each others' company.  We like to make valentines for classmates and for the grandparents and uncles.  We put up a few Valentine's Day ornaments and frills around the house as soon as we take down the winter holiday decorations.  It's nice to have something bright and festive to fill that void after the tree and the menorah come down.  Mostly I like the holiday because it's all about remembering to tell others that you love and appreciate them.  Who wouldn't like that...maybe even the best? 

How do you celebrate Valentine's Day?

Loving Lavender

As I mentioned in my earlier post this week, I'm using lavender essential oil in a new application.  The lavender oil that I use in my soaps (Lavender Lover, Cowpoke, Gardener's Gold, Summer Slacker) is a very high quality, nice smelling oil that I've been happy with over the years.  But on a trip home to Idaho last summer, I attended a family reunion and got to spend some time at the ranch of a cousin (the wife of my Dad's first cousin, actually).  She raises lavender on their place and uses it for a variety of purposes: she sells live plants, dried bundles, and makes wreaths and sachets.  

A couple of years ago she also bought a still and started producing her own lavender essential oil.  When I found out about this, I got very excited.  It's not every day that you find out someone in your own family knows how to operate a still!  I think I might have jumped up and down a little.   

She gave me a small bottle of the oil that day and I carried it around in my purse for months, sniffing it every so often.  It's really extraordinary oil.  I thought I knew what nice lavender oil smelled like, but this is better.  Apparently a large part of the difference comes from the fact that she hand picks all of the blossoms off the stems before distillation, which keeps the oil as pure and sweet smelling as can be...no extra  bitter herb smell to muddle the scent.  THIS is the oil that touches your lips when you use the new Lavender & Lemon Smooch Sticks.  They are divine, I must say. 

Scattered Black & Whites

I thought I'd take this opportunity to let you all know that my dear, music-obsessed husband has started his own blog, and it's quite worth following.  It's called Scattered Black & Whites (the name comes from a song by the band Elbow).  Music and food are his two real loves (after the kids and me, of course).  He plays a certain amount of music himself (guitar and piano and a bit of banjo, lately), but mostly he really appreciates the music that other people make.  Ever since we met in college I've gotten to be extremely lazy because he knows what kinds of music I like, finds great new stuff for me, makes me tune lists (used to be mixed tapes...that shows how long we've been together) and then downloads them onto my iPod.  I have to do NOTHING, except push play.  It's awesome for me.

And now he can do a variation of that for you too!  He goes out and finds some of the greatest new, and not-so-new music and talks about it on his blog, links to it, and does all the work for you.  It covers a huge range of styles: everything from Oldtime to Alternative.  He's done some great interviews with musicians already, too.  He can't upload it onto your iPod though, sorry.

Check it out!

Exotic Escapade

My mother taught History of Civilization in college for many years. She has always loved learning about different countries and cultures and tried to visit them, if she could. My mom and stepfather used to travel overseas almost every summer, and often led others on study tours of far away places.  The two of them were even married in Athens.  My  brother and I were very fortunate as youngsters to go abroad with mom to places that expanded our understanding and interest in the world. I think my fascination with other cultures and ethnicities is a large part of why I decided to become an ESL teacher as an adult. Some of my clearest memories are of the places that we traveled…with new sites, tastes, sounds and smells. I can close my eyes and imagine them now, even though I visited many years ago. Travel to new destinations is like manna to me. I even met my husband overseas!

In honor of this hankering, I have created a new soap that celebrates travel to distant lands and the exotic adventures that can be had there. I chose a sumptuous essential oil blend that includes frankincense and myrrh, and then added nourishing mango butter to the mix. And to top it all off, the handy travel tin that it comes in makes it just perfect for accompanying you on all those great escapades you have yet to experience! Just keep it clean and don’t get arrested on a midnight train to Istanbul.

A Sappy, Soapy Celebration

Twenty years ago this week I met my husband.

