good life december 2011

year of the chickenBackyard urban farmers find joy in raising fowl

plus> father & son go ski-bumming> touching tiny lives

December 2011 Open for fun and adventure Price: $3

Wenatchee VaLLey’S #1 MaGaZine AtHomeFresh ideasFor the homeiNside

December 2011 | The Good Life www.ncwgoodlife.com | 3

Year 5, Number 12 December 2011

The Good Life is published byNCW Good Life, LLC,

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Editor/Publisher, Mike CassidyContributors, Matt Radford, Jeff Parsons, Brad Brisbine, Susan Ball-inger, Jon Gallie, Madi Morrison, Chuck Dronen, Marshall Snoddy, Rachael Helsel, Bonnie Orr, Alex Saliby, Jim Brown, June Darling, Dan McConnell, Susan Lagsdin and Rod Molzahn Advertising sales, John Hunter and Donna CassidyBookkeeping and circulation, Donna CassidyProofing, Leslie VradenburgAd design, Rick Conant

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Copyright 2011by NCW Good Life, LLC.

wood duck at rest

This beautiful Wood Duck, Aix sponsa, paused on its migra-tion long enough to be captured by local photographer Matt Radford of Mad Rooster Photo-graphy.

It was resting in the shal-low ponds at the Horan Nature Area, near the confluence of the Wenatchee and Columbia riv-ers in Wenatchee. These small ducks nest and breed locally and also migrate through the area

on their way to winter in south-ern destinations.

Matt had been involved with photography as a hobby since 2004. More recently, he has worked as a professional photo-grapher and owns Mad Rooster Photography and Marketing in East Wenatchee.

He specializes in outdoor, natural light images. Portraits, freelance work and pastoral themes are his favorites.

To see more of Matt’s photos, visit his website at madrooster.smugmug.com, or on Facebook at facebook.com/madrooster-

photography.He can also be reached

at [email protected] or 699-9738.

on the cover Susan Ballinger holds one of

her backyard fowl. “We don’t name our chickens,” said Susan, as they are not pets but workers — creating better soil through their droppings while supplying Susan and her husband, Paul, with fresh eggs. See her story starting on page 10.

Photo by editor Mike Cassidy.

OPENING SHOT >>®

4 | The Good Life www.ncwgoodlife.com | December 2011

Heading out on the road to blissI’m in a grumpy mood this

late fall Sunday afternoon, wishing I had a blanket for my cold feet, wishing the Seahawks could play a little better, ironi-cally reading a book on happi-ness.

The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner poses the questions: Are people in some countries hap-pier than citizens of other coun-tries, where are those locations, and what makes them happy?

And no, the answer is not “Move to the beach.” It turns out that happiness researchers (yes, people are paid to research happiness) have found that people who live in warm, sunny places like Fiji and the Bahamas are less happy than people who bundle up in Iceland.

Incidentally, Americans are not the happiest, or even close to the happiest people on earth. We’re kind of a good solid B, maybe a B+, on the happiness grading scale.

Writer Weiner (pronounced “whiner” and a self-proclaimed grump) traveled to 10 happy and sad nations to offer a travelogue on the world’s emotional state, while providing insight into what makes people happy.

Interesting to me is the ele-ments that go into creating personal happiness so often match up to the characteristics displayed by the people in the stories in The Good Life.

For example, Marshall Snoddy writes this month of volunteer-ing for a medical trip to the African nation of Lesotho where he and fellow Wenatchee nurses Eric and Mary Cooper worked with endangered children.

Doing an altruistic act makes us happy. The part of the brain

that tingles when be-ing altruis-tic evolved relatively early in humans — even before the part that controls speech.

Another characteristic of a happy situation is one where a person gets closer to nature — Weiner says more people visit zoos each year than attend pro sporting events.

Susan Ballinger and Jon Gallie each write a story this month about bringing more of na-ture into their own backyards through raising chickens.

Susan likes to take her morn-ing coffee among the chickens, while Jon enjoys eating the eggs and watching the little workers improve his backyard.

Envying what others have and dwelling on money makes us unhappy. Relationships and family, on the other hand, are vital to our happiness.

Chuck Dronen writes this month about a ski-bum trip he took with his youngest son.

“It was a journey 45 years in the making,” he said of the trip he originally dreamt about in the ’60s that delivered “sheer joy of spending six incredible ski days with my son, Dave.”

I have noticed it’s not where your feet are that brings happi-ness, but where your head and heart are. It’s not always cold feet that creates unhappiness, but mental “cold feet” that stops us from taking our next adven-ture.

Doers are happier than doubt-ers, at least that is what I think.

There is more than one path to happiness — enjoy The Good Life.

— Mike

EdITOr’S NOTES MIKE CASSIDY

>> CONTENTS>>

Features

5 TIPS FOR BETTER PHOTOSUse some of the principles of landscape painting

7 InTROducIng mOTHER naTuREName is changed for Barn Beach Reserve but the mission of exposing kids and adults to nature remains the same

12 On a SkI laRkA dad indulges his lifelong dream in the company of his son

15 TOucHIng TInY lIVESHelping sick children in a small African nation

18 YOga In cOSTa RIcaSounds like total fun but there was a lesson learned about the value of pain

21 a cOmPaSSIOnaTE FRIEndCarol Sunada knows what it’s like to lose a child; now she helps hurting parents grieve

22 HEaVEnlY uPdaTE1950’s house has view too good to leave behind so retired teachers go in for an artful refreshing of their home

26 gOOd STuFFFeel like spooning up for Christmas?

columns & departments28 June darling: Here’s the secret of life 30 Bonnie Orr: making christmas puddings31 alex Saliby: To serve red or white?32 The traveling doctor: Staying young in the alps35-39 Events, The art life & a dan mcconnell cartoon40 History: The ‘Hard Winter’ forever changed ncW42 Fun Stuff: 5 activities to check out

pages 8-12cOmFORTaBlE WITH cHIckEnS

Madi Morrison with 2 of

her fine feathered

friends


By Brad BrisBine

communing with nature at an alpine lake nurtures my soul.

Len Lamb and Neal Slatta, my long-time hiking buddies, and I head out every October in search of color. This year, we took I-90’s Exit 80 up the Cle

Elum River Valley to Park Lakes Basin.

I love every part of the fall hike, but my favorite part is making pictures.

The goal, though, isn’t so much the picture itself, but to enjoy the process of making art. I find natural beauty so inspir-

SNaPSHOTS>>

}}} Continued on next page

Brush up photos by using painting techniques

“Patriarchal Snag” — the main line has a strong, consider-able slant. The irregularities of the log slow the eye’s travel to the convergence, accented here with a burst of yellow. All this must be balanced by the tree mass on the left. This is the diagonal or radiating line compositional form.

“Huckleberry Tarn” — huckleberry leaves are at their most brilliant when back-lit looking toward the sun. The consequence is a washed out sky. If the sky contrasts too greatly with the ground, I sometimes exclude it, preferring to do my photography in the field, rather than sitting in front of a computer later.

More lights, less energy

Switch to LED holiday lights.

Energy efficientCool to the touchLong-lastingCheaper in the long run

Learn more about LED holiday lights at www.chelanpud.org

Let’s celebrate


ing that I feel compelled to express that love.

Photography has been the vehicle for that expression for 35 years. A dozen years ago, as a way to further explore my feelings, I took up landscape oil painting. This has not, however, diminished my interest in pho-tography; but it has made me a better photographer.

The goal in composing pho-tographs and paintings is the

same: we take God’s great out-doors and frame a rectangle that moves us. I find following a few rules learned from landscape painting helps my photos:

1). Keep in mind what attract-ed you to the scene in the first place. Zoom in to express your intention.

2). Simplify, to express one unified idea. One feature should be the main interest. In many photographs there is material for several pictures. It takes

very little of the scene to make a complete picture.

3). Pay attention to the lines of the composition. Lines can impart feelings, such as: height, stability, nobility (vertical); repose and tranquility (horizon-tal); and movement and action (slanting or curved). Use the lines to move the viewer’s eyes through the composition, paus-ing briefly on the main interest. Broken lines can be useful to slow eye travel.

4). Shift your position to make interesting arrangements of five to seven shapes. These shapes might be sky, mountain, lake, tree clump and foreground. Ide-ally, these shapes are all a differ-ent color and coordinate into a

lovely harmony. 5). To create natural look-

ing pictures, use the principle of unequal measures. Position yourself where the shadowed parts and sunny parts suggest an unequal distribution.

Avoid placing the horizon at the picture centerline or a tree at the vertical center line, opting instead for unequal measures. This should be at least a 40-60 split. Many artists use the natu-ral-based Fibonacci sequence of 1 to 1.6.

In time, just like a well-rehearsed golf swing, the artist doesn’t think anymore, he just feels. That’s when it becomes fun.

}}} Continued from previous page

“Park Camp” — this image provides the viewer a way out, letting the eye go to infinity. The depth is enhanced by the background being a cool color that optically recedes, and the foreground warm colors that advance.

“Dragon” — zoom in to isolate a scene to give a more abstract quality or to express a simpler idea. It takes very little of the view to make a complete picture. Here an ”S” or compound curve compositional form is used to slow eye movement.


like many people my age, I began learning about the natural world as a child playing outdoors.

From my early childhood in Tonasket, I remember a very brief encounter with a black widow spider in my sand box. I discovered prickly pear cactus in the vacant lot behind my house. I accompanied my father while he checked live beaver traps for the Washington Department of Game in the Okanogan. To this day, I think of my father when-ever I hear the distinctive call of a red-winged blackbird.

Later on in my childhood, while living in Spokane, I spent a lot of time outdoors climbing ponderosa pine trees. This left me with a permanent affection for the rich, unique scent of these beautiful trees on a hot summer day.

I also have wonderful memo-ries of riding my bike with friends to explore a wild, rug-ged, beautiful place 10 miles north of Spokane called Rattle-snake Gulch. Believe it or not, it’s now a gated community!

Unfortunately, many people no longer have these kinds of ex-periences in nature. In part, this is the result of urban sprawl that leaves children further away from natural areas, but it’s also the result of lifestyle changes.

Today’s children are spend-ing more of their time in front of televisions and computer screens.

That’s why the Barn Beach Trust and other community partners have collaborated since 2006 to establish and operate Barn Beach Reserve in Leaven-worth as a place where school

children, adults, families and visitors can have direct, hands-on learning experiences in the natural world.

The organization is now in its fifth year of providing educa-tional field days at Barn Beach Reserve. During these field days, children from local school districts learn about nature and science by using tools such as binoculars and cameras to ex-plore the Reserve’s natural areas.

In the Barn, the Reserve’s green classroom building, chil-dren use microscopes and other resources to look closer at living things they find at the Reserve.

In addition to serving school children, the Reserve also spon-sors adult and family program-ming, including tours, field trips, lectures, slide shows and films.

While the intent of the Barn Beach Trust board of directors always has been for the orga-nization to serve the greater Wenatchee Valley, the name of the organization didn’t commu-nicate that fact.

At their most recent meet-ing, the board decided to adopt “Wenatchee River Institute” as its new organizational name. “Barn Beach Reserve” will con-tinue to be the name of the place where the organization has its home and the educational mis-sion and programs of the orga-nization are unaffected by the name change.

The name “Wenatchee River Institute” more accurately captures the organization’s geographic scope, as well as its mission of education and stew-ardship. The Wenatchee River flows by Barn Beach Reserve in Leavenworth and connects all of the communities the organiza-

tion always intended to serve, from Lake Wenatchee to East Wenatchee. In addition, the term “institute” is commonly understood to be a place of learning, a mean-ing already conveyed by a number of organizations with similar missions,

such as the North Cascades Institute.

A good example of why this name change makes sense is the Institute’s newest program, called Wenatchee Naturalist, scheduled to be launched in February 2012.

This 12-week class will teach local people about the Wenatchee River watershed’s diversity of life, including its shrub-steppe area, low-elevation forests and rivers.

The class is modeled after successful Master Natural-ist programs in over 40 other states and aims to engage well-informed citizens as volunteers in stewardship and conservation education projects.

Susan Ballinger, a local biolo-

gist, naturalist and educator, has created this exciting new class and will be its main instructor. She is well respected for her depth of knowledge and ability to inspire her students.

For the class, Susan has recruited some of area’s best scientists as guest speakers and field trip leaders. The class will be a launching pad to match the adult students with projects where their volunteer efforts will be significant.

Anyone interested in the class can learn more by visiting barn-beachreserve.org and clicking on “Services and Projects.”

One scholarship position is available and local teachers will be able to earn clock hours or credit. We invite any curious adult who enjoys learning about the natural world to become a Wenatchee Naturalist.

Kids, I’d like you to meet Mother Nature

guEST cOlumn // JEff PArSonS >>

Jeff Parsons, executive director of the Wenatchee

River Institute, lives near Leaven-

worth with his wife Chris.

wenatchee naturalist Program overview

What: 60 hours of training (lectures, handouts, expert guest speakers, hands-on labs, and three all-day guided field trips)

When: Meeting in Wenatchee 12 consecutive Wednesday eve-nings (Feb. 1-April 18, 2012)

Intended class size: 25 adult students

Cost: $300 Community service obligation:

20 hours during the next year


year of the chicken

The Wenatchee City Council agreed in early March of this year to allow chickens and other small farm animals in all city neighborhoods.

