a tradition : first snow celebrations & a winter picnic

when i was in high school i accidentally started a tradition.

i got my driver's license in the middle of october,

and was loving my new-found freedom...

especially when i realized on the first day it snowed that

i could drive up the canyon listening to a playlist {on tape!}

filled with songs that got me excited for the fall/winter season to begin.

after that first year, i simply continued this tradition of driving

up my canyon to see the beauty of snow dusting autumn leaves,

to feel the chill in the air, to see my breath and know that i was alive,

and to see smoke coming from chimneys of small houses at the

mouth of the canyon.

there used to be a little food shack at the top of the canyon

called the "kickstand cafe" where i would stop and get

some hot cocoa and a peanut butter/banana/honey sandwich,

and a ginger-molasses cookie...it always hit the spot.

when i was dating ceej i allowed him to join me on my traditional

first-snow drive...and he's been coming every year since...

every year, except for those few years we lived away from the mountains.

i'm so grateful we're here this year to keep up the tradition.

this time, with the kickstand cafe gone, i brought our own eats:

hot cocoa, marshmallows, and grilled tomato & cheese sandwiches.

the best day of the year is by far the first snow-fall.

it beats my birthday, christmas, even halloween.

nothing gets me more excited than this.

we're off to visit friends in spring city for the weekend.

can't wait. we'll be enjoying all this cold weather for sure!

how's the weather where you are? any plans this weekend?

{hip, hip, hooray for snow!!!}

{p.s. thanks to desi for featuring one of my photos and for such kind words over on her blog!}

homemade is always better

she makes it every fall.
the grapes come from the yard,
and grandpa's vines too.

the house fills with that
sweet fragrance
and soaks into the furniture,
and wraps years of memories
into one moment.

yesterday i finally opened up
a bottle my mom gave us
two years ago.
no sweetening necessary.

thank you, mom,
for such a rich and yummy
tradition.

let me tell you about my cabin...the myth, the legend, the history

this is my paternal family cabin.

this is the side of the family i see least,

but i know more of its history & legend:

lunatics, alcoholics, hidden identities...

this family is full of secrets.

today i'll just tell you a little something about

a place that i am most in love with:

"the green cabin"

generations ago my great-great grandmother

owned thousands and thousands of beautiful land

in north-eastern utah.

it's a story of the west:

her husband died, things got tough,

another man took advantage of her desperate situation,

and bought the land for much less than its value.

the family kept a small fraction of the land.

at least we have that much.

upon that land, my grandfather and other family members

built this cabin.

yes, it's green...and i hope they never change that.

as i grew up, and met cousins in the surrounding cabin

i learned that there were great myths about our cabin:

about murder, ghosts, and scandal.

it scared and intrigued me all at once.

this place is dripping with stories.

just across the dirt road are where cousins keep their horses.

they've always been there.

perhaps this is where i began to dream that heaven is a meadow where i will ride horses all day long.

that shed, above, has always been the source of scary stories for us.

just down the road is another shed of a cabin,

this other one is known as "the bea's nest"...

where crazy aunt bea used to be kept away.

ooh, the stories the family has about her!

the area is surrounded by beautiful lakes and rivers.

hiking to them is a yearly tradition.

i only wish we could spend more time in this amazing landscape.

here is the meadow where, it is joked, that "bambi" was filmed...of course, a cartoon is not "filmed", but i like to think that this is bambi's and his mother's heaven...what a lovely meadow indeed!

(that's me in a blue hat and a blue dress...i guess you could say i like blue!)


everywhere you look there is something fantastical about this place.
i always look at this cabin here, thinking that i'd like to go in someday

oh, the lakes!
the colors, the air, the view!


every afternoon a great storm rolls in...
dark clouds
& lots of thunder.
oh, heart!
when do i get to live here forever?


behind the cabin is a little river...
we spent days and days and days playing in it...
now, i think it is quite a lovely refuge.
seriously, when can i move in permanently?


the best part of all, of course, are the people we get to see here.
ceej loves to rest on the porch...looking at a place that he knew long before he met me {you see, he grew up with cousins of mine, and was visiting the area with them...perhaps we ran into each other when we were younger...i like to think we did}
and here is my nephew. 7-years-old. we talked all the way home from our hike about harry potter. that's what good stories are for: they bring together the old and the young...we talk about love being the greatest of all, not fearing death, etc. what a lovely conversation to have with a 7-year-old.

later this evening i have just a few more photos to share with you.
so please visit again!

only once a year...to cj's dismay

every year for the summer solstice i make the most delicious cupcakes you've ever had. yup. i'm being quite serious. they're like nothing you've ever had. i got the recipe from this book. the entire book is delicious. you should probably invest in it. people are shocked when i tell them these little babies are vegan. cj's co-workers rememberd them from last year, and have been hounding him for some this year. cj tries to convince me to make them more often. but i'm a stickler for traditions...if you make them all the time then they lose their excitement. it's so worth the wait! so here's the recipe:

mexican hot chocolate cupcakes

ingredients:

1 cup coconut milk

1 Tbsp ground flaxseeds (seriously!)

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

2 Tbsp corn flour

1/4 cup almond meal

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp salt

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/8 tsp cayenne pepper (this is the best ingredient!)

1 cup granulated sugar

1/3 cup canola oil

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp almond extract

directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 and line muffin pan with cupcake liners

2. whisk together coconut milk and flaxseeds and allow to sit for 10 minutes

3. in another bowl, sift together all-purpose flour, corn flour, almond meal, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and cayenne.

4. whisk sugar, oil, vanilla, and almond extract into coconut milk mixture. gently add wet ingredients to dry. fill cupcake liners three-quarters of the way. bake for 22-25 minutes until a knife or toothpick inserted through the center of one comes out clean. transfer to a colling rack to cool completely.

