My garden in July

It is getting pretty hot during the day.  To avoid working in the hot sun I have been getting up early to take care of my garden.  I am not a morning person but I love summer mornings.  I love the sound of birds, the cool morning air, and walking around my vegetables and flowers.  

My onions are doing great.  Their tops are about to fall over and I can see thin yellow skins are forming on the bulbs.  We already harvested few of them for cooking.  I love going out to my garden to pick things right before dinner.  It doesn't get any fresher than that.   

I planted some sunflowers this year.  In the past I haven't had very good luck with them.  Our resident squirrels will get a hold of them and bite off the top.  But this year it is not the squirrels that are causing the problem.  My sunflowers are getting attacked by earwigs. 

After doing some reading I found out a really simple and nontoxic way to fight the earwigs.  What you need is some oil and a shallow dish.  I used an empty tuna can and olive oil (some people suggested fish oil). All you need to do is dig a little hole that is big enough to bury the can and pour a little bit of oil in it.  To spare you seeing a bunch of earwigs drowned in oil I didn't take a  picture of the end result,  but trust me, it works.

Other than the problem with earwigs my sunflowers are doing great.  I am planning to feed my chickens with them in the fall. 
    

After last years experience of trying to find pickling cucumbers I decide to grow my own this year.  The cucumber vines got plenty of flowers because they take a short time to mature.  I can pick a handful of them every morning.  I do not have enough to process, so I am thinking of making some refrigerator pickles with them. 

Today's offering from my garden and  chickens.

Meet our new chickens

Our new chickens are 15 weeks old and they do not look and sound like chicks anymore.  It is fun to watch them and I am pretty sure they think it is fun to watch their humans.  From time to time they will perch on the log outside our window and look in to check out what we are up to. 

This is Panic she is an Ameraucana.  I heard they lay blue eggs so we made a special trip to our neighboring city to get her.  When we got there she was the only one left and she was not happy about it and she was letting everyone knew she was not happy.  She was practically panicking all the way home and would not settle down.  So she earned her name Panic.  she was fine after she joined the other chicks.

This is Charcoal because when she was a baby she was black like a lump of coal.  We call her Cole for short and she is a Barred Plymouth Rock.

We named her queen B (Beatrice).  She is a white leghorn.  We had leghorns before and they are more aggressive compared to other breeds.  We thought she would become the alpha female, but so far she is very quiet and shy and does not show any interest in becoming the queen of the flock.

This is a brown leghorn named Doughnut.  Sometimes it is hard to choose a name for the chickens especially when they are just normal average chickens.  But who knew she is anything but average. I think this group of girls is going to be ruled by Doughnut. My husband calls her Batman for reasons that are unexplained and probably unexplainable. 

This is Aurora and she is a Gold Sex Link.  She is really mellow and just minds her own business most of the time.  She was not very cooperative of getting her picture taken, so this it the best one I got.  If she wants to look like a fool with her mouth open, more power to her (actually she has her mouth open and her wings spread out because she is hot).

Goldilocks is another Gold Sex Link.  She had really pretty golden feathers when she was a baby and I think she still looks lovely.  By far she is the the friendliest of them all.


I think it is almost time for them to start laying eggs and I can't wait to see what color eggs they will produce.  

Family Camping trip

Stanley, ID is my favorite place to go in the summer.  The view of the Sawtooth wilderness is amazing and there are plenty of things to do.  It is overshadowed by McCall, the very popular summer destination, but I just love small town Stanley with its surrounding area.  There are plenty of things to do for everyone.  A boat ride at Redfish lake, fishing in the Salmon river, horseback riding, water sports, backpacking to numerous mountain lakes, hiking and camping just to name a few.

It was my birthday this week and both of our daughters had the day off from work and were able to join us.  We decided to take them to Sawtooth lake for an easy day hike.  Even though they love to go camping and fishing they have never gone on a long hike before. 
  

We got to Iron creek late in the afternoon and the first order of business is, of course, to put up a tent. Or spray insect repellent in Jennifer's case.

After putting up the tents we had to build a campfire so we can cook our dinner.  We left fire building to Jennifer, our resident fire bug.

We had salmon, BBQ beans, and steamed broccoli and summer squash for dinner.  And S'mores for dessert.

The next morning after breaking our camp we packed our day pack with water and lunch and we were ready to go into the wilderness.

First we had to fill out a wilderness permit.  We had to answer questions like how many are in our group, our destination, and how many days.