Among the rules:n Only four small farm

animals shall be allowed per legal lot. Lots one-half acre and larger can have 12 small animals.

n Large farm animals shall be allowed on one contiguous half acre lot in size or greater at a ratio of one animal per 10,000 square feet of maintained pas-ture area.

n No swine, peacocks, roost-ers or other male poultry shall be permitted.

n Barns, pens, shelters or other structures for the keep-ing or feeding of large or small farm animals shall be no closer than 10 feet from any adjoining property.

n The property shall be maintained in a clean, sanitary condition so as to be free from offensive odors, fly breeding, dust and general nuisances and shall be in compliance with health district regulations.

The new rules are to be re-viewed in the coming spring to determine how they worked.

By Jon gallie

my wife and I and have always made big efforts to incorporate healthy local foods as the majority of our diet, and when chocolate and coffee can be grown in Wenatchee we will be thrilled.

As such, we have a large gar-den, fruit trees and bushes, pick wild berries and mushrooms, and hunt for most of our meat.

In this spirit, we sought out a local source of eggs and tried some from a friend’s farm. After a couple weeks, we were hooked on farm eggs.

Coincidentally, this friend also was purchasing new hens for her flock and wanted to know if we were interested in buying our own hens in the same bunch.

Nervously, we accepted having no idea what we were getting into.

Following some frantic Google searches on how to build chick-en coops and talking with other chicken owners about their basic care and maintenance, we felt ready for the new addition. We could not have made a better decision!

Owning a backyard chicken flock has been more enjoyable and easier than we expected. They quickly were accepted into the family by our then two (now three) daughters and more im-portantly by our two large dogs, who barely pay them attention.

The kids love to hold them (es-pecially in front of guests who are not so sure about chickens), help feed them, collect eggs

daily, and of course name them all. We have even trained one to come to us when we have a cup that we catch spiders and bugs in the house with.

Everyone has a pair of “chick-en shoes” to go in the run/coop with and we wash our hands af-ter handling the birds and such. Our simple open coop houses them only at night and occa-sionally on really rainy or snow days (princesses).

The eggs are amazing: Thick-er, richer and darker than any-thing we have ever bought — just no comparison. Our birds provide all our eggs for about 10 months out of the year, outside of molting and winter months.

We put out a light in the winter to stimulate egg-laying, otherwise they stop for the sea-

City chicksfrom amazing eggs to weed and Bug control, these Backyard fowl are a hit

Jon, Karen and little Leah Gallie: Raising backyard chickens is easy and enjoyable.


son. Most eggs get eaten as fast as they come into the house, but others are given to friends and neighbors or are bartered with.

Once we had a flock and they were here to stay, our next thought was “What will the neighborhood think?”

I can easily say that they have been a hit. First of all, eggs are a great icebreaker when telling them of the new fowl on the block.

Several families have enjoyed watching and listening to them and watching us care for them. One neighborhood resident came up to us during a yard sale to tell us how much they enjoy walking by our yard and watch-ing them.

We even lent them out for a week for some tough weed con-trol and tilling at our next door neighbors. It was an interesting daily routine to pass four hens over a six-foot fence to waiting hands and pass them back again each evening.

While calming the neighbors was the easy part, watching for predators was something that we were not sure what to expect. We have not lost one yet; but did have a cooper’s hawk land by them and the dogs treed a raccoon by the hen house, so we have had some close calls, but generally in town, we feel pretty safe.

The daily routine is about the same as owning a dog.

In the morning, we feed them some grains and scratch in their outdoor run, provide fresh water daily, and then in the afternoon move them into the yard in their mobile pen.

After they are moved, the kids

get the eggs (one to four a day). They go back to their coop at dusk. When the garden is not in, we just let them free range in the back yard.

They have made a great addi-tion to our “urban farm.” They have proven to be a valuable asset for the garden as they are part rototiller, pest manager and composter. They forage in the yard, eating grass, weeds, seeds and anything that crawls.

As a bonus, our lawn went from a patchy, hard, weed in-fested scab to a lush, green and weed free. In fact, they respond to dandelions like children to candy, so we no longer break our backs pulling weeds all summer.

We are also able to feed them kitchen scraps and any diseased and or pest-ridden fruits and vegetables from the garden. They also love to devour every garden pest, especially slugs and earwigs.

When the garden is fallow, we unleash the birds to gorge them-selves on weeds, seeds and bugs. They leave behind their manure, which goes right into the gar-den and compost, enriching the soil with nutrients and organic material.

Weed-n-feed has a different meaning at our house. Rather than herbicide, we feed the weeds to the birds, and presto they turn into eggs! You can’t beat that.

They also break down leaves and mulch in their run from their constant scratching. We

toss this mulch with a hefty helping of their manure right into the garden. Our soil and garden have never been better.

Looking back, I cannot believe we ever doubted getting hens. It has been easier and more enjoy-able than we thought. Anyone can do it.

The biggest challenge is deciding where to have them in your yard, as they can be quite destructive in the garden, not to mention that while those little manure piles are great in the garden, they generate a much different reaction on your porch or on your child’s pants.

Figuring out where to pen them up, a mobile coop or free-range design, is the biggest challenge. You will also need to find willing friends to “chicken sit” when you travel, which is a bit more to ask than just letting your dogs out.

Needless to say, these are mi-nor concerns that far out-weigh the benefits of owning your own backyard flock.

... we feed the weeds to the birds, and presto they turn into eggs! You can’t beat that.

In the end, it’s not going to matter how many breaths you took, but how many moments took your breath away

- shing xiong

>> RANDOM QUOTE


a flock of funWe started raising chick-

ens because I am especially interested in birds and we also wanted to have our own fresh eggs. We weren’t really expect-ing how fun they would be to have.

They each have her own personality and they are quite entertaining. When it’s warm outside, we like to sit outside and watch them.

We usually get three eggs a day and they really pile up so we eat some and give some to our neighbors and friends (they are pretty happy to get them). The neighborhood cats did show some interest in them when they were small chicks but now they are much bigger so the cats don’t really want to mess with them.

My dad and I are the main chicken caregivers. We fill up their food about every other day and change the water once a day. The eggs have to be collect-ed everyday because one of our hens is very broody and likes to sit on her eggs a lot. If they pile up in the coop, then she will get very defensive around them.

I would tell those considering getting chickens that they are worth having because of their interesting nature and they are never boring.

by Madi Morrison, daughter of Joe and Kristi Morrison

Wenatchee

By susan Ballinger

It all began with more fall leaves than could be crammed into our backyard compost bins, and the fact that my husband, Paul, and I were newly empty-nested.

With the third child launched into college, we suddenly had more free time to devote to long-overdue yard work. As a biologist, I felt it was my profes-sional duty to figure out how to keep perfectly good organic waste out of the landfill and cycle it back into my flower beds

and garden. Mid-way through the leaf-rak-

ing process, our three recycled apple bins were full to the brim with maple, aspen and willow leaves with no room to spare. As “cold” composters, it was taking our bins two full years to turn it all into crumby black mulch.

My chicken-mentor friend, Lorena, offered the solution: use potent nitrogen-rich chicken manure to rapidly “cook” my compost and allow me to fit more leaves into the bins.

Hence, an early Christmas present arrived on my porch — 25 pounds of chicken manure.

As I was out spreading the gift over slimy black wet piles of leaves, I remembered my then 12-year old daughter, Kristen, wistfully lamenting, “When I grow up, I’m going to have chickens like Diane (another chicken-mentor friend).”

It hit me: we could raise back-yard chickens and have a contin-uous flow of nitrogen to dump into the composter. Better yet, the large pile of waste lumber that dominated our view from the kitchen table could be used up in building a coop!

Tricia, a Peshastin friend and life-long chicken rancher,

Chicken Disneylandhow a wenatchee couPle came to drink their morning coffee among the hens

Paul Ballinger constructed a coop that could keep out our neigh-borhood coyotes, hawks, owls, raccoons and dogs.


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offered us an easy-care starter kit: a mother hen with her own brood (unfortunately in April, a neighbor dog wreaked havoc with her coop and terminated the gifted quartet).

My first task was to get Paul interested in building a chicken coop. He is extremely handy with boards, screws and a drill but his current obsession was fixing up old bicycles, which didn’t leave any time for a new hobby.

An Internet search found an amazing website of urban coops, complete with photos, plans and tips. I eventually got Paul hooked on the website, pursu-ing the glitzy photo array of city coops and various predator-proofing strategies. Around Feb-ruary, he accepted the challenge to design and build a coop that could keep out our neighbor-hood coyotes, hawks, owls, rac-coons, and our own two Brittany spaniel bird dogs.

Our first step was to do a home tour of five local backyard coops.

East Wenatchee chicken-mentor friends, Jamie and Polly, showed off their ingenious self-feeder and waterer that could keep the birds provisioned for weeks. Their neighbors, Andy and Diane, let us borrow their stash of chick-sized feeder and waterer and recommended we get four chicks of different vari-eties — including one that lays green and blue eggs.

April arrived and Paul put the finishing touches on our de-signer chicken coop, complete with a living roof carpeted with sedums (to keep the coop cool).

With an apple box in the front seat, I drove to the feed store to pick out my flock of four chicks. Like first-time parents,

we coddled our chicks, hanging a shiny CD mobile to keep them entertained and held each one for bonding moments. We didn’t give them names, but found our-selves leaping out of bed each morning to hurry downstairs to check on our chicks.

It was an exciting May day when we moved them out of the apple box nursery into their spanking new coop. Our Britt-ney spaniels spent most of their day staring in at the fluffy balls of feathers. Wisely, Paul rein-forced the coop with horizontal wood strips just in case a dog decided to push into the interior.

By June, the chicks were now teenagers, nearing adult size and ready to explore. We de-cided we could enclose a corner of our yard to create a Chicken Disneyland: a 20-foot by 20-foot yard complete with a dirt bath, compost bin café (earthworms and pillbugs galore), a shady apricot canopy to keep any neighborhood hawk from spot-ting the fluff balls, and a protec-tive five-feet wooden fence.

Paul transformed a large stash of out-dated but colorful skis into a picket fence with a gate to keep the hunting dogs at bay.

We started sipping our morn-ing coffee while seated on lawn chairs inside Disneyland. We ceremonially open the coop door and watch our hens parade out, flap and hop up to perch on the compost bins, and start munching on overhanging ferns. We were hooked on our new reality TV show.

Paul marked Sept. 28 as the 20-week old date and we anx-iously awaited the time for eggs to appear.

Polly advised us to put a plas-tic Easter egg into a nest of hay in the laying box, and by early October we discovered our first egg! It took a week to accumu-late enough of these first small-ish eggs be able to whip up a Sunday morning egg-scramble.

Somehow, the year has cycled round again to November, and we spent a crisp sunny Sunday afternoon raking leaves.

This time, we were accompa-nied by the soft conversation of egg-laying hens, busily scratch-ing at the dirt as we piled yellow and red leaves into the compost bins.

First, we had emptied the compost bins of their fall crop: a harvest of eight wheelbarrow loads of fluffy black compost to spread into our raspberries and onto the flowerbeds. As we pulled out the trays of chicken

manure and dumped it onto the fresh leaves, we were think-ing about the tasty omelet that could be our dinner after a long afternoon working outside.

We’re still in the process of be-coming urban chicken farmers with the challenges of a winter ahead.

But so far, we’ve taken great pleasure in spending more time outside every morning and evening.

We’ve marveled over the miracle of life as tiny chicks grow into hens. We daily take delight in delivering tasty food scraps to the coop and seeing the hens come running toward us in anticipation of treats.

As we watch their antics, we think about the long domestica-tion relationship people have had with chickens, maybe sec-ond only to dogs.

We are learning to live more sustainably on our own plot of land, recycling both kitchen and yard wastes into usable soil. And it all started with leaves!

A hen searches for bugs in the Ball-inger’s lawn.

We’ve marveled over the miracle of life as tiny chicks grow into hens.


By chuck dronen

I’m standing in my skis atop Storm Peak Mountain under an indigo sky at 10,372 feet eleva-tion, looking at a 3,668 foot drop to the base.

Glorious rays of morning sunshine wash over the Steam-boat Springs, Colo., resort as I look down at 12-inches of fresh, untracked powder — ahh, this is skilarken to the max.

Pure jubilation and bliss flood through me as I contemplate this once in a lifetime father/son ski bum road trip.

And then I push off downhill to begin my run.

I first dreamt of such a ski road trip back in the 1960s — but it took my youngest son, Dave, a lover of alpine skiing, to actually plan an economy ski vacation hitting six big name ski areas in six days in three states during last March.

After poring over information on various destination ski areas on the Internet we decided our itinerary would include Sun Valley, Idaho; Park City, Utah; and Steamboat Springs, Breck-enridge, Vail and Snowmass, Colorado.

For me the dream began as a youth in the mid-’60s. Those were the days of lace-up leather boots, runaway straps and rope tows. I remember poring over my brother’s subscription to Ski Magazine viewing the glossy colored action photos of Stein Erickson, Billy the Kidd and Jean

Claude Killy schussing down the freshly laid powder of America’s finest ski resorts.

