18/52 - Official End of Winter

Now that we've had two straight weeks without lighting the wood stove, we can declare officially that we have survived our Winter Without A Furnace!

It was a very mild winter in Trout Lake, both in snowfall and temperature. In fact, we didn't have to clear snow from the driveway even once this year, a first in the ten winters we've lived here. While we missed the snow, we did appreciate the moderate temperatures.

The wood stove held its own keeping the house warm on most days, with only occasional electric heater use. The default house temperature with the wood stove seemed to be 2-4 degrees cooler than our furnace setpoint (68°F), but we decided that it was easier and more economical to wear our down vests in the house than to fight the natural order. In total, we burned about 2.5 cords of maple, doug fir and oak.

We fell into a pretty regular routine. Starting the fire each morning was job #1. The indoor wood storage area near the stove holds about 3 wheelbarrows full, which will last about 6 days (give or take). Having to haul wood in only about once a week definitely made me happy. Occasionally we would have to read an old (but previously unread) issue of the White Salmon Enterprise so that we could use it as a firestarter. Once the fire was going, it was a relatively simple matter to check the fire hourly and adjust as needed. Having a fan next to the stove also made a huge difference in how well we were able to distribute the heat throughout the house. We woke up through the night to feed the fire exactly ZERO times this winter; we just like our sleep too much, and it was easy enough to start a new one in the morning. I think the coldest morning we had was around 54°F, but that was a bit of an anomaly. The average morning temperature was in the upper 50s.

The weeks we spent away from home this winter were the most trying. We used our "smart" thermostat as a remotely-monitored thermometer, while two electric space heaters successfully kept the indoor temperature out of the freezing zone until we returned.

We did wear out one of the metal grates on the bottom of wood stove, and I'm sure our chimney will need a good cleaning before next year. But overall, it wasn't as difficult or as tiring as we feared. So while we don't plan to repeat this winter anytime soon, it's good to know that it's possible.

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders

10/52 - Toronto Potatoes, Chimney Caps, Christmas Tree?

We asked Anders to make a list of the items he needed from the grocery store for a particular school project. Little did we know that we were going to get something more like a work of art.

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It's really fun to hear Anders play with new words and try to use them in sentences. Of course, his first few attempts may not be quite right.

Example #1:

Yum. This pork is really brittle.

We think he meant tender.

Example #2:

These Toronto Potatoes are too spicy.

That may be the first time in recorded history that phrase has been spoken. (They were actually chorizo potatoes, but who's keeping track?)

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Sometime earlier this year, the metal cap on our chimney blew off on a particularly windy night. It appeared to be a homemade cap, so it was a little difficult to tell what size we would need in a replacement. We needed to see what the top of the flue looked like. Neither of us really wanted to climb up our old 25' wooden ladder to look ourselves. But we're engineers, so we engineered a solution.

A camera with programmable timer, a 30' pole, and some duct tape...

...and voila!

We ordered the cap in the correct size and hired someone to install it for us. Because as we said, we're too chicken to climb our 25' wooden ladder. Done.

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We've discovered that we like to keep our Christmas tree up for quite a bit longer than the average family. Last year our tree came down around Valentine's Day, but this year we beat that by about 2 weeks! When March rolled around and we were preparing to travel to Arizona, we decided the time had finally come.

Goodbye, tree! You served us well.

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders

9/52 - Seeq Week in AZ

This past week was one of Seeq's week-long meetups, when we all travel from our individual work locations across North America to spend a week together. We converged on Fountain Hills, Arizona for team discussions, demos to investors and potential customers, and social activities and events.

One particular discussion topic focused on what we wanted our company and team cultures to be, and what specific things we could do to achieve them. The company has roughly doubled in size over the last 9 months and expects to continue growing, so there's no time like the present.

Software team discussion on providing feedback, with the namesake fountain in the background

We also took the opportunity to celebrate a recent milestone: our first publicly available software release, code name Orion!

Ordinarily spending a March week in Arizona would be a nice change of pace from winter in the Northwest, but this year it was actually warmer in Portland when we left than in Phoenix when we landed. It was definitely more of a respite for our East Coast coworkers, giving them a bit of an escape from the Northeast winter that doesn't want to end.

While we were in Arizona, Anders enjoyed extra time with friends and a week of sleepovers.

By the end of the week, we were all ready to relax at home. Of course, after being gone for a week it took the wood stove a full day to warm the house back up to a "normal" temperature again.

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders

8/52 - Birthday Cake, School Lunch, and Alton Brown

We've been long-time fans of Alton Brown, even hosting our own Alton Brown Dinner Parties over the years. So we jumped at the opportunity to see his Alton Brown Live tour.

He used the same crazy props and weird camera angles that were a signature feature of Good Eats.

