end of the season chanterelles

The end of the season. Chanterelles. Or maybe just the beginning.  The jaunt to Oregon was bittersweet. A final foray for the season and a mission to collect belongings out of the storage unit. Wrapping up life in a place you call home is never easy but I think the continual downpour might have made it just slightly more so.  Two days spent at the coast turned up the strongholds in the chanterelle kingdom. The ones that refused to give up but instead proved to hide like nobodies business. It took not only a full-on rain samurai suit but also a considerable amount of digging around through water laden ferns, moss and fir needles to uncover these little delicacies.

 

Pacific Northwest

It is almost the end of May. The rains are retreating and sun is beginning to lengthen it's appearance. A solar eclipse occurred three days ago and clouds broke just long enough for us to witness. Life has been full of learning and busy times which have woven themselves into what will now become transition. Closing of one chapter and the opening of another. here are a few recent favorites from my adventures in the Pacific Northwest. 

The Alsea River

the Havest

Sunset on the Olympic Peninsula

the great gaper hunt

One of the lowest tides of the whole year. It just happened to be the morning I woke on the coast. I'm a lucky girl. The huge tidal swing was caused by the Perigee moon. What exactly does that mean? I "borrowed" this picture from NASA to help explain. The moon's orbit around the earth is an oval shape (think egg). One side of this orbit is actually closer to the earth (perigee) while the other (apogee) is a bit further. When a full moon occurs on the perigee side it appears very big and bright to us, the on-lookers from earth. Not only did the moon offer some brilliant lighting all through the evenings clear sky, but it also lent a fabulous day for clamming.

We woke early, 5:30 with anticipation of the tides. I'd been razor clamming, once, so obviously I'm a pro....yeah. The learning curve was a bit steep for the gaper clams we were after. We spent practically two hours trudging across the clam beds while the clam holes spouted water at our feet in the rhythm of 100 old faithfuls. Only these buggers alluded us. We dug after them...nothing. This is frustrating. We had rakes, shovels, buckets, clam guns. no clams. When you can't figure something out, what should you do? Well spy on someone else of course and then follow by example. We lurked close enough to observe another group who appeared to be on their hands and knees elbow deep in muck. Yes this was it! So we dug, and dug some more and finally reached a hardened mud layer. We broke through it and sure enough. Their snorkels retreated but my paws are fast and I'd grab on while someone else dug around my hands to retrieve the clams. We found the best technique was to dig a hole with the shovel and then get down and dig. Out of each hole we were pulling at least 10 clams. We had our gaper clam limit in less than a half hour.

From there I met a local woman who then asked me if we were going to head over to dig for cockles. We had our 12 gapers a piece so that meant we could still go for 8 cockles. "Well yeah... we were planning on it (never actually heard of it)... so how exactly do you do that?" She told us we needed a rake because they sat just under the surface of the sand. She also said her daughter liked to go barefoot while she looked for cockles because she could feel them with her feet. So there we went to the side of the bay to look for cockles. S dressed to his best in hip high waders and took to cockle raking the deeper channels and I stripped off the extra tuffs, rolled up my pants and took to feeling around the sand with my feet. Sure enough we found cockles. the raking technique required a good ear because when you raked over a cockle they made a sort of rumble sound from the ridges. Sometimes you also turn up angry crabs. they are not happy and will try to bite your fingers off. If they are boys and over the size limit, the unhappy crab is yours to eat. Turns out I'm a sucker and the crabs we caught were the luckiest crabs ever because while I intended on eating them, I actually let them go... I felt sorry for them! The barefoot method found me smaller cockles but worked wonders. I trudged around looking for the tell tale two holes in the sand, would run my feet over the place and sure enough would find a cockle just an inch or so under the surface. Needless to say, we ended the day with a feast fit for kings.

Celebration

Four years ago found me deep in the Sierra foothills of  California, not far from Murphys. Here I believe fostered my appreciation for wines. Murphys is a quaint town which offers some of the most amazing small scale vineyards, shops and beautiful surroundings. It was here that I discovered my liking for port, and have not since discovered one I like as fondly as the small lots produced by Zucca Mountain Vineyards. But now, as life has moved further north, my palate has shifted to pinots, and rightly so as it is the heart of the Willamette Valley. A whole new perspective has been blessed upon my dinner table, a diversity in a single varietal that I never could have wrapped my mind around any other way than living in just this place. This past weekend, in fine celebration of M's engagement, we brushed the surface of the local wineries, a craftily chosen five of over 400 located here in this region. A favorite of the bunch, Brooks, which bestowed upon us a private tasting, an amazing host and a flight of wines that would please any connoisseur. A Lovely way to celebrate, enjoy and experience....

