Don't Try Talking Like Liberals

No more chanterelles.

Facepalm.

As usual, whatever I loved or used, the clearcutters got it. Then again, I'm not the only one - everybody knows the animals are being driven into the people areas. Owls are getting hit by logging trucks. Bats with rabies flutter down from the hot, dry destruction. No use telling the pro-loggers. They repeat whatever their daddies told them. 

They have no idea that the cycle of logging will just get shorter and shorter, as the vitality in the soil disappears. They don't understand put/take. 

Then we'll have to listen to whining about, "I came up here to log and the work disappeared." 

"Cedar Recovery?" REALLY?

And watch the chipboard houses thrown up all over the place rot on riversides while the owners disappear and nobody buys. Round and round and round she goes.

In the meantime, they think using the right words will make it all better. They're using dictionaries like bandages, and forgetting we can read.

I think that's a dead sea otter, there, the second of two. I hope it's just because the populations are recovering, and with more life you get more death.

"GREEN Crow?" Are we on the same planet?

Then again, at least one drunken moron spends his days ripping around the bay with his boat. Speed? And I mean it both ways. One of our neighbors runs the motor on his bad-bargain boat all the time, gasoline fumes flying out - while smoking. On the one hand, I don't want him to blow himself up. On the other hand, when he does it at 5:00 am.... one cannot help that head file coming up. And if he does, I get paid for news story and photos. I'm only human (I make no comments on other people's genomes).

What's up with people and making as much racket as they can in the forest? I swear, so many people are scared to death of nature. It's our own planet, and so many of us act like terrified Martians. Do they think something will sneak up on them if they're not drunk and raving out there? Not the way humans smell.

Finally got the cheap but sturdy fencing for the Ugly Dog Fence (your choice on which is ugly).

I may put up a bragging sign: "Quieter than YOU." 

Dead Sea Otter #2

Oops. Better check the waffles. Or is it the tortillas? I'm cooking both in the Belgian waffle maker. To go with all the fresh blackberries. Himalayans - juiced for wine, the pulp made into dumplings or just jam.

Who cares about seeds? They're good for old people. FIBER.

Guess we better go find some other Chanterelle patch.

The 2011 Blackberry Convulsion!

Yes, time to haul out and pick all we need for the year - or can stand to process.  We're after the non-native Himalyas, cuz we need the juice for the wine.  So we take along the loppers, and are merciless, pounding down the hard-spreading commercial variety, and giving trees and native berries a better chance.  Yes, going after non-natives gives us a chance to exercise the human greed-head gene while assisting the natives.  Might as well use it and work it out.  The whole process will take three days.

Day 1:  Picking.

Himalyas in the bucket - non-native, so can pick our brains out.  So to speak.

It takes only a few minutes to fill a bucket.  The Himalayas hang on the vine so thickly, and get as big as a man's thumb.  We have no scruples about taking loppers to the new-growth vines, which can be two inches across, with thorns that could puncture a tire.  Besides that, it helps the bears get in later, when they come back for their feed.  Lots of black-bear berry scat and plowed areas of vines show where they've been working.  We figure we might as well return the favor, and open up new-ripening masses of berries for them.  They can probably do it themselves, but isn't it nice to know somebody's been thoughtful enough to do it for you?  Less work and annoyance, more hibernating fat.

Dan done picking, taking his first chance to gobble blackberries like the bears.

 We don't eat while we're picking -- keeps us working hard.  Then it's time for the Great Blackberry Gorge! Nom nom nom.

A cooler full of blackberries -- about fifty pounds. 

Day 2: Winemaking.

Berries all squashed and strained, first steps in wine-making.

Rich and light versions in my bathroom, caps on lightly to allow bubbling gas to escape. The lighter jugs one the right have less juice, for a milder, more refreshing flavor.  The ones on the left will be luscious.  We even had enough fresh juice left over to pour into a bottle of red wine - scrumptious!

Day 3: Canning.

Final canning of leftover mash.  Cobblers, pies for weeks!

The trick to making Himalayas taste like wild ones - add a little lemon-juice and freshly-grated nutmeg.  The wine-squeezing gets rid of the excess juice that makes the jam too runny.  Yes, if we had a tribe with us, we could process enough for winter.  As it is, we hope this takes us through Christmas!  Whew; all done until next year.

ALMOST BLACKBERRY TIME

It's almost time to make blackberry wine.... rubbing hands...  they always ripen on my birthday, or did when I was a kid.  Here, it's about a week after.

Blackberries... which we can't use gloves with because we can't nibble off a handful before working arm back out of the Iron Maiden of vines. 

Oh, who else (female) here ever went berry picking without a bra and leaned stupidly into a bank of Himalayas?

Our neighbor had a bunch of the little wild berries come up next to her porch, and has already picked more than her husband found in the woods in four trips.  

Speaking of berries, the Thimbleberries on the side of our road are popping out now.  My favorite berry; they taste like a cross between raspberries and roses.  Some people think they're insipid, and it takes a lot to make jam, and then they lose that special flavor.  So I just stand and snarf them like a happy monkey in the long meadow.  This is how we're supposed to eat, anyway.  I can't reach into the back bushes -- or I don't feel like it -- so I'm not eating anybody else's share; there are so many berries up here now, every bird and mammal and insect has more than they want.  It's why we're putting off cleaning the outside of the house for the year, until the birds stop bombing the very pale lavender paint.

The signs of spring and summer.  Salmon-berry bird begins to sing when the salmon-berries ripen, and goes silent as the thimbleberries cap red and juicy.  And the house gets decorated with purplish splotches.