Of all of the things in Mom’s little box of recipes the only one I wanted was the one for rhubarb cobbler. The oatmeal cookies might have been nice and to know how she made pancake syrup might come in handy someday but I don’t think she had that one written down anyway. But the rhubarb cobbler is in a class of it’s own and I had to have it.

I’m pretty sure I got it shortly after Barb S. and I were married but I don’t recall ever making it. Rhubarb is not something you see very often in the grocery store and even though I think there was some rhubarb somewhere on the property of our house in Moscow I never bothered to actually pick it.

Last summer Dad gave me a bunch of rhubarb and the recipe but, again, I never got around to actually making it into cobbler. The rhubarb spoiled and I lost the recipe.

When Mom died I got the recipe again and this time I put it in OneNote on my phone. Barb L. called around to various grocery stores and found just one that had three packages of frozen rhubarb in stock. I drove over and bought them all. They sat in my freezer for months until I finally made it into cobbler a week ago today.

I shared it with Barb L. and her family when I went over for dinner. I warned Barb’s daughter that not everyone likes it. I told her my son likes the topping but the body of the cobbler isn’t something he would go out of his way to have. She tasted it and proclaimed it, “Delightful!” Since she is not the least bit shy about telling me she doesn’t want to eat the food I cook this was not her just being polite. It really is delightful.

Yesterday I bought another Pyrex 9”x13” pan when I saw it at a Goodwill store. I wanted it specifically for making the cobbler. I then went to three different stores before I found one that had rhubarb. I bought four pounds so I could make two batches.

Delightful Rhubarb Cobbler

9”x13” pan

Body

2 pounds rhubarb
2C sugar
2T instant (preferred, but regular can also be used) tapioca
2t vanilla

Topping

1.5 brown sugar
1.5 C Quick oats
1C melted butter
1C flour

Preheat the oven to 350F.

Put the sugar, tapioca, and vanilla in the pan, mix, and spread evenly. Wash and then cut the rhubarb into sections about one inch long and spread evenly on the sugar mix in the pan.

Combine the topping ingredients in a mixing bowl and mix until uniform (about 30 seconds in my Kitchen Aid mixer). Spread evenly over the body of the cobbler.

Bake for 40 minutes at 350F. The top should be slight browned and crispy.

Let it cool before serving or serve hot in a bowl with a scoop of ice cream on top.

The daughter of a close friend is soon going to Ecuador for a few months. She is participating in “Global Citizen Year”.

I’m not sure how it works but subscribing for email updates on her blog (the link above) is of benefit to her.

It’s easy to get bogged down in all the political stupidity and garbage going on in DC, as it slowly infects and infests the rest of the globe. But sometimes, you just have to get away. So, the other half, sprouts, the mutt, and I climbed into the minivan, and went out into the deep weeds. Continue reading →

Earlier tonight my daughter and I were on the deck watching silent lightening. We could see, fairly close as lightening goes, large, naked bolts, and no sound but for the occasional very low rumble on the edge of hearing. Very odd.

I explained to her that distinct layers of different air density could reflect sound, not altogether unlike light reflecting on water, and so the sound was being carried away somewhere else, that submariners deal with this phenomenon in using sonar, as they travel up or down between layers of water. She responded with one of those, “Yeah, Dad. I know” dismissals than can make a father both proud and a little disappointed at the same time.

Anyway I figured that sooner or later the sound path would open up. It was much later. I’d forgotten about the lightening. A channel opened up though, wide open, and, rumble rumble CRACK! It was less than a half mile away, and it was as the sound of trees exploding and rocks cracking, which very well may have happened, just a moment ago. It shook the ground.

It haven’t jumped like that in years. Being around gunfire for so long, and several seasons of Boomershoot, plus a few private and up-close Boomer events, you get so the sound is as the regular waves along the ocean shore, or not much more alarming than that. Being out in my garage, maybe it was all context related, and the context was wrong. The dog came in and plopped down on the floor just now.

Since I see people searching for this information and brother Doug posted it on Facebook last week (June 19th) I’m posting it here for better visibility:

The autopsy on our son Brad was performed in Pullman today. The preliminary results showed nothing. The coroner told me they did a very detailed autopsy, organ by organ and found no aneurysms, no blood clots, and no abnormalities that could explain his sudden death.

They are sending vials of body fluids to a lab for a wide range of toxicology tests, but he said nearly all toxins will leave some type of physical symptom that is noticeable in an autopsy (and they found no such tell tale signs). They have removed the electrical conduction paths from his heart and if the toxicology report comes back negative, they will examine the heart tissue with a scanning electron microscope and they might possibly find a defect in that.

Julie’s father had a defect in the routing of the nerves controlling his heart muscle. It caused him problems most of his life, but he died in his mid 70s of lung cancer. The coroner said Brad did NOT have that defect.

It will take about two weeks to get the results of the toxicology report.

Brad Huffman was my nephew.

From the Lewiston Morning Tribune:

Our hearts were broken when our son, Bradley Ray Huffman, died in his sleep June 14, 2013, of natural causes. An autopsy is under way. He was born Nov. 21, 1990, in Lewiston, to Doug and Julie (Seeley) Huffman and two older sisters, Amy and Lisa. Brad grew up on the family farm in Cavendish, helping with the farm work from the time he could walk.

