Methow

By Joanna Bastian Three wild horsewomen would like to share their recent Mongolian experience by bringing their Mongolian guide to the Methow Valley. Robin Baire, Lorah Super and Jil Wickander recently completed a two-week guided horseback tour through the UNESCO world heritage sites and national parks of Mongolia. Impressed with the experience, they asked their […]

By Joanna Bastian Most of our dinners are planned around what is available this time of year. Last night, our dinner consisted of a roasted vegetable sauce smothered over potatoes and scrambled eggs. A side salad of cucumbers and fresh-picked tomatoes still warm from the sun rounded out the meal. The sauce is a favorite […]

By Joanna Bastian Outside the U.S. Post Office in Carlton, Lorraine Wagner deftly snaps an American flag to the flagpole and raises the red, white and blue until it unfurls in the cool morning breeze. Old Glory is not the only colorful item swaying in the breeze. The garden bed along the walkway is a […]

By Joanna Bastian A fun thing I might do again, but not anytime soon, is the 4.5-mile, 4,000-foot climb to Scatter Lake. First, I need to regain feeling in my quadriceps, gluteals, hamstrings, calves and foot flexors. The entire group of muscles in each leg feels like a tub of Jell-O. Or like that wind […]

By Joanna Bastian Danford “Danny” Miller raised a well-traveled American flag on Memorial Day. After waving in wind currents around the globe, the broad stripes and bright stars came to rest in the Methow Valley. This particular Old Glory is seen as a symbol of what connects us all: life, liberty and the pursuit of […]

By Joanna Bastian The Fifth Annual Salmon Bake and Cultural Celebration is happening on Saturday, June 23, along the banks of the Columbia River at Pateros Memorial Park. Music, art, games and savory food all benefit the Pateros-Brewster Community Resource Center (www.paterosresource.com), a valuable connection to health and human services. Randy Lewis and friends will […]

By Joanna Bastian This Memorial Day (May 28) would have been the 94th birthday of Pierre “Pete” Joseph. Pete led an astounding life, a portion of which was portrayed in the 1951 Broadway play and subsequent film, “Stalag 17.” The film is a comedy/thriller about American airmen in a German World War II prisoner of […]

By Joanna Bastian We have a small window of marvelous color now that the mud has retreated and before dust season settles in. This in-between season, some call it spring, is fleetingly magical. Sunlight illuminates each fold in topography, a dappled green landscape of lustrous light and shadow. Rainstorms fill a maze of hills and […]

By Joanna Bastian I love the winter. I love the spring. I’m not a big fan of mud season. Mud season is a tease with reassuring sunny skies above and treacherous footing below. Either the trails are socked in with mushy snow, or stream crossings are impassable by high-water torrents of turbulent runoff. There are […]

By Joanna Bastian I imagine Igor Stravinsky composed his “Rite of Spring” (“La Sacre”) during spring, while observing a landscape emerging from winter. Perhaps he listened to a gentle wind blow through the woods — the opening lines of the woodwinds. Flurries of snow grew into dissonant surges of pouring rain as harmonies fractured like […]