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!)