Brad attended Cavendish Elementary School before going to Orofino for junior high and high school. He won the OJHS geography bee in both seventh and eighth grades and participated in the state geography bee both years. He also won the District 171 spelling bee in eighth grade and competed in the regional spelling bee in Lewiston. He ran track for six years and qualified for state in the 800 meter three times. Brad was also involved in 4-H throughout his school years. He took several advanced placement classes in high school and graduated as a valedictorian of Orofino High School in 2009.

Bradley attended the University of Idaho and majored in plant science while working for the university wheat breeding program. He graduated in December 2012 and took a job in U of I mustard and canola breeding, although he was still involved with the wheat breeding team.

Brad enjoyed farming, gardening, photography, hunting and fishing. He returned to the family farm most weekends and enjoyed going for long walks with his dog, Kanobi.

He is survived by his parents at the family home; sister Amy (Nathan) Faragher and nephew Jared Faragher of Orem, Utah; and sister Lisa Huffman of Kent, Wash. He is also survived by his paternal grandfather, Lowell Huffman of Cavendish; his maternal grandmother, Shirley Seeley of Orofino; and many aunts, uncles and cousins. His paternal grandmother Ellen Huffman and his maternal grandfather Bud Seeley preceded him in death.

There will be a service at 11 a.m. Saturday at the Best Western – Lodge at River’s Edge in Orofino, followed by a luncheon.

Memorial donations may be made to the Cavendish Elementary PTA, 455 Middle Road, Lenore, ID 83541; or the Orofino High School Track Program, 300 Dunlap Road, Orofino, ID 83544.

Pine Hills Funeral Chapel and Crematory is in care of arrangements.

Yesterday a new Huffman came into the world with the birth of my grandson. I joked on Twitter:

I became a grandfather at 3:13 on June 13, 2013. No name yet. He has two black cats at home so I’m proposing “Lucky”. pic.twitter.com/BseuMzy9AK

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) June 13, 2013

Happy times. I was going to Idaho to spend time with my Dad for Father’s Day and share pictures, etc.

I got a call from my brother Doug this morning. His son, Brad, died in his sleep last night. He was 22 years old.

Brad Huffman with his nephew Jared.

He didn’t smoke, drink, or do drugs. No known health issues.

This is really messed up. This isn’t the way things are “supposed” to happen. He just finished college. He had a good job. He was considering taking over the farm when Doug and Gary retired.

As Barb L. pointed out when I talked to her about it, “It’s so terrible, one Huffman enters the world and another leaves.”

Daughter Xenia made a video of their dog, Hero, when son-in-law John returned from a six week class:

That is one very excited dog. Or as Xenia said, “All the feels.”

Barb L. and I took Jazzy and Maddy to the ocean with us this weekend. Jazzy had never been to the Pacific Ocean. I took a bunch of pictures of Jazzy and Maddy and made a simple video of them.

We had some dramatic moments when they went on ahead of us around a tight spot on the beach while the tide was coming in. Barb ran to catch up with them, almost fell (I caught it in three sequential frames on my camera), then yelled at them, “The tide is coming in. Be careful!” They responded with, “We know!”

They then proceeded to continue on around the corner. We waited a couple minutes and watched with increasing concern as the water continued to cut off the “pass” between us and them. I then dumped my backpack and camera case and jumped between rocks over the water and ran around the corner to find them. They were another 100 yards or so beyond and about to go out of sight around another corner. I ran to catch up with them and yelled when I thought I was close enough for them to hear me above the waves, “You need to come back now!” I was concerned they might not heed my concerns either. But they responded and started walking back at a brisk walk. I ran back.

The “crossing” was almost unrecognizable as the place I had crossed maybe two minutes previously.

I stepped onto the closest rock and got my shoes wet up to just below the ankles. The hiking boots are water resistant and my feet remained dry as I waited for the wave to go back and I jumped across to another rock and climbed out the other side without getting wet.

Jazzy and Maddy soon followed and didn’t care all that much about the depth of the water because they had taken off their shoes much earlier (there is a tale to tell about the shoes too):

Maddy had tied her shoes to her backpack and then walked probably a mile or so before noticing that one was gone. We were able to determine, roughly, where she lost it because of all the pictures I had taken of them. But we figured the shoe was completely gone because the beach was about 100 yard narrower in that spot than when she had walked by earlier.

We were approaching the trailhead when Barb and I started thinking about making an improvised “shoe” for Maddy to walk the 3/4 of a mile or so on the gravel path back to the car. We had just concluded a t-shirt with a  plastic bag wrapped around it held in place with a rubber band would work or maybe just have her wait at the trailhead while someone went back to the motel and come back with her other pair of shoes. Jazzy and Maddy were probably 75 yards ahead of us when we saw one of them point and then they both started running. “A race?”, I asked Barb. “I don’t know”, she said. A few seconds later we understood as Maddy picked her shoe up off of the beach. It was on the edge of the water and probably 75 yards inland from her path in the other direction. The two socks she had stuffed in the shoe were still there too.

Lucky day.

We made it to the ocean this afternoon and almost immediately went for a walk on the beach. I did not bring my chemistry set but we had a good time anyway.

View from our room.

View from our room.

View from our room.

View from the beach.

View of the beach.

Mutant moss. I think we should check on it tomorrow and see if the earth is in danger of being taken over.