Summer Projects

As it turns out, hot milk with Ovaltine and instant espresso powder does not come close to tasting like a mocha. But by experimenting we discover great things right? This just happens not to be one of them. Am I going to finish it? Yep.
More on topic, here are some of the ways I have been spending the summer. I work with a salmon restoration non-profit, which among other things, gets funding for and implements in-stream restoration projects, placing large woody debris, recreating channels and so on.

DRR - Deschutes River Ranch
In true trampling Phoebasaurus style I have no picture of the actual project to show you, just animals and things I noticed. The Ranch was until recently a 200 acre sheep pasture, now its an empty pasture with over 5,000 brand new shiny plants placed last winter. Well there were thousands of shiny new plants. Now a lot of them are dead from the extreme stress this summer presented - too hot, no rain, even with watering a large portion of them are dead. Some were also carted off by the friendly neighborhood beaver as well.

The organization I work with (for all of 4 more days...!) was contracted by the property owners (three local cities - its a water rights mitigation site) to create a planting and monitoring plan. Which they did. I came across these goldfinches helpfully spreading the bull thistle. Thanks freakin birds!

The plants went in the ground in December/January, and most got some form of protective tubing (for girdling - rodents, and browse - deer). This summer the planting was mowed, and I mean that literally. In the sections with no protector tubes there are very few plants, living or dead, to be found. Somewhere the communication on that front broke down. Yesterday I spent six+ hours tracking and tripping through shrew tunnels, vole holes and barely penetrable thickets of thistle to find and identify all the plants planted as that is what our monitoring plan lays out - finding and enumerating every plant.

The project as a whole has been an interesting experience to witness - it seems like no matter how hard you try, things don't work as intended, and people will find all kinds of things to criticize (including the implementation of their own suggestions...).

Clearwater River Restoration
The Clearwater River is a beautiful river whose waters eventually end up in the Puyallup River, and historically was logged down to the river banks. Forest practices don't allow that any more, but the loss of dynamic wood structures in the river lead to loss of fish refuge and smaller spawning gravels over time, because there was little or nothing to hold them in place.

So this multi-year project has installed many log jams - nine just this summer. I found it incredible how simple sandbags could actually isolate the construction area and prevent any thick turbid water from entering back into the river.

 Our project manager, the engineer, and two contractors figure out an anchor log's placement.

 Clearwater River valley from above, one logjam in place downstream, another going in.

The reason I got to be there was to help de-fish the construction areas prior to heavy equipment manipulating the river channel. We found steelhead fry, coho, salamanders, frogs, sculpin... My favorite were the salamanders, clearly.

We mostly electro-fished, which lightly zaps the critters and makes them go belly-up, and you have to be a quick netter to snag them before they realize multiple large predators are lurking over them. Larger fish are faster, and more difficult to catch. I saw a frog-pole in a little pool and went after it, lost it under some rocks and began digging. I ended up with five salamanders and the frog-pole. Such bizarre and fascinating critters. The animals are then relocated to a safe spot outside of the construction zone.

 Rivers are of course a great spot to find flutterbys

A sulking sculpin. They are oddball looking, their patterns are beautiful and amazing camouflage. 

As far as I know logjam placement is done for this project, unless more funding comes along and they can design and implement a new project. An old logging road adjacent to the river has been decommissioned - there's a slightly scary 'up and over' road instead which was frightening enough to me in our little work RAV - how logging trucks do it I don't know. 

This project, rather ironically, gave me more respect for loggers and the treacherous work they do - pulling logs off incredibly steep slopes, replanting those slopes, hauling logs out on shitty little roads prone to washout. You see pictures of those men in the past who took down old growth by hand and imagine what badasses they must have been - today's loggers aren't all that different.

Ohop Creek Restoration
If you ever wanted a project to represent partnership between vastly diverse agencies (Fed, State, Tribal, Non-Profit...) this would be it. Another multi-year project, this one recreated over TWO MILES of meandering creek channel to rehabilitate a creek that had been ditched by settlers to drain what later became farmland. Eventually it will become a valley of wetlands again hopefully.
The last portion of the creek re-meander was constructed this summer, and before the old ditch channel could be decommissioned we had to de-fish it. Sound familiar?  Well this was a whole different beast. The area was a 1/4 mile stretch of murky creek with holes deep enough I was a few inches or one missed step from topping my waders. Once again electrofishers (the packs) were used, as well as seining and straight picking out of the creek.