“Someday,” I thought, “I’m go-ing to ski the big name areas.”

In true ski economy vacation style, we decided to cut lodging costs by sleeping in our Subur-ban. We took out the rear seats, built a sleeping deck, created storage space and retrofitted the tailgate to accommodate a mobile kitchen. In keeping with Dave’s creative nature and sense of humor he dubbed the newly equipped vehicle the Skiburban.

Dave also coined the word “skilarken.” On one of our ski trips last year I accused him of skylarking, an old Navy term for fooling around. Dave said, “No Dad, I’m skilarking.”

At two in the afternoon on March 23, we motored out of Cashmere bound for Sun Valley, Idaho.

Some 11 hours later, after brav-ing drifting highway snow and Wal-Mart trucks, we arrived at

on a SKI LARKfather, son, suBurBan with a Bed in the Back and a maP to 6 maJor ski resorts — oh what fun!

Ski-lark \ ‘ske-lark \ vb (2011) 1: To ski with abandon & mirth celebrating the wonder and pleasure of gravity in an alpine winter setting, FROLIC, SPORT . Skilarker n, ski-larken & ski-larky. 2: An imaginary bird named Sven in a winter skiing cartoon entitled Ski-Larkey. Syn.: acting up on skis, clowning around on skis, fool or horsing around on skis, hot dog, monkey (around), showboat, show off, cut up – on skis.

Chuck Dronen lays out a meal on the tailgate of the Suburban — or Skiburban as his son Dave called it.

1:18 a.m. in the Sun Valley River Run B parking lot. After hunker-ing down for few hours of sleep in the Skiburban, we were up at first light to catch the Sleeping Bear Gondola at River Run Plaza thus beginning our six-day, six-destination ski resort vacation.

It’s an amazing experience seeing the sheer size of a true destination ski resort. For what we are normally accustomed to in North Central Washington, say a Mission Ridge or Steven

Pass Ski area, one of our local areas would have to be multi-plied five or six fold to compare in size and chairlift capacity.

After an auspicious first day at Sun Valley we spent that eve-ning driving to our next stop, Park City, Utah.

Not having any housing res-ervations we quickly discovered the municipality of Park City did not cotton to any overnight parking anywhere, anytime within their boundaries.


We finally found a 7-Eleven convenience store about five miles out of town that offered a dark, unlit corner to nose into for the night.

Considering that we were planning to stay longer than we might be welcome I felt com-pelled to ask the night employee for permission to park or at least explain to her what we were doing. Discovering that she spoke limited Eng-lish I was hard pressed to explain that we we’re “ski bums, just traveling through without housing accommodations need-ing a place to park for the night.”

Her blank stare and lack of expression told me that the message wasn’t getting through. I finally said – “were going to park our car down there,” pointing in the direction I intended and added, “it will be OK.”

After we set up our sleeping arrangements for the night I went back into the store to use the restroom but also to give her a box of Aplets and Cotlets — a candy greeting from our home-town of Cashmere. At this token of appreciation for her hesitant cooperation, I was thankful to see her finally smile. I smiled and said “We’ll be customers in the morning.”

And so it went… skiing prime resorts during the day and hunkering down ski-bum style in the Skiburban on the cold nights.

While skiing the steep Rhino run at Park City, I did a face plant in three feet of powder. Momentarily, I had the panic of suffocation and couldn’t breathe because my mouth and nostrils were compacted with snow. I also lost one of my skis, which took about 15 minutes to find in the deep snow.

After putting myself back together, Dave and I were back at it eagerly looking for the next

challenge.Closing in on the Colorado

border (listening to John Den-ver’s Rocky Mountain High, by the way) the weather took a turn for the worse. Darkness was coming on and the sky began to fill with swirling snowflakes.

In short order Dave and I found ourselves in a total white-out, snow blowing sideways and road visibility nearly zero.

The only way I kept the Skiburban on the road was to slow down to 10 miles an hour and rely on Dave to guide us by watching the ditch line on his side of the car. At one point the window wipers couldn’t keep up with the freezing ice, so Dave crawled out the passenger side window and slapped the wipers on the window to break up the ice.

We didn’t dare slow down too much or stop, fearing someone might rearend us, even though traffic was light — only a semi truck and a few cars coming from the other direction. When a vehicle would go by we could follow their wheel prints for a mile or so before the track was obliterated by snow.

After another 40 miles of white-knuckle driving we

limped into unincorporated Maybelle, Colo., about the same size as Monitor.

We hunkered down next to the Maybelle Volunteer Fire Department. As Dave is a Cash-

mere volunteer fireman and has a fireman volun-teer sticker on the back of the rig, we hoped we might be welcome. Our dinner consisted of pre-packaged food we could find on the dashboard; the outside tempera-ture was six above and the snow was piling up rapidly.

Dawn broke clear and calm, the night’s monster storm had passed over us leaving a foot of fresh, light, powder snow.

We made our way to Gondola Square in the city of Steamboat Springs, Colo., and em-barked on our third day of skiing, where we were treated to one of those special days in the moun-

tains where everything — views, snow conditions, terrain and companionship — everything was at a rare level of perfection.


Hiking up the trail at Snowmass in Colorado: Another day, another perfect skiing opportunity.


us with local lore and at some point thought we were trustworthy enough to take us to a locals-only spot he called “the Pipe.”

The run, some-what hidden off one of the main trails, was a long narrow gully. The technique for the Pipe was to carve turns back and forth from one side of the high angel gully to the other.

It was a lot of fun but I don’t think I could ever find my way back to it. We parted ways with our architect friend and I’ll always ap-preciate that he felt compelled to make our visit to Snowmass a little more special.

Around 3:30 p.m., Dave and I decided our last day of skiing

had been our best. We had survived drift-

ing highway snow in Idaho, a Colorado white-out, a near suffocating face plant in Utah’s feather light powder, boots that

were too tight, losing Dave on the backside of Steamboat and marathon hours on the open highway.

These things were mere minor inconveniences and only added to our ski bum road adventure.

Sometimes traveling to a destination is almost better than arriving. On this trip, the bumming was part and parcel of the total ski experience. Our economy vacation was satisfying both on and off the mountain and proves luxury is sometimes over rated. For a few bucks and the right attitude a person can have fun at any cost, and we had fun.

It’s hard to describe in words the exhilaration and sheer hap-piness I had enjoyed over the last six days — Dave and I had been more than a father and son, but soul brothers on a jour-ney 45 years in the making.

Chuck Dronen is a lifelong Cashmere Valley resident, local businessman

and 49-year ski enthusiast.


Dave Dronen gets ready to make the last run of the day at Steamboat Springs, Colo., on a run appropri-ately named Heavenly Daze.

Finishing out our picture-perfect day at Steamboat we took what our family refers to as obituary shots or obits. These are the head only photographs that we jokingly plan to use for our obituary picture. If we’ve climbed a peak or are in a par-ticular beautiful setting these are the occasions to “take the obit.”

Our last ski vacation hours were spent soaking up the sun-shine, cruising the ski runs and savoring the stupendous views of Brush Creek Valley and the surrounding area at Snowmass in Colorado.

Because it was such a gor-geous day, we kept running into locals who were taking sick days on the mountain. One fellow — a local architect — regaled

Ski bums on a ski lark


By marshall snoddy

The little girl’s name was Tsepan and she arrived to the safe house a few days after we did.

She was small and very un-derweight, but a beautiful child regardless, looking much like an adorable ebony China doll. Her mannerisms and interaction with the other children let us know she was much older than her size initially would lead one to believe.

I was instantly struck by her. At first when the women of

the safe house attempted to feed her, she would scream and turn away as if frightened. I was nev-er quite able to decipher why she behaved this way, but with their patience over the next few days she became more comfortable

in her surroundings and began to interact with me... mimick-ing faces I made, coming to me when I put out my arms — and her appetite grew.

She soon became the “cham-pion” eater among all of the children, sitting in front of me during mealtime with one hand tightly gripping my pants leg

and the other holding the edge of the bowl I fed her from.

Every so often, if I seemed to be taking too long with the next spoonful, she would tip the bowl toward her to see if there were still food.

As time went on she would blink her eyes playfully at me encouraging me to copy her, blow kisses or put her hands on her cheeks “Home Alone” style with a bright wide smile.

Knowing I was giving her the help she so desperately needed gave me an overwhelming sense of pride and accomplishment.

She completely stole my heart during the two weeks I spent at the Touching Tiny Lives safe house in the African nation of Lesotho (pronounced Le soo too).


Marshall Snoddy interacts with children at a safe house in the African nation of Lesotho during a morning play time.

Touching tiny livesnurses assist at a safehouse for endangered children in small african country


Many areas are accessed only by four-wheel-drive vehicles.

It also has the unfortunate honor of having the highest HIV infection rate in Africa.

The Touching Tiny Lives safehouse, which can support 20 children at a time, welcomes sick, malnourished, or HIV positive children and also little ones that have been orphaned because of the virus.

Children are brought to the campus where their needs are addressed and then returned to family.

Outreach workers return routinely to follow up on their status and to address any needs. Often the workers will travel several hours in one direction to provide food, medications, or to weigh and measure the children.

On Aug. 23, after vaccines, typhoid medication and travel prescriptions, we left the States by way of Seattle traveling to Amsterdam, then on to Johan-nesburg, South Africa and finally a short flight of about 40 minutes to the capitol city of Lesotho called Maseru.

There the Touching Tiny Lives safe house director Nthabeleng Lephoto met us.

We loaded up our bags of medical supplies and hats, shoes, blankets and tooth-brushes for the kids and began the five-hour drive, on less than stellar roads, through the gor-geous mountains to the province of Mokhotlong.

This would be our base of operations for the two weeks we were there. Our accommo-dations were very comfortable despite the remoteness, with hot showers and a kitchen for meals.

We stayed in a rondeval, which is the primary type of shelter not only for the local res-idents and outreach clients but also on the campus of the safe house. It’s a round stone or mud building covered with plaster and paint with a thick thatched, tin, or wooden roof.

Over the next two weeks we stayed very busy. Some days were spent on long, multiple hour drives on outreach to check on, retrieve or reunite children.

Other days we spent primar-ily on the campus helping feed the kids. Eric, Mary and I also worked on the donated solar panels atop each of the build-ings to try to stop leaks that had


I was there because in late 2010 Eric Cooper, a registered nurse working at Central Wash-ington Hospital emergency room, attended an informa-tional meeting about Touching Tiny Lives — an organization founded by a Peace Corp volun-teer that was seeking volunteers to help with the children at the organization’s safe house.

He shared this information with his wife Mary and me, both of us also registered nurses working at Columbia Valley Community Health Clinic.

We had each talked during our nursing training about the desire to do a medical volunteer mission when the opportunity presented itself, so we signed up to go this past September.

Lesotho is a landlocked coun-try within the country of South

Africa with its own government, currency, native citizens and language. The entire area is at 3,500 feet or higher with the highest point above 8,000 feet.

A child who had been at the Touching Tiny Lives safehouse is returned to his family.

Touching tiny lives


been causing a loss of hot water, which meant more propane had to be used to heat water.

Several of the days were spent at the local hospital working in the outpatient department (es-sentially a walk-in clinic).

From 8:30 a.m. until just before noon, each physician, all of whom are from the Republic of Congo, saw 35 patients. They work with great haste as many of the patients walk several hours to arrive at the clinic and must be on their way to return

before sunset. I was able to spend a day as-

sisting in surgery with three separate procedures. It was a culture shock to be in a country that speaks Basotho with Eng-lish as a second language and hearing the two surgeons speak-ing French and Basotho and English simultaneously.

We also were able to begin a worming protocol for the chil-dren as well as performing iron checks and training the out-reach workers to do the same.

We taught the outreach work-ers how to educate families if children were deficient in iron due to poor diet or as a result of their HIV status.

As the two weeks drew to a close and we prepared for the trip back to Maseru, we imag-ined the kids grown, attend-ing school, thriving because of the help we were able to give them — which was a rewarding thought for us.

Director Nthabeleng said, “Just by being here you have had

an impact, perhaps you do not see it now but you have changed these children’s lives and your own.”

We hope her statement about the kids is true, but know for sure that we are different people now because of our experiences with the children.

Touching Tiny Lives is always looking for volunteers, not just for medical work, but laypersons can help in so many ways. Visit the Touching Tiny Lives website at touchingtinylives.org or traveltoafricawithme.com.


By rachael helsel

“Wake up, chica! Your class is in 15 minutes!”

My roommate turned off my alarm that I had slept through and crawled back into her bed.

I am not even close to being a morning person, and a two-hour yoga practice beginning at 6 a.m. each day for the month of January in Costa Rica seemed much easier in my head than it was in reality.

Just a few days earlier I had left my house in Wenatchee for my last day at work bundled up in fleece layers, and today I was setting out from my bungalow in Nosara in a tank top and Havanas for my first day of yoga teacher training.

The Nosara Yoga Institute was about a 10-minute walk along a jungle path outside my door, and low bellows from the howler monkeys in the trees above kept me company until reaching the school’s entry arch.

Warm summer air on my face, I made my way up the tiled steps that led to the main studio, spread my mat on the wood floor and looked around at the other 50 students in the train-ing.

