CHICKENS AND SKIN MONKEYS

So scared the chickens were not going to be all right in the bitter cold -- but they're out there eating popcorn for a treat & drinking the freshly-replaced water AM & PM, & still laying. The crows insist on their own big bowl of popcorn too, and swear at me if they don't get it.  Whadaya gonna do?  Now I'm a bird flunky as well as a cat servant.

I was worried about the poor cold chickens and was trying to figure out how to warm them, when I realized if I did, they'd lose their natural resistance to cold.  It's like losing your night purple after using a light in the dark.  The best cure for cold for outside animals is lots and lots of good food, so they can lay on lots of fat.

Wild animals all have houses; their own tough skins. WE lived in deserts, lost all our hair, had to wear clothes against the sun.  It must explain why nudity is a sin in the middle-eastern religions; it's DANGEROUS to run around naked in equatorial deserts.

The more "purebred" Makah up here run around in sleeveless t-shirts on miserable, cold, rainy days.  It's the 70-degree days in summer that make these big guys miserable.

People have asked me, "What about coyotes?"  Have you never heard of the miracle of chicken wire? The local Cooper's Hawk skidded to a hover over the cage and we pointed and laughed; you've never seen a hawk drool.  This is the same bird that got into a neighbor's cage and ripped the head off a chicken.  She'd left a hole the size of a football in the chicken wire.  

If we're going to raise farm animals near predators, we have to be aware of these animals' versatility.  In a film taken with a camera on the back of birds of prey, we see what the Cooper's largest relative -- the goshawk -- does with small spaces at speed (there's an ad, but it only lasts a few seconds).  Makes me wonder if people who have been animating movies about flying on dragons haven't referred to the real thing.

Remember, if a predator gets your domestics, it's your fault.  Don't think you can ultimately solve it by killing stuff; everybody doing that has decimated natural animal populations.  And if you're raising stuff to sell to eat and taking shortcuts by killing wildlife -- what ELSE won't you take a shortcut with?  And why should I buy your stuff?

TRACKING FOR LAZY PEOPLE

On our long beach walk today, found two sets of deer prints wandering in the sand.  Followed them to a broken bank, which is where I wanted to go anyway as the easiest way to get to the marsh and walk over to see how deep the ford in the river is.  Or what looked like a ford, opposite what might be the very rotten remains of the old wooden bridge.

After discovering the ford was quite deep, and that a young Douglas Fir was using one of the old bridge posts as a nurse log, I continued along the river shore, and noticed the deer prints continuing ahead of me.  Reaching the end of the mini-peninsula in the river, I started back up what I thought would be the easiest way -- and looked into the face of the deer.  Who seemed to say, "So, now what?"

After saying "Hi there!" I turned around and headed back through the underbrush and trees, picking the easiest trail.  Or as easy as it gets, ducking through Devil's club and brambles.  Upon reaching the other side of the peninsula, I spotted what looked like an easy break in the brambles that would allow me to scramble back down the cliff.  There I found another broken bank -- and at the bottom, imprinted in the mud of the lagoon shore, more deer prints.  

Evidently people and deer all go along the lines of least resistance.

A Cooper's hawk leapt into the air ahead of me, with what looked like a rat in its claws.  We'd seen a stripped crow's wing on the beach earlier this week.  More bloody bones on the sand told us the hawk had been eating well.

TYPOES AND COWBOYS

This is what a typo in a browser URL can lead to: crazies in the woods.

Makin' money and acting nuts in the woods the GREEN way.  Your comments (and laughter) welcome.

If anybody had any brains they'd harvest the knotweed, organize with Ric Polumbo in Clallam Bay to take it to Seattle with his fish, and make a mint selling Mountain Vegetables to the Japanese restaurant and overseas trade.

They gotta do SOMETHING to stave off the developers and get the cancer chemicals out of the water.

TOO MUCH TECHNO-HICK

Okay, this may seem too much in my playing pioneer, but:

1.  It's not as hard as it sounds.

2.  It's incredibly cheap.

3.  It gets rid of all that plastic you have to pay so much to dispose of in packaging.

4.  Clothes come out soft and sweet and -- if you mix 3/4 cup soap gel with a quart of water, you get a dish-soap that will soak the crap off anything.  No more scrubbing ANYTHING.  

