Getting Ready to Go

What to do in this last full month in St. Louis, while packing half of our stuff to send to Montana? Well, the choices here are quite varied and some, quite wonderful...

Salad of vegetables, herb aioli and homemade potato chips at Niche.

Having a lovely Monday supper at Niche (http://www.nichestlouis.com). Its chef, Gerard Craft, is a finalist for a coveted James Beard award this year.  Our salad looks like spring on a plate. It is a mix of winter root vegetables and spring asparagus, in a yummy dressing of garlicky herbed aioli plus several, nearly see-through-thin potato chips; the best entrée is thick spaghetti, braised beef, olives and pecorino cheese; and dessert is homemade vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce -- all for $30, a bargain on Mondays, right up there with Farmhaus (http://farmhausrestaurant.com/) another favorite restaurant with great cheap eats at lunchtime: $10 for Wednesday's "Blue Plate: Fried Chicken. Mashed Taters. Mac and Cheese. With salad and tea." Lest you think we're diner diving, Farmhaus' chef Kevin Willmann made Food & Wine magazine's list of Best New Chefs of 2011. Go St. Louis!

Here's more of what I'm doing before heading out West:

Checking in on the portulaca -- some of which I helped start from seed -- in St. Louis' Forest Park greenhouses.
The not-for-profit Brightside St. Louis (http://www.brightsidestl.org/) grows new annual flowers each year, such as this heat-resistant portulaca, to give away to city neighborhoods after Brightside's yearly alley clean-ups. I volunteer, along with hundreds of other folks, as Brightside celebrates it's 30th anniversary this year.

Posting vintage items, for the first time, on Etsy (http://www.etsy.com/).

Thinking that I have way too many bangles. You?

Etsy-licious -- the new Etsy page.

Taking our old backpacking and kayaking equipment, even lanterns and old down jackets, to a new consignment shop called Old Mountains Gear Exchange (https://www.facebook.com/oldmountainsx) in Webster Groves. We're divesting, de-cluttering and dee-lighted to down-size in this manner!

Attending a wind quintet concert of rarely performed music (from left, flute, oboe, French horn, bassoon, clarinet) performed by friends with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra (http://www.stlsymphony.org/). This event is free, packed with music buffs and held in a refurbished conservatory in Tower Grove Park.

Getting in a last visit with our favorite neighborhood cat,  Josephine. Think she'll miss us?

The Viewin' of the Green

As a perverse act today, St. Patrick's Day, we (my friend Dianne and I) take to the highways in her van to get away from all things beery and edible and dyed to a false emerald green.  Now, I do like beer these days. The craft ales from small breweries around the country are delicious and a far cry from the weak, pale, no-flavor brews that I gave up in my 30s. I love IPAs sampled recently in St. Louis, Denver, Missoula and at Hamilton's two breweries. But enough about beer!! We're out in the Missouri countryside today, looking at real green!

Just a few of the daffodils at Shaw.

 We go first to Shaw Nature Reserve (http://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/visit/family-of-attractions/shaw-nature-reserve.aspx), the Missouri Botanical Garden's country acreage about 40 miles southwest of town. Shaw's focus is on native habitat management and restoration. But this time of year, it also boasts thousands upon thousands of blooming daffodils, and more than a few amateur photographers working the scene.

A photographer gets down (and dirty?) with the blossoms.

Then, a storm that we'd been following online brews to a near boiling point.

Storm clouds, daffs and a bit of a lake view; many more daffodils are blossoming across the water.

We zip over to Hillermann Nursery (http://www.hillermann.com/) in Washington -- through a dense curtain of rain, spiked with lightning -- and find many green plants, and much much more, for sale inside.

"Small is the New Big" at Hillermann's garden center.

Accessories are top items here -- witness the Hillermann family's vintage Chevrolet truck outfitted with many pots, plants and statuettes.

A classy old Chevy among the plants.

We head homeward but not before more rain keeps us inside a coffee shop where my car is parked just outside. Finally, there's a break in the weather. And I get to my car, only to find...

...a snow-like scene, where white petals of a Bradford Pear's blossoms have coated the car from a forceful spring rain! Funny that a wintry look ends a spectacular pre-spring day!

Spring Has Sprung

Hellebore blooms greet me in my St. Louis garden today!

