Forest Field Day

Several weeks ago Rick and I attended a Family Forest Field Day for people who own small (5-100 acre) forests.  There were many different sessions on a variety of topics with a lot of good information.  The one we enjoyed most was the demonstration of small scale logging equipment.  Before they demonstrated the equipment, the horse logging folks came over to pick up a log.

The horses were beautiful and very well trained; certainly a lot of fun to watch.

They did the job, but I don’t think we have logging with horses in our future.   

We were more interested in the log arches.   

A neat little contraption that Mark, the designer was demonstrating.  It allows you to maneuver the log by hand. 

A variation is the one you can pull with a quad, tractor, Scout etc.  You position it over the log.

Attach the toggles and winch it up.

 A great little tool for small scale forestry work.

 

 And away you go with your log behind you.

 

We learned a lot at the field day and have a little better idea of what we need to do with our forested acreage.  Now we just need LOTS of labor!

Lake Tahoe Wedding

We have just returned from a quick trip to California for the wedding of our nephew Nick and his bride Riah.  They were married about halfway up the ski run at the Heavenly Resort in South Lake Tahoe. 

Lake Tahoe is famous for its snow and skiing in the winter.

It is also beautiful in the summer.

We rode the tram  – the same one the skiers use in the winter – up to the site. 

It was a gorgeous view looking back over the lake.

Nick and Riah enjoying their chicken at the rehearsal dinner.

The center of attention at the “wedding house,” where the family stayed for the weekend, was this cute little puppy Frank.  Frank is half heeler and half Border Collie.  His coloring reminds me of our dog Molly.

Our nephew Doug and his girlfriend Amanda found the puppy his brother Brent had been looking for.  Doug was taking him to Bakersfield for Brent and stopped in Tahoe for the wedding.  Frank is a cutie!

Meanwhile, back at the wedding, Nick has his boutonniere attached.

The beautiful bride Riah with her dad.

 Bethany, Nick’s sister, was a bridesmaid. 

After the ceremony the wedding party went down a lot of steps to get a great backdrop for their pictures.  See Nick and Riah way down there among the rocks?

Nick decided to show off his fireman muscles and carried Riah all the way back up the many rock stairs.

All the way to the top!

After sitting on the rocks for a picture, Beth helps Nick dust off his backside.  A big sister’s work is never done.  

Riah and Nick dancing at the reception.  Don’t they make a lovely couple?  

On the drive back to Bakersfield we stopped to eat at Russell’s favorite drive in, In-N-Out.  It was a long drive, but a beautiful location and wedding.  Congratulations and best wishes to Nick and Riah.    

Megan and Brandon

Our daughter Megan and her boyfriend Brandon came for a visit before they started back to school.  Brandon had never been here in the summer time.  We went for a hike up to Cascade Pass and also worked on a couple of our many projects.

 

The first project was putting in the water line through the orchard. 

Rick had already dug the line with an excavator, so they put in the pipe then covered it with rocks.  We had plenty of those!

They installed a hose bib and started filling in the long trench.

Some people shoveled while others watched.

Rocks in the bottom and dirt on top.

Now we can plant our berries in the de-rocked dirt on top of the water line.  We wanted to make good use of our trench – in all those rocks we didn’t want to dig another one.  These are the rocks we had left over.   

 Rick and Brandon also worked on digging holes for fence posts. 

We didn’t make Brandon work all the time.  He and Megan decided to take the dogs for a walk – on a leash.  Neither of the dogs had ever been on a leash before.  Surprisingly, Grizzly caught on right away.

 

Molly didn’t quite seem to understand the process. 

Molly just wanted Brandon to pet her.  They eventually gave up on the leash idea and just went for a walk; the dogs stay right with you that way. 

  

We also went to the rodeo at our local fair.  Not quite the big San Antonio Rodeo Brandon is used to, but a much smaller version.    

We toured the animal barns and Megan loved the bunnies.

 

We also went up Hwy. 20 to Newhalem and the dams and lakes above us on the Skagit River. 

It is a beautiful view. 

Megan and Brandon climbed down the rocks to the waterfall for a closer look.  I was content looking on from above – someone has to take the pictures. 

Before they flew out of Seattle, Rick and Brandon toured the Boeing Museum of Flight while Megan and I shopped. 

It is a very nice museum with lots of displays. 

A last picture of Brandon at the air museum and then they were off to Aggieland to return to school. 

For Nick – Exotic Cochins

Our favorite nephew who used to work for us, Nick,  has issues with our exotic chicken, Bernadette.  I don’t believe he appreciates her sweet disposition or her unique look.  I will try to help him understand the intrinsic value of the rare, exotic Cochin fowl.  Here is a Cochin rooster that we saw at the Skagit County Fair.  He won a blue ribbon.  Maybe next year we will take Bernadette to exhibit?