5.  It makes a helluva lot of soap out of about a cup and a 1/2 of ingredients.  Double it and don't make soap for a month.

Those of you with sensitivities in you or animals may want to try it.  It's really super.

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.

GOING POSTAL

 

At least the mail isn't in a pile in the woods.  YET.  I know somebody who had that one.

We've got a situation up here, where occasionally the mail goes insane.  I've got all my billing on email notification and payment now, which loses the post office more money, but whadaya gonna do?

Some neighbors have solved the problem by transferring to another post office in another town, but we really don't need to lose the post office here, especially for people without vehicles.

Rather than transferring your accounts to the other town, call the USPS and start a case file on lost mail, bills and/or medication.  The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

The phone number is: 
Call 1-800-ASK-USPS®
(1-800-275-8777)
M-F - 8:00am-8:30pm ET
Sat - 8:00am-6:00pm ET
Sunday - Closed

Or go to the site.

ELEPHANT SEAL MOULTING SEASON

Yearling elephant seal on the Clallam Bay Beach.  Gender unknown.

They were hunted down to about 100 individuals, according to the Marine Mammal Stranding System station in Joyce.  They're in recovery, but they're very inbred.

So I waited until it slid back down off the beach this morning before posting this.  First elephant seal I've ever seen in the wild.

HOW WE ALL USED TO BE

Up here is seeming more and more as I read accounts of America, at least as viewed by its citizens, in 1910.  America, in its own opinion, was still young and vibrant and faultless, and God had put all those trees and animals here to harvest for his children's good.  The main newspaper has a Women's Section; one almost expects the people being interviewed to wear daytime corsets and picture hats.

John Aubrey in his Brief Lives writes, "My grandfather Lyte told me that at one Lord Majors shew there was the Representation of the Creation of the World, and writt underneath AND ALL FOR MAN." (sic)

At a rather nice little pastry shop in Forks (from the North, take the first right after the True Value) , I was having fun with a tiny blackberry cheesecake and a rather ferocious cup of coffee, and the amusing gentleman who hangs out helping with the bread was discussing the locals ("gossiping," is, I believe, the correct term among those of us who practice the art).  He complained that The Park (Olympic Peninsula National Park) was denying The People their rights on the land.  To paraphrase the conversation:

"When these parks were established, it was for the People."

I answered, "Well, maybe it's time we rethink how we view what's left of our wild lands.  We'll be extinct someday, especially at the rate we're going, and these creatures need a refuge until we're gone.  Maybe it's time we lock up this land and stay out of it, so these creatures can survive.  We at least owe them that."

He didn't say a lot after that.  He seemed to be thinking.  I can't tell if he was upset, weighing the idea, reviewing the future, or all of it at once.  I'd had too much rather good coffee; what did I know?

I tend to think about whether there's enough for everybody, including my fellow creatures, before I start grabbing.  I've heard a couple of kids who've begun hunting deer -- hopefully to provide food, and not in the spirit of triumphalist conquest over nature -- described as "killing machines."  I've seen men strip the fillets off live fish and throw the carcasses back in the water to swim away.  

The animals die daily so we can live; how did we lose the ability to respect them?  We've stolen a phrase for our religion, placing to the credit of of one of our mythological characters the idea that "He died so we can live." The poor plantation and scrubland that exists outside the parks is even despised by the people who go in after the deer.  One man sneered, "I hate trees."

How do we hate the lungs of the planet?  How do we hate that which helps us survive every day, just because it gets in our way?  When did the earth and what's on it become The Enemy?  Yes, I know the arguments about older religions that were plugged into our beliefs, and the dangerous belief that all is either evil or good.  How long are we going to fall for that?

Recently an animal was treated as a toy or a piece of wood, and I had to get involved.  I have my own life; isn't it enough that I have to rescue other people's cats when they wander off on the next stage of their lives, because it's not convenient any more?  I was told that the person who had obtained the animal, a young puppy, and left him tied with a wire out in the freezing cold, with inadequate shelter and frozen water, had to deal with a family emergency.  

"People come first," was the reason.

