SAWUURA NEWSLETTER Volume 1, Issue 3, August 8, 2005

SAWUURA NEWSLETTER - Volume 1, Issue 3, August 8, 2005 In Fellowship from the SAWUURA Publicity Committee: Joe Stefani, Scott Henderson, Karen Stucke, Tom Parker A NOTE FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD The Memorial Day weekend campout was a great success in spite of the well pump that would not function. After consultations with Ernie Garlina and a pump professional, Rick Turner of R. Turner & Sons Pump Co., it was determined that the ancient pump was not repairable. I contacted Rick Turner and made arrangements to meet him at SAWUURA on the weekend of July 7, which he had to postpone to the 14th. He and his son replaced the entire standard plunger type pump that the windmill uses with all new parts. They added a submersible pump under the plunger pump as a backup. Our 120-volt portable generator that is kept in the winter cabin for use when the wind is not cooperating powers it. Rick said to get the generator adjusted as it was putting out the wrong amount of power, so I took it to Phoenix, got it adjusted (wow, for free) and returned it when we went up again on the July 24th work/play weekend. The water tank was full, thanks to all the wind we have had since the 14th. This month Joe and Scott in particular have been continuing our efforts to make the winter cabin mouse- and rat-proof. Scott has also been bringing 1 to 3 kids with him to make sure camping becomes a part of their lives. We waited to see if there was some money left after the water problem was fixed to see how much road repair we could do. Unfortunately, it’s not as much as we need. Audrey keeps trying to arrange the timing between rains to team up with the road fixer guy to keep SAWUURA as accessible as possible. We even have to dump rock just outside the gate as we are having cars trapped there and Forest Service grading doesn’t solve the problem. However, even with dedicated volunteers this takes a lot of man-hours and money. I am asking all of you who have been participants in SAWUURA in the past to either send in your membership dues or a nominal contribution to help with our continual maintenance costs and, hopefully, improvements of SAWUURA. Remember your contributions and/or membership are tax deductible. You can also help a great deal by participating in our work/play weekends. If you’ve only experienced a large group stay, try the quiet of a smaller group and get to know a few other campers on a more personal level where conversations can extend uninterrupted. Gene Rowley Send contributions (payable to SAWUURA) to: SAWUURA c/o U.U. Congregation of Phoenix 4027 E. Lincoln Drive Paradise Valley, AZ 85253 IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENTS Labor Day Gathering: Join the members and friends of SAWUURA for the Labor Day 2005 retreat. Our theme for this year is "Water of Life." After a "normal" rain and snow winter, our stream (7 Mile Creek) flowed for many weeks this spring. It has also flowed as the result of monsoon rains in July. Will it be flowing in early September? Join us and find out! We will celebrate and contemplate the physical and spiritual aspects of our relationship with and dependence upon water. Campers are invited to bring water from their home or travels for sharing in a traditional UU Water Communion. All coming are encouraged to participate by leading an activity for our program. Lead a hike, tell a story, offer a craft workshop, or engage the camp with another activity of your creation. Check out our web site at www.sawuura.org for more information. Please contact Eb Eberlein to volunteer a program event or Gwen Goodman to register for camp. gwen@skyislandtreks.com eb@skyislandtreks.com 520-743-2398 Call for Material: The Publicity Committee would like to see the newsletter develop into a forum available for sharing news and experiences among SAWUURA members and friends. We invite you to send short pieces that are not only related to SAWUURA—stories of visits, news of members past and present, birding at SAWUURA, history of the camp and members or of the Pleasant Valley area—but also pieces related in any way to the outdoor experience in Arizona. If you would like to host a regular column or just make a short report on a visit, your SAWUURA newsletter is the place to do it. If you have any SAWUURA-related material that you would like to see included in future issues please forward to Joe Stefani at jstef48@earthlink.net