It's all about the flowers!  'White Lady' (Helleborus x hybridus) is blooming in my backyard garden today.  She is nothing short of spectacular.  To really appreciate her, you must bend down to the little foot-tall plant and angle her nodding blossoms upward. But when very little else is going on in an early-March backyard garden in Missouri, the effort is, well, worth the effort.

I recommend that anyone try a small massing of this or other perennial hellebores in the front of borders that will be shaded come late spring and summer (hellebore leaves stay green year-round but thrive in shade).  Even in February you may find it blossoming (great cut flowers, too)!  More hellebore assets are detailed beautifully by the Missouri Botanical Garden's "Plantfinder" Web site, at http://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/gardens-gardening/your-garden/plant-finder/plant-details/kc/c846/helleborus-x-hybridus-white-lady.aspx.

Another spring delight is one that I manufacture out of a little potting soil and some bulbs, in fall. I put the two together in a few big pots and haul them into my frost-free garage in late September. They only get watered a couple of times through the winter.  I haul them back out and water them well this time each year. And, at my back door, they make everything look more like spring (first day is March 20, but the average last frost date here is April 15, so I have to be wary).

Blooms in pots from last year, planted the previous fall and stored in a frost-free garage, make a debut in early spring.

A clutch of crocuses this year!

Perhaps best of all is catching the spring scene at the lushly planted, 79-acre Missouri Botanical Garden, just about four miles away from my house.  Locally, it's known as Mobot or Shaw's Garden (for the founder, Henry Shaw). When I first started gardening, it was my home away from home, for inspiration and R&R.

Three tight tulip blooms at Mobot that I captured one cold and rainy day.

Tulips that are further along,  around reflecting pools in the center of the garden (in front of a geodesic dome called the Climatron.) Floaters are called "onions" and are by glass artist Dale Chihuly. I shot this scene one recent spring...

...and a view from the other direction in early summer of the same year, just for reference, with the Climatron in the distance.

Finally, I'm back to white (my favorite spring color!) this time, in a star magnolia (at Mobot (http://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/gardens-gardening/your-garden/plant-finder/plant-details/kc/l130/magnolia-stellata.aspx).

Spring is one of the very best times of year to be in St. Louis -- so fresh, so cool, so darned inviting!!!

Last Days in the Bitterroot

Besides getting wined and dined on our last days in the Bitterroot (with some of Mel's no-knead olive bread), yum!,

and Mary Alice's tomato bisque, made from her own garden tomatoes,

plus her entree of pork chops with wild rice, and a final sliver of her crazy-good lemon tart!

...we entertained a few folks ourselves (if you can call sitting on one sofa and borrowed chairs and nibbling on snacks around the coffee table entertaining). We did pull out some better wines, though, and built a couple of roaring fires. It was fun. People seem to like the place, even if the guest bath is torn out and waiting for drywall and tile (there is a funky master bath that's perfectly usable).

Best of all today, we also received delivery of a guest bed -- a GUEST BED, folks!! Already, one tired traveler has stayed overnight here on our sofa. Next summer, guests will have a queen-size sleigh bed to luxuriate on. And very soon, their own redone guest bath. We're taking reservations for next season! (If we're booked, we have a great recommendation in the next block -- two adorable units, each with a kitchen, at Withy Gate Lodgings -- http://www.visitmt.com/categories/moreinfo.asp?IDRRecordID=17927&siteid=1; we stayed there last June).

Our new guest bed; reservations for next summer, anyone?

A final happy moment today was a break from house work and cooking to get out in the sunshine with two new gardening friends. We went to Great Bear Restoration, a grower and wholesaler of Montana native plants located just south of Hamilton.

The sign at http://www.great-bear.biz/.

 The Web site says it best: "Great Bear Natives is the wholesale division of Great Bear Restoration providing high quality, native plants to retail nurseries and landscape contractors in the Rocky Mountains, Great Plains, and Sagebrush Steppe Regions. We work with both retailers and landscape designers to promote the use of native plants and incorporate them into designs ranging from public works projects to backyard makeovers."

Some seeds of natives collected by Great Bear, under contract with Yosemite National Park and Sawtooth National Forest.

One of several Great Bear employees working with tiny native seedlings that are planted in deep cells to make room for longer  roots.