the love-love situations

 
                                        Oregon Wheat Fields

Some people have cats and dogs; I have ladies.  Still some days off from laying; soon.... They were Easter babies, hand picked out from multiple smelly bins of fluffy tufts that ran around on spindly toothpick legs. they slept in the bedroom for the first few nights until it was quickly determined that sleep+light+peeping babies is not an equitable formula. So out they went to the laundry room where they lived until the Rubbermaid nest could no longer contain them. Home now? a backyard wilderness of sorts complete with red chicken coop. perfect. So this is another one of the projects that so heartily fills the Corvallis time. What's more... I wrote not long ago about the wonder of the appearing plums in the backyard. oh they only scratched the surface of my backyard explorations. What could possibly be better than 100's of mini plums? Why a fig tree of course. I had never in my life eaten a ripe fig off a tree. Turns out when your neighbor's tree overhangs your fence and they  show minimal interest on the horizon in the plump round ripening green orbs, well now life is in your favor. damn fresh figs are good. I gave myself a belly ache three days in a row to the point I had to actually physically remove myself from under the tree for lack of any self-control over fig consumption. A love-hate (read love-love) situation.  

Waiting for them to fall

 Another step in the year of food preservation... what excites me almost more than these blueberries? We got a deep freezer! translation = hand picked food for the winter & no more booby traps set as we open our months stuffed small indoor freezer. I recently brought back fish from my month up north and had just about pushed the three shelved wonder out of commission. but no more.

Often I'm asked "how do you like Corvallis?" my response 7 months ago was very different than it is today. It is like a bit of a treasure box. you have to keep your eyes open and that is when you start to find all the secrets. The day I got home T send me out back to our patio and told me to look around..... Nothing other than confusion. "take two steps forward and look down" still confusion. "look harder." what sat there but a small red round ball. "pick it up and eat it" T told me. It was a wee plum. Our tree out back had started to fruit these amazingly tasty little bits of yumminess. About twice a day we go out and are greeted by 10 new plums that are perfectly ripe and sweet which have made their way from the high branches. We look like monkeys outside collecting them. Even the dogs are getting down on the action. We joked last night that we have 5 competitors for the goods. I'm a pretty savvy one, I even monkeyed my way up the tree in my dress and shook the branches until I got so entangled I was forced back to the ground or would have donated my dress to the tree as a peace offering. I guess I'm impatient.

Saturday found C and I at a organic pick your own blueberry patch just a few miles from my house. I'd never seen it before. In 45 minutes we had managed something like 20 lbs of blueberries. The giant berries were literally falling off the bushes. We continued our weekend excursion to a few local wineries. Many out here are family owned and located on a farm of sorts. They are just lovely. We debated trying to visit all the Oregon ones in the next year to come but were quickly shut down by the realization that there are over 450. We'd really be lushes. C picked up a winery tour map and we've compromised our original plan to hitting up a few in each location. A more manageable endeavor. The day continued to a friends house to try their newest home brew experiment. "We gave this one a protein rest" they happily explained. Oh how I love living amongst fellow scientists!

C later helped me sort and clean the berries which Sunday operations turned them into freezer packs, dehydrated berries and jars of goodness. T even put up some heady jars of pickles. We've realized once the canner is up and going we best make the most of it. It turns into quite the kitchen process. The experimental batch; a blueberry, plum and honey compote. I have a gut feeling I will be happy with it come December on waffles. 

For my birthday last year my cousin gave me a book called "the complete book of home preserving." I LOVE this book. It has served as a great reference guide to modern canning. Not only does it cover the basics but it also offers new and fun ideas to putting up everyday fruits and vegis. Highly recommended to my fellow crunchy friends out there. I was blessed with growing up in a family that never put down this art. I can remember from a very young age "beet time." you could tell it was summer when the baskets were full of beets and zucchini from the garden and the kitchen smelled of fresh cut vegis and vinegar. This past time has now followed me into adulthood, my mother donating her canning pot to my Oregon efforts. to those who have a desire to learn- there is nothing better than opening up your own jar of jam on freezing cold day of winter and remembering how warm and lovely it was outside the day you put it up.

Covered

with more to come....

december equates to rain

 Testimony of the rainy season

 

Oregon Rain

Along the road

Cannon Beach in Oregon- one of many beaches hiding along hwy 101

The Remaining Giants - the largest sitka spruce tree on earth