Garden Update

Our garden is really starting to take off! I had my first salad from the garden last week, strawberries are really coming on, and we'll have chard and peas in a couple of weeks. The beans, cukes, and squash are all off to a good start, and all but one of my new hop hills are thriving. For some reason, one of my vines is just getting hammered by aphids. I grabbed a handful of ladybugs from throughout the garden and placed them on the vine, but it may be too late. Hopefully the rhizome will be healthy enough to grow again next year.

Our potatoes are also doing phenomenally well (so far) and I cannot wait for fresh tomatoes, peppers and basil. Yum!

Midnight Visitor

Last week I was cleaning up the kitchen when I heard a hollow thumping noise coming from the general vicinity of our chicken coop. I stuck my head out the back door and saw a dark form scurrying off the roof. I grabbed a flashlight and a camera and found this fellow staring back at me from the neighbor's oak tree. Thankfully, it would appear that our coop is in fact coon-proof. No chicken dinner for you, buddy!

South Whidbey State Park

Two weekends ago we had a fantastic camping experience on Whidbey Island. Ordinarily, Seattle experiences the "June Gloom" all month, which (as the name suggests) is an entire month of pretty cloudy days with the occasional rain shower thrown in for good measure. It reminds of an old joke: "How can you tell when it's summer in Seattle? The rain feels warmer!" Har har. In any case, the June Gloom has been remarkably absent this year, and we benefitted greatly during our three day trip to the island.

South Whidbey is a great park--surrounded by magnificent second growth forest, with the last patch of true old growth, and easy access to a beautiful stretch of beach. I took the boys for a long hike through the big trees our first morning so Amy could sleep in, then we all spent the rest of the day at the beach, flying kites, tide pooling, reading, and doing beach stuff.

On our way back to Seattle we stopped at Fort Ebey State Park, about 15 minutes north, and the boys got to check out the WW II era gun emplacement that guarded Admiralty Inlet and the entrance to Puget Sound. It's remarkable; this fortification clearly suggest that we were very worried about a full-blown naval invasion from Japan. Now, the building is fun for young boys to explore and let their imaginations run wild.

Gojira @ El Corazon

This year Amy bought me 2 tickets to see one of my favorite bands, Gojira (BEST. PRESENT. EVER.) They are a death metal band from France, but instead of lyrics fixated on gore, suffering, dismemberment, and other creepy stuff, they tend to write about environmental, spiritual, and social issues. I admit this sounds like a strange combination, but the energy, intricacy and intensity of metal actually makes the messages come through far more forcefully than if they were accompanied by a softly strummed acoustic guitar.

Their most recent album, The Way of All Flesh, is an exploration of life and death, but takes a surprisingly sophisticated perspective on mortality. The songs explore our connection to each other and to the planet where we evolved, the fear each of us feels when we contemplate the end of our existence, and what (if anything) awaits us when we die. The album came out just before my grandfather passed away, and I listened to it over and over during that time. Here is a passage from the title track that was particularly meaningful to me:

I find it hard to believe that this picture on the wall is everything
I do understand all the prayers, life is so sharp and hurts so bad
What does it mean to be dying, what if you take the guts and brain away
Is it this blood and heartbeat that you call life?

Every effort to ignore it is unavailing; we all have to die
Is it too late to dull the edges of the pain, I have to try
This is another dimension
You can scatter ashes to the winds and even buried in the ground I'm still here

Do not be afraid you are dying
and the four great elements of your body are collapsing one into the other
It feels as if you are being crushed by mountains
The light of this world has faded completely
But the light of the next world has not yet appeared

Your breath is now still, no warmth to your skin
Do not be afraid, there's no way that you can stay here
You are leaving this world
All lights are fading away now
Leave behind the loved ones and all you know
Do not be afraid and let yourself go

And another passage, this time from the song A Sight to Behold:

The way we all behave is not understandable
It is so sad to see the wealth of our planet fade away
We all behave like children, taking off the head of our teddy bear
to see what's inside, taking, not giving back
We drain the oceans and suck all the blood out of the soil
We spend the time we have left fighting and killing each other
Lust for comfort, entertainment becomes an obsession
And there is so much time to kill

The show was at El Corazon, a small venue across the street from the downtown REI. We were at the very front of the stage for the whole set, and it was an incredible performance. Excellent musicianship, fantastic stage presence (they actually smiled throughout the set!), and they thanked the Sea Shepherd Society for coming to the show to distribute information and spread the word about conserving marine life.

