Yes, that is a quarter next to the mushrooms!


Amazing to find these in the city - I only found about 4, but from those four I made a couple of meals and filled 8 trays very full in the dehydrator. The weather was cold and therefore the maggots hadn't gotten them - in fact, they were in near perfect condition.

I've put in a cover crop (crimson clover) and fava beans in the back section of the garden. The clover is up and doing well but I haven't seen anything from the fava beans yet. I planted garlic and want to get some shallots in, but think it might be getting late for the latter. Already I am feeling the crunch for space, but my friend pointed out that there are a few terraces in the front of the house. I haven't asked if I could dig these up yet, and probably won't do anything about them until spring, but now I feel like I have a bit more space - and space that gets quite a bit of sunlight as well (for Seattle, at least). Greg is thinking about putting some raspberry bushes up there and I think tomatoes would find a good home there as well.

I've got my green cones - one is in and the other I'm working on. It feels good to be recycling my food scraps in my own backyard for compost on MY garden.

Although it is too late to start anything outside, I am going to try my hand at sprouts. It seems easy enough and sprouts are really nutritious. The biggest 'problem' with growing your own sprouts is that they need to be rinsed at least every 12 hours, which can be problematic if you're away a lot. While that is often the case for me during late spring through early fall, right now it is down time and I don't feel that the rinsing requirements will be a problem. I've got adzuki beans soaking right now. I'd like to get broccoli and clover sprouts going, but I haven't found a local source for seed yet. I may just order them online instead.

My place is starting to come together quite well - Greg and I just bought a type of 'baker's rack' that now makes it possible to put away all the kitchen items. It also looks pretty nice as well, and I made sure that I was buying something that was not only durable, but able to be broken down and transported when we move in the future. I need to get a few more things - a wooden shelf for the bathroom items, a bedside drawer unit, a tv stand, and a shoe rack for near the door - but money is tight right now so those things will have to wait.

All in all, if I could just get this damn thesis over, I'd be one happy person :)

Moving Time!

Greg and I found a duplex in Wallingford that has a chest freezer and an area for gardening - two things that really make me excited (the chest freezer may not be so obvious, but I've been having a massive problem with food storage when it comes to all the foraging I've been doing lately). There is also a cute sauna in the bathroom, but I really don't know how much use it would get. The upstairs apartment has a hot tub that is outside, that they said they'd be willing to let us use anytime, and that is more tempting. This apartment is also $100 less per month - it's only downside really is the fact that it's a 'daylight basement' apartment. There isn't enough daylight in Seattle for an upstairs apartment, let alone this one, but alas - I suppose I need to invest in some good lighting (this apartment actually has lights on all the ceilings, which seems to be rare here and nice).

Next I have to figure out what to do about the little garden area out back. No one has done anything with it in many years, and I hear that there are just some flowers and weeds that grow back there. The landlord actually mentioned ripping it out and letting it go to lawn, but I quickly assured him that I would be using it.

But what to do with it at this late point in the season? I've been helping out on the UW farm - if not for that, I would have thought it was far too late to do anything with it (I'm from Wisconsin, you don't do anything at this point to a garden other than harvest what you already have and maybe throw on some compost!). But I've learned that there are options - winter vegetables and cover crops. I'm actually not certain that I can START even the winter veggies right now, but maybe fava beans or the cover crop. I just signed up for the 'green team' at the UW farm - they're the ones that decide what crops, where, and when they go in. This should be helpful in my planning my own garden - I just hope they start meeting soon.

If not this year, then next year I will have a better idea on what can and can't be planted as well (and of those that can be planted, which do the best). The UW farm practices 'natural pesticide deterrents' - or something like that, I forget the correct terminology. Basically, growing things in certain areas that naturally deter pests from other plants, is what I'm getting at.

We grow a ton of things on the farm, and I've seen what has done well and not so well there. The quinoa, I'll have to ask about, but I don't think it ever did real well - sure, it grew quite large and had a lot of seed on it (grain), but I don't know if it ever changed the correct 'color' before it was time to harvest it, or if all the aphids finally took them all out. It's hard to know these things since harvesting is seldom announced and even when things aren't finished (like the ton of green tomatoes that were growing in patches around the farm) they get ripped out and a new crop of something else is planted. Maybe they're sticking to schedule, or maybe someone is overly anxious about rotating crops, I don't know, but it annoys me when a crop that wasn't finished is suddenly gone the next day. At least they announced that the tomatoes were being pulled.