His live show featured all of the things that he couldn't do on television. As one example, his Food Network censors required that his yeast puppets (see above) emitted 7 burps for each 1 fart. (Who knew?) So for his live show, he reversed the ratio. He made ice cream in 10 seconds with a CO² fire extinguisher, and cooked pizza in a 54,000W, 1 million lumen Mega Bake Oven made from stage lighting, his adult homage to the Easy Bake Oven. The show was great fun.

Sometime between when we bought the tickets (last year) and the night of the show, we started watching Good Eats episodes with Anders. Since we have the episodes from all 14 seasons, we would have Anders choose a food or cooking topic and then consult the Good Eats Fan Page to find a relevant episode to watch. Anders is now also a big fan and thinks Alton is hilarious. Anders kept asking why we didn't buy him a ticket, but we didn't know he was going to be such a big fan! We will be sure to make it an all family outing the next time he comes around.

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Happy Birthday, Grandma Donna! To celebrate, we baked a chocolate cake with coconut butter cream frosting and decorated the top to remind us that spring is on its way.

For her birthday, we gave Grandma Donna a cool picture frame for housing Anders' artwork. The day before the celebration, she and Anders had this conversation:

A: We have a birthday present for you.
GD: What is it?
A: I can't tell you! It's a surprise! ... but the first word is picture and the second word starts with an f.

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Anders's school is small; each grade is only about 12-20 students, and everyone is in the same building from K-12. They didn't have a "hot lunch" program in the school until about two years ago. They have some of the school lunch standards, like hot dogs, fish and chips and the like, but they have worked hard to make their menus more interesting than the average school. For example, currently they have an "International Tuesday" theme featuring different cuisines.

On one Tuesday in February, they featured Thai Chicken and Rice:

A few weeks later, Indian Butter Chicken and Dal:

Parents are welcome to join the students for lunch, so we jumped at the chance.

It's the only place in Trout Lake to get ethnic foods! Besides the school, there are only two other places to eat in town. And at a cost of $3.25 per adult, it's the best meal deal going. I'm sure we will be back.

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders

Best Recipes of 2014

2014 was a good cooking year, and we have lots of favorites to share! You can access previous years' favorite recipes from the recipes tag.

The Whole Bowl
Source: The Whole Bowl, PDX (deconstructed by Sweet Phi)

If I had to pick the "dish of the year", this would be it. There's a food truck turned restaurant in Portland called The Whole Bowl, and all they do is a veggie bowl. It is delicious. If I lived closer, I would go there frequently. Instead, I was excited to try to reproduce it at home. Thankfully, someone had already done the hard work of recreating the magical Tali sauce for me. Feel free to add whatever other ingredients you like to this base; I have added various leftover roasted veggies (broccoli, romanesco, etc.) and it always turns out great.

Sweet Potatoes with Warm Black Bean Salad
Source: Eating Well

Just a few ingredients, no complicated instructions. Yet somehow it comes together into something incredibly delicious.

Healthier Shepherd's Pie
Source: Iowa Girl Eats

I have always liked Shepherd's Pie, despite it's "mystery meat" reputation. This one adds cauliflower to the potato, and no one is the wiser.

Authentic Chicken Tikka Masala
Source: AllRecipes

We're usually skeptical of recipes with "authentic" in the title. Thankfully, this one holds up to scrutiny. The chicken is baked in the oven (after marinating), to mimic the clay tandoor cooking method. The sauce comes together quickly and doesn't require anything but standard kitchen ingredients. (I'm assuming that your kitchen has garam masala, of course.)

Loaded Twice Baked Potatoes
Source: Eating Well

Broccoli, ground beef and cheese in a twice baked potato. Anders called this one "mashed potato salad", and he loved it.

Chopped Tandoori Chicken Salad
Source: Eating Well

This is a nice combination of chicken salad and greens, with some Indian flavors thrown in. It's mostly pantry staples and standard grocery fare, so it works any time of year.

Sesame Noodles with Chicken
Source: Food Network

This is just a nice, simple noodle in a peanut sauce.

Creamy Mexican Kale Salad
Source: iFoodReal

I was drawn in by the beautiful colors in this one. Oh, and we had a bunch of kale that I didn't know what to do with. We made it in the summer when the requisite produce was in season.

Here's to more great cooking in 2015!

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders

Happy 2015!

Our New Year's celebration this year had no fancy parties, no balls dropping, no crowds, just some quiet time at home. We had so much fun with our activities last New Year's Eve that we just had to do it again.

First, party hats! Construction paper, glitter, scissors, glue sticks, tape and ribbon. I think our hat-making skills have improved since last year.

Once the hats were made, it was time to make pretzels! Or as Anders says, "prentzels". I forget how easy it is to make soft pretzels; we really should do it more often. Corinne can put as much salt on her pretzels as she likes, and I get an excuse to eat mustard.