Best of all, Amy actually came to the show with me and I think she had a good time too!

Kids, Gardens, Chickens, and Co-ops

Life has been extraordinarily busy in our household these past several weeks. The boys are doing well and growing like, ah, hop vines! (see below) Lochlan is three today and we had an exhilarating (but exhausting!) superhero training camp birthday party for him Saturday. Amy sewed a bunch of capes, and I drew templates for various superhero symbols--hammer, lightning bolt, cat, fire, etc so the kids could augment their own costumes. Some of the training activities included "speed" where I ran around the outside of the house until a swarm of caped anklebiters pulled me to the ground, flying on the swingset, fighting (punching bag), and agility (pinata).

Liam is finishing up at North Seattle 5s and will be attending KapKa next year--he attended his first 'orientation' day at the school on Friday and was so excited to meet the other kids and get his first KapKa t-shirt. Lochlan will continue attending Liam's 'alma mater' next year, Fremont Community School. We're a little nervous about paying tuition at two private schools, but we're getting some financial help from KapKa and we'll just find a way to make it all work.

We have spent just about every weekend this Spring working on expanding our garden--we rebuilt and/or expanded all of our raised beds and built three new beds, and installed a new flagstone path that runs about 180 linear feet from the entrance to our basement apartment to the front walk. That was a challenging project, but we are pleased with the end result. I also planted five new hop hills (three more Cascade, one each of Centennial and Chinook) and installed three new 16' poles with guy wires and twine to support the vines. The two hills I put in last year are growing exceptionally vigorously; in fact, one of them has already reached the top of the railing on our second story deck, about 15-16'. We should have enough cones for brewing a few batches this summer and fall, and next year I'm hoping for a bumper crop!

Elsewhere in the garden and yard, we've planted or sown broccoli, spinach, potatoes, kale, rainbow chard, lettuce, chives, carrots, peas, beans, thyme, cilantro, strawberries and 3 kinds of squash. We have enormous tomato and pepper starts, as well as a bunch of cukes and basil. Most of the tomatoes went in yesterday but it's been a cold cold May so I'm saving a handful as backups. We've also planted ten salmon berry bushes, a black currant, four raspberry canes, two kiwi vines, and one each of peach, apple and cherry trees. We bought some mason bees to help with pollination and it's been very gratifying to see those little critters working the cherry blossoms.

Our hens survived the amazingly cold winter in fine shape and didn't stop laying. I suspect this is due to the heat lamp we installed in their nest box; hens generally stop laying when daylight hours dip below ~12 hours. They are really enjoying the (relatively) warmer weather and we are getting 2-3 eggs every day.

The other big project we've been working on is the Seattle Urban Farms Cooperative. Actually, the vast majority has been Amy, my main contributiona thus far have been to design the logo and set up a skeletal website. It's been a huge effort, essentially starting a new business, and the response has been overwhelming. Since the first meeting on February 11, the co-op has grown to over 150 members and we'll receive our second shipment of bulk feed on Wednesday. We distributed the first one from our house, but that was pretty overwhelming so we've found another location that should work much better logistically. Ultimately we'll have a permanent site, or 'storefront.' Amy and I are both really energized by this project, because we feel it is so important to increase the amount of food grown within our city. To paraphrase James Howard Kunstler, there are numerous "converging catastrophes" swirling around us right now and it's easy to feel powerless. We feel that by making it much easier for Seattleites to obtain inexpensive feed, seeds, supplies, and know-how, we can help our neighbors and fellow citizens take some measure of control. They can increase their food security, cut down on greenhouse gas emissions, save money, get some exercise, and have a great time doing it.

Now that our 'crops' are in and the boys are winding down with school, I'm hoping to start posting here more regularly.