The potatoes had fungal issues, but some of them still produced quite well. I don't think I'd plant them though as organic potatoes seem easy (and cheap) enough to get from the co-op. The peas even had an issue because someone vandalized them one night, but obviously, that wasn't a growing issue. Still, I'm not sure if beans and peas are something I want to plant either. The corn didn't grow well - I don't want corn though. The cucumbers did ok, but I think they would've done much better with some extra watering.

So what DID grow well? Well - tomatoes (though they didn't ripen before being ripped out), carrots, kale, chard, joi choy, kalarabi, beats, radishes, lettuces, spinach, eggplant, artichoke?, sunflowers, fava beans, squashes, turnips, brussel sprouts, chives, onions, leeks, tomatillos, basil and other herbs, rhubarb, strawberries, etc. The artichoke - I think there was only one, and I certainly didn't get to eat it. We have a fig tree, raspberry and blackberries bushes, a black currant bush, and gooseberries as well.

From this, I've learned that I LOVE kale, and it grows really well. The chard, lettuces, and spinach too. These last three things are great for a home garden because you can then just go pull it when you need it - generally (for me at least) it doesn't take them long to go limp in the fridge, so fresh is far better! Beets are definitely a go for my garden, and probably eggplant and brussel sprouts too. Definitely onions, and maybe leeks. Ok, I've started my list... now I need to figure out what I should do at this point in time...

I saw this guy hiking (this is my excuse to throw in a picture) -

Foraging for mushrooms can have its downsides -

Perhaps somewhat ironically, after going off the trails and trekking over fallen trees, over creeks, through patches of devils club... I fall when I step back onto the trail because the little man-made 'bridge' I'm stepping onto was wet and covered in slime algae that was very slippery.

It was all worth it, but I'm saddened that mushroom season seems to be coming to a fast end. Of course, we didn't get much rain this year during the right times, so the mushrooms weren't as plentiful as in other years (not that I've been out other years, this truly is my first 'mushrooming' year, but I've heard...).

Take a look at this beauty. The King Bolete, Poricini, Boletus edulis. This is the largest specimen I found, and I expected it to be full of worms...
(sorry for the robe, my husband insisted on pictures at inopportune moments)



Another cool photo:


I found matsutakes, quite by accident really, and I don't think they're plentiful in the area I was in (I found 4, in 2 locations off the same trail, even after going back and thoroughly going through the smallish area). They're good, but I'm not in total awe - in fact, since the veil wasn't broken, I contemplated selling the other three (best price for unbroken veil). But that seems like too much work, and ethically, I'm not sure I want to go there anyways. Probably somewhat unsurprisingly, my favorite mushroom is the porcini. I've cooked it in several ways now - all very good. I've got a lot of it dried as well, probably not enough to get me through the winter though. The only mushroom that may change to my favorite when I finally get to try it is Sparassis crispa, or the cauliflower mushroom. I've heard really good things about it, yet haven't been lucky enough to come across one. I really like Hericium (the Bears Head, Bears Tooth, Lions Mane), and it's probably my second favorite. A surprising favorite was Russula xerampelina - the Shrimp or Woodland Russula. It seems somewhat plentiful, so I'd recommend not foregoing them when out hunting for other mushrooms.

Last week I took a much needed vacation (kind of), as my parents were visiting for the first time since May of 2006. Now, I am certainly well aware of the bounty of 'free' food available around Seattle, and appreciate it greatly, but it was still astonishing to hear my parents practically shout out, 'Pull over, I see some blackberries!' multiple times each day. I assured them that wherever our destination was, there would be some to pick there - and there were, of course. They also raided the neighbors' trees and picked a large amount of two varieties of plum. From these items, we made dehydrated fruit rolls ('fruit roll-ups') and 30+ jars of delicious and low sugar jam (a bit tart, just the way I like it).


