food forests revisited

In the fall, the wet western forests of the Cascades sprout delectable yellow chantarelles - perhaps you remember me talking of them in previous posts.  And in the spring, mushrooms sprout too - but its the dry eastern Cascade slopes that put forth the bounty this time.  So today, AJ and I pointed our car east and went over the pass.

Morels were what we're after, and they do especially well after fires.  They send up their little caps in a last ditch effort to propagate after a burn.  Washington saw some record breaking fires last summer, which was heartbreaking for many - but all the silly mushroomers began to quietly chatter about how fantastic the spring season would be for the prized morel.

AJ studied the burn maps and chose the destination.  This was our first time in this terrain looking for these mushrooms, so we figured it would likely just be a learning experience (read: we'd be skunked).  Indeed, this was NOT the case!  We came home with more mushrooms than we've ever found.  We even stopped early because we didn't need anymore!  Now we're home, and AJ is making some homemade pasta and is going to whip up a morel cream sauce to go over top - its going to be fantastic.

Below are a few pics from the day.

 The first find - a few little caps pushing up through the duff.  Note the very scarred pine tree!

Here's a little nest of them that I found...

Brush away the duff, and this is what's under.

Lovely little morsels

Watch it, 'shrooms, or you're gonna get cut!

The Loot Pile

 Sauteeing...

 Truly the best dinner AJ has made - homemade spinach pasta (spinach from the garden), scapes and asparagus from the garden as well, morels from the forest!

Ps. Part of the reason we left today was because our bathroom remodel began at 8am - so we made ourselves scarce to get away from all the racket!

a night on the olympic coast

Ok, get ready - I'm about to wax poetic.

The American West is like no other.  In one (giant) place, you have mountains, deserts, canyons, oceans, sounds, bays, and basins.  You can drive from one landscape to the next in mere minutes, where not only the landforms change but so do all the plants and animals.  Here in Seattle, you can dip your toes in the saltwater of Puget Sound and then stand on a glacier 45 minutes later at the pass.  Another 45 minutes after that and you're in a desert dominated by sages and balsam root.  My backyard is where volcanoes rise, killer whales roam, rainforests grow, glaciers creak, deserts thirst, tides cylce, wolves lurk, waterfalls thunder, salmon jump, geoducks slurp, waves crash, and mountains soar.  

Its a helluva backyard.

I digress...

Adrienne and I can get bogged down in grocery lists and home repairs just like everyone else, but this weekend we broke the chains of society (am reaching back to my hippie roots here) and bolted for the outer coast of Washington.  This particular part of our backyard is a finicky one, a place where storms relentlessly roll off the Pacific feeding the only rainforests we have in the lower 48.  But our 10-day long stretch of 75+ degree weather meant it was probably pretty nice out there - which it was.

For $9, we got a permit and a bear canister and hiked out to Second Beach in Olympic National Park.  I've been here many times, but it was AJ's first glimpse of the WA coast (that wasn't from a research vessel).  The hike is short, so I packed about 100 lbs worth of stuff (beach chairs and grill included!) on my back and set out through the rainforest.  We were treated to a nearly desolate beach, calm seas, a super-low tide, and scenery that wouldn't quite. 

Below are a few pics from a great overnight adventure.

I love the approach of this hike.  You're walking through the rainforest, then first you hear the ocean, then you see it and the sea stacks offshore.

First, get camp set...

then do some yoga...

then take advantage of the low tide!

Every last inch of this rock was covered in anemones, sea stars, barnacles, limpits, snails, mussels, algae, and other unidentified sea creatures.  

Low tide reveals a broad sandy beach

Venturing into a scary beach cave

Venturing out of a scary beach cave

Sea stacks at the south end of Second Beach

The sea life here is spectacular!  On top of this, we saw many bald eagles and about a half-dozen feeding humpback whales.

 Gratuitous person shot

Sun's setting, so time to head back to camp.

Relax, get a campfire going.

Grill some veggies and dogs, open some vino

And enjoy the great sunset

Good night!

We stopped for a quick forest hike on our way out in the Sol Duc - so beautiful to be in an old growth forest!

Sol Duc falls

AJ loves the many-hundred-year-old trees

Trillium!

a tribute to tulips

You know that black-clouded thunder and lightning storm I mentioned yesterday?  One of the bolts zapped the transformer in the U-District and sent the folks down there into a night of darkness.  Knocked out all the power for thousands, including all the houses a block down the street from us!

Crazy weather persists today, and part of that brings some sunny skies.  So I went out with my camera to take some pics of the tulips coming up around the house.  AJ's labors of love payoff - glad she has the foresight that I clearly do not, and spent time to get these things in the ground back in the fall.  Looking lovely around here.

life emerging - pacnorwest springtime

As I type, the sky is pitch-black, the temps have dipped into the 40s, and thunder and lightning have made their presence known across the region.  Hail is now falling, accompanied by the torrent of rain SoCal is used to in flash floods, or DC is used to in the summertime afternoon.

I wanted to get in the garden today and snap some pictures for you, but alas this weather keeps us indoors.  So, you'll have to settle for some pics from last weekend - when the weather was slightly better, but not much. 

Regardless, springtime is here and the garden is starting to look most epic.  This is a great time of year.

Cherry Tree and Bird Town

Salmonberry

Flowering Red Currant, Lupine and Salal

Mini Daffodils

Tulips

Asparagus!

Hops!

Cherry Tree flowers

Garden taking shape...

Lookin good...