Time to get the drinks ready! Italian sodas in champagne flutes with sugared rims.

Before we knew it, it was time for the countdown to midnight.^† 3... 2... 1...

Happy 2015 to everyone!

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders

^†Per tradition, we surreptitiously set our clocks ahead by one hour, celebrating the transition to the New Year one hour early. Anders got to stay up until midnight, and everyone got an extra hour of sleep. Hooray!

52/52 - Christmas Dishwasher

A Christmas gift we gave to ourselves this year was a new dishwasher. (I know, exciting stuff.) Our old one was a hand-me-down that never did a great job and had recently gotten worse. So we decided to start over and get something that we would truly love.

We read lots of reviews and polled our friends and family. Along the way, I read a really interesting article on the changes to the dishwasher industry in the last 10 years, including a description of how you should be using your dishwasher. I recommend everyone read this article on what makes a good dishwasher (and how to use it). After an extensive search - including a trial dish loading in a store - we ended up with a Bosch.

We picked up the new dishwasher shortly before Christmas, but holiday preparations delayed installation. When Shane and Leif were here for Christmas, they offered to help install it. "We think we should be able to finish it in about 45 minutes." Unfortunately, once we pulled the old one out and tried to push the new one into place, we discovered that our kitchen island (technically a peninsula) wasn't quite deep enough at the bottom. It would have to be modified.

Our 45 minute project then turned into a two-day affair involving three kinds of power saws (oscillating, mitre, and jig) and two trips to the local hardware store. Thankfully, Shane has lots of experience in home building and contracting, so he quickly became our foreman.

We cut a new hole through the subfloor into the crawlspace.

We furred out the toe kick and trimmed it to fit over the hardwood, then reinstalled.

In the end, the effort paid off. We now put dishes straight into our dishwasher with no pre-washing. They come out clean, even when caked with egg!

Thanks for all of the help, guys!

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders

46/52 - Winter Without a Furnace

With the temperatures dropping and winter approaching, we finally broke down and turned on our propane furnace in October. But within the hour, it started emitting some loud banging noises. Not good.

We hate our furnace. Every several years, it seems to have one problem or another, requiring expensive parts ordered from the east coast. The majority of the local heating service contractors don't seem to have much experience with this brand (Heatmaker), so either they can't figure out what is wrong or they have to make multiple trips - one for diagnosis and a second after replacement parts have arrived. This time, I was going to try to diagnose and fix it myself.

Over the next week, I disassembled various parts looking for the culprit. I figured that there probably aren't too many moving parts that would cause such a loud noise. First suspect: blower fan. I ordered a replacement, and a week later when it arrived I successfully replaced it. But the noise was still there. My second hypothesis was that something was banging around inside the combustion chamber, possibly some buildup on the heat exchangers. But when I started to disassemble the chamber and realized that I wouldn't have any confidence that all of the seams were sealed up properly, I decided it was time to call in a professional.

After a week and a half calling contractors and getting nowhere, I finally got one to come out and take a look. (What is with contractors in the Gorge? You should at least answer your phone or return phone calls. Sheesh.) After 2 hours exploring, the prognosis was not good. Sure enough, it was buildup on the heat exchanger coils, but on the INSIDE. He described it like kidney stones, rattling around in the pipe and obstructing the flow of water. With no good way to clean it out, it would need to be replaced. The cost of the replacement part? $2,000 for the part alone.

This was it. This was finally the end of this furnace. We would pump no more money into this monstrosity. But what now?

With winter still on its way, we decided to take a chance. We're going to wait until spring to research and design the replacement heating system. So for this winter, we will have no furnace. We would heat the house with our wood stove, supplemented by several electric heaters as needed. We have some wood seasoned and split, but we had planned for "ambiance fire" wood, not "heat the whole dang house" wood. So we will be buying more this year, at least once.

Other than during power outages, this is the first time we're attempting to heat the whole house solely with the wood stove. And it is only our work-at-home jobs that makes this feasible at all. We can start a fire in the morning and tend it all day to get the whole house warmed up. I don't think we would be attempting this if we had to drive to an office.

Coincidentally, the first snow arrived at about the same time as the furnace death knell.

Here's hoping for a mild winter! Oh, but still with lots of snow, of course. That's not too much to ask, it is?

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders

37/52 - Plums, Paddlewheels, and School Tricks

Fall is arriving quickly! Some of our fruit trees are starting to drop their fruit, indicating to us that we should pay attention to them or miss out entirely until next season. The apple and plum trees are loaded, probably because we didn't have them pruned this year.

Our favorite trees to harvest are the plums, one yellow and three Italian. Time to get picking!

