Salmon Days

Autumn is truly in the air! This weekend is the annual Issaquah Salmon Days festival which celebrates "the annual return of salmon to our lakes, streams and historic downtown hatchery."

Did you know that there are seven indigenous salmon and trout from the genus Oncorhynchus in Washington and Oregon? They are chinook, coho, chum, sockeye, and pink salmon, and steelhead and cutthroat trout. Salmon are vital in the transport of energy and nutrients between the ocean, estuaries, and freshwater environments. As a seasonal resource, salmon indirectly affect the entire food web. They are super important and so have an entire festival dedicated to their return!!

The celebration includes all sorts of salmon education opportunities as well as a golf tournament, fun run, parade, orienteering event, international food booths, children's "field of fun" and a HUGE craft fair. Festival volunteers are called "Ohfishals" and the entire event is free thanks to "Spawnsors". Tee hee. I will be particiapting this year as a vendor at booth #65. So plunge into the event and soak in the sights and sounds of the season!

photo credit: Issaquah Chamber of Commerce

Gender Neutral

My kids and I love root beer. We love the smell, the taste, and the refreshing sweetness of it. True root beer is made from sarsaparilla root, but in some parts of the country there is a carbonated beverage that is very similar to root beer called birch beer. It’s made from sap extracted from the bark of the Black Birch tree (Betula lenta). Apparently, in the dairy country of Pennsylvania a float made with vanilla ice cream and birch beer is called a “Red Bull” and one made with chocolate ice cream is called a “Black Cow”. Yum.

When sweet birch essential oil is combined with vanilla oil, it blends their sweetness and herbal spice into a smell very much like birch or root beer. I use these two oils, along with pure cocoa powder in my Gender Neutral Soap. Since kids often love root beer, I wanted to stick with a child-like theme for my root beer soap. One day I happened across this hilarious vintage image of two toddlers and knew I had to use it somehow. Don’t you wonder what it was intended for originally? I would love to know!

Smooch Stick

Here's something you probably don't know about me. I'm an addict. I can't go to sleep, or sit at the computer, or drive, or do laundry without putting moisturizer on my lips. This habit is probably most annoying to my husband. I've killed many a romantic moment by pausing to grab my "lip stuff" and apply a layer. Before a kiss, after a kiss...never during a kiss though. That would be too much.

A few months ago we had to take my car in to be serviced because the little storage compartment in the driver's console wouldn't open properly. The whole unit had to be removed. When it was, the repairman found a total of 8 lip balm tubes that had fallen down into the space under the lid, jamming it so it wouldn't open. Boy, did I get some dirty looks for that one.

I have tried lots of brands of lip moisturizer. I can't stand the petroleum-based ones like Chapstick or Carmex. Burt's Bee's is nice and I don't mind Neutrogena, though it contains paraffin. I've tried lots of "boutique" lip balms over the years too, some good, some bad. I just never was totally happy with any of them, so I started playing around with my own recipes a year or so ago. I wanted something all-natural, smooth, fortifying and nice tasting (but not too sweet).

This is what I came up with. I call it "Smooch Stick" and offer it in two different flavors, each with different nourishing oils and butters. The Sweet Orange and Spearmint Smooch Stick contains apricot oil, beeswax, grape seed oil, mango butter, vitamin E oil and sweet orange and spearmint essential oils. I use ammonium glycyrrhizate as a sweetener, which is a natural powder that comes from licorice root.

Here's a little back story on the flavor of the second Smooch Stick variety. My kids and I love marzipan. Our favorite bakery is here in Ballard and they offer a multitude of tasty treats which include marzipan or sweet almond paste. They even sell one pound bricks of plain marzipan, which we always have on hand in our refrigerator...just because we can. There's an ongoing joke with my husband (who does not like marzipan) that whenever I really like something or consider it a guilty pleasure, I say "Mmmmm....just like maaarzipaaaan!" It amuses me. We must enjoy life's little pleasures, right?

The Marzipan Smooch Stick contains sweet almond oil, beeswax, wheat germ oil, cocoa butter, vitamin E oil, bitter almond essential oil and the same licorice root sweetener. Both varieties of Smooch Stick go on smoothly, without a waxy feel and moisturize with natural oils and butters that make your lips feel soft and supple. It's like maaarzipaaan!

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.

Like us? Let us know!!

OK!! Seattle Sundries needs more friends on Facebook, so I'm doing a give-away! The goal is to reach a new total of 250 "Likers". My three lovely children have chosen three random (and secret) numbers up to 250. Three lucky folks will win two bars in tins, or three bare bars of LUSCIOUS Seattle Sundries Soaps. Spread the word so your friends can win some and maybe they'll give one to you!

4H Camping 2010

We had another GREAT 4H camping trip at the Ranch in Idaho this year! For three nights and fours days we camped on the grassy banks of the pond, and enjoyed the sunshine and fresh air. Here are a few of the activities that we filled our days with...

We got to ride around in "The Mule", which is basically a big, beefy, slow moving golf cart. At one point I think we had 14 people (12 kids and 2 adults) riding on it all at once. Mostly the kids ran around or rode their bikes anywhere they wanted to go, but the mule was a huge hit.

We fed the horses apples from the orchard. Everyone practiced holding the apples in the flat palm of their hands so that the horses didn't nibble fingers.

We visited the other livestock and the working buildings of the ranch...the barn, the feedlot, the quonset hut. We sat on the tractor too.

We made ice cream from scratch with an old crank ice cream churn. We theorized about why it's helpful to add rock salt to the ice when you're churning the ice cream. Do you know?

We enjoyed the pond endlessly. We swam, used the paddle boat, bounced on inner tubes and fed the fish.

We honed our fire building skills...without the use of newspaper. Only twigs and bark for starter!

We cooked yummy food for every meal, and shared in the clean-up chores.

We returned to Fish Creek to continue our stream restoration project. This year we planted fewer trees, but we enclosed them in wire cages to protect from the small furry creatures that apparently enjoyed munching on last year's trees. Hopefully when we return next year many more will be thriving.

We enjoyed my brother's wood-fire hot tub. You'd be amazed at how many kids can squeeze in!

It was a great visit. Everyone played hard, worked hard and slept hard. Can't wait for next year!!

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