Christmas 2008 Letter

Our granddaughter arrives tonight with her parents, I guess we had better get to this or there will no time at all! Christmas is almost here and there still is so much to do. The tree is still waiting to be cut down and Mary has just put the first batch of cookies in the oven. In the meantime, we are having our first real snowfall of the year, but Saratoga Lake is still open. I guess everything is just a bit out of whack this year…. So let’s start out this letter way last spring and try to make sense of life’s montage of the Finn Family.
Mary and Chuck flew to the “Big Island” in Hawaii for spring break to spend nine days car camping around the island. It would be hard to imagine how the trip could have worked out better. Both of us were pretty stressed out from work and getting far away really was appealing. The diving was amazing, given the fact we had no good idea what we would find. Probably the most memorable events were snorkeling with a pod of 50 sleeping dolphins, which kept sounding and circling within a foot or two of us. Second was finding the tide pools at the south end of the island that teamed with fish and corral. Mary was not very happy to discover one place up north where we had spent considerable time in the water that we were about a block away from a tiger shark feeding area… But the most amazing part of the trip was visiting an erupting volcano flow. We tried for almost two days to get near it, but the police were keeping everyone away. We stopped for a beer at a local bar and the locals told us the police go home at 10:00 pm, which is when they all go right up to the moving lava flows! We asked if we could tag along and sure enough we were able to walk right in! Lava is amazing stuff and we will never forget being within inches of a moving river of molten lava. To the left of us it was falling into the ocean and exploding, while right in front it was hardening and cooling. You can put your hand on the crust and then poke through with a stick to the molten stream!
Mary went to Chile this year with the FDA to do her secret agent thing for a month. Lots of fish farming and harvesting activities to investigate and given the problems with Chilean Farm Salmon, she was big news (even made it on the front page of the national paper). Her work took her from the very southern end to the high deserts on the northern border where in some places it hadn’t rained in recorded history. The Chilean workday is 10-12 hours, which meant she was pretty much occupied with inspections during waking hours with preparation prior to meeting and report writing late into the night. Even getting laundry done was pretty much out of the question!
Mary returned just as Chuck was setting off on his “Big Trip,” which he had been planning and working up to for years. Chuck (with a lot of help from his friends), motored the Mighty Quinn through the Erie Canal up to Lake Ontario where the raised the mast and then sailed all five of the Great Lakes. This took almost two months and covered more than 2800 miles in all sorts of weather. There were too many adventures along the way to even try to chronicle here, so we will sum it up by saying this was planned to be an adventure of a lifetime and it certainly has been! A big thank you to all the folks who sailed along the way! Lou and Steve; Thea and Robert; Len and Lynnea; Mike, Chris, Tom; John!; Mary, Geneva, Justin, Inga, Anders, Anna, Rebecca ; Judy, Reeve, and John! Chuck left the boat in Lake Michigan (near his Uncle B. John and Aunt Marilyn’s home in Traverse City) and plans to sail her home during the summer of 2009. All Aboard!
The bad news from the trip was the fall Chuck took into the cabin. He landed on his right knee and pretty much blew out what little there was left of the stuff that makes a knee work. Knee replacement surgery is scheduled for January 6, 2009 and hopefully he will recover sufficiently to continue the Big Trip in June. By the way, don’t even think of beginning a big sailing trip on the Great Lakes in May unless you are really into arctic adventure. Just ask Bob and Thea!
Mary journeyed to Minneapolis during the week of the Republican National Convention to babysit Inga and generally hang out. Geneva, with help from Justin, was doing her “legal thing” setting up counsel and defense for many of the people who were arrested during the week. Geneva is still involved in casework generated by dubious actions of federal, state, and local law enforcement who clearly over-reacted. One might look on this event as a sad culmination of eight years of lawless behavior by the Bush administration. Good riddance!
Early fall saw a few small bike trips (biking doesn’t seem to hurt Chuck’s knee) and our biggest run to date of apple cider and grape juice. We crushed at least 40 gallons of apple juice and there are several 6- gallon bottles currently converting apple juice into wine and vinegar. Turn out we really like homemade apple vinegar and will make at least 5 gallons of the stuff this year. Our good neighbors (Nick, Holly, Victoria, and Louie) came over with their own apples and we made many gallons with them as well. Mary froze about 8 gallons, which we know our children will enjoy over the Christmas Holiday! One final fall harvest is our cranberries are finally producing. We know this does not sound like much, but Mary got 9 cups of berries that will be served at Christmas Dinner.
Chuck and Mary did make it out to visit Anders and Anna in San Francisco over a long weekend. Anders showed them a wonderful time, with easy hikes and great dining. Anders had just changed employers (he was head hunted!), so he was terribly busy but still made time to see the folks!
Late fall turned to politics with much relief and even hope generated on the national level. The collapse of the economy probably means neither Chuck nor Mary will be retiring soon, but a new administration surely will be an improvement of the last eight years! We are worried that we have set our hopes too high, but hope is so much better to live with than fear. Chuck got the “political bug” again and ran in a tough election for Fire Commissioner. There was a record turnout (almost 500 votes when there were only 20 in the last election). The incumbent won, but we are hoping the huge effort of door knocking and literature dropping has raised the public’s awareness of problems within the Fire District. A heartfelt THANKS to Keith, Darlene, Nick, Holly, Mary and the hundreds of people who turned out for change!
So, we close our “Annual Report” to our friends and family looking forward to the holidays when family and friends gather. We hope we will see all of you this upcoming year and say yet again we miss you!
Chuck and Mary