Isn't that exactly what's gotten us into the mess we're in on this planet?  The local people do not know what they've got -- what scraps and evidences of the original wealth that was here -- and they're just throwing it away with both hands.  They despise cities, and yet they seem to be going right down the same road they claim they want to avoid.  They have a golden place, here -- or at least the broken remnants of one -- with capability to restore it to the wonder it was, at least in part, or at least to prepare in their lifetime for the future, and all they care about is whether they can kill an elk with a heavy rack or if the Seahawks win.  They don't seem to worry that any timber industry is dumping toxins into the water, even as the cancer rates up here sky-rocket.  

In strictly economic terms, they have the opportunity to build excellent nature tourism, including the fact that the area has been named an Audubon area.  Instead, they want to look back to 1910, and the days when they could kill all the fish they wanted,  Now they squabble over what remains, even blaming seals and eagles for what they've done themselves; nobody up here seems to have a mirror.  As Vancouver Island begins to tap the big-leaf maples for syrup -- a permanent forest-products industry -- the local logging companies are going after those same trees like piranhas.  It almost seems like a pattern; anything that provide the local population with an alternate, and permanent, livelihood, is taken out of the way as quickly as possible.  This isn't a professional study; it just seems to happen every time.  

One of the logging companies decided the Scenic Byway on Highway 112 was an opportunity to show Dem City Folks how a working forest looks.  Yeah, that's a really effective conversion tool, isn't it?  My father's prejudice as a long-haul trucker may be coming into effect in me, here.  But I really should have gotten a photograph of the giant tree a couple of the local maroons stole out of an old-growth area so they could be on Axmen, as though the television producers weren't going to figure out they were dealing with theft.  But none of this attitude toward the local life is new; they have an historical culture-hero up here, who supposedly went out and set up a life as an independent man of the forest -- but what he was really doing was living on predator bounties, until he'd cleared out as many of the local cougars as he could get his paws on.

A local farmer continued that attitude, but he had help.  Three young cougars came poking onto his land and were trapped in boxes.  Cougars wander more than they should, here, as clear-cuts drive them out of their habitat and into local neighborhoods, always with the death of the cougar as the result, as the locals panic (hell, they panic over and face off with rutting territorial mountain goats, but that's another story).  A "forest ranger," as he said, told him the cougars couldn't survive if they were shipped elsewhere, so the three animals were shot in their trap-box and buried.  There are options for other possibilities; why didn't that forest ranger make the effort?  Has he fallen victim to the local feeling of conquest, with its adjunct, helplessness and fear in the face of nature?  Who knows?

I shouldn't talk about the people up here as though they were born in the Pacific Northwest, as I was.  A lot of them are from the midwest and other points east.  Whenever they can't stand the rain, they head for the desert.  

Maybe they can leave the desert where it is, and go visit it when they need it, and not try to bring it here? 

The Polar Bear Plunge, Jan 1, 2011, Lake Pleasant, Olympic Peninsula, Washington State.

Heather Wasankari, whom her mother is calling "Chicken Heather!" had every excuse for only running in to her hips.  She has about as much meat on her as a chopstick. She's part Apache; not exactly a people evolved for plunging out of a bitter wind into near-freezing water on a mid-winter day.

I made the mistake of telling Heather we'd do this about three months ago.  Never promise a kid something you don't mean to carry out, because they'll remember and hold you to it.  Anyway, we got ourselves all whipped up for this over several Facebook exchanges, and then we went and did it!

I didn't hang around for a photo lineup once I had the robe off; I just led the charge into that awful liquid burn.  Heather's friend Alyssa grabbed her and dragged her in.  It took me a week to recover from the cold; I couldn't get my core temperature up at all.

Wish I'd taken the girls back on my errands to Forks; when there, I kept running into kids and adults who'd done this insane thing, and we were all like a bunch of little veterans, high-fiving and exulting over this act of insanity.

ANIMAL ABUSE OUT IN THE BOONIES

I wonder if it's like the murder described by Doyle; more of it happens because they know they're not being watched. 

Nothing like Facebook to end THAT.  Yes, I'm using a Facebook thread like a forum.

  

It's like the slave-catchers happily running north after that evil Fugitive Slave law, and running into posters with their faces on them and pointing crowds, then running back to the South with their tails between their legs.  

Us nice people are sick and tired of abuse and stupidity -- AND having to clean up the messes.  The weird thing is, bad people HATE to have their badness pointed out.  Perhaps there is a core of good there, that knows better?  As a Nice Person, I can only hope.

