The rainy part of fall came back for a while. Now we are weathering through an unusually long cold snap with temperatures not rising much above freezing in the day. It's so dry my hair could make it's own snap crackle pop advertising. With that much static electricity floating around my head I'm amazed I can still use electronic devices.
Anyway, I snuck one more mushroom hunt in before the cold hit and froze everything solid.
I think these grey guys are oysters, but that's from someone who has never seen one in real life.
This slimy stuff pops up everywhere.
North Fork of the Nooksack River
Can you tell which are cottonwood leaves and which are actually Chanterelles?
I went back to that secret mystical place where we found Chanterelles, to look for more. Turns out if we had headed right instead of left the first time we were there we would have found pounds and delicious pounds of prized edible fungi. These were all a little too far gone to be comfortable eating... but now we know for next year!
I haven't talked much about my job... I am the volunteer coordinator for the Nooksack Salmon Enhancement Association (NSEA), a Regional Fishery Enchancement Group (RFEG) that I volunteered with in college. The position is funded through AmeriCorp, so I'm getting that whole experience wrapped up in one neat package!
The Nooksack River basin supports all five species of Pacific Salmon (Chinook/King, Coho/Silver, Chum/Dog, Pink/Humpy, Sockeye/Red) as well as Steelhead, Cutthroat... Its a beautiful place to live and work, especially when you get out in the nature business with some regularity.
My job is to coordinate community members who are interested in being involved with NSEA. We are lucky to live in a city with three colleges to draw student interns and volunteers from, as well as a community with higher than average environmental awareness. One fun aspect I mentioned before, is that I got to hire interns.
These interns help me run volunteer work parties, and thus far have been very fun to work with. Our last work party of this season is this weekend. I'm trying to plan a cute sendoff, but its posing difficulties for me. For example, what to feed a collectively vegan gluten free group of people? I love making food (surprise!) but I don't own Xanthan gum, egg replacer, tapioca flour, coconut sugar (who knew this was a thing!?)... So far I've arrived at Chili and oatmeal cookies. But then the oatmeal needs to be certified gluten free... I grow ever more grateful that my body doesn't attack itself when I try to feed it the more I research.
Anyway. Remember how I said everything was frozen solid? I meant it.
These are from our most recent community work party, one out in the county right next to the Nooksack. It looks like there is a light dusting of snow, but that is actually extremely heavy frost. We got to our site and set up probably 40 minutes early... So we wandered around and looked at things.
These are serious frost-cicles. That's barbwire for perspective.
This is Will, since you can't see his face, I think it's ok for him to be here. He's one of the more gung-ho interns.I asked him to take pictures that day. This is what he came back with.
These are Chum, easily distinguishable by their green and red tiger striping.
Darkness arrives shortly after 4 now. Its a tough adjustment to make, no time to play in the sunshine (or dreary grey light more typically). So you come home, sit down... And knit and crochet.
With the growing chill I started in on the heavy winter comfort food. Cardamom bread has always represented Christmas time to me, and its December now...
And a pot roast that has since morphed into tacos. Yum!
This is the mango I started growing somewhere in the realm of two months ago. Its doing pretty well considering I thought it was dead for about a week.
Next Time on Phoebasaurus: Salmon Science! Rar!
