Mid-summer in the Methow Valley

We're a week into our first farm placement, the King's Garden, Methow Valley, on the east fringe of the Cascade Mountains in Washington State. Half American dream, half reminder of the cracks. Annie and Mike, hard grafters, green fingers, have spent their entire lives in toil, Annie bringing up six kids on her own with no money, shifting here and there as chances opened then snapped shut, Mike working his way through a series of addictions, last stop Morphine for a good decade, now just the booze and a broken back.

But all the way, certainly for Annie, surrounded by incredible growth, making endless stands in fresh scraps of land borrowed from some dodgy landlord, legs apart, back bent, getting rooted into that soil, planting, weeding, working, working, as peppers, tomaties, corn, berries, peas, growth and fruit and the sheer energy of life pours up. It leaves you gasping. A miracle! In one sense they're on the fringes, broke, ancient Fergie tractor that won't start, stints in the county jail, but they're also truly in the heart of things. The house in which we sit is full of animals and stuff, piled to the rafters with jars of strawberry and rhubarb sauce, hot red pepper jelly, heirloom tomato juice, dill pickels, green salsa, herbs and herbal remedies, all organic. The harvest before last they were picking two tonnes of tomatoes every couple of days...last year they lost the lot to deer...

And that's where we fit in! They found a new plot of land just a month ago, having been booted off the last by the old woman who owned it, and a gun, but no teeth. There's the greenhouse up, 4 acres ploughed, Annie piling in seeds and shoots, in long thin strips, mixing it up, putting friendly veg together, with lists on scraps of paper in the tumble-down caravan in the corner, all shaped within her dream. Yet the white-tailed deer, the mule deer, maybe even some elk lukr, and this year they're not having it - we've been here a week and our chief mission is to get a good deer fence up - 7.5 foot tall, 3 feet in the ground, using great stobs that Mike's cut from the forest, mainly lodgepole. And we're getting there. After 4 or 5 days of working digging out the holes and balancing in the logs, we're back today feeling grand after getting 28 of the posts fixed in, pretty solid and true, with Tamarack larches sitting there for the gate that will open to draw you into the King's Garden - the sign's already hanging on the roadside.

It's great to be feeling that we're really helping these guys to see their farm begin to take shape, to go back a couple of days after weeding, feeding and mulching strawberries to see them begin to reach out, heavy with fruit. But under the burning sun it would all be pretty backbreaking of spirit as well as of spine were it not for the fact that Becs really sensibly asked for an arrangement that we work our socks off between 8.30 and 1.30, then gather kids, cheetahs, shootarocket (Kai's wee toy dog) from the mud and stumble into the Granny White Dragon to make off for a bit of family time.

And the kids are just being so amazing with it all, happily digging about as we work, rescuing voles and beetles from post holes, spending half an hour studying bundles of baby spiders hanging like grapes, carefully avoiding the killdeer nest scraped beside the raspberries with its four speckled eggs, helping Annie plant or simply sitting, floppy hat, grimy face, against a lodge pole in the sun. But also grateful for the time we get away, to swim, or eat ice-cream, or look after the two litters of kittens at Annie's house (their passion).

We're reckoning on being here for maybe another ten days, then looking to head into the hills for a good stint of wild camping and some calm. And hopefully not too much rain. We got away on Saturday evening and Sunday, afdter the local farmer's market, heading high up the Twisp river valley to an isolated spot, but totally unseasonally for this neck of the woods, where it's usually well up toward 100 and dry as a bone, water streamed from the sky ....

storm

Wind wrenched from stones and

tossed, a spinning javelin open

the earth, rich river of wind

broad as the giant canyon

yawning, roaring, rough-shouldered

sigh across the land,

carried in your curls, love's voice amidst the storm.

We couldn't even figure out whether the great pile of bear poo close to our camp was steaming from freshness or from the rain. And when we managed to get the fire going and sat in what felt like the middle of a river to eat our pasta, pools of water gathered in the bottom of our bowls. Yum.

The solstice has been and gone. Three nighthawks have gathered above our heads in the last of the light, and surely it's our noise that's other-worldly, not their rattles and hums, utterly here, now, at home. Rather like Freya Storm and Kai Raven at the moment, be-wellied life-force. Like a wave. Or the music of an Aspen tree unravelling the breeze. So, as the days shorten we'll head north again in a wee while, chasing the light.

Down in Hells Canyon

We're just back in the land of lawnmowers after 9 days in the wilds of Hells Canyon, on the Oregon/Idaho border, below the snow-capped Seven Devils, our home half-way down into the depths of the Canyon, amidst the gathering roar from the Snake River below. We hiked in over Freezeout Saddle, along with Rick Bombaci, the friend we met last time we travelled here when Becs was five months pregnant with Freya. We'd originally planned to only stay for 4 nights, but bit by bit, despite more rain than they ususally get there in a whole year, we got sucked into the place, and as Rick needed to get back home for a couple of days anyway, we used that chance for Becs to re-stock on food at Imnaha tavern (famous for its rattlesnake stew) the nearest spot - a 12 hour round-trip hike with over an hour's driving in the middle, hole and flood-dodging in Rick's 1970 vw camper, Gus the Bus. Cor was she shattered when she returned, in pouring rain. Still, she was the one who was keen to go! And she got to eat her first ever beef burger.