 

What nice little feathered footed chicks he and Bernadette could have!

Here is some further information about the breed:

Cochins are known the world over for being big friendly balls of fluff and feathers. They don’t lay well but are very popular because of their sweet personality and fantastic mothering qualities.  Cochins became famous in the 1800s when this Chinese breed was given as a gift to Queen Victoria of England, who absolutely adored them.

Cochin

A Blue Cochin hen

The Cochin or Cochin China, originally known as the Chinese Shanghai, is a breed of chicken. The name Cochin came from its original Chinese name 九斤黄(in pinyin: jiujin huang, pronounced joo-chin hwong), meaning nine jin yellow, where jin is a traditional Chinese measurement of weight.

 History

This chicken was originally bred in China and later exported to Britain and America in the mid 19th century. As a very distinctive breed of chicken, it apparently created a bit of a craze among poultry lovers in the English-speaking world, effectively launching poultry fancy as we know it today.^[1] Not only was this breed one of the largest seen, with cocks weighing up to 11 pounds , but also the soft and plentiful plumage makes the bird quite conspicuous by exaggerating its already large size. Once in the United States, the breed underwent considerable development into its current state.

Characteristics

As above, the most distinctive feature of the Cochin is the excessive plumage that covers leg and foot. The skin beneath the feathers is yellow and the egg colour is brown. Eggs are also medium in size. Standard weightis 11 pounds for a cock, 9 pounds for a cockerel, 8.5 pounds for a hen, and 7 pounds for a pullet. Colour varieties include buff, black, partridge, blue, silver laced, splash, golden laced, and white. Cochins also come in a variety called frizzled, in which the feathers are turned outward. Cochins are well known as good mothers, even as foster mothers for other breeds, and they can lay many eggs, but usually not for extended periods of time.

So you see Nick, Cochins have long been valued for their exotic looks, sweet disposition and great mothering instincts.  Now don’t you appreciate Bernadette?

Cascade Pass Trail

Our daughter Megan and her boyfriend Brandon were here for a summer visit before they start back to school.  Since Brandon is from Texas where there are no mountains, we decided to go for a hike and see some up close and personal. 

At the end of the road we live on,  about 20 miles from our house, is the Cascade Pass trailhead.  A little 3.7 mile hike didn’t seem too daunting – how hard could it be?

As we got past the first couple of switchbacks on the trail we could see the parking lot we had just left.

Though there was still snow on the glaciers, it had melted a lot from when we were here in July with Alex.

                                 July 1st

                         August 17th

The trail was really good in some places.

Rocky in others.

With LOTS of switchbacks – 37 if you are counting.   

Some of us did not have our happy faces on for the whole hike – even standing in front of one of the many beautiful waterfalls. 

We had gorgeous views.

 

We came out onto a clearing above the trees and could see the parking lot and our car way down there.

It was a beautiful, sunny day for a hike. Who says it always rains here?

Eventually we all did make it to the top.   

Some of us were much more excited about that than others - and still had the energy to celebrate. 

Others of us were content to sit down and enjoy the view, eat our little snack and drink the water that Brandon hauled all the way up to the top for all of us.  

Rick and Brandon checked out a bit of the trail to Stehekin. . .   

which is only another 28.2 miles.  Not today.

The views back to the west aren’t bad either.  It is certainly different to look down on a glacier.

Of course no event would be complete for the Aggies without their Gig ‘em sign. 

Soon it was time to head back down the mountain.

There are Megan and Brandon – little red and maroon specks way ahead of us.  Funny how they were always way ahead of us. 

 

 The light was starting to fade as we headed back down. 

We saw some beautiful moss covered rocks and streams. 

Though it has been a hot, dry summer there is still water trickling down.  

Along the trail we saw some lavender blue daisies – or at least they look like daisies to me.

 

We also saw these flowers.  Very bright royal blue.  I have no idea what they are.

And more beautiful views.

At long last, five hours later, we all made it safely back down to the end of the trail and the parking lot.  I am certainly not an experienced hiker, but I have learned one important thing.  When the sign says 3.7 miles that is only one way - the whole trip is 7.4 miles.  Something to keep in mind for next time.  Very tired, a little (OK maybe a lot) sore but it was worth it!

Chickens and Eggs

As our frequent readers know, we purchased baby chicks in April.  We wanted to have our own home grown fresh eggs.  

Those little fluff balls have grown tremendously since then.  The solid black ones are Austrolorps – a heavy Australian breed of Orpingtons.  The black and white ones are Barred Rocks.

They enjoy roaming around in their outside pen during the day.  They are very happy when they get treats tossed over the fence. 

One of their favorites is lettuce.   I try to cut some fresh greens for them every day.

I had heard of chickens taking “dust baths” but never seen one.  They seem to enjoy digging out a little hole in the soft dirt and rolling around. 

