Cleanest Beach on the West Coast

Dan and I estimate we've carried four tons of debris off the Clallam Bay beach since 2003.  And that's a very conservative estimate.

This is the debris-tree near the Clallam River bridge. Every year we pile the stuff that's too heavy to carry all the way back down the beach.  Then, each spring, when the bridge extension is replaced across the river, we get our wheelbarrow and haul all this stuff to the Clallam Bay Park dumpster.

This is the other tree, with a big flivver tire on it.  It must have been buried in mud, all these decades.  That rust thing used to be a coil of wire.

This is the cleanest beach between Alaska and Tierra del Fuego.  I dare somebody else to show us a cleaner beach, anywhere, year-long, that's over a mile long. 

All we do is always take a plastic bag along and fill it with every scrap of man-made detritus we see.  We hacksaw big metal apart, and use everything from the tiger carry to fulcrum power to get compressors and piping down the beach.  Yeah, we're a little obsessive.

But we have the cleanest beach on the west coast.  From Alaska to Tierra del Fuego.

Fried Mushy Peas and Eggs Sunny-Side Up

FINALLY got it right.

Like crispy green mashed-potato cakes, with tender-cooked home-laid eggs, drowned in Tobasco sauce.

Go ahead, laugh; it's delicious.

Homemade Laundry Soap

TOO MUCH Homemade Laundry Soap

1/3 bar Fels Naptha or other type of soap, as listed above

½ cup washing soda

½ cup borax powder 

~You will also need a small bucket, about 2 gallon size~

Grate the soap and put it in a sauce pan.  Add 6 cups water and heat it until the soap melts.  Add the washing soda and the borax and stir until it is dissolved.  Remove from heat.  Pour 4 cups hot water into the bucket.   Now add your soap mixture and stir.  Now add 1 gallon plus 6 cups of water and stir.  Let the soap sit for about 24 hours and it will gel.  You use ½ cup per load.

Clean Way To Go

      A young Cooper's Hawk on the beach below the bald eagle's nests, during the time of year when the big birds are tolerating no interlopers, whether they compete or not.  It's also likely the kid made it through the winter, to finally starve in a tough, cold spring.

     We pulled another huge garbage sack of detritus off this beach, but here's some good news -- almost ALL of the garbage was very old.  A couple new Pepsi and Malt Liquor cans and a chunk of Styrofoam were the only really new pieces.  So, except for a few kids and drunks, people up here are pretty aware of the treasure of their own beach.
     There are worse places to end up.

Idiot America, indeed.

A page from Idiot Ameria - How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free.  

Whoever was vandal enough to write this in a NOLS book made all sorts of pencil marks around the author's ridicule of the Illuminati nonsense (and no marks anywhere else; this is what set 'em off).  Yup, up here in Clallam County, the Dan Brown books are taken as terrifying truth, rather than just fun thrillers hooking up some historical research for scary fictional stuff.

Then again, some people really think there are vampires up here, now. It's Bigfoot country, folks.

Nettles!

Enough to dry for winter use.  This should take be enough to make teas to take care of the cystitis AND the potassium shortfalls.