The days are short

but they start off with a bang!

Back in the Kitchen Again

Dumping old pickled carrots into the sink caused this little seductive still life to take form. Do you ever put carrot sticks into the pickle jar when the pickles are all gone?





Fresh clams sauteed in butter -- treasure from the sea! We dug these horse clams at a minus low tide. The "gooey ducks" (geoducs) got away. Special equipment is indicated, a tubular thing called a clam gun. (Does that come with NRA membership?)

http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1076720/index.htm

That's a link to a nice piece on the geoduc and Puget Sound.

Orca Sighting

Today around mid-morning something out on the water caught my eye -- a small skiff, stationary, with a single occupant. Then, ah ha! three Orcas surfaced! The skiff had "Research" written prominently along its hull and was observing the whales as they made their way quickly north. Just a few days ago I'd been thinking of the possibility of seeing Orcas this winter here in Puget Sound, so this sighting was pretty exciting.

I'm happy to be back after a couple of days in Seattle. Had dinner with dear friends, struggled through Pilates, went shopping, cooked up a brown rice and vegetable dish for the monthly "Cena", dashed downtown to SAM to see the Hopper show and do lunch with Connie, more errands and finally, we got the ferry to Kingston. A funny thing happened. For the first time, by becoming so engrossed in my book, I missed getting back to the car and had to walk off the ferry and meet up with David further up the road. It was cold and dark but the holiday lights at the Port and all along the road were cheery.

It's so peaceful here. The sight of water so soothing. It's great to be back.

Saddest of News

Pepper, formerly known as "The Devil Dog", more recently considered the sweetest schipperke in the world, took his last little walk yesterday morning and then collapsed, all used up.  Certainly, he had more close calls and adventures in his sixteen years than most dogs.  He survived a night of frigid winter weather in coyote country in New Mexico,  he got run over by a car in front of our Seattle house and survived with just some sore spots and, as Jacob remembers, "the shit squished out of him", he led all the dogs at the off-leash area under or over the fence and down the cliff and back again -- these are just a few memories of a most independent and high spirited dog who could never ignore an interesting scent.  We buried him in a beautiful spot overlooking Puget Sound.  It's been really painful.  Anyone who has truly loved a pet knows.  

Technology and Nature: The Untameables

Cloudless sunrise over the Cascades this morning revealed thick fog over south Puget Sound and behind downtown Seattle.  I wrestled the spotting scope off the tripod and replaced it with my old Nikon film camera equipped with telephoto lens.  I've been unhappy with the results from my little digital camera, trying to capture the variety of boat traffic on the Sound so rescued the old SLR from storage.  Hoping the rising sun would glaze Mt. Rainier with a rosy glow like it did some months ago plus light up the towers downtown, I made coffee and waited, but no luck, the fog moved in and the scene got hazy.  Took a shot anyway and when I finish the roll and put it on a disk I'll see the results.  We get so spoiled by digital technology!

Speaking of technology, I've had my share of failures in the last 24 hours.  First, a very embarrassing email went out with my ragged, rough notes from the gallery meeting instead of the  three page polished to near-perfection version of the minutes it had taken hours to write. Panic!  Fortunately, the finished version was still in Documents, in some strange form that didn't allow it to be attached.  Those nasty notes kept attaching in my experiments.  After a call to my Mac guru, GVW, the problem was resolved and the minutes went out to the gallery members.  Huge sigh of relief as I poured a welcome glass of wine to go with my comfort food dinner (blue corn tortilla chip nachos).  Relief was short-lived because the internet connection soon failed.  A long phone intervention by the ISP tech repair determined that the problem was in our Time Capsule router, so I called Apple, but they were gone for the night.  That was last night and now this morning it's fixed, thanks to Apple tech repair in Ottawa.   Correction: It was not fixed. I had to take it back to Apple and then the new one didn't work right, so I had to take it back, and fight with the store manager because I didn't bring the box it came in.
The world is in financial meltdown but we still have the internet.  How cool is that?  The last techno issue is the satellite TV.  This morning a repair guy is coming to see why it suddenly shuts off plus I'm hoping he can improve the picture quality.

David left early in the morning to keep an appointment with the insurance adjuster for the boat and Jacob had gone back to Seattle the night before, so I was alone all day except for when neighbor Janet came over with two more balls of homemade butter.  When the internet connection failed, I suddenly felt so isolated.  It makes a big difference when living kind of remote like this. 

Yesterday was lovely prior to things messing up.  I was outside all day, landscaping.  The bed along the woodsy side of the house is finally done after digging down and sifting out an astounding amount of pebbles, stones and vinca roots.   Neighbor Joe's handy sifting screen really did a job!  The horrible, invasive vinca is now replaced with azaleas, pieris japonica and a single Yuletide camellia in the center between the windows.  In five years or so, it should look great!  After lunch, I went back out and worked on a border of beach rocks that used to be imbedded among grass and weeds in the flower beds.  Now they're placed in a partial ring over cardboard and landscape fabric around the former fire pit transformed into a drought tolerant garden.  I had used leftover plastic from construction materials under the rocks, but garden guru Dori advised me against that, so they all had to be moved and washed.  Today I plan on doing more digging and sifting out of rocks and gravel and planting the last azalea.    The wax myrtle still needs a home in the ground.  Jacob was here so briefly I didn't get him to dig the hole.  David doesn't do gardening.  Lucky I love it!  It's a beautiful day and time to go out and play in the garden.