At each end of the trip we camped at a 'base camp', just below the saddle, but for the main chunk we were on a spur of what's called the bench area, half-way down this 8,000' plus canyon, top to bottom, and, after the first couple of days when we saw a couple of other parties of hikers/riders, completely alone in this vast wilderness. We kept an endless fire going, dragging thick-barked ponderosa pine out of the forest, to keep dried out, warm and fed, as endless bands of rain and respite passed through. And the kids were just amazing, both of them hiking in in their wellies, armed with stories and sun-dances to keep the legs moving, and then out in the open within all that space and mystery in their waterproofs all day long, making up their own ways of just being with wood and leaf and the odd poor beetle (there's a green one F made a special home for, under bark, shelter from the rain, which was still going strong when we left). I don't think we've ever seen them so shining and alive. The only day when we had to retreat to the tents was when a big storm passed through, whirling up along the canyon, bouncing off the crags. It was while Rick was away, and Tom had to sleep in his tent to stop it from taking off. While Becs sang F and K endless Scots songs in the dark night, to keep the wind at bay and the spirits entertained.

Rick has become a true friend. There have been long nights of playing tunes on the fiddle and whistle and recorder and flute, shared worries, and much joy. He is just one of those people who has sharing and caring in his bones - he loves to make others happy (although he also has a very solitary thred, and has done many very long-running solo hikes in wild spots across north america). And he has taken the kids utterly to heart. Freya wants to marry him, though torn in allegiance given her love for Jack, up in the Highlands! He has also completely upped our camp cuisine standards. We've moved from our staples of porridge and cheese-pasta, to fancy dehydrated sauces (he has a machine), and much mustard.

So we're now back in the 'town' (pop 1000) of Enterprise, finding our feet. Both kids hiked out again under their own steam, although Tom had to carry Kai on the stretch to our little base camp, in a rucksack, all tucked up with only a tuft of hair out the top, covered with a bin-liner as protection from the passing downpours, because he was on the second day of a fever - a little nerve-racking given that we were two days from help, but he emerged fine and was full of umph climbing up to the Saddle counting as many different creatures as he was able to spot. He got to 20. And then a beautiful jet-black raven brother passed overhead to say goodbye as we sat on the saddle eating our sandwiches (more mustard), looking back down the Canyon, and forward to the alpine peaks of the Wallowa Mountains. On the way down, close to a bunch of elk prints, we saw clear, massive cougar prints. They are seriously big cats.

And as we find our feet, get used to lots of speaking, and partying (Rick has introduced us to half the town, and the kids were up to 11 last night, in the foothills of the Wallowas, Freya in heaven surrounded by a bunch of teenagers, talking pigs, wedged between a 'very tincy' dachshund and a fat ginger cat) we need to make some decisions over the next couple of days. We returned to an email from our first farm placement, which was to be in Repubulic, Washington State from next week, to find that they've run into a big problem with the hut we were to use. So it's unlikely that we'll go there. We've pondered whether to stay here at Rick's, maybe working on a local farm, for a while longer (he will be much of the time in the mountains, as a ranger over the summer, and we could also join him up there for stints), but our hearts are tugging us north, and we feel sure we'll be linking up with Rick again in thesee times to come. So we've just put out feelers with a bunch of other farms, and checked out wild camping possibilities with Rick. And Becs is up for hitching a ride on a fishing boat to Alaska - we checked out fares on the ferry and it's too extortionate for us all to get up there ...

So, we'll see. But it really does feel that in these past 9 days, out there in Hells Canyon, beginning to feel the space, smell the pine, see the bursts of colour in all the tiny, alpine, flowers, sucking up the sun whenever it poked its nose out, water cascading about us, that our adventure has begun to dig a little deeper.

Enterprise

On 23 May we drive out of the tree-clad west, and head eastwards along the great Columbia River, up over the arid high desert and through the Blue Mountains. Golden-barked ponderosa pine succeeds Douglas Fir. Our hearts rise as we see the snow-caps of the high Wallowas. We take the small road to Enterprise. 6 years ago, when Becs was expecting Freya, we came here to explore, and we knew we would come back. One of the main reasons for returning is our friend Rick Bombaci, a lover of mountains and wild places, musician and poet-heart. And, we discover (to our relief and Freya and Kai's complete delight) he loves small children too.... It is great to see him again.

Becs spends a few days visiting Wallowa Resources Youth Stewardship Program, and Freya and Kai have a chance to take part in an outdoor field course for 10-12 year olds at beautiful Wallowa lake, which includes wilderness survival skills and learning from animals.

Tillamook and back to the big smoke

The weather breaks and Becs spends an amazng day at Tillamook High School. Students from the 6 local schools, among many other things, have set up and are running an interpretative center, hatch out salmon for release, have created a community park on the site of an old mill, and are about to take some of their science projects to an international exposition in Amsterdam. All these projects tackle local issues and often have local economic implications - for example how to extract ethanol from discarded whey at Tillamook creamery, how to extract biodiesel from invasive Scotch broom and how to improve local water quality. Becs is very impressed.

Finally we head back to Portland to dry out and spend a few more cosy days with Kent and Jeanie before packing all our gear into the Old White Granny Dragon again and heading east. The next part of our adventure is beginning...