Turkey Day Approaches! (And I am caught slightly unawares)

Its true, I let the whole Thanksgiving thing sneak up on me, but there are other things to discuss first!

Such as the reason I moved to Port Angeles....

  I went out for a planting day last week, and let me tell you, it is not as fun as any of us imagined. Well maybe you didn't ever imagine that it would be an exhilarating experience, but I did! I am optimistic!

That sunny optimism began to slip as it started to rain when we arrived at the site. No big deal, it rains here... like a lot. Keep in mind that I am, and have been, battling a damnable head cold for the last two weeks. So there I am, snuffling in my baggy man-sized rain gear, absolutely sexless to the casual observer, crawling along in the mud clay. And by I, I mean myself, three coworkers and 4-5 volunteers in the 50+ range were out there in the rain (which stopped after awhile, thankfully) and chill for 6+ hours.

Where I was planting was effectively a mud flow. Think glacial ice; flowing, melting, cracking... and transform that ice into blackbrown claysilt muck, and that's what we had. Much like the toe of the slope on the left in the picture below. (Fun fact, if you click on the pictures, they will switch to slideshow mode for all the pics in the post)

 I got increasingly frustrated as the day progressed. Every plant put in the ground in that land form is likely going to slide down, be uprooted, or washed out completely into the floodplain below. Not the greatest feeling, especially knowing how much time, energy, and taxpayer money is going into this project. Slopes like that are good for grasses and forbs to colonize... not woodies straight out. But that's just my under-educated opinion.

Keep in mind, the landscape out here is VERY dynamic and unstable (which is the whole idea behind putting in woodies immediately, to encourage soil development and hold sediment in plant). There are terraces that are perfectly suitable for woody planting,but the extent to which some of the highly unstable (in my view) slopes are being... handled... seems inefficient to me.
Please take this as my scientific brain working through the nuts and bolts of this project, not me being a pondering pessimist.

I was pretty drained by the end of the day, in a nutshell, I am a weakling.

Snow on the far mountain, winter is descending...

 Otherwise we have been at the nursery, repeatedly testing our rudimentary math skills as we count out 4 of this, 16 of that, 710 of those things...On a few occasions when our boss has been trying to walk in three directions at once, we have received plant lists calling for 9.5 of these and 13.5 of those... Silly silly... There's usually a few WCC (Washington Conservation Crew) folks around to speed things up, or as fate would have it, wash pots. There are two crews currently working for/in the park.

Anywho....

Token Ferry picture, thanks Nico

This past weekend I went to Bellingham. Cool story I know, what a wild adventure, Bellingham! But this time... I brought some foreign invaders with me. That's right, Leonie and Nico have now experienced in a short-quick-tour of a way the beauty that is Bham.

We caravaned. They were continuing on to Vancouver BC, and I was staying to spend time with my dear Brandon, so for the first time in my life I led a caravan. You'll all be delighted to know I can make the Bham drive sans a GPS navigator...

A couple of old friends put them up Friday night and we spent Saturday morning wandering around Bellingham.

Esci pterodactyls...

 

We started out at the Arboretum, progressed to the university, and then went downtown. Got coffee, wandered around market, then went to pester Brandon at his NSEA work party.

They got to see some live, but captive, salmon in the breeding pools at Maritime Heritage Park. They were entranced for a while. 

Watching the salmon....

Having mentioned on multiple occasions the yarn store in Bham, it was necessary to visit it and drag Nico along. He was thrilled. So to cheer him up we took a wander out on boardwalk at Boulevard Park. Not before we ran into this guy raiding a horsechestnut tree. 

Almost-Ninja squiggel... really is brown-black morph of an eastern gray

Had lunch in the little cafe over Village Books in Fairhaven. To this day I have no idea what it's called, but the food is scrumptious!

Then took a quick jaunt to Teddy Bear Cove to show them the coast I am more familiar with.

I was praised for the mixture of activities in my little tour. Not going to lie, was pretty pleased with myself.

They continued on to Vancouver that afternoon, and despite lots of worrying(for no reason), had no issue at the border in either direction.

But Phoebe, what about your misleading Turkey Day title...?