Don and Amba, founders and primary instructors, were seated at the front of the room and welcomed us all with the words:

“Pause a moment to look around you and see where you have landed.”

Brass fans hung from the vaulted bamboo ceilings over-head, and I could see bright tropical plants and flowers through the glass walls. After a moment of silence, they outlined our schedule and curriculum for the next few weeks, explaining that it was arranged to honor the time and space that it takes for the rhythm of the self to come into harmony with the rhythm of nature and the voice of wisdom within each of us.

They closed on a lighter note of advice: “And try to breathe with your mouth closed – some-times the lizards on the ceiling drop surprises!”

After morning practice, we had time for a beach medita-tion walk and then breakfast (it didn’t take long for me to become addicted to coconut smoothies and coffee at this time of day) then afternoon class was from 11 until 2, fol-lowed by free time until the last session from 6 until 9.

I used my afternoon freedom to begin my love/hate affair with

surfing. Andrew from Tico Surf School

gave me my first lesson and demonstrated how to read the wind and the waves with il-lustrations in the sand. I didn’t really retain much from his diagrams, but the one tip I used every time I went into the ocean was to shuffle my feet as I waded deeper in order to avoid step-ping directly on top of a manta ray.

After the lesson I met up with my roommate, and we walked to the beach (Playa Guiones) for sunset. On our way there we almost felt famous because so many people walking or driving by would smile and wave at us enthusiastically.

Sometimes they would even cheer, “Pura vida!” This expres-sion is almost a mantra for those who live in Costa Rica — it means “pure life” or “living the full life.”

Everything moves at a slower pace, and you are invited to be in the moment and take in your surroundings. After a few evenings, we realized that watching the sun go down was a daily community ritual. Around 5 o’clock each day people gath-ered at the main entrance of the beach to mingle and watch surf-

PAINMOTIVATOR

wake-uP call leads to thinking how to live a full life

as a

Yoga on the beach: Moving slow to be in the moment.

Rachael Helsel: From the cold of Wenatchee to the Costa Rican tropics.


ers catch the last few waves. Days feel like minutes when

they are filled with deep yoga, companion walks on the beach, long swims in the ocean and intense surf lessons.

For our last evening class of the first week we had Satsang, which means “true company.” It’s time set apart for all of the students and teachers to come together to share their experi-ence and their truth with each other.

Our teacher, Don, opened the discussion by asking what resonated with us in the lectures so far, and his words from the morning session came back to me.

He said that some people tend to run away from physi-

cal and emotional pain without any questions — the moment it comes into view they immedi-ately begin to look for a detour.

He encouraged us, saying, “Pain brings increased aware-ness.”

His words took me back to my first yoga experience in my second year of Wenatchee Valley Community College.

I was trying to fold down and away from life in the same way that I drop out of downward facing dog yoga position when my arms are tired — my diag-nosis of melanoma cancer was still sinking in, and even though surgery had been successful, I was facing a long stretch of che-motherapy.

I was grateful that it hadn’t spread and the phrase “six months left” had been taken off the table, but I was still scared and sad with constant thoughts of the next few weeks or years.

My nurse advised anti-depres-sants or a yoga class to counter-act depression, and I chose the

latter. Over the next few weeks, it

became an hour of refuge from the storm in my head. Where there is breath, there is no room for fear.

Kahlil Gibran said, “Pain is the breaking of the shell that en-closes your understanding,” and as I sat cross-legged in Satsang with my fellow students, I began to see my melanoma as a life prompt that began my inquiry deeper into who I was and how I was living.

After my last yoga class was over, everyone dispersed toward their housing, and I rolled my bike towards the beach since it was smoother than the jungle path.

It was dark, and I was ex-hausted — I would have given anything to skip over the next 20 minutes to the time where I would be blissfully falling into bed.

As I began to pedal forward, half of a shell caught on my front tire, letting out all the air.

Feeling as deflated as my tire, I was hosting a black-tie pity party for myself when some-thing coming out of the ocean caught my eye.

There was a full moon that night, and when its light landed on the phosphorescent sand moving in each wave, it seemed like constellations were washing up onto the beach.

Moving slowly out of the wa-ter, a huge sea turtle the size of a barrel crawled out towards me. It was magnificent. And I almost missed it.

Now that I’m back home, I want to keep that awareness of the present moment with me — that turtle on the beach prob-ably isn’t the only thing that I could speed right by without a glance of wonder and apprecia-tion.

Experiencing “pura vida” in Nosara made me realize that “the full life” is also in my back-yard… if I take the time to look around me and really see where I have “landed.”

I was hosting a black-tie pity party for myself when...


By donna cassidy

carol Sunada knows grief.In 1996 Carol’s 19-year-old son,

Jiro, died suddenly. “Grief never goes away,” said

Carol. “Losing a child is hor-rific. I spent hours at the funeral home. I just couldn’t let go.”

Eight months later her hus-band died.

“I wanted to hit someone. I knew I needed something. I just wanted to take a pill and make it all go away. And nothing can fix this,” she said.

If it weren’t for The Compas-sionate Friends in Seattle where she was living at the time calling and asking how she was doing weekly, she doesn’t know where she would be today.

Now years later moving back to Wenatchee Carol has started The Compassionate Friends chapter here.

“I looked around and found there was a need. Twelve fami-lies had recently lost a child. I held a meeting and five showed up. That was five years ago. We are helping 200 families right now,” said Carol.

The Compassionate Friends is a self-help support organization that assists bereaved families toward a positive resolution of grief following the death of a child. It is an international, non-profit, non-denominational organization offering friendship, understanding, grief education and hope for the future to all families who have experienced the death of a child at any age from any cause.

The Compassionate Friends are seasoned grievers, having

lost children of their own in their past.

“Grief is intense. Families do not want you to cry, do not want you to hurt. They want you to just get over it. That’s where The Compassionate Friends comes in.

“The first thing I say is, ‘I am very sorry you lost your child.’ (And I am very sorry.)

“Then I give them a hug. If we’re on the phone I tell them I am giving them a hug right now. I give them time and I let them cry.

“I talk a lot on the phone. I listen. I ask the right questions. They have to know it’s okay to cry. It’s normal to cry. We might meet for coffee. Sharing experi-ences helps,” said Carol.

Carol said she is working right now with a woman who had a miscarriage and she is pregnant again. “Her fears are great. And we are helping her get through this.”

Carol said volunteers help people get back to work and are trained to recognize the threat of suicide.

The local organization has no office, no membership fees and

the library is in Carol’s home. The chapter meets once a month at various places. They celebrate birthdays for those who have passed and release balloons with love messages.

For further information, con-tact Carol at 665-9987. Contri-butions are voluntary.

The chapter helped 800 fami-lies last year, but Carol said, “If I can help just one person it is all worth it.”

VOluNTEErS>>

Compassionate friends for when a parent is really hurting

lighting a candle to rememBer

The Compassionate Friends will be hosting its annual Candle Lighting ceremony Dec. 18, at 6:30 p.m. and the Candle Lighting ceremony will be at 7 p.m. at the Church of the Nazarene, 1011 S. Miller Street, Wenatchee.

There will be a memorial program in remembrance of loved ones who have died with refreshments and a time to share memories. Anyone who has lost a child, grandchild or sibling is welcome.

Those attending can bring a picture of a child to share and place on the chapter’s Memory Board.

The regular monthly meeting of TCF will be Dec. 20 at 7 p.m. at the Grace Lutheran Church, 1408 Washington St.

This meeting will focus on gifts for Christmas.

“Bring a gift your child would have liked to receive. We will wrap the gifts and give them to a local charitable group. We welcome people from the Wenatchee area but also those living in Cashmere, Chelan, Leavenworth, Waterville and all surrounding areas,” said chap-ter leader Carol Sunada.

The grief of losing a child is intense and takes a while to get beyond it, said Carol Sunada, who knows this from experience.

22 | AT hoMe WiTh The Good Life www.ncwgoodlife.com | December 2011

story By susan lagsdinPhotos By donna cassidy

Thirty years ago, Phil and Bonnie Yenney were seeking a larger house with more space for their two young children, and they couldn’t quite find it.

Having grown up on a sprawl-ing Walla Walla ranch, Phil Yen-ney said, “I knew, after living in two other houses in Wenatchee,

HeAVeNLy MAKe OVeRan ‘ok’ 1950’s-style family home gets an artful refreshing The 1950’s style two-floor ranch house extends for

the sunset views.

A big hall coat closet (see the dropped cedar ceiling ) was removed, opening up the entryway into the living room and the clean-lined galley kitchen.

December 2011 | AT hoMe WiTh The Good Life www.ncwgoodlife.com | 23

that something just didn’t feel right. And then I realized — there were no sunsets!”

The couple yearned for views like both their parents’ homes had. They got the whole pack-age in a downtrodden East

Wenatchee mid-’50s ranch (maybe overpriced at $50,000) on a steep two-thirds-acre lot, part of a windswept and lonely three-home complex optimisti-cally named Earhart Heights Sub-division.

They took a chance buying on the barren hillside above the orchards at the north end of Eastmont Avenue where the road bumped onto Badger Mountain and Waterville. The

sunsets were the big bonus.Now, of course, they are

surrounded by million-dollar beauties, beside, below and way above them.

But the flat-roofed ranch house with a comma-shaped driveway tucked into Skiview Avenue had good bones, and with the Yenney’s meticulous care and creative flair it proved its worth, and its value, over the years.

A garage was added, with an attached studio. Pocket gardens were formed, arbors and gates designed, trees planted, a sauna built in the top garden, a swim-ming pool placed off the lower patio. The house helped raise a family with the standard three-bedrooms-in-a-row, two-bath configuration typical of its time.

The couple is now retired from long-time teaching at East-


The original cedar ceilings extend floorward in some rooms. This family space features two walls of windows with quick access to both deck and patio.

ABOVE: A fraction of the wide view from the west side of the house. The view is important to Bonnie and Phil, at right. The family’s much-loved Walla Walla wheat fields are replicated with clumps of wheat at the lot’s steep edge.


mont High School, Phil as an art teacher, Bonnie as a math teacher. They consider their tastes in design an amalgam of both disciplines.

“And we both love houses!” Bonnie said. “We used to drive around, pull up to a house we liked, and ask to see inside it.” (“We never got a turn down,” added Phil. “But that was in the ’60s!”)

They loved their house “as is” and it wasn’t until four years ago that the Yenneys, with a yard serendipitously opened up by

the loss of nine massive trees in the windstorm, and encour-aged by their architect daughter (Kara Walk with Swalling Walk of Olympia), realized that “OK” could be changed to “heavenly.”

So they initiated a major bed-room addition for themselves,

followed closely by an updating throughout.

The 1957 structure seamlessly supports the 2010 interior.

“I know there’s a difference be-tween ‘modern’ and ‘contempo-rary,’ but we don’t know which to call this remodel,” Bonnie

admits. “Let’s just say, this is… newer-looking.”

The separate master bedroom suite anchoring the north end of the house is 693 square feet of wide-open, calming luxury, and a pocket door from the exist-ing living room makes it almost invisible.

The Yenneys chose chocolate and lime green wall colors and sleek dark wood furnishings, but the main attraction is the wall of windows, unadorned, that faces west.

Their long rectangular closet room sensibly houses a washer and dryer. “Why not?” Bonnie speculates. “Is there any reason to have the laundry so far away from the clothing?”

The master bath is pale tile and glass, with a tall boxed sky-light: Simple and spacious. One west side sink faces a wall with a mirror; one faces a big square window. Bonnie laughs, “Phil decided that rather than look in the mirror in the morning, he’d rather look straight out, check the weather and decide — skiing today? Paddling? Or hiking?”

Delight in the new addition sparked resolve to refresh the rest of the house, with help from Concepts Kitchen and Bath of Wenatchee.

The kitchen was originally (and remains) galley style, and to keep the views intact, Phil and Bonnie re-emphasized the


NCW Home Professionals

The master bedroom addition created lots of space for some of Phil’s own art pieces, which look brand new with the enhanced wall colors and more light.

delight in the new addition sparked resolve to refresh the rest of the house...


long slim line of it. Shiny gun-metal gray tiles, matte glass cupboard fronts, dark walls and cabinetry, and a commitment to mess-free, straight line white quartz countertops all widen the space visually.

Good ingredients are there for the ages: the flat roof with deep sun-defying eaves, original nine-foot tongue and groove cedar ceilings throughout. With the main remodel came rooms of big square diagonally set terra cotta tiles underfoot.

At almost 4,000 square feet on two floors, this discreetly tucked away house has an unpreten-tious low front profile from the street and a bold back with a house-length deck that opens to the sun and mountains

Chic colors, new millennia materials and re-thought spaces are brave new additions, but a big part of the home’s lasting impression is the artwork on the walls. A granddaughter’s paint-ings are framed, and close friend Ellisa Kline (Carole King’s per-sonal manager) has sent dramat-ic photos from the singer’s Idaho ranch.

But Phil’s own considerable body of artwork takes the places of honor.

The home’s entryway, recently purged of a massive in-your-face closet, now reveals staircase walls and a vertical cluster of Phil’s oils. A painting on cop-per is positioned above the liv-

ing room fireplace, and a “back-yard” work, stylized rows of ornamental grasses, hangs on a family room wall (“My own ‘am-ber waves of grain,’” he quips).