or 2873 W. Leawood Dr., Tucson, AZ 85745. Phone:520-743-3978 E-mail addresses: If you have received this newsletter by regular (snail) mail and have email, please send us an email message at jstef48@earthlink.net so that in future we can send you the newsletter that way, in order to keep our costs down, enable the newsletter to grow in size and scope, and save a few trees. UPCOMING EVENTS August 21 Board of Trustees Meeting at Eva's Mexican Restaurant, 7087 Sunland Gin Rd., Casa Grande, I-10 Exit 200 (east of the freeway). Lunch at 12:30pm, meeting at 1:00. August 27-28 Work/Play Weekend September 3-5 LABOR DAY GATHERING Sept. 10-11 Work/Play Weekend Sept. 18 Board Meeting at Eva's Sept. 24-25 Work/Play Weekend Oct. 8-9 Work/Play Weekend Oct. 16 Board Meeting at Eva's Oct. 22-23 Work/Play Weekend Nov. 12-13 Work/Play Weekend Nov. 20 Board Meeting at Eva's Nov. 26-27 Work/Play Weekend (Thanksgiving is on the 24th) Dec. 10-11 Work/Play Weekend Jan. 14-15 Work/Play Weekend Jan. 22 Board Meeting at Eva's Jan. 28-29 Work/Play Weekend Women’s Weekend: This event, which usually happens in late September or early October, is on hold because the person who had hoped to organize it this year is unable to, due to health reasons. Women’s Weekend has been a wonderful event in the past, and if any of the women of SAWUURA want to go ahead with it this year, please contact Joe at jstef48@earthlink.net or 520-743-3978 so it can be put on the calendar. Any Work/Play Weekend can be cancelled to make room for the Women’s Weekend. Report on July 23-24 Work/Play Weekend by Joe Stefani: Attending were myself and Scott Henderson and all three of his children. Gene Rowley and Audrey Mawson arrived on Sunday afternoon to deliver the newly serviced generator, and were going to stay in Young for several days, taking care of SAWUURA business (arranging for some gravel for our road) and other things. On the work front Scott “tuned up” many of the campsites along the creekside, improving their drainage and cleaning out brush and overhanging limbs. At the Winter Cabin all the contaminated insulation has been cleared from the attic loft. Some cleanup remains on the first floor. Scott and I together spent much of Sunday installing aluminum flashing to block the numerous holes and gaps in the cabin walls through which rodents have entered. We got a start, but much work remains on this project of gap blocking. Overall though, the Winter Cabin project is gaining momentum. On the play front, Scott’s children made additions to the “décor” of the new kid’s fort that’s built around the giant old cedar tree up the road from the kitchen area. Rain. On Saturday evening thunderstorms rolled in about 8p.m. and continued till 11. I was staying in the lower summer cabin and could hear the creek running and went down in the dark (after the rain had stopped) to take a look. It was running bank to bank with standing waves, running even more strongly than last winter. But by morning it was just puddles. Memorial Day Photos: Dale Fisher has assembled some photos from the Memorial Day Weekend that members are welcome to see and copy as they wish. He will leave them on the .mac website for the next 60 days. The photos are at http://homepage.mac.com/dalefisheraz/SAWUURA. You will need to enter the password "young05". You can scan through the photos with a browser or use the slideshow button. TIDBITS OF SEVEN MILE CANYON HISTORY by Audrey Mawson In the early 1900’s, after the Graham-Tewksbury disputes had finished causing a certain amount of soil displacement in the local cemetery, a man named Henry Buckner apparently found what he was looking for in the hills west of Cherry Creek. He wanted to homestead a piece of property downhill from a reliable spring or two, with enough flat land near the drainage pattern to produce crops and/or start a cattle ranch. A section of Seven-Mile Canyon had a stream that ran 12 months a year, and because of the evidence of long-term Indian occupancy he must have realized it had once before been farmed. After registering his intention to patent this land, he had to reclaim it from the scrub oak, manzanita, juniper, and grasses whose mulch had been slowly restoring its fertility. This flat land, once farmed by Indians then abandoned for at least three hundred years, was put to the plow and axe made of metal rather than tools of stone. A man would settle and have 6 years to “prove up” that he had built a cabin and had produced crops; then