It was not love at first sight. As a matter of fact, neither one of us made a very good first impression on the other. We were both attending Glasgow University for our junior year of college and it was orientation week for new and foreign students. A student “mixer” was being held at the GU Union, a stately, 200 year old building with character and history. The large library and reading room had been converted into a beer bar for the evening. A space that was normally quiet and studious with its walls of books and large, red leather reading chairs had temporarily become abuzz with alcohol fueled conversation. I walked into the room with a bunch of Norwegian veterinary students I had befriended. There I saw my future mister sitting in one of those red leather chairs, holding two glasses of beer, wearing a fraternity baseball cap and t-shirt with a picture of drunk Bill the Cat, and in the company of a very loud American friend. If you could see me right now, you’d know that I have my fingers and thumb in the shape of an “L” on my forehead. I’m sure I shot daggers at him with my eyes. He thought I was a complete...ya know. We never spoke that first night, but I remembered him.

The next night there was a different event at the GU Union. This time it was a Céilidh, a traditional Scottish dance complete with fiddles, whistles and bodhráns. I grew up doing a bit of Scottish dancing because of that bagpiping thing I do, so this was not a new experience for me. It was, however, for most of the other foreign students in attendance. I couldn’t get anyone to try the dances with me, which I love (they’re a bit like square dances or Contra). The only person I could get to give it a try was that obnoxious guy from the night before. Turned out he was a pretty good dancer…and not nearly as obnoxious as he’d previously seemed from across the room. We danced and had a great evening. I also happened to have laryngitis and couldn’t really speak…not sure how much of a factor that was in us hitting it off. Hmmm.

Anyway, a few dances turned into dating, which turned into a trip to visit him and his family when he returned to the states a few months later, which turned into a long-distance relationship our last year of college, which turned into moving to Seattle together, which turned into marriage and three lovely children. It’s a good thing he was such a great dancer!

Because I feel that fate has been so generous to me, I am feeling generous in return. In celebration of twenty years and a friendship, partnership and love that has gotten better with time…I feel like giving away some soap! All you have to do to enter for a chance to win the give-away is comment on this post. My husband and I love watching movies together, so I thought it would be appropriate to have folks comment with their favorite romantic movie of all time. I couldn’t seem to narrow it down, so here are my top three:

#1 Across the Universe
#2 The English Patient
#3 An Officer and a Gentlemen

The winner will be chosen by a random number generator and will get TWO BARS of my soap in tins, varieties of your choosing. The winner will be announced on Monday, October 11th. Spread the word! I'm curious to see what everyone else's favorite romance flicks are!

My Brother

My brother John and his band the Dead Fiddlers Society have a new CD out called Livin' It Up (check out the track Ruben's Train). John is a musical talent extraordinaire, and I'm not just saying that because he's family and I have big sister goggles on. He plays a multitude of instruments: fiddle (Irish and oldtime style), banjo (clawhammer), contertina, guitar, harmonica and piano. He is a self-taught expert in refurbishing vintage free reed instruments like concertinas and harmonicas. He teaches fiddle, banjo and concertina to new and experienced players and he is known and respected by other great musicians all over the world. He's currently unattached, in case you ladies are interested, and lives in an incredible log cabin home on the idyllic Idaho ranch that we grew up on. AND to top it all off, his dog Ruben sings along when he plays concertina. It's really cute. Here is Ruben when he rides in the car with John and hangs his head out the window.

My brother is awesome and so is his dog.

In Memory of Éliane Wilches Peña

As many of you know, my good friend Éliane passed away recently. Since her death, I have been struggling to find an appropriate way for myself and others to honor her memory. I thought about planting a tree or a small stand of tulips for her, or having a nice bench placed somewhere with a placard...but none of those seemed quite right.

Éliane has talked to me many times over the past few years about how she would like to adopt a little girl from Colombia some day. She wanted to be a mother and thought that a motherless child from her parents' country might be just the right person to help her start her own family. Now that she's gone, I keep thinking about the little girl out there who will never know Éliane and get the chance to be a family. I will continue to imagine that little girl for many years, I think. This brought me to the idea of supporting her somehow. To me, a child represents a hopeful future and endless possibilities. Éliane needed that. It seems like a much more fitting and worthwhile tribute than tulips, not that I don't love tulips.