The masterpiece on the wall of the master bedroom is a bold triptych. Adapted from Phil’s long-ago Fancher Heights sketch

of the looming mountains to the west with the Wenatchee River shining through them, it brings their view inside.

It’s a reminder of why this honest old house (at first bought to be “flipped,” they finally admitted) has been the home of their hearts for 30 years.

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A wraparound remodel: sleek utili-tarian shelving of white granite starts in the galley kitchen, above, con-tinues around a wall into the dining area at right. Terra cotta and cedar complement the dark chocolate tones.


GOOd STuFF // IDEAS for thE hoME>>

Christopher Koontz makes about 30 different kitchen utensils from ladles to slotted spoons to pie servers and whisks. He has also started a second business making walking canes.

kitchen tool smith

christopher Koontz began selling wood carvings at the Leav-enworth street fairs made with a hatchet from burning pile scraps when he was 14.

A decade and a half or so later, the self-described “kid raised in a blue-collar family” decided he wanted a life of “making something,” and that’s what he has done until, now at age 62, he figures he has made and sold a couple of hundred thousand finely crafted wooden utensils.

And he doesn’t see retiring anytime soon.Christopher and his wife J.R. own Wild Cherry Spoons and Spatu-

las, along with another business called American Cane. He makes the cherry wood utensils (and in the past 15 years, heavy and hand-some wooden canes) from his shop — a converted chicken house — 100 feet behind his house at the end of a side street in Waterville.

Sales come through his Internet sites, from gift gallery stores (of-ten in tourist destinations like Boulder, Colo.) and farmer’s markets,


From a simple shop behind his Waterville home, Christopher makes nice tools for the kitchen.

such as the one in Wenatchee during the summer and fall. The ur-ban grocery, Whole Food Markets, uses his spoons in its olive bars.

Asked how he has stayed with such a niche small business for so many years, he joking replied: “Anything but to get a real job.”

Actually, though, the artisan business has taken him in travels around the U.S., allowed him and J.R. to live in a remote cabin up the Entiat River, in suburban Seattle and now Waterville for the sec-ond time, (“I can be anywhere where there is UPS service and I can buy wood.”), and has created a collection of stories about customers, street fairs and characters.

Christopher makes about 30 different utensils, from dipping spoons to a whisk, to spatulas and pie services to even a left-handed sauté tool. Most are carved from cherry wood (“it’s a tough, sweet, traditional wood,”) with a metal working end. The handles are most often curved with a copper loop at the end for hanging.

Christopher sees his creations as functional art that feels right in the kitchen — “people like nice tools,” he said.

To see more of his tools, and for other information, visit: www.wildcherryspoons.com.


“do you know what the secret of life is?” asks Curly (Jack Palance) in the 1991 movie, City Slickers.

He answers his own question “find your one thing” and stick to it; the rest is meaningless. (The actual dialogue is more …colorful.)

I figured that Bill Murray — an active member of my Rotary club — knew the secret and had found his one thing. His eyes shine with interest, humor, curiosity. His smile is easy and authentic.

When I cornered him at Caffé Mela, he was open and clear about what the good life was for him. As it turned out it was four things, but they seemed one to him.

Bill easily expands on all four things with gusto. He has mean-ingful work (helping people with multiple handicaps) that he’s good at and that challenges him. He loves his family and parenting his two children. He’s comfortable with his faith. He enjoys being a Rotarian service club member. For him it’s all connected through living the golden rule — looking beyond self.

Bill’s lucidity came through an epiphany.

We often think of epiphanies as profound “aha’s” — deep insights that are difficult to de-scribe to others.

People experiencing epipha-nies seem to suddenly see how the whole puzzle fits together. They gain an enlightened perspective that allows them to make large leaps. They are able to perceive what is truly essen-tial, significant and meaningful.

Often epiphanies are thought of as sudden flashes, but Bill’s revelation took about a year.

He began to ask himself big

questions about life after be-ing diagnosed with a terminal illness. He wanted to examine what was truly important to him. He evaluated whether he should make some changes.

As Bill looked as his work, his relationships with his family, his faith, and his service to human-ity, he could hardly believe that he was exactly where he wanted to be.

He was shocked. He thought he was striving to get to the next place, but in reality he had already arrived.

Bill says he knew he had those four things, but he just “didn’t

get it.” He was happy!Recalling those days, Bill says

with a twinkle in his eyes, “I’m in constant pain, going to die, and I’m happy. How damn lucky am I?”

And Bill really IS happy, has found answers, and DOES feel lucky (his demise seems to be indefinitely on hold — he’s been cancer-free for over five years).

I really envied Bill’s break-through, but I wasn’t too keen on his process. Even though life’s answers to the big ques-tions may be in front of us, must we have a terminal illness to understand them?

Many psy-chologists I have since queried seem to think that profound insights often do come at critical moments in life although many people experience crises and receive no revelations. Traumas and big life upsets are simply opportunities for deep awareness and growth.

Crises jerk us to attention. We have a special receptivity to staying engaged with big ques-tions and answers. Our story-tellers seem to agree. Think of A Christmas Carol’s Ebeneezer Scrooge and George Bailey in It’s A Wonderful Life.

Most of us would opt for less traumatic ways of learning the secrets of life.

After perusing much of the epiphany related literature, I have a few ideas that might work and even if they don’t, could be interesting and fun (also useful if you ARE having a crisis).

Mark out 20 minutes each day during December to engage by yourself with The Big Questions, such as: “What’s really impor-tant?”

During that time write quickly without editing for five minutes whatever comes to your mind. Then set your timer for 10 min-utes and close your eyes. Medi-tate, pray, or gaze at something pleasing in nature. Afterwards take five more minutes to write any impressions you felt. Don’t worry if nothing happened, just relax and enjoy yourself.

Take frequent walks in nature. The Loop Trail is great for this. Specifically look at the moun-tains, the river and the sky. Go out and look at the stars at night. Ask yourself, “What’s re-ally important?”

Look to others for insights. Leavenworth Summer Theatre

Get ready to learn the secret of life

cOlumn mOVING uP TO THE GOOd lIFEJunE DArlIng

>>

Bill Murray: Why not be smiling?


will be presenting It’s a Wonder-ful Life. Miracle on 34th Street can be rented. Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, is easily found at the library.

After watching and reading whatever material you choose, discuss your question with oth-ers.

Especially look for people like Bill. Invite them to coffee. Talk about your big question, your process, and your answers with each other.

Socrates is quoted as saying, “The life which is unexamined is not worth living… the greatest good of a man is daily to con-verse about virtue.”

December isn’t just about cooking, cleaning and shop-ping; it’s really the perfect month for asking big questions

and receiving epiphanies.This holiday season, how

might you move up to The Good Life by asking big questions?

p.s. If you wish to watch the Curly (Jack Palance) scene visit: www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=ml-xI1jbu_U

June Darling, Ph.D., is an executive coach who consults with businesses

and individuals to achieve goals and increase happiness. She can be reached at [email protected],

or drjunedarling.blogspot.com or at her twitter address: twitter.com/drjunedarling. Her website is www.

summitgroupresources.com.

december isn’t just about cooking, cleaning and shopping; it’s really the perfect month for asking big questions ...

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This is the season for those English favorites: Christmas, plum and other steamed “pud-dings.”

They are not actually a soft, gelatinous pudding but rather a cake. The British word for many types of dessert is “pudding.”

Christmas pudding is essen-tially a fruitcake that is steamed rather than baked. It is always served with hard sauce— named because it’s hard to the touch, not because it has brandy added to it.

The sauce is essentially lots of butter, a little powdered sugar and some brandy, so it is a solid rather than a runny sauce, and it melts on the warm cake.

Grandmother Orr spent a week every fall making a dozen Christmas puddings. After she passed away, every Christmas for the next eight years, we shared our memories of her as we enjoyed one of her steamed puddings — the cake does last a long time! (I think we put them in the freezer after a few years.)

Every time I read a recipe for Christmas or plum pudding, I get stuck on two things: the mold and the suet. Suet is hard to come by since we do not have neighborhood butchers who will save it for us. Also, eating a cake made with a cup and a half of suet — which is beef-fat — has gone out of style.

The mold is a metal container with a tight fitting lid that is placed in a water bath in a very large container so that steam can circulate around the entire mold. I have never owned a mold, but I decided to make a steamed pudding for Christmas, modern style.

For a “mold” use a couple of 46-oz. tin juice cans or one-

pound coffee cans. I tightened aluminum foil over the top of two juice cans and tied one with white twine and the other with a silicon band used when you bake or barbecue chickens. Both systems worked well to make a tight seal.

The steamer can be a very large soup pot or a canner/boiler or a canner/ steamer with a solid lid. Place a rack on the bottom of the pot so the steamer does not rattle for the hours of cook-ing. The water should not come up more than one-third of the height of your mold so water will not splash over the top of the mold.

I still have root vegetables mulched into my vegetable garden and I wanted to use the sweet carrots for my “pudding.” My Christmas pudding is moist and tasty and won’t give you a sugar rush. The breadcrumbs add texture.

Steamed Christmas Pudding

Start the water to boil, and as-semble all the ingredients before you begin mixing them together. Grease the mold thoroughly and place a round piece of parchment paper or wax paper on the very bottom of the container so the cooked pudding will slide more easily out of the mold.

The recipe makes two quarts of batter.

Wet ingredients:2 cups grated carrots1/2 cup brown sugar1/4 cup orange juice6 oz. (3/4 cube) melted butter1 cup raisins 1/2 cup chopped dates4 large eggs beaten2 tablespoons fresh, grated ginger1/2 cup chopped almondsDry ingredients:2 cups flour1-1/2 cups coarse homemade

breadcrumbs1/4 teaspoon salt

1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda

2 teaspoons pump-kin pie spice

OR1 teaspoon ground

cloves AND1 teaspoon grated

nutmeg

Blend together all the wet ingredients.

Blend together all the dry ingredients.

Mix all the ingre-dients together in a large bowl. The batter will be very moist but not runny.

Pour one half of the batter into each prepared can or into your mold.

Fill the molds two-thirds full so there is

room for the pudding to rise. With gently boiling water, steam the

pudding for 3 hours. Check the level of the water several times during the cooking period.

If you use one large mold, steam for 4 hours and check for doneness. Place a long skewer clear to the bot-tom of the mold through the dough. If it comes out clean, the pudding is cooked.

Remove the puddings from the steamer. Take off lids. Let cool slightly before removing them from the molds.

The pudding can be re-warmed by wrapping it tightly in foil and heating it in the oven for 30 minutes at 200 degrees.

Hard sauce if you wish: Cream together 3/4 cube butter, 1 cup pow-dered sugar, 1 tablespoon brandy. Melt it on each slice of the warm pudding.

Bonnie Orr — the dirt diva — gar-dens and cooks in East Wenatchee.

english Christmas pudding made easy

cOlumn GardEN OF dElIGHTSbonnIE orr

>>

Christmas pudding is really more of a cake, and can include fresh garden ingredients such as carrots. A re-used juice can covered with foil tied on by string serves as the mold.


You’ve invited friends to dinner — people whose com-pany you enjoy and with whom you are certain to have a pleas-ant evening.

But then, with the menu de-cided upon, you face that nag-ging question, “What wine will I serve?”

Here at home, we decided to follow the advice from an old Ricky Nelson song.

“But It’s all right now I learned my lesson well You see you can’t please every-one so You got to please yourself ” That’s the first rule for hav-

ing a successful wine and food pairing dinner party: please yourself.

Serve foods you enjoy prepar-ing and eating — while tak-ing into account friends’ food allergies and sensitivities — and you’ll be off to a terrific start.

“But what about the wine?” you ask once again.

The easy answer to that ques-tion is to rely once again on that bon vivant and wine writer Hugh Johnson when he orders us, “…to serve both red and white at the table…”

Some people, no matter what they are about to eat, just don’t drink white wine. I know some of these people personally.

Serve up the seared scallops, finished in your orange juice, shallots and white wine sauce with that dash of cayenne, and these diners still prefer to wash it all down with a red wine.

Others truly dislike, or have reactions to, drinking red wine. So, rather than dictate which beverage your guests must drink with dinner, offer a choice and allow the guests to decide for themselves.

I know, I know, you still pon-

der the larger question of which red and which white.

Here again return to rule one above and please yourself first.

Put wines out that you’re com-fortable drinking with the food you are serving.

It’s autumn, and you’ve opted for a simple roast chicken with roasted root vegetables: car-rots, potatoes, onions, perhaps a parsnip, and maybe even a rutabaga or a turnip tossed in for good measure.

You’ve eaten this dish often over the years, and you favor washing it down with a Dry Riesling or lightly oaked Char-donnay. You know that the carrots, onions and parsnips are sweet when roasted, so you want one that is not bone dry, but not one of those with high residual sugar, either.

In fact with this meal, you’ve served Tsillan Cellars estate Riesling and found it pleased both you and the guests that evening. So there you have the white wine conundrum solved: something white with just a hint of sweetness to complement the sweet of the vegetables, but with enough acid to counter-balance their natural sugars.

This meal you’re about to serve will also stand up to a red wine, but not to a red fruit bomb.

