Happy Unbirthday to Us

Since we hadn’t seen my brother, Dave and his wife, Anke in three years, Michelle and Aly decided that we needed to have an “unbirthday party” to celebrate the birthdays we have missed and will miss in the coming years. In a way, this is cheating, because Aly, who loves to make cakes, has begun marking relatives’ birthdays by making a cake that she either knows they like, or thinks they might. But, since we love to eat the cakes she loves to make, we weren’t going to belabor the point . . . .Yesterday evening we built a fire in the fire pit on the beach, and Dave roasted a whole chicken with potatoes from our garden and the cap of the one, lone king bolete mushroom we’ve seen these past dry weeks. The sun set lit up the Coast Range across the water, then, as the sky darkened, a gibbous moon, two days away from full, rose in the sky.

We enjoyed the meal with a bottle of good wine (water for Aly, of course) then ate fresh-baked fudge ribbon cake, a long time favorite of Dave’s. Aly made the fudge frosting a bit too early, and it hardened, so she chopped it up and topped the warm cake with the firm pieces. It worked great!

After dinner, we enjoyed the fire and moonlight, shot off a few minor fireworks left over from Independence Day, and conducted a science experiment that was a long time coming. I won’t elaborate, as Aly called “dibs” on the blog post!

In a few days, Slacktide will sail for Tenakee Springs, and we’ll settle back to normal. No telling when we’ll see them again, although there’s talk of a family visit to Tenakee this winter. It’s been years since we’ve been there, and the people who built our homestead live there now. We’ve emailed back and forth many times, but we’re eager to finally meet them. Maybe this year?

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