Additionally, all organisms were then taken to an ID station to be enumerated to species as best as possible. I did one day in the ID tent and one day in the creek, and I learned a little more freshwater fish ID, which was great.
We went back a few weeks later, and this is what the new channel looks like - we also saw the dead pink, but also a live one flitting about in the channel.

This project is overwhelming in it's scope. Ten's of thousands of trees have been planted and more will come this winter. When it floods here, the bank overtops quickly and creates overland flow. This will not become a spawning channel - there's very little gravel in this system, none in most places. But as plants grow and wetlands develop it will become prime rearing habitat for juvenile salmon, not to mention the myriad of other organisms that will utilize it. That's one thing I really appreciate about salmon restoration projects - while the focus is on these amazing fish, the projects benefit far more than just the fish. And if the fish begin to do better, then the ecosystem as a whole benefits. The scope of it all is mindboggling - in my head I can sometimes begin to grasp at the web of interactions all these organisms have, but it's so huge.

Adventures of Real and Imagined Varieties

This stretches back to July again, but it's worth mentioning. Brandon, after doing some sort of survey in a man-powered craft, decided we really ought to undertake a kayaking trip. So he rented us kayaks and we paddled our butts out to Hope Island, which as you can see is not for the faint of heart or under-experienced, both categories I would gladly put myself in. 

We made it without a single mishap or near miss, and even saw some sweet jellyfish along the way.

 Somehow we neglected to bring books, or entertainment of any kind.

So after hiking around the little island, harassing the itty bitty shore crabkins, and baking in the sun a bit, we headed back.

Since I'm scared shitless (sorry folks, it's true) of being suspended over large bodies of water like say, Puget Sound, I am proud I only panicked and flipped out once, for about 3 minutes. Then I got over myself and realized I have done more (mentally, physically, emotionally) difficult things in my life than paddle the last mile back to the marina. Brandon now wants to buy a kayak, someday. And he's more amenable to the idea of doing the trip in a tandem next time, especially after we hit a rough patch were the tide split around a point.

In the more recent past, we have been canning up a veritable storm of salsa.  The Otter can happily down a pint in a sitting if you let him, and last year's batch of 16 jars was simply insufficient. We were out by March, maybe earlier. Which leaves many, many months of salsa-less-ness to cope with.
This year he agreed to help me, its amazing how much more quickly the process goes. Then when he saw me chopping onions with my eyes closed, tears running down my face, he grabbed me his chemistry goggles and ordered a food processor for us on Amazon.

It turns out running hot peppers though a food processor is a deeply moronic thing to do, as it turns that burning juice into flying aerated burning juice. At least this time I wore gloves to protect my hands. Experiments, right?

I spend a lot of time fiddling around reading things on the internet, and one of the blogs I  poke around in is called NW Edible - an urban homesteader in the Seattle area. This is relevant because I read this post about making tomato sauce from all the discarded skins, cores, seeds, and juice the process of canning tomatoes (or salsa) yields.
In this manner your waste is reduced and you feel a little self-righteous about your economical kitchen. While she suggests an immersion blender, the trusty (and worryingly slightly rusty) food mill worked a charm on separating out nice thick sauce from squeaky skins. It resulted in a less and 3% processing loss - I threw away just under 1.5 lbs of skins/seeds from over 50 lbs of tomatoes we processed for salsa. Which I find delightful - Brandon on the other hand put up with me repeatedly shoving this bowl in his face and squeaking about how magical this process was, so he might be over it.

 The best use for a dishwasher I've found yet - drying rack for newly washed jars.

 Salsa, round one. 

We ended up with 45 pints of salsa, 10 pints of tomato sauce, and a batch of strawberry jam. Now we have to find a way to fit it all in our already overfull pantry system. A good challenge to have!

Me pretending not to be scared shitless. It might be residual happy from a seal keeping pace with us for 5 minutes. 

Happy Trails!