5. sift a layer of confectioner's sugar onto the tops of the cooled cakes. then sift on cocoa, then lastly sift on a layer of cinnamon.

when the day is as long as night...

so i know most of you are thinking of

fathers' day on sunday...

i am too, BUT

i am also thinking about the

summer solstice!

can't wait to spend a day

honoring ceej (as a future father...someday)

and celebrating the phases of

the earth.

happy, happy weekend!

photos by me. june 2009. by the window.

my name

my name, ann marie, was influenced by my great-grandmother, annie. in every picture i have of her she is wearing one of her many aprons. i am grateful to have one of her aprons, pictured above. i use it when i'm making bread, or when i'm making a family recipe...one that annie would have made. i wonder what songs she would have hummed while cooking. i wonder what the women would have talked about while the bread was baking. celia jane might be able to tell me, but it's getting harder for her to remember.
annie was a midwife. she took care of the women in the neighborhood. i think to be a midwife is to be in one of the highest of callings in life. i believe i would have truly enjoyed her company.
who were you named after?

Irish Night In Review

Irish Night was perfect this year...it was a good combination of fun-filled activities, but very relaxed. We started with food: potato & cabbage stew, potato soup (made by the lovely Holly Jo), champ, yummy breads, raspberry swirl bread (brought by Mary & Matt) and a lemon-poppyseed cake with orange frosting and shamrocks.
We had maybe a bit too many of these edible gold pieces.

I found this milky green vase at a consignment shop, and thought it would be the perfect green decoration for our party.

A look at our delicious breads.

Mikey & Matt teamed up to MC the Limerick reading. Mikey's lounge-jazz piano was the perfect back-up for Matt's "prairie-home-companion" voice.

Hasen & Holly Jo listening intently to Limericks.

We ended the night with a viewing of Darby O'Gill and the Little People. I hadn't seen this since I was in elementary school. It was the perfect treat!

Below are all the Limerick's that were written for the night. ENJOY!

Writing limerick me no likey

It hurtin' me bad in the psyche

I'd rather be bloggin'

Than hurtin' my noggin

Does he ever stop tappin', that Mikey?

-Mo

I set out to write some Limericks

Instead I shook my shimericks

The boys like it more

My woobies get sore

You heard it, now wiggle your wimerick!

-Holly Jo

A duckly wuck duck duck McGoogan

'twas playin' a duck duck a goosin'

When doggly wog dog dog

Fell down in the fog fog

And smashed duckly wuck duck McGoogan.

-Mikey

Michael Peck's a burgeoning linguist

Holly's potatoes came from a steam dish

By the look on his face

He quite liked the taste

Or had gas--his looks are hard to distinguish

-Hasenpfeffer

In this room there are eight lord Christs

(I know cause I counted them twice)

I can't help but feel bad

For the thoughts that I've had

As they stare with their all seeing eyes.

-Matt

My bonnie sweet Irish lass

With a body like an hourglass

Shaped like a fiddle

With a wee little middle

And bosoms as big as her great big ___

-Matt

If you want to talk about eating

I'll just tell you you don't know the meaning

I came from a land in

Where it's always a famine

Like I told you, you don't know the meaning.

-Ashley

It's Time!

irish night!

my very favorite night of the entire year!

Here's what you need to know...

When: saturday march 7th

Time: 6:30 pm

Where: mama peck's house

Dress: come dressed as anything/anyone from irish history, folklore, or culture (i.e. silkie, faerie, banshee, sir thomas moore, st. patrick, etc.)

Prepare: write two original limericks for contest...

AND if you're really dedicated, tell us an honest-to-goodness Irish folktale

Bring: a traditional irish food to share (please bring only tasty things, or not).

Expect: a truly lovely evening...lots of laughs for sure!

remember: jigs are mandatory!

hope to see you there!

images from the secret of roan inish

After Skiing

Ceej loves to go to Lonestar Tacos after a day of skiing.

So that's what we did last Saturday.

Can't wait to do it again!

Christmas Tradition: 1965 & Cider

A couple of nights ago we watched A Charlie Brown Christmas. I L-O-V-E this show! The classic one-liners, the sweet dancing moves, and, of course, the music of Vince Guaraldi. Man! I think this is the perfect time to say, "they don't make 'em like they used to."

Mulled cider. Mmmmm. Cinnamon chips, orange rind, whole allspice, whole cloves, cinnamon oil, orange oil. Perfect to warm the soul.

CJ hard at work blogging...but about something important: the land auctions happening in Utah, thanks to Mr. President. Boo. I hope you haven't been discouraged yet...we're winning small battles, but we need to win bigger ones! I am oh so tired of fear rhetoric used to convince us to make hasty decisions. Let us not be too hasty.

Anyway, I hope you get to see A Charlie Brown Christmas soon...you can get it for free off of youtube. And, perhaps you'll be lucky enough to taste some cider within the next couple of weeks!

Christmas Tradition: A Christmas Carol

Every year we read Dickens's A Christmas Carol. This is nothing original by any means, but it is one of my favorites. Reading the story is, of course, far better than any movie. There is so much wit in his writing--I really like his style of prose. I think that we can all be reminded that money does not bring happiness, and that people do. I also think that most of us feel that we already know that fact, but we often fail to apply it to our lives. We work ten hours a day, six days a week...for what? People? Nope. For money. I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but I just want to say it out loud. I think that in the day to day grind we focus too much on what we do for work, and not enough on what we do for people.

Here's an exerpt from the first page...it always starts me off laughing:

Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.
Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

I highly suggest reading this book this month. It's a quick read, and full of details you can't find in any film.