So I went in search of an orphanage to donate money in memory of Éliane. First I went to Mercy Corps, then to World Vision: both great organizations with ties to children's charities all over the world, but neither of them had an easy way for me to locate a needy institution. So I started doing some of my own research. This brought me to an orphanage in Cali, Colombia that was founded over 80 years ago by a man named Dr. Oscar Scarpetta. He started The Instituto Oscar Scarpetta Orejuela in 1929. It is a "private, non-profit, organization that in correlation with the community, the state, and families is committed to develop health, education, protection and participation programs for boys, girls and youth who are orphaned, abused, abandoned, and in danger situations, with the aim to help them grow into healthy human beings who can become a live example of human values, in order to actively and effectively contribute to their self, family, community and country’s transformation."

I had the opportunity to speak with the founder's granddaughter, Alexandra, who is the U.S. representative for the organization. When I went to call her I noticed that her phone number has a Washington State area code. Small world! She is local, and a lovely person to boot! We talked for a while about my reason for calling and my friend's death. I feel like the timing of it all is in some way providential, since the orphanage is in a funding push right now to supply some of the basic needs of the children in their care.

The orphanage has been run by the same family since its inception 80 years ago, for the past 35 years by the founder's daughter Doña Nohemy Scarpetta de Espindola, known to many as Mamá Nohemy. She and the orphanage have received many awards including from Unicef and a Medal of Merit from the Colombian government.

I urge others to donate as well to this cause, whether or not you knew Éliane. Donations can be made directly to the orphanage, though smaller amounts should be pooled to avoid multiple bank transfer fees, which can end up eating up much of the money. If you would like to make a donation (of any size) to honor Éliane, I have set up a special Paypal account and dedicated bank account to receive funds. Please email me at ewpmemorial@comcast.net if you need my address and are planning to send a check. I will transfer whatever donations have been submitted on August 20th, 2010. All donations will receive confirmation and receipt from the orphanage.

Thanks!

photos used with permission from The Instituto Oscar Scarpetta Orejuela

Corvallis

This past weekend we had the good fortune to visit my brother and his family in their adopted hometown of Corvallis, Oregon. Though I'd been there once before, very briefly, I'd never had the chance to really get to know the town and its inhabitants. I have to say, it's awesome. Here are some of the things that I loved...

People ride bikes. So many people, in fact, that public festivals find it necessary to have designated bicycle parking lots.

We were in Corvallis on the weekend of one of the town's biggest celebrations on the year, DaVinci Days. It's a three day festival of science, engineering, art and music. One of the central events revolves around these "kinetic sculptures" and a race that they participate in. The orca on wheels that is pictured above, along with the "mousetrap' wheel below (that's my son inside getting to try it out) were both entered in a four part race where they were required to be propelled (by human power only) in a turf, sand dune, mud bog and river race course. The best engineered kinetic sculptures were able to navigate all of the varied terrains and make it back home intact.


Here is what the mud bog leg of the race looked like. The term "race" was a bit of a misnomer here, since the progress was so slow for most of the entries that my one year old niece could have crawled the course faster. It was fun to watch though!

This crazy kinetic sculpture didn't qualify for the race, so the lady just hung around the place and looked kinetically cool.

In addition to enjoying the festival, we got to take in the regular sights of the city. Corvallis has a wonderful Saturday farmers market with locally grown fruits and vegetables. The market is located near a fun city fountain that my brother and the kids just couldn't resist a romp in.

Nothing like sunshine and sprays of water to lift the spirits!


And a little hula hooping.


For lunch one day we drove out of town to a nearby winery and had a stellar bottle of red while sitting in an absolutely beautiful setting.

It made me want to be wealthy enough to get away with living a life of leisure. It was perhaps the most pleasant glass of wine I've ever consumed.

And then, to top it all off, we ended with my favorite summer activity of all time: berry picking. I was all ready to rev up my mad skills to tackle some hard core blueberry gathering. The problem was, the branches were so laden with fruit that it took no time at all. There was no hunt, no challenge, no SPORT. We picked over 20 pounds of organic blueberries the size of grapes in about 20 minutes. And that's not counting the ones we ate while we picked. It was crazy.

Crazy fun, that is.