In addition, my parents being big into fishing, we went out for five straight days and fished for Oncorhynchus gorbuscha (pink salmon). I believe our total was 24 salmon altogether, though 12 were caught in the last day. I now have a whole lot of fresh and smoked salmon in my freezer. I also showed them how I scuba dive for Dungeness Crab (my dive buddy and I took home 10) in Puget Sound, and crawdads in Lake Washington.

I wanted to also show them the bounty of mushrooms we get in this area, but as luck would have it, it's been fairly dry. Even after we got a bit of rain and other people were finding Lobster and Chicken of the Woods mushrooms, I got skunked (despite someone telling me supposedly right where those Lobsters were, too...).

I did find this guy though - largest toad I've ever come across (Bufo boreas?). The thing easily took up my whole hand.


And then I found these freshly made marks:

I had to think a little about being alone on the trail (my parents were waiting at the trail head, haha), but alas, black bears are generally not a problem for humans (we are more to them, though).

Ok, I didn't get completely skunked - I found several of these nice-sized boletes, but I have no idea what species they are... so in all reality, unless I can get them ID'd and eat them, the mushroom hunt was unsuccessful.

Mason Lake

Yesterday, Greg and I did a hike up to Mason Lake. We haven't been doing enough hikes lately (had the scuba bug for awhile now), so I chose this one to get back in hiking shape. While we were victorious in reaching our destination and making it back out, the trail gave us quite a beating! I can't say it was an altogether difficult hike (though the forestry service rates it 'more difficult'), but we just haven't hiked as much as we usually do.

Lots of wildflowers and berries on this hike! A few hidden gems near the 'top' as well... :)

Elgaria coerulea - Northern Alligator Lizard (missing his tail!)

Crabs!

On Saturday I went up to Whidbey Island and dove off Polnell Point for dungeness crab. This was my first time actually finding any dungeness crab of size, and it was a lot of fun! It was a bit different than diving Tolmie State Park - there the ground was covered in a ton of macro algae and we just sorted through it to find crab. At Polnell Point, we actually were poking the ground where it looked 'funny' to find buried dungies. Actually, when there was only a couple of times that I poked the ground and found a dungie without seeing it. Their little 'feelers' stick out of the ground a little and I spot them quite easily. All in all, we bagged 14 male crabs >6.25" in width - I took my 5 and the guy I went with gave me three of his, for a total of 8 crabs! :) Other really neat things I saw on the dive included a big orange sea pen, lots of tiny little sea pens, lots of sea cucumbers with their 'butts' sticking out of the ground (one even had the color of the sea apple!), and lots of other neat little critters. Did three dives, technically, but the last one was just to finish off my 1000psi and look for one last crab. It didn't last very long at 45' but we bagged a nice one right away, only to find out we had a crab that was molting so had to throw it back. So we were still short one, but it was good anyways :)

There's nothing better than cracking open freshly cooked crab with a hammer and drinking beer after a long day's worth of diving!

Lake Washington South Loop

Greg and I have biked around the north part of Lake Washington - 30 miles:




Now I'm planning to have us do the south loop - 40 miles:



Soon, hopefully, we will do the entire lake - ~52 miles!

The Everglades

I really like the drive through the Everglades in the southern part of Florida. There are alligators lying about sunning themselves everywhere! And unlike the northern states in the U.S., the birds are much larger and more colorful.

I drove 2.5 hours one-way just to dive at a location called Phil Foster Park. I was told that it wasn't the most pretty of dive sites, but had some pretty interesting critters. Well, I didn't see much more than the usual suspects, but I could tell that the site probably would have more 'interesting' creatures than people find out on the reefs. This is primarily because the dive site, for the most part, was sandy and there wasn't much for cover. That, of course, calls for fauna more adapted for exposed sandy substrate, such as jawfish, batfish (Ogcocephalidae, not the pelagic silver and black banded types), shrimp gobies and their pistol shrimp partners, etc. I did see both gobies and jawfish, but sadly no batfish. They are much rarer though. It was a good dive, a bit chilly in February, but still well worth it.

Water fowl hunting in the Everglades -


Some type of bristle worm -

Leaf Cutter Ants on Roatan Island, Honduras

So cool to see these guys in person!

Video for Keystone Dive

Pez put together this interesting (longer) video of the dive out to Keystone State Park -

http://vimeo.com/2675603