Bearwoods Progress

The Forest Abides

sam — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 04:03:12 +0000

in Verdant Splendor, in Cool, Humid Scents and Bird Song Punctuated Quiet.

Winter Hummers

sam — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 18:58:42 +0000

It’s been a rough winter for the birds here at the farm, especially the Anna’s Hummingbirds which stay the whole year. They are used to cold and freezing and seem to find enough food, but I put out the sugar water anyway to keep them around the house. We have several now and they are using the feeder often.

I take the feeder in on nights when it’s very cold, last night was 20F, and put it out at first light so they have warmish food when they thaw out.

The rest of the birds get suet and mixed bird food and they seem to be good with that. This morning even the Varied Thrushes came to feed which is always a pleasure to see.

Snow Days

sam — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 20:37:10 +0000

Okay, so the east coast has been under hundreds of inches of snow for months, but snow in the PNW is pretty rare and when it comes it is pretty. It was pretty cold too, so it stayed suspended in it’s state of prettiness for a long time.

Sunrise on the morning of February 24th.

Even the sword ferns in the forest were covered.

Looking back at the house.

Jay’s Gate to the sleeping garden.

The hoop house is snowed over, but it’s nice and thawed inside.

So ferocious! Snow Leopard, aka Becko the Krazy Kat is out for a stroll. She did not stay long though, not because she was cold, but because she just started to wander off… Look into those eyes if you dare and know insanity!

Hoop House Lives!

sam — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 00:04:50 +0000

Sunday we put the finishing touches on the structure of the hoop house and then stretched the 6 mil poly cover over it all. It was a difficult and exhausting job, pulling and fastening the lath down on each side and then the ends. But in the end it looks great and is noticeably warmer inside.

I used the screen door I bought for our Ballard apt and fit it for the door. The 1000 liter IBC water cube will be painted flat black to absorb and slowly radiate solar heat to moderate the temperature inside. We’ll also use gallon milk jugs to do the same but disperse them through out the plants and planting beds.

I’m so happy it’s done, and so happy to have taken the chance on the design. I’ve always wanted a greenhouse and I’m sure it will be the first of several we’ll build on the farm.

Happy New Year–Gott Nytt År

sam — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 17:45:00 +0000

We had a nice quiet New Years Eve at home instead of braving the hordes of revelers and associated traffic nightmares over in america.

Our open house on New Year’s Day was a great success, lots of good food and lovely drinks. But unfortunately no one could make it. Our good friends graciously sent or called in their regrets and that was fine. Others just didn’t care so some communication would have been nice.

Little work has been done on the farm except for lots of tree removal. Lots of young red alder have been cut where they shaded garden or potential garden or orchard. Lots more to come down still. We’ve planned and started planting the orchard using some of the existing apples and cherries, as well as moving two mature apples from an unfortunate place to better land. More trees to be planted including pears, plums, apples, cherries and maybe even a peach.

We also have decided to put up a hoop house, a plastic greenhouse, to start early gardening and extend food production into the winter. It’s been a dream of mine since being a kid to have a greenhouse. The first version will be 12’ wide by 32’ long.

November to remember

sam — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 18:45:20 +0000

Well, mostly. This month has been memorable for the incredible mushrooms we’ve found, but also for the small accident that happened on Saturday the 6th. I was just screwing in the last sheet of metal roofing on an 8 foot extension of the garden shed and fell backwards onto soft ground. I broke 3 ribs, stayed home for a week and now am back to work. Very annoying…

The mushrooms have been a pleasant surprise though. I found some Flammulina velutipies mushrooms growing on old sambucus. These are the natural version of the commerically grown enoki mushroom. So another potential edible mushroom. But wait…

I also found large numbers of shaggies, Chlorophyllum rhacodes, under the cedars in the woods at the farm. There were enough buttons to make a huge batch and freeze them.

Next we found groups of Coprinus comatus growing in the old horse pasture, as well as along the road. These will be a good edible in the future, just have to get them before they melt.

Then last week we found the mother load, blewit mushrooms, growing next to the wood pile. I saved the few there for cooking later and then a week later I found another huge patch of them near the house. These two fruitings produced enough to fill a 2 cup bag after cooking.

So lots of fun with fungi, not so much with ribs. This weekend we have brunch guests and the following weekend is a big Turkey Day fest at the farm.

More golden deliciousness…

sam — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 19:14:09 +0000

We stopped by the Woods to check on things Monday and found ourselves looking under the brush for fungi. Initially we found a few more small chanterelles in the large upper patch but the more we looked nearby the more we found.

All are loosely concentrated around the old trail that leads to my Woods, but they are still widely scattered and difficult to find. They tend to like vaccinium ovatum nearby, but that’s the only observed preference we’ve found.

The cedars are dropping their old fronds now so that makes finding chanterelles that much harder as they are the same size and shape as the little golden nuggets. This 3rd haul of the fall fungus season netted about 2 or 3 lbs. which I dry sautéed, buttered and froze.

New blog writer

sam — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 18:10:31 +0000

I just found an amazing new tool to post to this journal from MS. I usually steer far away from MS Live products, but this one component, Live Writer, seems to work great for journal posting. Pictures, text color and font all come through as intended. Yay.

Fungus amongus

sam — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 16:28:00 +0000

We had a second crop of chanterelles last week and they were great slowly sautéed and added to new potato soup. Hope for more, but they are slow and few.

Crab Summer

sam — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 14:51:16 +0000

It has been a good summer for seafood gathering. We’ve been able to have clams and crab whenever we want to most of the time. The past couple weeks we’ve been crabbing and freezing the meat for guests on Labor Day weekend. Clam beaches are closed now due to biotoxin (red tide) but hopefully it will clear by next weekend.

Kitchen sink full of crab, red rock and dungeoness.

a kelp crab, not for eating, but cool. underwater camera action…

Crabbing by hand, walking the low tide at Double Bluff.

Crabbing with a trap at Langley Boat Harbor, most are females… maybe one will be a male of the right size to keep.

Gulls wait for the tide.