THE TREES ARE SMARTER

Lord, sometimes living in the United States of Yokeldom.....

Somebody at either the Clallam Bay or Port Angeles post office picked out three bills from our mail and didn't deliver them.

That's right -- lifted three bills from three different businesses.  Oh, ha ha, let's play with somebody's business mail, shall we?

Right now I'm hitting the USPS main site to "resolve" the problem.  On one hand, the Clallam Bay post office was screwing up our mail back in October, 2005.  This time, since August 2010, we were getting all kinds of mail from other people.  So if any of you are missing bills, you want to be asking the post office where they went.  I know I've seen bills lying on the ground up here; did somebody else get it and just throw it away?

I can tell one of you that I know all about your medical bill at the Forks Hospital.  Opening mail -- as we all do, assuming efficiency -- I found a bill. Examining it, wondering what this was about and why it was over-due, I checked the name.  OOPS.  NOT OUR MAIL.  Again.  I quickly taped the envelope back up in its envelope and wrote "SORRY!" on it.  So one of you up here in Clallam Bay, I know how much you haven't paid and for how long.  Ask the Post Office about that.  I hope you got your mail.  And your bill.

Now, it may be the Port Angeles office that was screwing up, instead.  So one of the two was flipping people's bills around to the wrong parties.  Since we had three bills go missing, I wonder if this was really an accident?  Was somebody at the post office -- well -- going postal?

No wonder so many people hate trees up here.  The trees are smarter.

(Note:  in some places in the old Soviet Union, the mail isn't being delivered, or, if it's making it to post offices, it's just piling up.  The penny post was instituted in Great Britain in 1608; has the post office had its run?  Has email and the internet knocked the postal service off its pins?  Will all packages go through FedEx and UPS -- and any documents through the private document companies whose vans I've recently seen in town?  Nothing lasts forever -- perhaps the post office is being pushed to the edge of the cliff?)

Chicken Report

Moved the chicken tractor this morning, to a more sunny location, because their water was skinned over with ice last night.

Red, who has been twice caught under the slats in a move, decided to get up in the nesting box and ride.

They've started laying again -- two eggs yesterday.

WHERE ONLY MAN IS VILE

Ah, the joy of living in rural areas.  The latest human nastiness is a woman who, in spelling her name for a newspaper cut line, told me, "It's German.  I have to tell people that, because they want to spell it like some Hispanic crap."

BUT -- on the other hand, nature is lovely.  After a hard week, we grabbed the first lovely day to take a long walk on the beach and see where the river mouth had opened up a new island, and almost closed the old river, so we could get to the island.

We followed a gray whale down the beach as it fed among the buffelheads, in the deep water off the steep beach, only about 20 feet from us.  We listened to a blue heron cuss us out, and viewed harlequin ducks and loons.

The humans can't last forever; most diseases don't.

Soybean City (Who needs a goat?)

Betsy the woodstove (named after my Dad's green dodge coupe in the '50's) hard at work on tofu, soymilk and sea salt.

No, we don't let all that crap stay on her. She gets blacked every couple of months, and wiped down when she's cold.

I've never been able to make really good tofu before I began making my own sea-salt.  See how nicely it's curdling?  It's supposed to look like Clouds In A Golden Sky, and it does.

All the soy cooking isn't that difficult.  I make the tofu and the soy out of  one batch of beans. The tofu is made with the first, rich wash of ground soybeans; the soymilk is made with the second. 

I'm an insomniac, but a cup of soymilk whenever I can't sleep sends me right off.

The ground lees go partially into baking, part to the hens, who gobble the white lumps, rich in calcium and protein, like candy.

The yellow whey goes into the dishwater, where it cuts grease, and some is retained for shampoo. 

A bag of soybeans is about $25.00 and makes gallons of tofu and soymilk. Without being butted or having to put netting around all the trees.

BATTEN DOWN THE CHICKENS

Second day of the November storm; snow is six inches and rising. We evidently have Alaska's winter, and they have ours.  Oh the fascination of being on the Great Pacific Circling Current.

(right) Tarps on chicken tractor, to keep them out of direct wind. So far, they're surviving the freezing temperatures.

Placed a Dutch oven full of water in the nesting area.  Pour boiling water into it twice a day.  First time I did it, heard a chicken squawk.  But they're not stupid, or followers like sheep -- once is enough.

