Summer Foods

Can I just say that in about May, I am tired of apples.

In May, I have eaten apples since around October, and by May, they are getting pretty sad.

In June we now finally have strawberries, I am so happy it is summer.

2011 Spring Haiku

Sunny Day Today
Stuck In My Office All Day
When Can I Go Home?

First of the season

Chaterelles that is.

Yesterday Russell and I went out for what is really our second mushroom foray of the fall season. Target: Chanterelles. We went out last weekend, and while we found buttons, none of them were big enough to harvest.

Yesterday we grabbed our friends Jason and Egan and headed for the Cascades. We hit several spots without finding anything, then, paydirt. Our first pound of chanterelles of the season.

I forgot to take pictures unfortunately, but here's one from Russell. At our chanterelle site we looked up and there, just hanging out and watching the four of us, was this big owl. Pretty neat

What I did on my "summer vacation"

Whoa it has been a while since I posted! May or was it April. I do have my reasons. Namely one big one. During this period I have been writing, editing, lab working, and writing some more. And did I mention writing. I even took a writing class. All to get my first post doctoral manuscript assembled and submitted. It was sent off to the journal last week, and now the waiting game begins to get rejected comments back from the journal. I'm now happily on to the next project, one I am pretty excited about.

But work was not all I did during my summer. So now I present a short photo essay of the remainder of my summer since you all last heard from me.

I went mushrooming with Russell and a friend.


I climbed Mount Baker with my Uncle and my Cousin and some friends.



The following weekend I rode the Seattle to Portland bicycle tour with my Dad. Two hundred excellent miles over two days.



I brewed a beer with some help from Russell


Russell and I went on vacation to the cabin in the Sierras, where we swam, hung out on the deck, went fishing, and visited some old mines and ghost towns.



And I went on a great, but soggy, hike with my Dad, and when we got rained out, he and I and my mom and some friends went to the Evergreen State fair.






Well there you have but a snapshot of my summer. There were more adventures, and the fall adventures have already begun. I'm going to try to post more regularly now. Until next time....

Post coming soon

I'm putting together a tribute to the Gulf Coast and Keys right now. I spent a fair amount of time in the areas that are now being affected by the spill while I was a graduate student. Many of the communities were just hanging on before, and this spill will devastate not only the environment down there, which is very fragile, but also the livelihoods of a good portion of the population.

We can rebuild her...

We have the technology....Better than she was before. Better, stronger, faster.

Ladies and gentlemen, Frankenbike has returned from her exile to the shop. Today's new parts include new gear cables, and a whole new flywheel and cassette. But she works like a charm.

The fair and more gardening.

After a long but successful week of staring at spreadsheets (next week I actually get to go work in the lab), I was ready for some weekend fun. On the docket for this weekend was a trip to the Shepherds extravaganza at the Puyallup Spring Fair. Despite being filthy with knitters, crocheters, spinners, and weavers (I'm not kidding, I am NEVER the only person knitting on a bus. Last week someone was spinning on a drop spindle ON THE BUS) there aren't any big wool or yarn markets in Washington. I find this a little odd. The closest things we have are the yarn marketplace at Madrona (I haven't gone yet) and the Shepherds Extravaganza at the spring fair. I wanted some new spinning fiber, and maybe even a raw fleece so off I went to the fair, accompanied by my friend Grace, who is always down for an adventure.

It was very fun, but I have to say, the whole place was.....smaller....than I expected. Good, but smaller. We saw angora goats.

They were less blurry in real life. The midway was in full swing. We decided not to ride anything, though it appeared that's what most other people were there for.

They were setting up for the demolition derby later, and we saw the cars go by.


There was a sustainability section, on how to make your house and yard better for the environment (definitely in the Pacific Northwest when they are advertising the next Rodeo adjacent to the sustainability tent). There were Pygmy goats (a whole show of them in fact).

And also miniature horses (but I don't have any pictures of them). And Dancing Horses.

And that was it. Like I said, really good, I had a lot of fun, but small, the whole place only took a couple hours to wander. There was more we could have stayed for, the pig races for instance, but we decided to head home. The haul:

That's two bags of alpaca, one big bag of romney, and one bag of angora/softwool. The three bags of white fiber I'm going to dye with mushrooms after they are spun up this summer.

Sunday was our regular Farmers market/clean house/house projects day. And Alli came over for dinner. Of note, we worked in the garden (I'm liking the garden). We moved the remainder of our big pile of dirt out of the driveway and into the backyard. And then we planted.


We've added a third bed, and we planted 4 kinds of tomatoes in it yesterday. I also planted some radishes. The plants have been loving the weather.



And so has the cat. She's spent most of her time rolling around on the pavement in the back soaking up sun.

Just like all the humans (well except for the rolling on the pavement part).