Happy Holidays!

Sending you best wishes (and fishes and fishermen)
for the holidays and throughout the new year!

The low down on high tide

Living on the coast, and doing anything on or near the water really demands paying attention to the tide tables.  Spring tides, that happen during the new and full moon, bring super high tides and really low tides. Today was the new moon, and the high tide was 10.6 feet.  I knew both of these things, but figured that I could walk along the bay a couple hours before high tide, on the beach.  WRONG.

The only place to walk was between the driftwood and the base of the dune. I hurried along the edge of the bay, and I kept my eye on the waves that were moving the driftwood. As the tide was still coming in, I chose to walk on the roadway for my return trip.

Today was a day when many driftwood logs were lifted away from beaches where they had long resided, and floated off towards new locations.  Photos were taken from the Alsea Bay bridge.

Picking apples

We were invited out to a friend's farm to pick apples today.  And he wouldn't let us leave without 2 five-gallon buckets full.  Together they weighed 42 pounds.

He also filled a basket full of produce from his garden, for us, including round carrots, which I had never seen before, broccoli, green onions, artichokes, squash, and tomatoes.

And we got to visit with the chickens and horses.

We enjoyed the visit, but I don't think that we will leave the ocean and move to a farm anytime soon. Way too much work!

Two weeks and a little newspaper

Two weeks ago, I plucked all the tomatoes, and brought them inside.  Few showed any color other than green. I lined a basket with newspaper, wrapped them together, and let them ripen.

I've been checking them daily, and we have been eating them as they ripened.  Tasty.

Here's the recipe to ripen green tomatoes:
     tomatoes + newspaper + time (at room temperature) = mmm good

And after the rain ...

The sun came out today, and I headed out looking for mushrooms.  After a long dry spell, the boletes have finally begun to appear.  I snagged a one-pounder, a king bolete, my first of the season.

When the storms arrive

After a long dry spell from summer into fall, the rainy season has returned in earnest.  This has moved us into our "putting food by" mode.

Over the last few days we have smoked Chinook salmon and albacore, picked all the tomatoes, picked wild huckleberries, and dehydrated apples.

The one that got away

It's the salmon season and this time of year we hear lots of stories about "the one that got away".  However, in this case, I'm not talking about a fish.  The one that got away was our only ripe tomato.  Growing tomatoes on the Oregon coast is dicey, because our night time temperatures are too chilly.  (The daytime temperatures are pretty cool as well, during summer.)  At any rate, I had been admiring the tomato as it ripened.  I even took a photo of it last week.  A few days ago, I went out to pick it, and was quite surprised to find that it had already been picked, probably by a raccoon.


And for those of you expecting a fishing story:  the salmon rarely get away up here.

For the birds

Throughout the year, I put out a feeder filled with sunflower seeds, to encourage songbirds to visit the yard.  The goldfinches of summer seem to have flown south, but our resident birds still stop by to grab a bite.

Today's guest of honor at the feeder was a red-breasted nuthatch. He made so many trips to the feeder that I grabbed a camera and caught some of his returns.

All in a day's harvest

 August 1st was the opening day for salmon fishing in our home bay, so Bori headed out fishing.  Not wanting to come home empty handed, he tossed in a crab pot to pick up after he was done fishing. The moon and planets must have been lined up just right because he came home with 2 Chinook salmon (together weighing about 50 pounds), and 10 large Dungeness Crabs.

Meanwhile, I went out gathering wild mushrooms, and came home with 4 pounds of Chanterelles.  This time of year, we "shop" in the great outdoors.

In the pea plants

This afternoon, I was checking for snow peas to harvest, and encountered a little Pacific treefrog.  It was patient and didn't flee while I ran inside for a camera.  Always a treat to find.

Garden report

  Today, after eight months in the ground, I pulled my elephant garlic.

 


While I was pulling the garlic, a female Anna's hummingbird came to look at me.  She approached within about 2 feet, and decided that I wasn't dangerous to her, and flew over to some of my lucifer Crocosmia for a sip of nectar, and a brief rest.  I've been planting Crocosmia all over the place to attract hummingbirds, so I am always happy to see them utilizing the red flowers (see below).

Out the mouth of the Umpqua

The ocean fishing season has begun. But there are lots of other things happening out on the water as well.

Early in the salmon season, pairs of common murres are abundant on the water.  The chicks have recently jumped off their colony rocks and into the sea.  At this stage, they can't fly, and can't dive for fish to feed themselves.  So the chicks pair up with a parent, and go to sea.  The parent dives to feed the chick.  Each pair has a call that the other recognizes.  After the parent surfaces, they call back and forth until reunited.  I have often seen larger chicks, but last week's chicks were remarkably small compared to the parents.

And yes, the first ocean salmon of the season was caught: a hatchery coho, weighing about 7 pounds.  It had recently been dining on small squid.

Wet and wild in the mountains

We have just returned from 10 days in the Cascades.  The temperatures were a little cooler than we expected for summer, but the scenery was gorgeous, and Oregonians see beauty in water, regardless of its form.

Diamond Peak, from Gold Lake.

White pelicans foraging near the Cascade Lakes Highway.

Raindrops regrouping after a morning shower.

Salt Creek Falls, through the trees.

Our new high-tech, low-weight canoe on its maiden voyage at Hosmer Lake, beneath Mount Bachelor (above) and South Sister (below).

Green thumb

The long awaited snow peas have started producing, prolifically.  In 10 days, my harvest has gone from zero to 2 pounds 5 ounces.  I might have over-planted them.

At the same time, I counted 6 or 8 artichokes that are ready for harvest.  So there is something to be said for Oregon's cool damp climate: spring crops grow well here.