Arizona

Light blogging lately, mostly due to our trip to Arizona and the bazillion trips to the doctor to deal with Liam's tonsils (he had them out on Thursday, along with his adenoids--he is recovering well). We had a great time, and the trip came right at the moment of winter when we feel we cannot take another day of 40 degree rain. It was sunny and warm, almost hot by Seattle standards, and we all had a great time. We spent lots of time in the pool, jumped on the trampoline, hiked in the desert, went fishing, found geodes, looked at dinosaur skeletons, even took a trip to a gold mine! We stayed a bit longer than usual, which gave us more time to catch up with everyone. It was a great visit, and we're already looking forward to our next visit in October: when Andy and Rhea get married! WOO HOO!!

Stevensons in Stevenson

Last week the family and I went to the Wildlife Society/Society for Northwestern Vertebrate Biology conference at the Skamania Lodge in STEVENSON Washington. It was so cool to see our family name all over the place--in fact, the conference room where I presented is called 'Stevenson A'. To top it all off, I recently spoke with my folks and it turns out they stayed in the exact same hotel room at the lodge when they came through the NW several years ago. Amazing!

I had trouble learning very much about the eponymous founder of Stevenson, WA except that the townsite was purchased by a native Missourian named George Stevenson in 1893. Probably not related to us, but interesting nonetheless.

We all had a great time--Amy and I learned a lot about recent scientific developments in the field of wildlife conservation and management, the boys went swimming and hiking (and even saw a pileated woodpecker!), and we sampled the fine beverages on offer at the Walking Man brewpub. Fortunately, my presentation also went well. (For those of you who are really curious, it was about a GIS-based vegetation change analysis I did for the Nature Conservancy and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, looking at the habitat of the streaked horned lark on islands in the Columbia River. The analysis is being used to guide the US Army Corps of Engineers' timing and location of dredge spoil deposition resulting from their efforts to keep the channel navigable. Larks really like sandy nesting sites, but it turns out they don't like it so much when the sand is dumped directly on them and their nests).

On the way back we stopped in Portland to visit our friends Jen and Karl and their new baby girl Clare. She is such a cutie! Lochlan really wanted to hold her, and as I took the picture, I couldn't help thinking that he is almost exactly the same age as Liam when he (Lochlan) was born. I love our boys but the thought of having a newborn again is pretty daunting!

Bummer

I met with a client on Monday night, and when our meeting was over I walked to the bike rack where my bike was locked, put my key in the lock--and it broke off. INSIDE THE LOCK. Well, this is pretty awesome, I thought to myself. I tried to get the broken bit off, but it was lower than the surface of the lock so I couldn't get any purchase on it. Fortunately I was not that far from my house, so I walked home.

The next day I called Kryptonite (the manufacturer of the lock) and they said they'd cover the locksmith's bill to get the lock off my bike. So I called a local locksmith and he met me at the bike. After trying all manner of lockpicks, pliers, etc., he said "it's time to get medieval" and he cut the sucker off. After profusely thanking the man (and paying $65) I rode straight to Recycled Cycles to get a new lock. The guy I talked to at the shop told me they don't even make the same model, and I was lucky to get 4 years of use out of it--apparently these locks are typically good for two years max, in our climate!

Two Boys in a Box

They do cute stuff like this all the time. The box--any box--is one of their all-time favorite toys.

Inaugural Ale

In honor of our new President (ok, actually the timing was strictly coincidental) I brewed up a batch of Extra Pale Ale. Six pounds of golden malt extract, one pound of Crystal malt, 3 oz Cascade hops, Northwest style yeast and the finest Seattle tap water = home brew. One month til happy hour.

Super Powerful Inversion = Awesome Snowboarding

Seattle has been in the grip of an amazing inversion for nearly two weeks now. This results in Seattle being mired in a murky soup of fog, with temps in the 30s. Last Friday I caught a ride with our neighbor Nancy and helped out a group of kids from Salmon Bay (a local public school) as they learned to snowboard. When my duties were complete, I got to take a few runs. It was great! Almost completely clear and mid-40s at Snoqualmie Pass. This was my first day snowboarding in 2+ years and I had a ton of fun, but I am definitely not 21 anymore.