Merry Christmas!

Christmas here on the Oregon Coast is sunny and the temperature made it into the 50's.  Not bad for any month of the year.  A little surprising for December.

Best wishes for 2014!

Be warm!

Even the crescent moon looks cold in our clear, wintery sky.

 

 

 

And yes, it did snow here.

 

 

A season of colorful sunsets

After a long stretch of gray days, we have had over a week of clear skies.  Some days the evening skies produce almost a kaleidoscope of color.

Enjoy December!

The harvest continues

After early fall rains, we have had many clear days in October.  Seems like perfect conditions for mushrooms.  My harvest has shifted from chanterelles to king boletes.

yesterday's harvest

today's harvest (4.5 pounds)

All these mushrooms were gathered within a couple blocks of our house.  Three of them were gathered on our property.

And of course, the fishing season continues.

yesterday's coho salmon

What the harvest moon started

Any time a full moon is named the harvest moon, we can't help but feel motivated to harvest something.

September's harvest moon, setting in the morning, over the Pacific

 A fishing expedition resulted in the capture of 2 salmon, one small Chinook salmon, and one large coho salmon.

Chinook on left, coho on right

A mushroom-gathering expedition resulted in 10 pounds of huge chanterelles.  Most of them were the size of my hand.  Also I found the first king bolete of the season.

A week later, our final expedition sought Dungeness crabs.  We came home with 19, which yielded 7.5 pounds of crab meat.

Uncooked Dungeness crabs

Steaming hot, just out of the pot

Cooked crabs in the rinse tank

Since the crabbing expedition on Thursday, we have been under assault from the remains of a Japanese typhoon.  But the freezer is full, and we only lost power for three hours.

Seize the moment and harvest whatever is in season!

24 hours in the life of a bucket

After a trip to Portland, in the back of the car, on Wednesday afternoon the white bucket went blueberry picking in Siletz, joined by the green bucket.  Together, they hauled 29 pounds of blueberries.

 Then, after getting up early the next morning, to catch the low tide, the white bucket went gathering mussels.

Fishing and gathering

'Tis the season for extensive fishing and gathering on the Oregon coast.

First, the fishing results: A few days ago, Bori landed his first king salmon (aka Chinook) of the season.  This one was caught in the ocean, south of here.  A very tasty wild fish!

Then yesterday, we spent an hour and a half crabbing in our local bay.  We came home with 12 Dungeness crabs.  They yielded over 4 pounds of crab meat.  Also very tasty!

After the crab meat was all picked, I headed out into the woods in search of chanterelle mushrooms.  It's early in the mushroom season, but I came home with 2 pounds 12 ounces of chanterelles.  Also very tasty!

Although that was the end of our wild harvest, we continue to eat greens from the garden box.

There's almost always something fresh to eat around here.

Little cabin in the woods

We have just returned from our annual trip to Odell Lake, in the Cascades.  Our home away from home is an old log cabin in the woods, at the edge of the lake.

Cabin A

In addition to fishing for Kokanee salmon and Mackinaw at Odell Lake, we paddled our canoe around many of the smaller Cascade Lakes.


The farthest we traveled was to Sparks Lake, which is just below South Sister, Broken Top, and Mount Bachelor.  Quite a spectacular setting.  And the wildflowers were blooming in abundance.

Bori at Sparks Lake

South Sister with columbines in foreground

Broken Top framed by rock outcroppings

Panorama of Sparks Lake

Mount Bachelor, and our canoe, from Hosmer Lake

Panorama of South Sister, Broken Top and Bachelor from Lava Lake

Follow the pink-blossom path

Almost every year, the blooming of wild rhododendrons peaks in May, on the Oregon Coast.  A walk on our neighborhood nature trail, alongside several lakes and through old spruces and younger firs, is very pink this time of year.  Pink above you, pink behind you, pink to the right and left, and pink blossoms littering the path.

I

 
It's Mother Earth's local celebration.
Happy Mother's Day!

End of the season in Bonaire

Thanks for joining me underwater this season in Bonaire. Time to get out of the water and fly off to the states.

Flamingos

We are flying out tomorrow.

Parakeets

Here are a few parting shots that didn't get posted, but are worth a quick peek.

Yellowhead wrasse

Sharpnose puffer

Blue chromis

Turtles

This year, we have occasionally encountered turtles on our dives, and all of them have been hawksbill turtles.  They have been one to two feet in length, and most often we encounter them no deeper than 40 feet. They are interesting to follow, and watch as they feed on sponges that don't look very appetizing. They don't mind divers, if the divers give them space.

 

Remember, turtles are reptiles, and they need to breath air at the surface.  We occasionally see them going up for air, like the one below.

Viva la French fish!

We have two French fish down here, the French grunt, and the French angelfish.  Sorry, but I don't know why either was named French.

French grunt are about the same size as smallmouth grunt (6 to 10 inches), and are easy to distinguish, because the yellow stripes below their lateral line run diagonally, instead of horizontal.  During the day, we encounter small schools of them milling around shady areas of the reef.

French angelfish are about the size of queen angelfish (10 to 14 inches).  As juveniles, they are striped and act as cleaners.  As adults, they lose the stripes and are elegant looking. We often see pairs of them feeding on sponges. Top photo is a juvenile, next photo is an intermediate phase French angelfish. Bottom two photos are adults.