Michelle Bradley, Great Bear sales and project manager standing next to an experimental "carpet" of natives grown in coir matting.

Truth be told, I instigated this little meet-up, after once suggesting a "Lewis & Clark Garden" to the executive director of the Ravalli County Museum, Tamar Stanley.  She loved the idea. So did Great Bear's Michelle Bradley, with whom I had volunteered on a community garden last fall. Michelle said her outfit could even donate the plants! The rest may be history, as a mostly shade garden of young natives -- as well as many Lewis & Clark finds -- fills in spaces around the front of the Hamilton-based museum. Stay tuned. I'll be back in time to help out, I hope, certainly back for the garden's unveiling at the 32nd annual Bitter Root Day, June 16 (http://www.brvhsmuseum.org/bitterrootday.html)!

White Hot Weekend!

Gliding along...

The lyrics from "Cold cold cold" (Little Feat) come to mind as we drive up to the Chief Joseph cross-country ski area (http://visitmt.com/categories/moreinfo.asp?IDRRecordID=13976&siteid=1). Yes, we're at it again. But we're leaving soon and want to get in as much skiing as possible. It's been relatively warm and snow-free down in Hamilton, but up in the mountains, temperatures plummet and big snow flakes fall all around us. We're lucky enough to follow a massive snow plow to the highest point. And we have a blast. The snow comes and goes, but when it's falling, it closes us into a world all our own. It's quiet. We glide! (I'm getting better at the skiing -- nose over knees, strong forward motion, poles low at my sides, balance pretty much in check!).

First stop on the way home? The Naughty Moose, of course (http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g45128-d1567578-Reviews-Naughty_Moose-Conner_Montana.html).

The sign shows a moose flirting with another species of some kind.

Inside, The Moose is a bar reminiscent of the old mountain West! We've eaten here before after a day on the trails, but we decide to head homeward this time, as our car has started making a rattling sound (from ice on the brakes?) and we want to check it out. The sound stops as suddenly as it started; whether it melted or slid off, it sounds perfectly normal. We speed on home. 

Bar at The Moose.

We get ready for dinner up on Milner hill at Kelsey and Mary's, with their two Portland daughters and Kelsey's brothers Eric and Scott in attendance. Everyone's here for a Sunday evening dance party thrown for Hamiltonian Steve Powell, a director of the Bitter Root Land Trust (http://www.bitterrootlandtrust.org/contact.html), a musician and member of Missoula's Big Sky Mudflaps (http://www.bigskymudflaps.com/) and a person struggling with melanoma. We met him cross-country skiing. He's as friendly a guy as you're likely to come across. This is just a big old party for him, and hundreds of people arrive at the hall with pot-luck dishes that fill tables along three walls of this big space.

The Mudflaps heat up and the dance floor is packed. "Here you just might see an environmentalist dancing with a logger," says our friend Mary Alice Holloway. And as we twist and jitterbug away, we see every age and style of casual dress on this dance floor. What fun. We cool off on our walk home, laughing about all the great music and folks we've met and seen. What a way to end a weekend in a small Montana town.

Our Val-anniversary

Two favorite books -- one on bungalows, another fictional account of a Frank Lloyd Wright love affair.

Valentine's Day is starting out just like any other day,  with coffee delivered to me in bed by the lovely Alex as I finished my latest book. This time, it's "Loving Frank," author Nancy Horan's beautiful take on Frank Lloyd Wright's love of his life, Mamah Cheney (http://www.randomhouse.com/rhpg/lovingfrank/). Thank you blogger, friend and San Francisco transplant Pat Corrigan (http://latetothehaight.blogspot.com/) for recommending this read!!

Then, I post about our Valentine's Day/28th wedding anniversary on Facebook (still getting more "likes" and comments from great friends).

My Valentine's Facebook page.

