he meandered
pandered and outnumbered
he remembered
his dear father
tending and incumbent
A bevvy whenever
remember?
expect he shifts around in combat
whenever that was
waiting aside with contrast
thought you had him
never asking less than conquest
his fits and starts appalled them
recall that
for shame
he never made it up to that
marking on the door frame
Evelyn and I rode around the Hood Canal. Counterclockwise.
Here is a flickr set of the trip.
We met at Westlake Center just before 5pm. We took the 5:30 ferry to Bremerton.
There was a detour and we didn’t quite know which way to go after taking an alternate road in Bremerton, so we stopped and bought a map. Then we rode up a steep hill. Soon we found Campus Parkway, which was a wide gravel road into a cleared strip in the forest. We camped where the road narrowed. There were lots of ATV tracks and berries around, and a dead car in a dirt pit with a little makeshift shelter next to it.
We awoke to rain, went back to sleep a few times until it stopped, and got up.
We gathered wild berries for our breakfast, but rode to square lake before preparing it. It was a nice lake, but the park had no trash or water.
We stopped at a newly installed pre-fab house for water, but it tasted gross and made us paranoid. We stopped at a highschool for water, but couldn’t find anything except a vending machine with bottled water, so we bought one. Then it rained. When the rain slowed, we left.
When we stopped for lunch at a crappy gyro deli on 106 it started pouring. We waited with two motorcyclists on Harleys until the rain slowed. One was a fireman and one was a Native American.
The rain continued periodically all day, but when it wasn’t raining, the sun shone through and warmed us and dried our clothing. At some point Evelyn got a flat tire.
We stopped at a vegetable stand at the south end of the canal to get vegetables for dinner. We got peppers, okra and apples.
We tasted and bought a bottle at the Hoodsport Winery before turning inland from the canal. The road to Lake Cushman was a huge hill. About 3/4 of the way up, we were resting and a woman pulled up and offered to let us stay at her house near Lake Cushman. We went to the park by the lake, but it wasn’t a state park anymore, it was a private campground. There was one site left. We had a campfire with wet wood that was hard to light.
Lake Cushman had a lot of huckleberries, which we had in our cereal for breakfast. They were sour and good. I dug up a small beargrass plant, Evelyn took some pictures of the lake, and we set off for the north end of the canal.
It was a hilly ride. Evelyn got another flat tire once we got back on 101. It was a blowout through the hole made during the flat on Sunday. We stopped and constructed a boot from a mini vodka bottle on the side of the road. The replacement tube had 2 holes that needed to be patched before we could use it, and my pump stopped working. I oiled it and tightened it and hoped it would work later. We inflated the tire with her pump.
We stopped at the Pleasant Harbor marina for lunch. Soon we left the canal for Walker Pass, which I had not realized was almost 800 feet high. I guess the road to Lake Cushman was almost 1000 feet, but it was hotter when we climbed Walker Pass. The ride seemed long as we headed for the Hood Canal bridge. I got a flat tire. My pump worked. After the Hood Canal Bridge the ride didn’t seem so long. We got home and ate at Tacos Guayamas. I had a wet burrito al pastor.
I’m sorry for how
the dinosaurs ruled the earth
they ruled it with an iron fist
they ruled it so they don’t
exist
anymore
now all they are as birds
they are up in the air
they are up in the air
or they were
No time should be lost in matters of this kind.
On the south side gravel mounds were innumerable.
Those painted floors in the green room were real.
Two very charming members of the male sex:
Edwin lay butter in the bottom of the pye,
put it on the back of the range
the one to our left
where store and I would go with him.
Felix Geigermann edges,
as if splashing had taken place
when the benefit of the “in” explanation,
and without going “no, mother,”
I shall leave you to your own conscience.
From Rustam’s house (southeast section of city)
is said worthy to be compared in volume
with a single shall.
Bring the dreamless sleep that lulls.
The could easy get married again
but with me is differencely.
cork
Its appearance and the dust upon the bottle.
I added a link to my flickr account on the sidebar of this blog, under “me”.
I added a tab with some plants that I am interested in parting with or I have extras of. It’s titled “available plants.”
Click on these links if you are interested in plants or images.
At great personal and communal expense, I have pickled a feral relish.
After harvesting the cheeses from the weedy mallows of my garden, I had extensive help from Adam and Cameron in removing their outer coverings.
This relish is pickled in tribute to the coastal first people gatherers who toiled long and hard digging roots and rhizomes, picking berries, and preparing and preserving these wild foods. They were taught that the berry spirits disapproved of those who ate while they picked, and scarcity would strike the berry patches of women whose berry-laden hands strayed to their mouths.
I am planning to serve this relish not with the Grease of the Eulachon, but with grilled cylindrical protein.
The relish is pickled with cider and rice vinegar, fennel seed heads, serrano peppers and garlic.