Between the three of us, we picked about 4 baskets each of yellow and Italian plums. When we were done, our plum trees were empty.

While we were picking, we found this crazy looking caterpillar in the tree. It looked just like the woolly bears that I was used to from the East Coast, but I'd never seen one with those crazy white spikes.

My instinct was to kill it immediately - after all, what kind of caterpillar is good for fruit trees? - but I decided to hold on to it until I looked it up. Sure enough, it was a woolly bear. And they aren't as detrimental to fruit trees as I had assumed. So this one was spared after all (though I did move him to another section of the yard.)

Rather than try to process all of our plums immediately, we decided to cram the plums into the refrigerator and freezer to save for another day. It looks like we will have some canning sessions in our future.

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Here is the Anders quote of the week.

Donna was describing her latest computer-related woes at dinner one night, when Anders stopped her and said:

Grandma Donna, you should just S-M-I-L-E!

If that's what he's learning in school all day, then we're just fine with that.

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Corinne and I did a quick trip to Seattle for a wedding, leaving Anders in the hands of Grandma. But before we left, we all stopped for the White Salmon Fire Department's Huckleberry Pancake Breakfast.

He ate the whole thing.

While Corinne and I were in Seattle, Anders took a trip down the Columbia on the Sternwheeler with Grandma Donna, Aunt Patsy & Uncle Jim.

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Thanks to everyone who participated in last week's unofficial How to Get Anders To Talk About School idea contest. We had lots of different ideas and approaches.

Focus. Ask about something specific, like "Who did you sit with at lunch today?" or "What letter/number did you practice?"

Trickery. Make something up about their day and let them correct it with actual details: "Too bad it rained all day today. You probably couldn't play outside during recess." Or "I heard there was a monkey in class today."

Patience. Don't ask right after school. Wait until later in the evening. If they bring up something on their own, use that as a launching point.

And if all else fails:

Confinement. Put them in a confined space, such as the passenger seat in a car, and they will eventually spill the beans.

One person suggested asking the teacher for some sort of summary of topics and activities for the week, which seems like a good thing to pursue. Ultimately, the most important thing is that he still loves school. I'm sure we'll slowly figure out what he does there all day. We have discovered that during music they learned the S-M-I-L-E song (see above) and are dancing to the chicken dance. So, there's that.

In the public library; non-fiction section, of course

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders

36/52 - Anders Starts Kindergarten

We don't know quite how it happened, but the time has flown and Anders has started kindergarten. It seems like just yesterday when our little Rocket was having his first (unofficial) school photo taken when he was just two.

Anders has been looking forward to this day since before his preschool graduation back in June... primarily because he couldn't wait to ride the school bus.

When the bus arrived, Anders was ready. There was no hesitation or anxiety; he just walked right on.

Corinne and I had to drop off a few things at the school, so we followed the bus to school that day. Anders could barely contain his excitement when he arrived at school. Only 6 kindergarteners took the bus that first morning. For Anders, I think that the bus was the part that he looked forward to the most.

Trout Lake School is a small, K-12 rural school. Each grade has a single class of between 12-22 students. Here in the Gorge, it has a good reputation; in fact, about 20% of the student population lives outside the school district and has chosen to come here. A friend of ours from Trout Lake recently completed his PhD at MIT and had great things to say about how the Trout Lake School prepared him. We couldn't ask for too much more.

Anders' kindergarten class is 16 kids: 6 boys and 10 girls. In that small class, there are TWO other Corinnes: one of the girls, and the mother of one of the boys. (One is spelled differently, and we're not sure about the other.) And we have yet to hear of another Mike or Michael. What are the chances? For the next 13 years, our Corinne will have to share her name with two other people. Having never had to share her name before, she's not very happy about it. I sympathize with her, believe me.

Anders had a great time on his first day. That evening, we stopped by the school again for a quick photo.

Anders drew this picture to capture his new school experience.

Anders is on the driveway (brown/grey), with the irrigation ditch (blue) flowing underneath.

For Corinne and I, we have mixed feelings about this transition. It doesn't seem possible that Anders is old enough to be in school already. It wasn't that long ago that he was just learning to walk and talk.

On the other hand, this is the beginning of the anticipated 'hermit' stage of our existence. The school bus to the full-day kindergarten stops at the end of our driveway, so we no longer have the daily preschool commute to Hood River of the past two years. We work out of our home now, so we have no work commute at all. Basically, we don't have to leave the house until we run out of food. Our biggest problem so far seems to be that our motivation for working wanes quite a bit when Anders comes home at 3:30 each afternoon.

As a final note, we have a request to the other parents out there: how do you get your children to tell you about what happened in school that day? Anders is already giving the "nothing" and "I don't remember" answers when asked about school. He's growing up!

Congrats, Anders! Have a great time. You'll do great.

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders