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Harvest Time

Putting away food for the cold months is a major preoccupation these days. Like bees gathering nectar for honey, we are freezing, drying, canning and just generally squirreling away food for winter. We have a deer in the freezer and lots of fish already (it’s not even steelhead season yet). From our neighbors, we have some rabbit, a new meat for us. And from the garden I’ve dried onions and garlic for storage, made pesto from our basil and also from our kale to store in our freezer. Beans are frozen as well as corn from the Columbia Basin. I’ve dried nectarines from a roadside stand and tomorrow I need to make some jam from the really ripe ones. There are lots of potatoes to dig. We hope to get some honey from Ken’s bees however they have recently been attacked by ‘robber bees’ from someone else’s hive. He’s covered most of the entrances but still these robber bees are all around and they are not only aggresive to Ken’s bees but to us and the dogs too.

 

These are the ‘robber bees’ trying to steal Ken’s bees’ honey

 

Various kinds of garlic to get us through the winter

Yellow Onions. I am not so good at growing onions as I am at growing garlic

 

Dried nectarines for skiing and hiking outings! What a treat.

 

Little tomatoes. These would be good dried.

 

Big tomatoes for fresh eating or sauce

 

Still some bees getting nectar and pollen from the tall sunflowers

 

 

 

Spring Rolls with Nasturiams

Ok, we like to eat. And we eat pretty well. So we eat a lot. But we do enjoy what we eat. Today I made spring rolls with nasturiams. Dogs surrounded me even though they didn’t get any spring rolls. Just the idea of it. Ken smiled. He likes spring rolls. So do I.

All the fresh stuff came from our garden.

 

The nasturtiams

 

The mess

 

Serve these up with peanut sauce and a savory sauce and what else do you need? A cold beer or a glass of white wine!

Life is good. Maybe we should make a t shirt! Oh wait, that’s been done…………

 

Not Yet Fall

It’s been a few weeks since I had a nice hike in the mountains. I had grand plans for a hike every week this summer and have fallen far short of that goal. Yesterday’s hike was a good one. With the passing of Labor Day and the start of school, it sems that summer is over. Nights are cooler and days are way shorter. The light is marvelous and the air is crisp making for perfect hiking conditions. Luna and I drove most of the way to Slate Peak and then took the Buckskin trail down into the basin below the lookout. We left the trail and rambled through the basin and then up to the ridge where we found the West Fork of the Pasayten trail and returned to the road and walked back to the car. It was not a long hike but it was long on views and surprisingly, quite a few flowers. There were also lots of migrating birds – in particular I noticed Cooper’s Hawks, American Pipits and White – crowned Sparrows. Also many finches in flight that I could not identify.

 

Almost to Mazama on highway 20 I saw this free range or feral piano, abandoned by the side of the road. There was a package of castors to replace the broken ones. I’ve seen bbq’s, out dated tv’s, couches, even old satellite dishes; but this is the first time of seen a piano on the side of a road.

 

Luna is wearing red because it’s hunting season and more than once I’ve benn told that she looks like a black bear.

 

This photo needs some arrows to show our route. Our trail drops down there in the shade on the bottom right of the image and then you can barely see it crossing the talus (rock) slope to the left before it drops down into the meadow. We crossed through the larch trees and on the other side of them left the trail to ramble up through the basin and to the ridge, where we joined the second trail and it took us to the road just below and to the left of the lookout on the high point.

Red leaves show that there’s already been a frost. It was 42 in the sunshine when we started our hike. I was glad I had a jacket and wool gloves.

 

Luna is already out on the trail.

 

In the meadow there were lots of flowers. Here is a paintbrush (Castilleja sp) with blue gentian in the background

 

I love the dark blue gentian, a late summer flower in the high country.

 

Looking back at the trail as we enter the trees.

There was a family of Cooper’s Hawks calling loudly and flying around in this area.

 

Moss shows that the area is still wet despite the fact that we’ve had no rain in a month or more.

 

I could not resist this tiny scene

 

How many months of lupine are there? Seems like I’ve been seeing it since April!

 

Pink monkeyflower and its shadows.

 

More paintbrush. I saw at least three different colors of it.

 

Someone’s burrow. It is pretty good sized. Maybe a marmot? I think they live in rocks. A wolverine?

 

Another view looking back. We’ve left the trail and are heading up now.

 

And looking down valley. Within a month all those larch (tamarack) trees will turn golden and their needles will begin to drop.

 

A much-needed rest in the shade.

 

Now we are higher than when we started.

 

My cell phone has a compass app. I wonder how it works even without a cell signal? Any ideas?

 

Looking north towards Canada. The stunted spruce and other species of trees at high elevations are sometimes referred to as krumholtz – crooked, bent or twisted

 

Luna was happy to find two lingering snow patches

 

And up to the road. It was almost a mile walk back to the car.

 

Views to the west from the road. That’s Mount Baker in the middle.

 

And a last view of the lookout

 

We stopped in a silver forest to look for birds. Mostly Yellow-rumped Wablers. Also a Townsend’s Solitaire.

 

An aster next to the creek.

 

Ahhhhhh.

 

 

Big Valley Walk

Luna and I drove up to Mazama for some errands the other day and on the way home we stopped at Big Valley (part of the Methow Wildlife area and in the winter a great ski trail shared with dogs) for a quiet walk. Summer is drawing to an end and much of the green has faded to yellow. The trail is dusty from use. Walkers, dogs, horses, bicycles and wildlife all share this path through the mixed woods. The river is quite low and yet still inviting and refreshing.

Ponderosa pines

This field used to grow grain or hay. I wonder if this year it is producing canola with the bright yellow flowers?

Still fascinated by patterns in the water

Fish science? 4 meters from the river, something happened. There was a tiny rivulet of a side channel with little fish that might not get out to the main river.

Luna. She hurt her leg sometime after this and won’t be going any walks or playing in the river for a while.

Asters. Nice to see a few wildflowers still in bloom.

A Walk in Twisp

Last weekend I had the opportunity to take a documentary photograhy class at the Confluence Gallery in Twisp. Lyn McCracken, of Seattle, who is showing her work, Mujeres de la Guerra, at the gallery, taught it. Lyn is a teacher at the NW School in Seattle and also has worked on several documentary projects of her own. I was very impressed with her large format black and white darkroom prints.

We were a small and varied group of students. One person borrowed a camera, another used only a cell phone. We all had stories to tell. I worked on a couple of different story lines and when it was time to show our final projects, I did a simple walk through Twisp.

 

I started with an image of Lyn giving us direction. Please excuse the typo in the first slide! Egads.

 

 

 

 

 

This fellow has a great story. I hope to follow up on it at some point.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At some point we were supposed to include a self portrait.

Many thanks to Donna Keyser, Confluence Gallery manager, for inviting Lyn to come to Twisp, show her work and teach for us. And many thanks to Lyn for coming.