he owned it. In 1919 an inspector/surveyor marked the property corners and recorded a well, 2 miles of barb wire, crops, a barn the wrong size, and a cabin that appears to me possibly smaller than recorded. He drew the stream entering the property from the middle of the east end where there happens to be a mountain. The homestead was first patented to one Willie Cohea, and how this other man thus gained the control of the canyon for many years is for you to wonder about. Try picturing his two little boys living in their cabin not much bigger than the barn and running all around the same areas where our children play at SAWUURA almost a hundred years later, and where Indian children played almost eight hundred years ago. If you spoke to these unknown children and called this area a wilderness, do you suppose they’d look around in bewilderment, or laugh? SAWUURA was their home. THE CAMP COOK by Vicki Stefani Some dishes work equally well for breakfast or dinner, and the frittata is one hearty example: less fussy than an omelet, more substantial than scrambled eggs, and infinitely adjustable, depending on what other ingredients you happen to have around. What you don’t eat immediately is just as good served up cold or at room temperature later. In Italy, for centuries, a loaf of bread slit open and stuffed with a frittata was the working man’s lunch, and in many regions, the word is used as an exclamation: “What a frittata!” people say, to comment on any action that ends up as a scrambled mess. At our house, leftover vegetables often reappear at breakfast in a frittata. Just remember to drain off the liquid from the vegetables; you want a frittata, not egg-drop soup. Almost anything can go into a frittata: that little bit of cooked meat that you don’t know what else to do with, for example, can be chopped fine and mixed in with fried potatoes or chopped cooked greens or tomatoes or any number of other things (zucchini with garlic is very good) to create a delicious and satisfying meal. At home I make frittatas in the non-stick pan I use for omelets. When camping, I used a well-seasoned cast-iron skillet. Here’s a basic frittata recipe, adapted from The Romagnolis’ Table: *Frittata di Cipolle e Funghi (Onion and Mushroom Frittata) 1 or 2 T. olive oil or butter (northern Italians use butter, southerners use olive oil) 1 good-sized onion, sliced in slivers 1/2 to 1 pound fresh mushrooms, cleaned and sliced salt and pepper to taste 7 eggs, beaten (or the equivalent of egg substitute; or just ppour in what looks like enough) Chopped parsley, marjoram, chives or other herb (if available) 1/4 to 1/2 cup grated Parmesan or Romano or cheese of your choice (optional) Heat the oil or melt the butter in your skillet over medium to medium-high heat. Add onion slivers and mushroom slices, sprinkle with salt (this draws out and intensifies vegetables’ flavor), and sauté, stirring occasionally, till the onions are translucent and the mushrooms are cooked. Mushrooms express liquid, so be sure that much of it has cooked away before adding the eggs. Reduce heat to medium-low and pour the eggs over the vegetables and sprinkle with herbs; stir to make sure the egg surrounds the vegetables. As the edges of the frittata start to solidify, lift them gently with a spatula to get the uncooked eggs down to the bottom of the pan. Now, here’s where I depart from tradition. When the frittata is nearly done, i.e., the eggs are almost solidified, I sprinkle on the cheese, reduce the heat to very low, cover the pan, and leave it another 3 to 5 minutes, till the eggs are set and the cheese is melted. Cut it into wedges to serve, with salsa, if you like. In Italy, it’s traditional to flip the frittata to brown both sides, but I’ve never succeeded at that. You can try it if you want. What you do is slide the frittata out of the pan onto a big plate, cooked side down. Cover the plate with the pan, then turn plate and pan together, letting the uncooked side of the frittata plop back into the pan. Return to high heat and cook until the second side is done, slide it out onto that big plate, cut like a pie, and serve (sprinkling with cheese, if you want, after it’s on the big plate). Some good bread, a salad, maybe a glass of wine, and breakfast becomes lunch or a light dinner. Buon appetito! NOTE: If you have questions or comments, or if there’s something you’d like to see in this column, please let me know. You can reach me at vstef48@earthlink.net.