It was one of those shameless catchy titles that invites you to read even though the content is sub par  And you keep right on reading because you hope that somehow, eventually, the author will get back to the point...

Gratuitous gobbler picture (Stolen from the interwebs)

Well on Tuesday a coworker asked if I was getting excited about my family coming this weekend. Somewhat dumbfounded I counted days in my little head and arrived at the magical number 4.5. They would be arriving in 4.5 days. We're down to 2.5 days now. 

Yesterday I called the mother and siblings coming to plan the menu, ask for any food requests, and remind them to bring their slippers, this being a dirty shoe free zone and all. So today Leonie and I went grocery shopping. Leonie patiently pushed the cart while I largely ignored her (rude I know, she pushed my cart for me!) and mumbled over a carefully constructed list that was doubtlessly missing a few things.

 This is the end result, I got pretty damn excited. I've never been in charge of this much food. Also we got an 18 pound turkey for free because we (I/my mother) spent so much money.

The receipt was a good 2.5 feet long

Because I highly doubt I'll be back before then...

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

 HAVE A BLAST, EAT LOTS OF TASTY FOOD!

And so it Begins....

The Planting Season

Nursery, aka my new second home

 That's right, its here. Last week we began cleaning and packing plants so they can travel to their new homes: the emptied Mills and Aldwell reservoirs. Although I have not personally done any planting to date, crews began planting this week in both valleys. I have played my humble role at the nursery, shuffling plants around, looking for slugs and slug eggs... counting and recounting, and then having to recount again because Nico is saying 7, 12ty9, 239 or Leonie unknowingly interrupts...

Vine maples in the process of being cleaned

All the flats have tags like this to identify not only the plant,  but the project it is for, the year the seed/cutting was  collected, and the year it was sown. For example this is Lonicera involucrata, E for Elwha (also 07 is the project code), 12 is the year it was collected meaning this was a cutting, and 12 again, the year it was sown. If you can only get one thing right in the nursery, this would be the thing to focus on. If this tag is wrong... well. We're screwed.

We have lists, lists we must follow. Our boss has mapped polygons on both reservoirs, given them site numbers, and created plant lists according to the planting density desired for each particular site. Densities may vary due to sediment, natural regeneration, perceived browse pressure... (I made the last one up a little, although I'd like to think it is taken into account). These carts get loaded multiple times daily with a hodgepodge mixmatch of 8 hawthorne, 50 bigleaf maple, 36 black cap raspberry etc. etc. etc. The cleaned plants are put in bags marked with flagging that has the site code and bag number on it, and stored in the greenhouse until further action is taken. 

Red osier dogwood

 Sometimes I think fall in the Pacific Northwest is a little dull. This year that thought hasn't really crossed my mind.Red osier dogwood and vine maple in particular present brilliant pigments as the chlorophyll breaks down and departs the system in preparation for leaf dropping. They spot the landscape in drifting leaf capes, challenging others to match their vibrant concession to the impending cold.

Bigleaf maple, mixed forest

Others such as big leaf maples, indian plum and red alder attempt to meet the challenge placed with bright translucent yellows, and the conifers... well they don't give a damn about their cousins' frailty and keep doing their thing.

Am I getting poetic and rhapsodizing? Moving on...

Since we are going to be doing this (and washing pots, cant forget washing pots...) all this winter, its vital to stay peppy. And sometimes that means a Phoebasaurus visits. It typically only occurs on special occasions when props such as stubby tubes are available.

Just in Case you Think I Actually Live at the Nursery...

I take breaks to make things like windfall pear butter and a-little-dense bread. The SO kindly loaned me his crock pot to make some last rounds of apple butter from the trees in our yard, and so the fun began all over. 

Leonie and I gathered these bad boys from an alley one of our coworkers had mentioned to us. Free pears!It may be the most delicious thing I have tasted in a while.

The result

 Occasionally I get cocky and think that I can make bread. Now IF I had a little more patience and a less grumbly belly, this may have risen (literally) to it's full potential. I, however, was hasty. So I ended up with rather dense but still tasty walnut rosemary bread.

On that fine note, I hope ya'll voted, and are experiencing exceptional happiness and health.

Oh and someone, anyone, everyone,  please leave a comment!