Here we are at the the trail head ready to start our hike.

Taking a break before we ascend some steep hills.

The snow reminded me of the harsh winter we had.  By this time of the year this small meadow is usually covered in wildflowers,  but this year there was water from melting snow everywhere.

When there is snow you got to build a snowman. Rhiannon's very very small snowman.

After the meadow the trail was still under a lot of snow but we decided to give it a go.  We are practically going cross country by this time, and doing our best to follow what we thought was the trail.  We had only gone a little way when I heard a scream and I turned around to see the bottom half of Rhiannon's body was gone under the snow. She had stepped on the soft snow and fell into a hole between two fallen trees.  After a little bit of crying, and when we were sure she didn't break any body part, we decided to call off the hiking.

Summer is still a way out in this part of the mountains.  We ran into two young men who actually hiked to Alpine lake which is lower than Sawtooth lake that we were planning to go to.  They said the whole lake is still covered in snow except one small patch of open water.

Even though we didn't make it to our lake, it was great fun to be out with my family. Here the girls are pointing out a tree that is growing out of a boulder.

Jennifer and her dad

The biggest challenge of taking a photo of wild animals is that they make horrible models.  But look at these two! They were being perfect models.  On the top we have a tree squirrel and on the bottom a mountain goat.

Becoming an American citizen

I have been living in America for 25 years and last summer I decided to apply for US citizenship.  One of the reason is because I don't want to pay $450 every 10 years to renew my permanent resident card, also known as a green card. Another reason is that I was summoned to serve on a jury twice, but I couldn't go because that is a privilege for American citizens.  I don't think I am going back to Korea, and I pay taxes, but have no right to vote.  Considering all this, I came to the conclusion that becoming an American citizen would be the best thing.

I filled out the N-400 form with a fee of $720 ($640 for the application and $80 for fingerprints) in Aug 2016.  I received a letter about two weeks later with an appointment to take my fingerprints on September 2nd.  I was impressed by how fast they were moving the paperwork.  Then I didn't hear anything from them for what I thought was a very long time. 

Do you know how many people become US citizens every year?  Here is the statistic from USCIS
 In 2015, a total of 730,259 persons were naturalized. The leading countries of birth of new citizens were Mexico (105,958), India (42,213), the Philippines (40,815), and the People’s Republic of China (31,241). The largest number of persons naturalizing lived in California (155,979), New York (90,368), and Florida (81,960). No wonder it takes such a long time to process.  Actually, it is not bad in Idaho, but I heard that California has a really long waiting period. 

I waited and waited some more and finally on January 2nd I received a letter informing me that my interview and civics test would be on March 14th.  The test was easy.  It was a random selection of 10 out of 100 questions, and I only needed to answer 6 of them correctly. The interview part was also quick and easy since I have not had trouble with the law and not a member of the Communist party or a Nazi.  The only thing left was the oath ceremony on April 27th.

So on April 27th, 2017 I became an American citizen with 47 other people from 24 different countries.  The ceremony itself was really short; it took only 30 minutes or so.  It started with introducing everyone by the country where they came from.  It was the last time that we would be known as Koreans, Mexicans, or Iraqis. After that, 47 of us raised our right arm and repeated after the official the Oath of Allegiance. 

          

As soon as he said "entirely renounce..." the seriousness of what was happening hit me so hard that I burst into tears and could not stop.  The tears took me by surprise. I mean I knew from the beginning what the "Oath of Allegiance" meant, and I signed the paper that I am willingly taking the oath.  So I couldn't understand why the tears.  Saying goodbye to my mother country was harder than I thought it would be.  My family is still there. I was born and raised there.  Even though I didn't think I was loyal and patriotic to my country, in the end I found out that I was.  It is just that I never had to think about it.  

After the "Oath of Allegiance" we watched a brief video of others who also became citizens of this great country.  Then we all got our certificate of citizenship, and ended with reciting the pledge of allegiance. 

I couldn't talk about my experience for a few days.  Every time when I thought about it, and talked about it, I felt tears coming and my heart ached.  I couldn't talk to my friends, who were so happy for me, about it because I didn't want them to see my sadness as my reluctance to become an American.   My emotions were running deep and strong and I didn't have the right words to describe them.  Mike used word "bittersweet",  but it was much more than that.  For a few days I felt like there was a hole in my heart where Korea used to be.  I have lived in America for half of my life and during that time I developed a love for this country. So what are my feelings? They are: sad, happy, hope, new beginning, lost, homesick, and most of all love.  In the Bible Ruth says, "whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people." (Ruth 1:16).  I will be where my family is.  They are Americans so I will be one.  What I thought was the logical decision became a very emotional decision in the end when the whole identity issue decided to join the party. 