Photo credit for this first one goes to Evelyn. I might also mention that I just got a new digital camera, so perhaps I’ll be better about including my own photographic work in blog entries of the future.
Evelyn and I went on a bike tour over Independence Day weekend.
View Larger Map
We left on Thursday evening after I got home from work, and managed to ride 40 miles past Lake Stevens before camping for the night. We camped at the Centennial Trailhead, which had a “no camping” sign, but also a nice spot to camp that was out of sight of the trail and the gravel turnaround where a small road crossed the trail. There was also a stinky porta-potty, so I didn’t get to use my trowel in the morning. We brought sandwiches for dinner, so we didn’t have to cook between setting up camp and going to sleep. That was a good thing, as there were ravenous mosquitoes in that forest.
You can click on the map for route and camping spot details. It totaled 235 miles by my (google maps) calculations.
Here’s a list we made of things to bring or consider bringing on our month-long tour in Sept.
How the devil she did it beats me
though to be one at each angle
of its eastern terminus wall…
Richard looked down at her.
“Do you think i’m a maskery’s?”
I shan’t be home before going for ten.
Lay in watching the sea and the low grey
sky, contentment.
Lavinia told hannah her story in herself
as she hastily prepared for the motor men,
headed by myself,
poured out of the kraal.
Here’s a map overview of the trip:
If you link to the google map page, you can find all kinds of more intricate information on the trip, including my planned routes out and back, and the routes that I actually took. Find out where I had to get off and walk, where I was lost and tired and turned around, where I ate lunch, and where there are gates.
The idea of the trip was to follow the Tolt pipeline trail out to the reservoir, or however close I could get, camp, and ride back. I made the route a little more interesting by riding up to the Snoqualmie valley on a logging road before coming back.
The Tolt pipeline trail was not bad, once I got up to it, and the day was unexpectedly beautiful. The trail follows the pipeline straight across all landforms, so there are many unnecessary hills. All except the first were ridable. At some point out in the middle of nowhere it becomes paved, which is nice. There were these huge imposing buildings, and then the big gate at the Tolt Regulating basin. I turned around and took the other less-imposing gate and got back on the dirt roads. This was the hottest part of the day, and I had worn wool pants since the weather report was for clouds and rain. Bad idea. The climb was grueling. I stopped in shady spots to cool down. When I got to the top of a ridge, there was a lot more active logging and bare, hot dirt. I didn’t want to go over the ridge because I knew I’d have to climb back up, and I was too tired to buy into that. I coasted back down to a turnoff I had seen earlier that looked promising and camped there. It was a nice camping spot.
I surveyed the area for edible plants and found violets(Viola sempervivens) and Oregon Grape (Mahonia aquifolium).
I ate some of the violet leaves fresh as a snack. They tasted great, like wintergreen. I put quite a lot of them in my dinner as well, which was seasoned rice with canned smoked herring. I don’t think the herring and the violets went together very well, but it was alright. Next time make the violets into a salad or dessert or something.
I saw some Mahonia, and had just read a blog post about Mahonia tea a few days ago, so I wanted to try it. Finding enough was difficult, as most of the plants were small and spread out, but I got an amount that I thought would work. The tea was excellent. Sweet, sour, and with a pleasant but hard-to-describe flavor.
It rained before I got up, so my tent got wet, but I stayed dry. The morning was cool and I was grateful for my wool pants for the first few hours before regretting them again. The logging roads to the Snoqualmie valley were fun. I had to go under or around lots of gates, but that was okay. I only got a tiny bit lost a few times. I saw a pack of squids and about that many other cyclists on Highbridge road. I had lunch at the Snoqualmie Ice Cream factory. Sunday was a nice day, and the Burke was pretty busy the whole way home.
Last night I made a soup with two plants that I had been meaning to eat for a while. Cleavers and Mallow.
Galium aparine and Malva neglecta
Mallow is from the same family as okra (Malvaceae) and probably the same subfamily, etc. Wikipedia gets foggy at this level of phylogeny. The important part is that mallows have a similar slimy (mucilaginous) texture to that of okra, so they can thicken a gumbo just like okra can. When I had the big pile of mallows on the cutting board, I thought it would be more than enough to thicken the gumbo, particularly when I picked up the gummy mass and tossed it into the pot, but once the leaves and shoots were cooked they got a lot smaller and I decided that I could probably have used 2-3 times as much mallow as I did. The texture was good, but definitely could have been thicker.
The cleavers I added very near the end, at the same time as some fresh oregano. I could have used a lot more cleavers too. I thought there were more of those growing in my garden. I will have to wait a week or two and make another weedy gumbo. Perhaps next time I’ll use the caribou stew meat that’s in my freezer. I think that would make a good wild gumbo.
Ingredients I remember putting in the gumbo, in rough order of addition: butter, onions, garlic, celery, potato, carrot, lots of capsicum flakes, veg. bouillon, filé, mallow, mixed cajun seasoning, asparagus, cleavers, oregano.