No "Apple-oligizing" for this one!

We had a pretty good crop of apples this year, but most of the varieties we have don't seem to keep. That means we have to make lots of apple juice, wine, vinegar, and sparkling wine!
We made about 30 gallons this year and our friends (Zalar family) came over and made several more!
We also made several gallons of grape juice, which is much harder to press.
Mary is hard at work grinding apples in this photo. We mount the whole operation on the back deck because the hornets don't seem to visit this area as much.

Mary the Woods Elf!

We were visiting Anders in California were walking in a redwoods reserve. A volunteer showed us this small opening in the bottom of a huge redwood and Mary was able to wiggle inside. This is a tight fit and given Mary's dislike for small spaces... it is amazing she is smiling!

WOW! My 3x9 ft cranberry "bog" yielded 9 cups of fresh cranberries. That should almost be enough for Christmas dinner, even when Geneva is there. To make easy cranberry sauce mix in a bowl: 3 parts cranberries with 1 part sugar, add 1/2 cup water or grape juice. Then put either in microwave on high or in saucepan on medium and cook until the berries start to pop. Cranberry sauce keeps for at least three months in the refrigerator if no one eats it up first.

October 17th is Charles Finn's birthday!

German Chocolate Cake (Chuck’s Birthday cake)
Grease and wax paper 3-9” cake pans oven 350°F

1) Sift together:
2 ½ cups cake flour
1 tsp. baking soda
Pinch of salt

2) Separate 4 eggs.

3) Beat the egg white until stiff.

4) Melt ¼ # German sweet Chocolate in ½ cup boiling water

5) Cream 1 cup butter with 2 cups brown sugar
add egg yolks+ 1 tsp vanilla and beat some more.

5) Add chocolate/water mixture to butter/sugar mixture and beat.

6) Add flour mixture to chocolate butter mixture alternately with 1 cup buttermilk.

7) Fold in stiffly beater egg whites.

8) Put into pans and bake.

Filling and topping for German Chocolate Cake:
Cook the following together in a double boiler or in microwave until thick:
1 cup sugar
1 cup evaporated milk
1 stick butter
3 beaten egg yolks
Add:
1 cup shredded coconut
½ to 1 cup chopped pecans
1 tsp vanilla


I use the filling between layers and on top, then I spread the sides with a chocolate buttercream frosting. This cake is expensive, but very tasty.

View of Superior Pond from the deck of Killburne House in October.