Opt instead for a lighter, more delicate red. A Benson Pinot Noir, a Chateau Fair Le Pont Pinot Noir, or a Bella Terrazza red — the Cab Franc, the Lem-berger, or the blend will work. My Good Wife’s favorite at the moment would be a Baroness Cellars Grenache.

Better still, your choices here play again right into the orders of Hugh Johnson who insists that, “…one should always prefer local wines with local foods…”

What could be more local than root vegetables from the farm-ers’ market?

If all this sounds overly simpli-fied, it’s because the selection and serving of wine is really that: simple. Do yourself a favor and don’t complicate the pro-cess.

Here are a few, simple guide-lines that might help further simplify the selection process:

n The old adage: Red meats for red wines; white meats for white wines is still a good guide, but it is a guiding note, not an Edict or Command from on High.

n For pairing, you have two major choices — contrasting or complementing — so if the food is hot and spicy, opt for slightly sweet and spicy like a Karma or a Mellisoni Gewurztraminer, or a Chelan Ridge High Hawk Riesling. All will contrast nicely in this situation.

With a creamy dish or sauce, the smooth creaminess of a lightly oaked Chardonnay complements the food. But also remember that contrasting or complementing are very person-al preferences, so again, rule one comes into play: Please yourself.

n Temperature of the wine is critical, for wine, like food, has a temperature floor and ceil-

ing. The best tem-peratures for wines, reds and whites are between 45 degrees F and 64 degrees F.

Whites offer more aroma and flavor when served at 50 and 55 degrees, but they tend to warm up in the glass; reds are best be-tween 55 and 64 degrees, again depending on personal prefer-ence. If you keep your in-house temperature at 72, you’ll need to remember to keep the wines in a cooler location prior to putting them out.

Again, please yourself and your guests. Some I know drop an ice cube in their red. What is the saying? “If you haven’t tried it, don’t knock it.”

Selecting a beverage that will please all at the table doesn’t have to be an ordeal that brings on any stress.

Remember, it’s a dinner party. There will be food, friends and frivolity. Let there also be enjoy-ment in the wines offered with the meal.

Alex Saliby is a wine lover who spends far too much time reading

about the grapes, the process of mak-ing wine and the wines themselves.

He can be contacted at [email protected].


Red or white, and which red or white?

cOlumn alEX ON WINEAlEX SAlIbY

>>


I think that traveling out of the country can help you stay younger.

Experiencing different cul-tures helps one appreciate dif-ferent perspectives. The chal-lenge involved in traveling to new places stimulates thinking. Traveling seems to slow time down. We are always amazed at how much we have done and ac-complished in what seems to be a relatively short time.

Last winter, a brochure came in the mail from the Road Schol-ar program promoting a hiking trip in the Dolomite Mountains of northern Italy and the Alps around Seefeld, Austria.

Road Scholar is the new name for what was formerly called “Elderhostel.” I believe Elderhos-tel changed its name in order to appeal to a wider audience. This would be our third trip with them.

Road Scholar is really a bro-ker. They advertise and plan the trips, and then another local company with whom they con-tract takes over in the country

you are visiting. Generally these other companies are experts in the area you are visiting. On our recent trip we were led by European Walkers with whom we had previously hiked around Mont Blanc in 2009.

On this trip there were 20 people who came from Massa-chusetts, New York, Pennsylva-nia, California, Ohio, Michigan, Oregon and Washington. All but three were retired.

It was an interesting group. Among them were a women’s world games gold medalist in the over-70 division who won the hurdles and pole vault; a woman who emigrated from Hong Kong at age 22, who earned a Ph.D. in history and then taught American History in college; a New York dance instructor; a federal labor law-yer; an Oregon man who builds his own canoes; and a Korean woman who remembered the terrible hardships of the war before she came to the U.S. and earned a doctorate.

Road Scholar rated this trip at a difficulty level of 5 out of 6, but

we were not all seasoned hikers. My wife said she prepared for the trip by extended standing (at an art workshop).

We flew on Air France non-stop overnight from Seattle to Paris and then on to Munich.

We went a day early to get a good night’s sleep before we met our group the following day at the Munich airport.

A bus took us to Castlerotto, Italy, a small picturesque, village of 2,000 people nestled in the

Staying younger by hiking the Alps

cOlumn THE TraVElING dOCTOrJIM brown, M.D.

>>


Dolomite Mountains. Recently the Dolomites were

selected as a UNESCO World Heritage site because of their exceptional beauty and unique landscape. The mountains are made up of a unique lime-stone and are widely regarded as among the most attractive mountain landscapes in the world.

Only 6 percent of the area is inhabited. There are several small villages in the area con-nected by a wonderful bus system —no car is needed here. Every village has numerous hik-ing trials leading outward and upward from the village center. Each village center has its own tall church steeple so it is easy to find.

The high plateaus are very

lush and green, and even at 5,000 to 8,000 feet, cattle are grazing with their cattle bells tinkling.

In September all the cows are brought down to their farmer’s village and, of course, that is cause for celebrations and festi-vals.

Italians seem to love festivals. When we were there, a special festival was going on that in-volved introducing all the village bachelors. There was a church parade around the town square with banners, a giant angel and a cupola over the priest. A brass band accompanied them. The young men were dressed in local attire and looked quite serious.

After six days in Castlerotto, we headed for Seefeld, Austria —about three hours away by

bus. Seefeld is a Tyrolean ski town

40 miles from Innsbruck, so it was a great base for hiking in the Austrian Alps. We spent six nights here and hiked on five of those days.

One day we took a local train about 30 minutes away to Garmisch, Germany, where we hiked up the beautiful Part-nachklamm, which is a deep gorge and one of Germany’s natural wonders,. You can walk the length of the gorge along a pathway with tunnels cut into the limestone rock just a few yards above the glacier-fed river.

On our last day in Austria, we hiked to the Spitze (peak) of a

mountain that at 7,786 feet had a 360-degree view of the Alps as well as a view down on Seefeld below. We took a small train called a funicular from Seefeld to the ski lodge at 5,000 feet and from there we hiked up the remaining 2,776 feet.

It was a steady uphill vigorous hike. At the top we were enter-tained by a gentleman blowing on a 10-foot long alpine horn that he had carried up unas-sembled in a pack. He and his wife also yodeled in a beautiful serenade. What lucky serendip-ity!

The next day we returned to Munich by bus as we were all


TOP LEFT: Cows graze in the beauti-ful Dolomite country.

TOP: In Aus-tria, this man carries his horn in pieces up to 7,786 feet where he assembles it and plays.

LEFT: Lynn and Dr. Jim Brown pose on a mountain trail.



flying home the day after. It was 9/11 when we were in Munich, and we were surprised to learn there was a gathering of world religious leaders of all persua-sions who came, specifically on that day, to discuss world peace.

President Merkel of Russia was scheduled to address the confer-ence. It was heartening to know that the terrible tragedy of 9/11 is marked by other countries as

Clouds settle in over Castlerotto, Italy.

well.Of course, we enjoyed listen-

ing to the oompah band while

eating typical German food along with beer brewed on the premises at the huge Hofbrau-

haus restaurant. It was a fun way to end our trip.

Although Munich is a city of 2,000,000 it seems smaller. It is quite attractive, in part because buildings cannot be over five stories high.

Munich was gearing up for its 201st annual Oktoberfest, which is held the first two weeks every October. This is Germany’s most famous event and the world’s biggest fair, attracting over 6 million visitors. During that period there will be 7 million liters of beer sold (all of which has to have been produced within Munich’s city limits), in addition to 90,000 liters of wine, 1,000,000 liters of water and lemonade, and 500,000 chickens consumed. I have no idea how many sausages will be eaten. I’m glad I was there before all this started.

The next day we all flew home. It had been time well spent, filled with memories and new friends whom we will cherish.

Jim Brown, M.D., is a semi-retired gastroenterologist who has practiced for 38 years in the Wenatchee area. He is a former CEO of the Wenatchee Valley Medical Center.

We enjoyed listening to the oompah band while eating typical german food along with beer brewed on the premises at the huge Hofbrauhaus restaurant.


JOURNEY TO BETHLEHEm, 12/1 – 12/4, 5:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. This Christmas season, experience the town of Bethlehem, as it was the night the Christ Child was born. The journey begins indoors with live Christmas music. A local Bethlehem resident will guide you to many shops, scribes, tax collec-tors and an innkeeper. Ponder with the Wise Men as they follow the Star and see the shepherds and the manger where the Christ Child was born. See the living nativity with sheep, goats, donkeys, chickens and a camel. (Dress appropriately for the weather.) Wenatchee Valley Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Fifth and Western, Wenatchee. Info: www.j2bwenatchee.org.

WINGS AND WISHES CHRISTmAS TREE LIGHTING, 12/1, 6:30 p.m. Christmas carols, tree lighting, refreshments and Santa. East Wenatchee City Hall.

HOLIDAY SPICE, 12/1, 7 p.m. Big band and a collage of the area’s most talented performers sing-

ing, dancing and all around enter-taining. Performing Arts Center, Cost: $25 adults, $12 seniors and students, $10 16 and under. Info: pacwen.org.

PET PHOTOS WITH SANTA, 12/2, & 12/9, 11 a.m. and 12/3 & 12/ 10, 3 p.m. Have your picture taken with your pet and with Santa. Petco. Cost: $8.95 includes framed photo. $5 from each photo will be donated to the Wenatchee Valley Humane Society. Info: 662-9577.

SERGIO AND STEVEN WITH CLF, 12/1, 8 – 10 p.m. Local musicians with jam to follow. 10 Below. Cost: free. Info: 665-8737.

INSPECTING CAROL, 12/1,2,3,8,9,10, 7:30 p.m. A Music Theater Produc-tion. The cast for the Soapbox Play-house is going through the motions for its annual production of the Charles Dickens classic, A Christ-mas Carol, when troubles begin to multiply. Bad goes to worse when the cast learns that the theater is flat broke, and worse goes to di-sastrous when they learn National Endowment of Arts is threatening to pull its grant unless their inspec-tor finds artistic merit in their lame production. Will they pull it togeth-

er or implode under the pressure? Riverside Playhouse. Cost: $10, students 18 and under $7.

OPEN HOUSE, 12/2, 2 – 8 p.m. Door prizes, tours and activities. SAGE, 710 N Chelan Ave. Wenatchee. Info: 663-7446.

A STEP ABOVE GALLERY, 12/2, 5 p.m. Rob Blackaby is the guest art-ist. Rob is known for his paintings for the Chelan Murals Project. Gal-lery is located at 34 N Wenatchee Ave. Cost: free.

mICHAEL LEWIS BAND OF NASH-VILLE, 12/2, 9 p.m. – midnight. 10 Below. Cost: $5 cover or free entry if you have dinner at the Apple-wood. Loyalty badge from Four-square gets free entry.

HOLIDAY LUNCHEON, 12/2, noon. En-joy a live ornament demonstration and make your own to take home. Wreaths will be raffled off. All proceeds benefit Wenatchee Valley Humane Society. Wenatchee Golf & Country Club. Cost: $25. Info: wenatcheehumane.org.

GALLERY 4 SOUTH, 12/2, 5 – 8 p.m. December showcases the wonder-ful, whimsical world of artist Wen-dy Zupan-Bailey. Wendy’s detailed,

magical art dolls will carry you to another time and place. Meet the artist, enjoy the art, conversation and hors d’oeuvres. Cost: free.

FIRST FRIDAY AT TWO RIVERS GAL-LERY, 5 - 8 p.m. 12/2. Holiday gift show continues through December. Friday’s reception presents Judith Frisco & the works of over 40 local artists. Live music by guitar-ist Kirk Lewellen. Complimentary refreshments. 102 N Columbia, Wenatchee. Cost: Free.

CHRISTmAS LIGHTING FESTIVAL, 12/2 – 4 and every Friday, Saturday and Sunday until Christmas. Down-town Leavenworth. Info: 458-5807.

WENATCHEE FIRST FRIDAYS, 12/2, 5 p.m. – 8 p.m. Walk downtown for art, music, dining and entertain-ment. Downtown Wenatchee.

SANTA, 12/3, 5 p.m. Stanley Civic Center Fountain Plaza, 12/20, 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. Free pizza and 12/ 17, 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. Free photos with Santa in the Convention Center.

ICICLE BREWING COmPANY TOURS, 12/3, every Saturday at noon through 12/31. Curious about the brewing process? Learn more about


WHaT TO dO >>We want to know of fun and

interesting local events. Send info to: [email protected]


the history of beer and explore the world of craft brewing. 935 Front St., Leavenworth. Reservations and info: [email protected].

WENATCHEE RIVERFRONT RAIL-WAY, 12/3, noon – 4 p.m. The miniature train in Riverfront Park runs on a figure-8 course of rails, bridges and trestles along the

Columbia River. Rides are fun for all ages. Info: 663-2900.

COOkING CLASS: HOLIDAY TARTS, 12/3, 2 p.m. Jam tarts and butter tarts will be made. Chateau Faire le Pont Winery. Info: 667-9463.

TERRY HOLDER IN CONCERT, 12/3, 7:30 p.m. Singer/songwriter Terry Holder will perform at Grunewald Guild in Plain. Cost: $10.