Made them suet cakes to go with their feed.  Gonna fatten 'em up for spring through autumn laying.

During the 2008 blizzard, Jim the cat was forced to live outside by his original owners.  This is him (right) going outside for a bit of a run, but keeping an ear cocked for when we call him.  No more sleeping on a damp carpet under a porch for HIM.

Elk Heart

Our neighbor called and said her husband and his hunting partner had taken two elk, and did I want a heart?  DID I?  Rinsed off the beautiful red blood, sharpened up the ulu knife, slit out the tubes, put the heart on braise in the Dutch oven and took the discard to the beach (don't want to give eagles the idea they eat in this yard, picked up some water for sea salt while I was there). Pretty piece of meat, Ja?

The seagulls thought so!

Oh, and turned the heart into a lovely terrine.  Cats like it too!  Yes, we share.

MAU-MAUING THE NEW GUY

The edited and mostly unscrambled version of an email conversation.

D = me. L = the other guy.

L: I just bought 5 acres of timberland from Uncle Ray at the lake end of Hoko Ozette road, and I'll be been looking for people who blog about being mossbacks and living in Sekiu and Clallam Bay. (Or West Clallam Bay and Clallam Bay if you are a purist I suppose.)

D: (This next comment makes me think about how the foreign service has managed to get us into a situation of having our boobs groped at airport security. But I was nice and didn't say anything, because we all live at our own little table at the comicon and don't much look across to the other tables.)

L: I work for you overseas in the Foreign Service and will retire there in 20 years or so. Trying, as I am deep in the clutches of middle age, to start planning ahead I wanted to buy someplace to live long before I actually needed it. So the reason specific reason I'm writing is that I want to hire someone to keep an eye on my land from time to time, act as my agent as it were. I'm thinking I could paypal someone 50 dollars a month to walk the land every once and a while, keep me up to date on doins in the neighborhood. Do you know some high school student who might be interested in being an ad hoc forest ranger? I'd like someone who was going to be around for 20 years, I'm a big fan of continuity.

D: Put it in the Forks Forum want ads: editor@forksforum.com or -- even better -- post a short, clear note on the bulletin board at the Sunset West Co-Op in Clallam Bay (that little yellow building next to Gary's boat corral).

D: I'm reading the Lake Ozette Sockeye recovery plan which sounds like it might impact the land I bought since I'm not far from Umbrella creek.

D: If it does, go along with it. You want to help sockeye recover, right?  If it's just woods, why do you need somebody to bother it? It can pretty much take care of itself. Hell, for $50.00 a month, I could drive by it once or twice a month and make sure the "No hunting" signs are up. Other than that, there's not much to do. Land left hands off for 20 years is the best thing to do to it. You could have some nice trees started and the creeks beginning to clean out nicely.

Windstorms and fires are natural. Leave it alone and let it breathe, and let yourself relax. If it all burns down I would reseed. If you just want pictures to dream on, that's another thing. Well, forest takes care of itself. If it's major, keep an eye on http://www.forksforum.com That should do it.

L: And of course I want to support the neighborhood and be seen as a contributor and a member of the community and not some carpetbagger who shops only at costco and never uses the local businesses.

D: Us white people are all carpet-baggers on this continent, anyway, so relax. They stopped arguing about if their ancestors got here in 1889 or 1949 when I said, "Don't do that in front of the Indians, will ya? It makes us look like idiots." Go to Makah Days and have fun: http://www.makah.com

L: I have been to the Makah rez several times and have always liked the people I met there. I am quite pleased that they didn't want to go the casino route and do their best to live the way they want to as opposed to how they should. Never made it to Makah days, at least not yet.

D: You would love the REAL Indian Gambling; slahal. Well, if you're crazy like we are. Dan's 1/16th Wyandotte, so maybe it's genetic.

L: Even though we won't be there very much, we are going to get a family membership to the co-op.

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D: You don't need a membership. Everybody just happily buys there. I just keep an account, throwing $50.00 in every once in a while.

D: Before you start whacking down houses, check out http://www.garbagewarrior.com Having your place declared a wildlife sanctuary can take advantage of the fact that up here is on the Audubon Birdwalk maps. Old-growth trees attract rare birds. Put in a light yurt or tent area and charge birdwatchers to visit.

L: I don't think a small yurt or a tent will work, at least not in 20 years, I'l be old and broken down by then, I'll need something to keep my walker out of the mud, and it was all clear cut twenty years ago, so sadly there is no old growth. If I find there is there is no way I'll be touching it.

D: Nice ones. http://www.yurts.com/?gclid=CJX7gvmiraUCFRhCgwod2BlOZw

D: You could start your own stream by shaping a collection area and delicately running it down toward the other stream. Who knows? Have some sockeye come visit YOUR stream, too! Note: if your trees and ferns are big and wet, salmon eggs can literally stay damp in a "dried-up" streambed until the autumn rains set in. Clallam County is BIG on projects like this -- they give grant money!

L: There is supposed to be a wash or a gulley that may be a stream in the winter time, that is one of the big questions I have when I come out. Good idea about the grant money, although I don't really care about that part. Once I know where everything is, the idea of growing a stream, even a winter only stream, is fabulous, thanks for the tip!

D: I know an older guy here just dug a hole in the ground, and dips up the clear, tannic water for his uses. He's a kind of happy-in-a-lean-to kinda guy, though.

L: I'm not sure what we will do for water and power, my hope is that in 20 years solar will have improved that we will not need the grid, and we will either drill a well or go with a catchment system. But as I said, I'm hoping home building improves in the next 20 years.

D: WATER? You can dig your own rainwater collection pond. Solar and wind will pump you power -- and the PUD is very helpful with that, as well as with local grants and things. Build your own, simple and pure and be sure to put in your own greenhouse (and chicken run -- why tempt the bobcats?).

D: And of course I'd love to start making friends with people in the area now. I'm only up to July 2004 in your Clallam blog, but I loved the idea of Clallam/Sekiu being a designated artists community. And of course now I have an overwhelming urge to get the complete works of Barr for my library.

D: Cool! Up here nobody much respects me as an artist or writer -- they're into rural galleries and local histories, from the 1950's, not publishing or comics. I'm known as The Newspaper Lady (The kids yell, "Hi, Newspaper Lady!"), the freelance reporter from the PDN and the Forks Forum.

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L: Wait, I'm confused, did you go there to get away from the fans or to weed out the less enthusiastic ones and make them interns? Given your track record I think a lot of people could benefit from interning with you.

D: Don't ask me. I'm not in control of the little freak show that is my life. And I don't need me any more interns -- I need somebody to hire me to TEACH. EVERYBODY wants what I have for FREE.

L: I read your PDN pieces, the gunfight was quite exciting, shotguns and body armor, oh my! But why are so many PDN story paragraphs one short sentence? I have not read any of the Forks pieces, I can't seem to find a search field!

D: Don't ask me. It's what they do. My pieces are that awful Associated Press style Hemingway was forced to write in, and that has tainted today's literature so badly. My newsy stories I like are at: http://contributor.yahoo.com/user/112562/donna_barr.html OOH, I see it's part of Yahoo now.

L: Hope the windstorm did not treat you too harshly, look forward to hearing from you!

D: Windstorm? What windstorm? After the typhoon and 95 mph winds a few years ago, this was just rain gusts. I'm not kidding; since then, if it's not 85 mph, nobody up here notices.

D: If I didn't know tai-chi, I'd have been tossed in the river while trying to get storm shots for the paper.

L: I will look into chicken tractors in about 19 years when I'm kitting the place out, although the men in my family have a genetic fear of chickens, so I may leave that to the wife.

D: You know, our neighbor's afraid of birds! I wonder if that's because their ancestors ate so many of our ancestors.

D: Well, enjoy the new place -- put in bee hives! Plenty of beekeepers up here, working with the local feral Russian bees, including my try at them (neighborhood was too small).

D: Oh, and solar works up here. http://www.garbagewarrior.com The dvd is in the library.

L: Feral Russian bees? What the heck? The bee hives are a good idea, but would I have to care for them in the intervening 20 years or should I wait? Interesting idea, and the wife wants a lot of plants and flowers and goddess knows the world needs more beehives. Do you know any beekeepers in the area you can refer me to?

D: Look up Tim van Ripper in the phone book. He has all the connections. If I were you, I'd put out some clean second-hand hives and ignore them. You'll need one of these when you get here too (co-op wants EGGS): http://www.chickentractor.com

D: But PLEASE remember you have to make your life around the local bears and cougars. Don't be the people who harass the rutting or territorial animals, get a bit hurt and then have to kill the animal. It's their home and they're COOL (A bit of solar electric fence works nice on bears). Cougars: don't build weak fences and watch out if an idiot logging company clear-cuts next to you -- it drives out the resident cougar and all hell breaks loose. But toilet paper must be cheap, you know (feh).

L:Well, as long as the rutting and territorial animals respect my territory as well, we will be cool.

D: When you move in up here, you're moving into THEIR homes and territories. You need to keep your domestic animals protected. It's not a city neighborhood.  When the golden eagles come in we all put away small dogs and cats. If a cougar comes through, same, but also kids and all food. They go away when they find there's no food (tho' one guy had one sleeping on his back porch after getting a catfood feed). The deer EAT here; it's THEIR livelihood. You have to put up a little greenhouse with a top -- easier to garden, anyway. The wet winter/dry summer make gardening very hard. Check out: http://www.squarefootgardening.com/

(L made a comment about goats in rut, here, after having read a PDN story about a goat who took out a hiker.)

D: The dork who got killed by the mountains goats sent the two women down the trail -- and then, with his predator-set eyes (HELLO? Threaten the females and kids??). CAME BACK TO CHALLENGE THE GOAT. WTF? Talk about the Darwin award. Only stupid I-Am-God-It-Was-All-Made-For-Me people run into trouble with the wildlife up here. Our neighbors were terrified when they found they'd bought a place with major predators on the ridge behind them until I 'splained how we live with them. They're fine, now! They think it's cool.

L: I'm hoping no one ever cuts the land around me, but sadly that is out of my control. If I ever see it come up for sale and I have the money I'm snapping it up. Except maybe the gravel pit just west of me.

D: The gravel pit can recover, too.

November Harvest, 2010

Jerusalem Artichokes (left) and assorted potato varieties (right), including the long Ozette heritage potato (GET your mind back where it belongs!).

POKE THE BIRD

Here there's a big rock around that headland that BELONGS to a ruby-crowned kinglet.  There's a tree near the river that belongs to another one.  You take your life in your hands (laughing yourself to death) if you get near either.

Of course, touching the rock and leering, "Oh, is this YOUR rock?  And here?  And HERE?" can't help.  I thought the furious little bead of feathers was going to explode from pure indignation.

Teasing wildlife.  We're going to hell.

SURFING FOR CRAZY PEOPLE

On the Clallam Bay Beach (left).  There are ROCKS out there! 

Can you see the REALLY CRAZY guys out past the Slip Point Reef? (right)

Very high tides brought out the Rare Breed Surfers: they keep this up and they'll be even RARER.

But don't they make you want to learn to surf?  It looks like killer fun!

The Hick in Techo-Hick

 The morning's work, clockwise from upper left:

Frying crackers

Turnip greens (picked from the garden)

Jerusalem artichokes (ditto)

Homemade cheese ravioli

Homemade soymilk (in process).

Upper right: what's left of the peanut-butter cookies, most of which went to the Hallowe'en party last night.

Know how peanut-butter cookies are always too dry and easy to burn?  Especially if using white sugar?  Accidentally discovered how to make them tender and chewy: soak the sugar overnight in just enough water to make a paste.  Try it -- it's a whole 'nother cookie. I don't know if you need to soak brown sugar, but if white sugar is all you have, this works.  Hm.  Maybe add a little molasses to the white sugar while soaking?

The turnip greens and artichokes will go with rice, probably for tomorrow, but they need to be cooked today, because they're THERE.

Got too busy, let the mushrooms we'd picked spoil in the 'fridge.  From now on, the rule of hunter/gatherer is:  eat in season, eat when found (or prepare for the next day).  Keeps away food allergies, and it's how we're supposed to eat anyway.

Hm.   I feel like fish.  Maybe if the rain breaks today, after I get the last AFTERDEAD page colored (and maybe the second-to-the-last because it was VERY experimental, and frankly looks like crap, or did last time I saw it), I might go down and get me a greenling to fry tomorrow with bacon oil and Sechzuan pepper.  Yum.