I am excited for new opportunities.  I can vote and serve on a jury.  Tomorrow I am going to apply for a passport.

Sawtooth and Alpine lake

Alpine lake

We went for a day hike to Sawtooth lake for my birthday (June 2015).  You can get to Sawtooth lake from the Grandjean trail head which is about 9 miles one way, or you can use the Iron creek trail which is about 9 miles round trip. Since we already went to Sawtooth lake via the Grandjean trail a few years ago we decided to use the Iron creek trail this time. This trail is rated as moderate in difficulty according to Alltrails.com. 

해마다 내생일쯤에 우리는 등산을간다. 우리는 2015년에 Sawtooth 호수 에다녀왔다. (sawtooth:톱니, 산이 톱니처럼험하다하여 얻은 이름) Sawtooth 호수로 향하는 등산로 는 두개가있다.  첫번째 그랜진 등산로를 사용하면 왕복 30km 정도이며 두번째 아이런 계곡 등산로는 왕복 15km 정도이다. 우리는 벌써 몇년전 그랜진 등산로를 통해 Sawtooth 호수에 다녀왔기때문에 이번에는 아이런 계곡 등산로를 이용하기로했다.

Mike is catching up on his summer reading

We drove to the Iron creek camp ground after Mike got off work on Friday.  This is a very popular area and we got the very last campsite.  There is parking for backpackers and day users next to the camp ground and it was pretty full too.  

금요일 퇴근후에 아이런 계곡 캠프장 으로 떠났다. 우리집에서 차로 3시간 가량 걸리는 곳이다.  이캠프장은 등산객사이에 인기가있어 바쁘지만 우린 운좋게 마지막 캠프장 을잡았다.

A deer at the camp ground. Wild animals are never good models

Early the next morning we left the camp site.  The first few miles were very easy walking by Iron creek. We passed the trails to Goat lake and Stanley lake before we noticed the trail ascending.  

다음날 아침일찍 등산을 시작했다. 처음 3km 가량은 산책 하는것같이 계곡을 따라 무리없이 걸었다.  다른 등산로를 표시하는 표지판 을 몇개 지난후에 경사가 오르는게 눈에 띄였다.

This cute guy came by hoping for a hand out

Iron creek.  Gotta refill the water bottles

After crossing Iron creek you walk through a meadow full of wild flowers.  We took a long break here, refilled our water bottles, and had some snacks.  I love wild flowers and we took quite a few pictures of them.

아이런 계곡을 건넌후에 야생화가 만발한 초원이 우리를 반겼다.  우리는 여기서 물병도 채우고, 간식도 먹고, 사진도 찍으며 긴휴식을 취했다.

The view from the top was great.  I could sit there for hours and take in the view.  I always appreciate the beauty and the grandeur of the wild whenever I go out.

정상에서 바라보는 풍경은 거대했다.  나는 거기에앉아서 몇시간 동안이라도 경치를 즐길수있을겄같았다.  언제든지 광야로 나갈때마다 나는 자연의 아름다움과 웅장함을 감사한마음으로 받아드린다.

looking down to Alpine lake from the trail

There was still snow around Sawtooth lake and it was considerably cooler.  It was refreshing after a few miles of hard hiking.  One unusual thing was that there was  phone signal.  I don't know what is more crazy, having  phone signal, or that we were using it to post things on social media and keep in touch with our girls.

Sawtooth 호수에는 아직도 눈이 녹지않고 있었다.  조금춥기는했지만 땀을 흘리며 올라온터라 오히려 시원하게 느껴졌다.  정상에 phone 서비스가 있었다.  어떤게 더이상한것일까. Phone 서비스 아니면 phone 서비스를 사용하는 우리?

Mike by Sawtooth lake

It was definitely a doable day hike.  We got back to our campground, washed off our sweaty faces in the cold creek water, and then drove to Stanley for cold drinks, and still made it home before bedtime.

캠프장 에 돌아와서 시원한 계곡물에 얼굴을 씻고 옆마을 에가서 시원한 음료수를 사 마셨다.  그런후에도 우린 잠시간이 되기전에 집에 돌아왔다.