WINTER CRAFT FAIR, 12/3, 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. Wenatchee Golden Apple Band Boosters will provide a wide variety of crafts created by more

than 50 vendors. Items for sale will include jewelry, stained glass, quilt-ing, Christmas decor, team/school items, scarves, blankets, pillows, hand painted items (wood, metal, glass), soaps, baked goods, baby sweaters and hats, wooden toys, and art. There will be a wide variety of items and gift certificates from local restaurants, specialty shops, and more. Also, pastries from local bakeries and other refreshments. Wenatchee High School Commons. Info: Dianna Williams 630-6252.

FAmILY FUN DAY, 12/3, 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. It’s a sure way to catch the holiday spirit with crafts, activi-ties, yummy treats, museum tours and photo with Santa. Wenatchee Valley Museum and Cultural Center. Cost: $5 adults, $4 seniors, $2 kids 6-12, $10 family. Info: 888-6240.

HOLIDAY BAzAAR, 12/3, 9 .m. – 4:30 p.m. 18 artisans and crafters along with a raffle for a lap quilt. Rolls available in the morning, lunch in the afternoon. Chelan Senior Cen-ter. Info: lakechelan.com.

COmmON BOND 5, 12/3, 2 p.m. & 7 p.m. Wenatchee’s popular gos-pel group will perform its annual Christmas concert. Performing Arts Center. Cost: $15 advance or $18 at door. Info: pacwen.org.

HOLIDAY BAzAAR AND BAkE SALE, 12/3, 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. Sights, sounds and tastes of the season. Start your holiday shopping. Light lunch served, crafts, hand made items, music, goodies and fun. Lake Chelan Eagles, 209 East Woodin Ave. Info: lakechelan.com.

OPERA AND CABARET, 12/3, 6 p.m. Icicle Creek Center for the Arts presents Ciao Bella, highlighting arias, duets, trios and ensembles from Rigoletto, La Boheme, don Giovanni and more. Candlelight supper, fine wines, dessert and cabaret seating. Canyon Wren Re-cital Hall, Leavenworth.

IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE, 12/3, 8 p.m., 12/4, 1 p.m. 12/9, 8 p.m., 12/10, 1 p.m. and 8 p.m., 12/11, 1 p.m., 12/16, 8 p.m., 12/17, 1 p.m. and 8 p.m. and 12/18, 1 p.m. Festhalle Theater, Leavenworth. Info: leaven-worthsummertheater.org.

NIGHT AT THE mUSEUm, 12/3, 12/10, 12/17, 7 p.m. Enjoy local wine and cheese and guided tours given by the Nutcracker Lady, Arlene Wagner. Live music. Leavenworth Nutcracker Museum. Info: nut-crackermuseum.com.

WENATCHEE BLUES JAm, 12/5, 7 - 10 p.m. Open blues jam every first

Monday of the month. Bring your own instrument or voice. Drums and PA provided. Caffé Mela. Info: Tomasz Cibicki 669-8200.

COOkING CLASS: STOVETOP STEAmING, 12/6, 5:30 p.m. Steamed pork buns (Char Siu Bao), steamed mussels with chive butter, Asian aromatic chicken, steamed Wasabi salmon with ponzu sauce, shrimp and mushroom Sui Mei and steamed egg custard will be cooked at The Ivy Wild Inn. Cost: $40 single, $105 for series. Info: theivywildinn.com.

BLUES GUITAR WITH NIC ALLEN, 12/7, 9 – 11 p.m. 10 Below. Cost: free.

CHRISTmAS CANDLELIGHT CEN-TERPIECE, 12/7, 5 – 6:30 p.m. Learn how to create floral arrangements with candles. Chateau Faire le Pont Winery. Cost: $25 for instruction, $50 to take your centerpiece home. Info: 667-WINE.

CHUmSTICk LIBERATION FRONT, 12/8, 9, 8 – 10 p.m. Local musicians with jam to follow. 10 Below. Cost: free.

HOLIDAY CONCERT, 12/8, 2 – 3:30 p.m. Organist Erich Knapp will play the Liberty Theater Pipe organ. Wenatchee Valley Museum and Cultural Center. Cost: by donation.

VILLAGE VOICES CHRISTmAS CONCERT, 12/8, 12/12, 12/13, 7:30 p.m. Church of the Nazarene, Ski Hill Road, Leavenworth. Cost: $14 adults, $12 students. Info: 548-8058.

GWATA HOLIDAY SOCIAL, 12/8, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m. Network with other entrepreneurs and tech enthusi-asts, bid on silent auction items, enjoy a glass of wine or beer and delicious hors d’ oeuvres, listen to great live music, and enter to win a door prize. Caffé Mela. Cost: $5 for GWATA members; $10 non-mem-bers. RSVP at [email protected].

A CHRISTmAS STORY, 12/9 – 10, 6:30 p.m. Chelan Valley Players will perform a live radio show/phone-a-thon complete with dinner at Tsillan Cellars. Cost: $50. Info: chelanvalleyplayers.com.

ICICLE CREEk PIANO TRIO CON-CERT SHOWCASE, 12/10, 7:30 p.m. A Christmas concert with Jennifer Caine, violin; Sally Singer, cello; and Oksana Ezhokina, piano. Icicle Creek Center for the Arts, Leavenworth. Cost: $20 adults, $16 seniors and students.

BETH WHITNEY IN CONCERT, 12/10, 7:30 p.m. Singer/songwriter Beth

WHaT TO dO >>


We want to know of fun and interesting local events. Send

info to: [email protected]



Whitney will perform at Grunewald Guild in Plain. Cost: $10.

HOLIDAY ADOPT-A-THON, 12/10, 11 a.m. The winter months are cold, and hundreds of unwanted pets find relief from the frosty tem-peratures in the Wenatchee Valley Humane Society’s shelter every year. Enjoy a holiday cookie while you look at all of the wonderful animals anxiously awaiting a home

The Art Life // SKEtChES of loCAl ArtIStS

Wenatchee dancer Serena Fiacco is many things but one thing she is NOT is timid.

She’s bold about her artistic choices, frank in her philosophy, and stunning in a stage persona that is way below skin deep.

“I love performing. The adren-alin, the excitement from the audience… it’s addicting,” said Serena.

Even watching her warm up in the wings before a number, it’s clear that this woman is a pro-fessional. In the spotlight, she’s drop-dead sexy. Not a vamp, not a tease, just blissfully in tune with her body, very aware of her moves and their effects.

She’s at a crossroads now. “I really feel like I am an artist be-cause I don’t have a set plan and I don’t need one — I let oppor-tunities present themselves and decide if I’m going to bite.” She’s grounded in dancing, teaching, choreographing. How will she best use herself?

Serena is energized by per-forming solo onstage, full lights, big crowd. But she realizes she’s also been a teacher all her life, even when that’s not her official job description.

And choreography — her new venture — grabs her inter-est too. “I love watching what I envisioned being played out: the choreography is my paintbrush, the dancers my paint, the stage my canvas.”

Lifelong lessons at home, and plenty of work in Wichita, Jackson Hole and San Francisco gave her a solid background in many dance forms, from Irish dancing (“I gave it up… just couldn’t keep my arms down!”) to bal-let, belly dancing and flamenco, with jazz and modern dance predominating.

“When I first went off to college, I stopped dancing; I thought it was time to be an adult with a ‘real job.’ Some-thing was missing… I started dancing again — and there it was!”

Serena, 32, made her entrance onto North Central Washington’s arts stage five years ago. After doing musical theater choreog-raphy — first time ever — in Omak and Chelan, she’s got the theater bug. Serena hopes to nurture her local cabaret troupe, Silhouette Society, and seek out more venues.

She’s taught Hip

if all the world is a stage, she’s the dancer with the sizzle

The cabaret/burlesque genre she’s costumed for here is just one of many dance forms in Serena Fiacco’s repertoire.

Hop to Health with kids, staged Thriller Flash Mob this Hal-loween at the Wenatchee Racket and Athletic Club (WRAC), entertained at a Good Sam Rider event and wowed Twisp audi-ences at a gala fundraiser with “Burlesque,” a sexy homage.

She believes anyone who can hear a beat can dance (but sympathizes with some people, especially men, whose fear of dance actually makes them clumsy) and so she plans a “Tango Date Night“ for couples a little shy of dancing but willing to try.

Her day jobs keep her on her toes, literally and figuratively. She’s reaching and teaching oth-ers as an instructor in dance and fitness as well as group fitness coordinator at the WRAC. And with an anthropology degree and doctoral work in human sexuality, she is slowly grow-ing her total health consulting clientele, melding mental and physical wellness.

In her dance life, there’s some pain with the gain — sore muscles, pulled muscles. And especially with the burlesque genre, some flak from dance audiences who may be leery of on-stage sensuality.

But Serena (well named) is quietly confident in her path and accepting of detractors. “If people are disturbed by some-thing I have performed,” she ex-plains, “it means I have touched them in some way, caused them to think and question. And that’s good,” she said with a smile.

— by Susan Lagsdin

for the holidays. Wenatchee Valley Humane Society. Info: 662-9577.

BOmBER WING BENEFIT DINNER AND AUCTION, 12/10. Get some holiday shopping done while supporting your local ski racers.Proceeds from this event go to help the Mission Ridge Ski Education Foundation subsidize all programs and provide scholarships to the 70 athletes enrolled in the various pro-

grams offered by the Mission Ridge Ski Team. Fundraising also pro-vides for race grants, safety equip-ment, vehicles, gates, and coaches for the kids. Auction items include: Tickets to Dancing with the Stars, North Face gear, cooking class at Ivy Wild, Steamboat Springs get-away and much more. St. Joseph Church. Cost: $50. Info: www.mrst.us or contact Andrea Baker at 881-1592 or [email protected].

kIDS AT HEART, 12/11, 7 p.m. The Wenatchee Apollo Club will per-form at the Performing Arts Center. Cost: $15.

COOkING CLASS: STREET FOODS, 12/13, 5:30 p.m. Travel the world and try some foods you find not in a restaurant, but from a street vendor. Tacos al pastor from Mexico, arancini rice balls from

Performing Arts students perform at Wenatchee High School Audi-torium. Tickets at the door. Info: 665-8796.

mICHAEL LEWIS BAND OF NASH-VILLE, 12/17, 9 – midnight. 10 Be-low. Cost: $5 cover or free entry if you have dinner at the Applewood. Loyalty badge from Foursquare gets free entry.

CELTIC CHRISTmAS, 12/17, 2 p.m. & 7:30 p.m. An evening of contempo-rary Celtic music celebrating the season of Christmas with Windham Hill/ArkMusic recording artists, Jeff Johnson (keyboards & vocal) and Brian Dunning (flutes & whistles) with Wendy Goodwin (violin). Icicle Creek Center for the Arts, Leaven-worth. Info: arkmusic.com.

WENATCHEE VALLEY SYmPHONY ORCHESTRA, 12/17, 7 p.m. & 12/18 at 4 p.m. The sounds of Christmas featuring the Columbia Chorale. Performing Arts Center. Cost: $20 adults, $10 students, $25 balcony. Info: pacwen.org.

CANDLE LIGHTING CEREmONY, 12/18, 6:30 p.m. The Compassion-ate Friends will be hosting a Candle Lighting ceremony in remembrance of loved ones who have died. Any-

one who has lost a child, grandchild or sibling is welcome. Church of the Nazarene, 1011 S. Miller St.

IF YOU GIVE A mOOSE A mUFFIN, 12/19, 2 p.m. & 6 p.m. A Magik Theatre Production. If a big, hungry moose comes to visit, you might

give him a muffin to make him feel at home. If you give him a muffin, he’ll want some jam to go with it. When he’s eaten all your muffins, he’ll want to go to the store to get some more muffin mix. In this se-quel to The Magik Theatre’s 2009 runaway hit If You Give a Mouse

Italy, chicken tagine from Morocco, bahn mi sandwich’s from Vietnam, lahmajun, a flat bread with a thin layer of meat, tomato, onions, pep-pers and parsley from Turkey, and a taste of Greece with some Baklava. The Ivy Wild Inn. Cost: $40 single, $105 for series. Info: theivywildinn.com.

BACk COUNTRY FILm FESTIVAL, 12/15, 6 p.m. Films highlighting the beauty, diversity and fun of winter ski, snowboard, snowshoe experi-ence. Door prizes, free coffee and dessert items. Cashmere Riverside Center. Cost: $10. Info: backcoun-tryfilmfestival.com.

mISSION: ImPROV, 12/15 & 12/29, 7 p.m. & every Thursday. Free open workshop, theater games for nov-ice and experienced players. Fun and casual. No workshops on 12/1, 12/8 &12/25. Riverside Playhouse. Info: www.mtow.org.

THE NUTCRACkER, 12/17, 1 & 5 p.m. The Academy of Dance and




info to: [email protected]

WHaT TO dO >>


a Cookie, the young host is again run ragged by a surprise guest. Performing Arts Center. Cost: $18 adults, $15 senior & students. Info: pacwen.org.

mANNHEIm STEAmROLLERS, 12/20, 7:30 p.m. Christmas show. Town Toyota Center. Info: towntoyotacen-ter.com.

THE COmPASSIONATE FRIENDS, 12/20, 7 p.m. Bring a gift your child would have liked. We’ll wrap them and give them to a local charitable group. Grace Lutheran Church, 1408 Washington St.