At night they fight for the top rung on the roost.  They definitely have their own “pecking order” and woe to the one who is in the wrong place. 

The nest boxes are up on the walls opposite the roost.

I ordered a few more chicks than I thought we really needed – I figured we would probably lose a few along the way.  So far, only one.  She flew the coop – literally.  Molly and Grizzly were right there to play with her.  Unfortunately for her, she didn’t survive the game of tug-o-war.

 

Our exotic chick, Bernadette, is still unique. 

She is some type of Cochin – a rare, old breed of fowl from the Orient.  She has feathers all the way down her legs.

 

She did go through an awkward stage as her feathers were coming in, but now she is a fully feathered adult.  She is much larger than the others.

Today, our first egg!  A little small – which according to the chicken book is normal for new layers. 

If they all start laying consistently, we may be overrun with eggs.  We’ve had a few neighbors ask if we had any extra eggs to sell, so hopefully it will all balance out.

Larry and Karla

Our friends Larry and Karla, previous owners of AAR, were here visiting for a few days.   Starting from their new home in Florida, they are on a five month trip across the country.  We so glad they were able to return to AAR and stay with us.  

I think their motorhome is about the same size as our house!

 

While they were here, Larry graciously volunteered to work on a few of our (many) projects.  He worked on securing the new chicken fence which was a really tight, awkward place and it had to be done left-handed.  Luckily Larry is ambidextrous.  The chickens were very interested in what he was doing over there.

Being an electrical engineer,  Larry is also really handy with wiring.  Here is a very dark picture of him wiring the new lights in the SeaTrain.  You can see why we needed to add the lights.

He also does ceiling fans. 

Your eyes do not deceive you – Rick is actually reading the directions! I had to record that scene for posterity

Putting the old ceiling fan into the guest room.

While Larry was busy with projects, Karla was feeding us.  These are the delicious shish-kabobs she created and then grilled.   

 

 The chickens enjoyed the leftovers.

Karla also spent quality time with the dogs, who loved the extra attention.  Here she is with Molly.

Grizzly got his share of attention too.

 Larry and Karla celebrated their wedding anniversary while they were here. 

Don’ they look cute?

Though it doesn’t look like it, we really didn’t make them work every single day.  Another day of working on the fence.  Taking a water break, watching the antics of the chickens. The hens are convinced that anytime someone comes near the fence they are going to be fed again; they get very indignant if that doesn’t happen.

 

The guys finished the first section of fence and moved the temporary fence, so now we can use the new gate.  What an improvement!

While Larry was holding from the inside as Rick tied up the (temporary) support, the chickens pecked so much at Larry’s feet they untied his shoelaces.    

We didn’t work all the time.  We also had some great meals under the gazebo.  Very fitting as Larry and Karla were the ones who designed and built the gazebo. 

Megan and Brandon arrived from Texas on the last day Karla and Larry were here.  Brandon just had time for a quick tour of the motor home.

Larry’s office away from home.

Larry and Karla travel with a puppy who is much better behaved than our two.

And all too soon it was time for them to head out on the next leg of their adventure. 

We hope they make it back sooner next time.

Garden Update

We are still learning how to grow things in this cool, northern climate.  I am happy to say that our garden this year is much better than we had last year.  Last year we had many green tomatoes and about three ripe ones. Those that did turn red had end rot and blight.  Not a pretty sight.

 

This year we tried some new strategies.  We planted only very early varieties suggested for this area and we planted them all in the wall-o-waters to protect them from the cool nights.  

Mother Nature helped out by providing a dry, hot summer.

Voila!  Red, ripe delicious tomatoes.

Ours were ripe even before some of the “local” gardeners who have years of experience in this climate.  I am a true believer in the wall-o-waters for cool climates! 

We’ve also had success with our peas and beans.  Nick’s custom trellis is still standing in spite of my design and engineering, and is covered with pole beans.

The peas loved the cool weather, now that is has warmed up the beans have started to produce.

The scarlet runner beans have pretty red blossoms.

We also planted a lot more potatoes this year.  Last year we ran out of time and at the last minute we threw a few seed poatoes in a stack of tires sitting on newspaper and filled it with straw.  We did actually get about four or five potatoes from those plants, but they were never very strong or healthy looking.  This year’s potatoes were planted from seed potatoes in enriched, well tilled soil.  The plants were over three feet tall before they started to sprawl and die back a little. 

 

When one plant started to yellow, Rick couldn’t wait to dig around and see if there were potatoes under there.  There they were, peeking out of the dirt.

We got more potatoes from that one plant than we did from our whole potato harvest last year.  We are improving.

Another new addition in the garden this year was planting several flowers and herbs as pollinators.  This is borage which the bees love.

We also planted bee balm to attract the bees.  We didn’t get very good yields last year from our squash or pumpkins at least partially because we had no bees.

