All posts by GretchenJoanna

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About GretchenJoanna

Orthodox Christian, widowed in 2015; mother, grandmother. Love to read, garden, cook, write letters and a hundred other home-making activities.

Fort Ross Fourth

church, history, travel

Fort Ross State Historic Park has been a favorite destination of our family for decades. It is a restored fort from the early 1800’s, when California was not yet a state in the Union, and for a while the Russians had an outpost in Northern California for fishing and trapping and growing food. You can see lots more photos and read about the history of Fort Ross online.

I loved the place from our first discovery of it when the children were small. A historic association holds yearly re-enactment days that are great fun, but just visiting on our own was relaxing and renewing, at least in the summer, when the sun would break through the fog and you could smell the ocean and the baking grasses at the same time, and imagine the people of long ago.

After I joined the Orthodox Church, I was delighted to learn that our diocese has permission to use the chapel at the fort twice a year, including on the 4th of July. We worship in the morning and have a picnic afterward when the sun usually comes out. There is plenty of time to get back home in the evening for Vespers and maybe fireworks later on. I’ve made the pilgrimage three times now, and my pictures here are collected from all the visits.


It’s a short walk from the parking lot to the actual fort enclosure. The photo at right is looking across the field from the chapel.

The church building as restored is small, and sometimes we let the whole of it serve as the altar, with the congregation and the choir standing outside and the priests and deacons coming in and out frequently as they pray and serve Communion.

This year we all squeezed into the chapel, which is very intimate. I couldn’t get a good picture because of that window, but I am posting a bad one just to give an idea of the atmosphere. Very thin idea, indeed, as there is only the one visual dimension, and no conveyance at all to the other senses.

After the liturgy, the clergy and many others made the trek to the cemetery to sing a short service for the ones buried there. Others of us waited within the walls of the fort for their return.

The bishop brought a picnic lunch, too.

We waved plenty of flags to show our thankful allegiance to the nation whose birthday we were celebrating, at a fort now owned by Americans.

One year N. brought his hammered dulcimer and treated us to music at the picnic.

After lunch, K. and I took a walk down to the lovely cove below the fort.

One young parishoner and his mother had found treasures in nearby tidepools.

When we got back, the history talk by the park ranger was still going on. It leads up to instruction in loading and firing the cannons.

My favorite priest is getting ready to load the cannon.

A blue study of guys waiting for the explosion.

Bang! Poof! No cannonball was shot–only gunpowder.

The majority of California’s state parks are likely to be closed because of the deep debt our state is in. If that happens, our Fort Ross pilgrimages may become a fragrant memory, and something to hope for in the more distant future.

Mouth Fireworks

food and cooking


Trader Joe’s has come out with this dried fruit concoction I have bought a few times. Dried mango with paprika and cayenne pepper, a little salt and sugar. Zingy! An 8-oz package of this concentrated food would provide almost 800 calories, if you ate the whole thing. I have resisted the urge so far, to eat the contents in one day.

It’s not anything our American forefathers would have dreamed of. It’s not red, white, or blue, or a combination of the three.

But eating a couple of these slices is kind of like eating your fireworks. So good, I had to share.

Egg Lemon Soup

food and cooking,


I’ve been cooking some old favorites today. One of them is Egg Lemon Soup. I got my recipe from a Greek cookbook decades ago, so I stick by it, though I’ve seen other methods and ingredients for making this soup. I’m sure every Greek lady has her own version, as well.

GREEK EGG LEMON SOUP

1 1/2 quarts chicken stock

juice of 1-2 lemons (I always use 2)

1/4 teaspoon summer savory (If you don’t have this, use oregano. I think the savory is a relative of oregano). I used dried, but fresh would be lovely and leave you something to garnish with.

4 eggs, beaten

1 cup cooked rice (If you don’t have this, cook 1/2 cup raw rice in the stock until tender, and then the rice will just be in there from the beginning.)

Heat the stock to almost boiling, with the herb. Beat the eggs and quickly whisk in the lemon juice. You can add some of the zest if you want. While beating briskly, add a cup or two of the broth to the egg mixture. Then add it back into the pot, along with the rice. Keep it from boiling, or it may curdle. Serve.

A bit of fresh chopped parsley would be perfect for scattering on top of this soup, but I couldn’t find one leaf of it in the garden.

So…it’s too cool a climate here to be able to eat outdoors very often, but the flip side of that is, we get to eat soup all summer long!

A saint, a party, a hot day.

church, food and cooking, garden, , ,

The most important thing, today, is that it is the day when we commemorate Saint Joanna, wife of Herod’s steward and follower of Christ, one of the women who came to the tomb to anoint His body, only to find that He was not there, because our Lord had risen from the dead.

I took the name of Joanna as my Orthodox, baptismal name when I converted, so “her day” is my day, and thoughts of her and her example, our communion in Christ, our prayers for each other, overshadowed the day with a sweetness. This evening, I was able to go to Vespers, always a blessed beginning of The Lord’s Day.

But I also went to a tea party given by a young friend. It was hot today, and we ate out of doors under an awning. The colors were refreshing, including the tea: green or passion fruit. It was iced tea, served in teacups.

My friends’ garden is always full of flowers, of few of which were happy to float in plenty of water, and in the shade, on such a day.

Salad was the perfect main course, followed by ice cream. I had no time to photograph the ice cream as I was too busy eating it before it melted.

When I came home, Mr. Glad let me know that as the forecast is for more heat tomorrow, he invited some other young friends to come and swim after church tomorrow. I immediately thought of how hungry kids get after swimming, and remembered that I had some cookie dough in the freezer. I can’t remember if I made the dough for Christmas or for a tea party, but no matter, it baked up into nice Cardamom Butter Squares tonight. Even on hot days, in our area, the nights are usually cool. If one has baking to do, it is best to do it in the evening so that all that oven heat dissipates before the next day. This is one way we manage without air conditioning.

In the background of the cookies, you can see some crayons and paper, tools for a very preliminary step toward designing a baby quilt I hope to make this summer. One step at a time…”inch by inch, it’s a cinch.”

It was a full and rich day, on many levels. As I drove home from Vespers, I even saw “my” goslings in the park!