VINEYARD SNOWSHOE AND DIN-NER, 12/26, 12/28, 12/30, 4:30 p.m. Journey into a breathtaking winter wonderland with a guided vineyard snowshoe trek with winemaker Don Wood. Ending with fireside dinner at log home winery by Smokeblos-som. Icicle Ridge Winery, Leaven-worth. Info: 548-7019.

BATTLE OF THE BANDS FOR NEW YEAR’S EVE, 12/31, 8 p.m. Michael Carlos Band, Queens of 7 will be playing at 10 Below. Cost: $10 cover with Foursquare Loyalty bonuses all night including free entry.

NEW YEAR’S EVE BASH, 12/31, 9 p.m. Party will feature The Ken-nedy Brothers and Junk Belly. Hors d’oeuvres, dancing, party favors and champagne toast at midnight. Campbell’s Resort, Chelan. Cost: $55 in advance or $60 at the door. Info: 682-2561.

NEW YEAR’S EVE NIGHT SkIING, 12/31, 6 – 9 p.m. Annual torchlight parade will be 9:30 p.m. The Lodge Eatery will be open. Echo Valley Ski Hill, Chelan. Cost: $15 skiing and tubing hill, $8 tubing hill only.

WINTERFEST FIRE AND ICE FESTI-VAL, 1/6 - 8 & 1/13 - 15. Visitors will marvel as ice sculptures come to life, relax in a sleigh ride through charming historic downtown Chel-an, warm up around a giant bonfire and be dazzled by the magic of fireworks. Info: lakechelanwinter-fest.com.

WHaT TO dO >> The Art Life // SKEtChES of loCAl ArtIStS

ken Duffin says his Tuesday painting buddies at McDee’s Art Center tease him about his brand of Wenatchee Valley land-scapes — seems he has trouble keeping man-made structures (barns, sheds, fence lines) out of his scenes.

“It’s hard not to paint them,” he admits. “It’s really what I’m used to doing.”

His flair for featuring photo-realistic buildings is a natural consequence of the commercial art and architectural render-ings that earned him a comfort-able living, first in California and later in the Seattle area, for almost six decades.

The walls of his Briarwood home in East Wenatchee are now a gallery of pure nature, landscapes freely painted, most-ly plein air, without any client or employer or project deadline to cramp his style. They celebrate the beauty of the sunlit hills, or-chards and cliffs of Wenatchee, his and his wife Glen’s chosen home for the last four years.

Ken’s tidy studio also displays past artwork he’s proud of. One mid-’60s work, a framed paint-ing of a yellow jet above the clouds, is the Boeing 707 just off the production line. A fat album contains dozens of photos of his original illustrations, many of industrial developments and dazzling new architecture (think: “an artist’s conception of the proposed civic center...”)

“In commercial art, you al-ways had to please somebody.” His eyes twinkle as he reveals, “at the San Francisco firm our manager was always so critical, even if something was perfect,

Ken Duffin will paint long into the night when inspiration is flowing.

that we learned to make an obvious mistake — one we could fix easily after he found it.”

The meticulous handwork that was honed at art school (compli-ments of the post-World War II G.I. bill) came naturally to him. “I was always a realistic artist — even in high school when I did sports illustrations for the school paper.”

One pin-up girl painting he did pro-bono as an aircraft mechanic on the nosecone of a fighter plane was even featured in a book about that wartime art form.

He acknowledges that art design has evolved, but is con-cerned that young illustrators and designers today “don’t ever learn to draw — they go right to CAD and Illustrator (computer graphics programs) without learning any of the basics.”

Ken, at 90, paints most days, sometimes long into the night if he’s enjoying the challenge, and, using long held wood crafting skills, also mats and frames his own work.

Ken sometimes turns to slow

drying, layer-able oil paint for very detailed subjects. But, he explains, at his best he’s a very fast painter, and he most often revels in the wash of colors and lively light quality of sheer wa-tercolor.

“I love the freedom of doing my own art now — any subject I want, any way I want to see it. But it’s still hard for me to break the rules.”

He chuckles at one dilemma — a dark shadow in the fissure of a Columbia River cliff side. “It was really hard for me to admit that it was wasn’t an ‘earth tone’ at all. It was pure blue. But I just put ultramarine blue in there and it seemed to do the trick.”

Ken enjoys his recently found artistic freedom, as do the admirers who seek out Duffin paintings.

His watercolor work has drawn Best of Show accolades, and he’s pleased to be invited back to galleries in Chelan, the Methow and Wenatchee, where he’s often seen in Gallery 4 South and Two Rivers.

— by Susan Lagsdin


info to: [email protected] a career of Perfection, Painter enJoys his freedom

Know of someone stepping off the beaten path in the search for fun and excite-

ment? E-mail us at [email protected]


Froze out — the Hard Winter of 1889many forces have influ-

enced the development of North Central Washington.

Geologic events created topog-raphy, soil and rivers. Early set-tlers built farms, businesses and roads and the railroad brought distant markets in reach of the area’s agricultural bounty.

That bounty, however, would not be what it is without the winter of 1889/90. It was called the “Hard Winter” and the “Heartbreaking Winter,” and it changed forever the character of North Central Washington.

Since white settlers had begun arriving in the early 1880s the winters had been mild with little snow and moderate tem-peratures. Cattle and horses could graze all winter. Bunch grass grew in abundance, taller than the horses’ knees. A little could always be cut for winter feed.

It seemed an ideal country for raising stock and when the winter of 1889 began, large herds of cattle and horses were com-mon from Rock

Island across the Waterville plateau and into the Okanogan.

Two feet of snow fell across the area on Nov. 7 and tempera-tures dropped into the teens. The snow kept falling as did the temperatures into December.

By Christmas four to five feet of snow covered the ground.

Mike Horan had come to the valley in early 1889 to build a home for his wife Margaret and their new son William. He put up a four-room house alongside his meat market.

His family arrived in Septem-ber, just two months ahead of the snow and cold. The Horans spent the winter living in just one of their four rooms — where the stove was. Mike Horan re-membered that the snow cov-

ered the second string of barb wire on the fences.

There was a short-lived thaw at the end of the month then conditions got worse.

In January temperatures plummeted to 10, then 20 and 30 below zero, covering the snow with a hard thick crust that the stock could not dig or move through.

Mike Horan recalled that there “was a crust on it that would bear up an ox over the entire county.”

Everywhere cattle, horses and sheep began to starve and die. Horses ate the manes and tails of each other and cattle ate the hair from dead animals’ hides. They ate brush along the creeks and pine needles.

Farmers dug down through the crust and snow in the hopes of find-ing a handful of bunchgrass to keep a starving animal alive for another day. Men snowshoed over Colockum Pass to Ellens-burg to carry back sacks of flour for bread to feed to the last of their cattle and horses.

Cattle died by the thousands. Norman Tichenal recalled that, “Ninety per cent of the stock died. They were piled five and six deep all over the range.”

Near Ephrata, William Pate lost all but 800 of his 4,000 sheep.

At Rock Island, James Keane lost his entire herd of nearly

2,000 Angus cattle. The Browns in Monitor, along with Jim Weyth-man, had bought 60 of Keane’s cattle the previous summer. Only one survived, saved, it’s said, when George Brown fed it the straw from Weyth-man’s mattress.

On Badger Mountain the 30 head of fine horses

cOlumn THOSE WErE THE daySroD MolzAhn

>>

A sparse and cold downtown Wenatchee in the 1890s offered little shelter from the storm. Photo from Wenatchee Valley Museum & Cultural Center #94-31-4


given to William and Elizabeth Estes by her father for their wed-ding present all died.

People perished as well. Mr. Caruthers lost his life when he froze to death trying to snow-shoe 20 miles from Waterville to his farm on Christmas day.

The Columbia River froze over. George Washington Blair,

who, along with his partner, Christopher Columbus Rick-man, operated the stage line between Ellensburg and Water-ville recalled, “I was carrying the mail to Waterville. The Colum-bia froze over after large chunks of ice had broken and jammed. Chunks of ice were stacked four or five feet in the air. I had to pass between canyons of ice.”

In February a storm left another four feet of snow in a single night and the tempera-tures stayed well below zero.

Mrs. Virginia Herrmann in the Okanogan called it, “the sever-est weather known to present-day inhabitants. The thermom-eter must have been at 40 below zero and there were 13 succes-sive days of blizzard.”

Benedict Gubser in Conconul-ly wrote in his diary that Frank Dudley had died of exposure. He had started on snowshoes from Loomis, taking a flask of gin with him, which was found empty about 30 steps from where the body was found.

In Wenatchee, on the 17th of February, Philip Rose was born in the house his father, Conrad, had built the year before with

green lumber hauled from El-lensburg. Elizabeth Rose had tried everything all through the cold and bitter winter wind to plug the holes left by the shrink-ing and twisting lumber. The Rose family struggled to stay warm and finally resorted to burning their fence posts.

In April there were still four feet of snow on the ground and settlers all across North Central Washington were running out of flour.

Mike Horan recounted that, “George Blair, with the aid of his noble beast, Old Sam, and his freight wagon broke a road through the snow banks, 10 to 50 feet deep, across the moun-tains to Ellensburg where he loaded the enormous cargo of 1,000 pounds of flour. People came in row boats from so far away as the mouth of the Oka-nogan River to take some up the river with them.”

The snow stayed on the ground till May. It had been 180 days since that first November storm.

The “Hard Winter” had won and change came quickly to the valleys and plateaus of North Central Washington.

In Monitor, George Richardson had planted apples instead of raising stock. Now as the bones of thousands of cattle, horses and sheep lay bleaching across the hills, Richardson’s apple trees thrived and his neighbors noticed. In the valleys fruit trees began to replace cattle.

Leitha Coonan wrote of the Badger Mountain settlers, “After this heart breaking winter, their minds turned to raising wheat.”

The “Hard Winter” of 1889 and ’90 had left its mark on the people and the land of North Central Washington.

Historian, actor and teacher Rod Molzahn can be reached at [email protected]. His third his-tory CD, Legends & Legacies Vol.

III - Stories of Wenatchee and North Central Washington, is now available at the Wenatchee Valley Museum and

Cultural Center and at other loca-tions throughout the area.

People perished as well. mr. caruthers lost his life when he froze to death trying to snowshoe 20 miles from Waterville to his farm on christmas day.

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Know of a special experience we should check out? Eating, drink-ing or playing, we want to know.

Send us an e-mail at [email protected]

5 reasons to venture outThe holiday season can be so

hectic — between checking off your Christmas gift list, plan-ning the seasonal feast, dress-ing up the house, and this year, apparently shoveling snow so guests can come over.

Sometimes, we get so busy that we forget that holidays should be fun.

Yes, you read correctly: Fun.Between all of the have-tos

and stress this month brings, give yourself permission to have some plain old-fashioned fun.

And while we have a bundle of activities in this month’s What To Do list starting on page 35, here are a few that caught our eyes:

Smile Rover — We always had trouble getting our kids to sit up straight and smile when having a photo taken with Santa, so now we are glad to see an alternative: Having your pet

photos taken with Santa.Petco invites you and your pet

for a picture with the Jolly Elf on Fridays, Dec. 2 and 9, at 11 a.m. and Saturdays, Dec. 3 and 10 at 3 p.m. Cost is $8.95, with $5 going to the Wenatchee Valley Hu-mane Society. Info: 662-9577.

It’s snowing crafts — Craft fairs are big this time of year (what else are you going to get Auntie?), and one of the biggest is the Winter Craft Fair put on by the Wenatchee Golden Apple Band Boosters. More than 50 mostly local vendors will provide a variety of jewelry, stained glass, quilting, Christmas decor, team/school items, scarves, blankets, pillows, hand painted items (wood, metal, glass), soaps, baked goods, baby sweaters and hats, wooden toys, and art.

On Saturday, Dec. 3, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Wenatchee High School Commons. Info: Dianna Williams 630-6252.

A Wonderful Life on stage — Good Life columnist June Darling writes this month on the secret to life (see page 30), and makes a sug-gestion to see It’s A Wonderful Life.

You could rent the movie, but you could also see a live ver-sion by Leavenworth Summer Theater at the Festhalle Theater in Leavenworth the first three weekends of December. Info: leavenworthsummertheater.org.

Feel the message (and feel the goose bumps) when the angel tells the hero: “You see George, you’ve really had a wonderful life. Don’t you see what a mis-take it would be to just throw it away?”

Festival on screen — Film festi-vals can be great venue to see non-Hollywood movies made by dedicated filmmakers with something to say.

The Backcountry Film Fes-tival is a traveling event that promotes the work of grassroots filmmakers who tell compel-ling and entertaining stories of backcountry, non-motorized recreation and environmental preservation. (That last bit was a quote from the website, but you get the drift.)

Thursday, Dec. 15, 6 p.m. at the Cashmere Riverside Center. Cost: $10.

Want jam with that muffin? — Looking for an activity for kids? You might try If You Give a Moose a Muffin. In this sequel to The Magik Theatre’s 2009 hit If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, the young host is again run ragged by a surprise guest. Performing Arts Center. Monday, Dec. 19, 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. Cost: $18 adults, $15 senior and students. Info: pacwen.org.

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good life december 2011

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