We meet a buddy at the brewery in Hamilton (http://www.bitterrootbrewing.com/) and keep our lunch light because later we're setting out for a Valentine's dinner at The Farm Table Restaurant (http://sleepingchildfarms.com/farm-table-restaurant/). This little eatery is on the beautifully named Sleeping Child Road. We've never been there, just passed by when looking for the old Sleeping Child Hot Springs with which Alex has some history. It is no more. A wealthy person owns it all now, including the once-public springs. A "luxury" real-estate post a few years ago listed the property and buildings there at $18 million. Unreal. A more recent post (http://www.vrbo.com/384292) has it all for rent!? Way out of our price range, either way! And such a sad ending to the legend of Nez Perce Indians discovering the hot springs when soldiers pursued them and their leader, Chief Joseph. These Native Americans traveled along what is now Sleeping Child Creek and, when a battle looked imminent, left their babies by the geothermal  springs, or so the story goes. When they returned, the infants were sleeping peacefully, it is said, protected by the warmth of the springs, hence the name.

Montana is a strange and wonderful place. We don't drive nearly as far into the mountains as is the old hot springs. In fact, Farm Table and its winter-brown landscape are only a few minutes from our house in town. The little restaurant couldn't be any more down home. It is nestled among lower hills. Vintage farm equipment rests out front. A white cat comes to greet us. Crisp white table linens wait inside.

Front drive, plus white cat, at Farm Table.

We're seated along with several other couples and choose our wine -- a nice Columbia Valley Cabernet. Roses and candles decorate each of the dozen or so tables.

Wine, flowers and candles -- just what you expect on Valentine's Day.

I get roasted wild salmon with basil butter, Alex chooses beef tenderloin en croute. This follows salad and, before that, delightful little cups of winter-squash soup.

My roasted salmon, plus wild rice and broccoli.

We watch a deer come down into the farm's field to browse. Mostly we see a summertime deck that we imagine will soon be filled with umbrella-shaded tables and lounging guests. Right now, it's empty. The sky darkens and lights from inside the restaurant reflect on our windowside view.

Hills beyond Farm Table's deck.

We finish with a wonderful dark chocolate cake with raspberry cream filling and chocolate ganache frosting. Wow, what flavor. We bring most of that home (midnight snack??). We know that we'll come back when the farm's garden is up and producing spring greens and summer vegetables. Meanwhile, I fold up the cute Farm Table menu plus wine list and put it safely in my pocket to remember this night.

All Creatures, Great and Small

My random, recent critter sightings include an eagle -- one of many that I've seen here (http://fieldguide.mt.gov/detail_ABNKC10010.aspx) -- but this is one has redness around and behind its beak. That tells me that it's just been feeding. The picture is a little grainy, shot from far away and cropped. Click on it to get a bit more detail.

On another day, at 7,200 feet and a walk from the "facilities" (newish outhouse, at Gordon Reese Cabin), I see the tiniest spider making its way across packed snow! What could it find to eat out here? We call it a snow spider -- there probably is such a thing. Look at all the other amazing snow insects at http://www.pbase.com/crocodile/snow_creatures&page=all.

The silhouette of a red-tailed hawk (http://fieldguide.mt.gov/detail_ABNKC19110.aspx) also catches my eye, on a valley drive.  "Pull over, Alex," I yell.  I shoot right into the setting sun, and I'm not sure what I've got.  But when I get home, I like the angle of the hawk's wings against clouds and above nearby mountains.

Okay, this is a "snowman" interpretation of a snowy owl -- the arctic bird that's much in the news in Montana and even in parts of the Midwest. My friend Mel Holloway shot this in Polson, MT (http://missoulian.com/lifestyles/territory/snowy-owls-parliament-is-in-session-in-polson-neighborhood/article_7b6cb81c-43b3-11e1-b236-0019bb2963f4.html). He's seen the real thing there. I have not. Not yet.

I see these huskies in the parking lot of the Good Food Store in Missoula (http://www.goodfoodstore.com/). As I approach to take a picture, the owner of the truck -- sitting in warm winter sun on the store's veranda -- shouts, "Don't get too close!" The dogs bark, loudly. So I don't. But I do know that there's a "Dog Derby" in mountains above Darby, MT (http://www.bitterrootmushers.org/), the next day, so I figure he's the musher and they're the mushees, resting up for the next day's event.

Vinny!  What can I say about this über intelligent and sensitive Jack Russell terrier (http://www.therealjackrussell.com/index.php) owned by Hamilton's Mary Barton and Kelsey Milner? He's just so darn sweet!!! The opposite of big burly mountain dogs that I expect to find in the Bitterroot.