The flowers also make the garden look very colorful.

Remember those wilted, dead-looking sweet potato slips we got?

 

Amazingly most of them lived and they are now healthy looking plants.  I don’t know if they will produce any sweet potatoes – probably not, but I am surprised they lived at all.

Even our little blueberries are ripening and bearing.  Very impressive when you consider they are still in the pots they came in from the nursery last year.  We have the water line in the orchard dug, but don’t have it in yet.  After that is complete, the berries will go on top.  So they are still in their containers, waiting to be planted but bearing anyway.

The corn has tassles and ears growing.  We are hoping for some corn on the cob in the next couple of weeks. Last year the varities we planted were too late and never matured.

A new addition for us is this dehydrator.  Since our electricity is pretty unreliable, it was out for five days this past winter, freezing food is an iffy proposition.  So, I’ve been canning to preserve the harvest, but some things don’t do so well canned.  Those foods, like peas and green beans, I am dehydrating.  I also added in some chopped carrots and celery in this batch.

Here are the carrots four hours later. 

Three pounds of carrots in a quart size bag.  Dried foods don’t care if the electricity goes out!

And to make sure our scraps and ends aren’t wasted the chickens are our new garbage disposals.  They eat a lot of things I would never have expected.  They eat any kind of fruit (except lemons) or vegetables.

   

They love greens and bread is their very favorite.  They like weeds too. Here is Bernadette with lettuce. 

We are pretty certain now that Bernadette is not a Bernard.  All the hens should start laying eggs in the next few weeks.

Thunderstorms & Heat

For this area we have had a hot, dry summer.  It was a really welcome change to have thunderstorms come through a couple of days ago. 

The lightning over the mountains is an awe inspiring sight.  And the thunder sometimes rattles the whole house. The temperature drops and the heavens let loose and it pours down rain for a while.  It reminds us of the monsoons we enjoyed in the  Tucson summers.

The hanging flower basket is positioned just right to catch the rain dripping off the porch.  The mountains just above us got so much rain in such a short time there was flash flooding that washed out the bridge, but here at AAR not a problem.

Some of our neighbors have had issues with their dogs during the storms.  A couple have been scared and run off, others just run around in circles and bark like crazy.  They do not appreciate the thunder and lightning.  Our dogs don’t seem to have that problem. 

Their reaction it to take a nap on the porch. 

After the thunderstorms, we have had record breaking heat.  I know those of you in the valley are laughing at this – when we talked to Alex last week it was 112 degrees - but around here anything over 90 degrees is serious heat.  The rain has made it more humid than usual and, to quote the guy at the store yesterday, “It is sweltering!”  

Of course no one around here has air conditioning.  I would be surprised it there are ten air conditioned homes in all of Skagit County – certainly none in Marblemount.  This is the Marblemount version of air conditioning. 

You use the wood stove a lot more often than the fan!

Even in the “sweltering” heat, we have been working on fencing.  We are trying to get the chicken side of the garden fence complete.  The chickens are very interested in whatever is going on, but they stay in the shade to watch.

The dogs stay in the shade as much as possible too.  I saw Molly napping and wondered where Grizzly was.

I took a closer look and saw that Grizzly had found himself an even cooler spot.  Down in the ditch that is one of our works – in -progress.

He looked pretty comfortable snoozing down there – and it didn’t bother him at all when we walked over the boards.

The good news about the heat is that our garden is doing really well, and we had our first ripe tomato last week!

Just big enough for one bacon and tomato sandwich each, but it was mmmgood.

Hummers

 

 No, not THAT kind of hummer.  Can you imagine me driving a huge thing like that?  I’m quite sure it would be dangerous.  I’m talking about hummingbirds.  We hung a feeder on the front porch and have been enjoying watching them flit around. 

We sometimes have four or five buzzing around the feeder at a time.  We’ve found that for such tiny creatures they are very territorial and really kind of mean. 

They chase the others off and dive bomb the ones feeding if they don’t approve.

Since they were drinking down the juice so quickly, we hung another feeder just outside the kitchen window.  

It is right outside the window so you get a close up view of the birds.  

They seem to really appreciate the feeder that has a little perch for them to sit on while they feed.  It is amazing how much those little things can drink!  I usually have to refill the feeder – which holds about two cups – every day.   

I had always seen feeders filled with red liquid and thought you had to add the food color to attract the birds.  My neighbor Celia – who has been feeding the hummers around here for years – said not so.  Once they know where the feeder is, they drink the clear liquid with no problem at all.  In fact, it is better for them not to add the food coloring.

And she was right!  I left out the food color and they didn’t care at all.  We have also learned that they make little bird sounds.  Usually you only hear the “humming” of their wings, but when they are chasing each other around they also make little chirping noises. 

We don’t know how long in the season they will stay here – they must fly south at some point?  We used to have them nesting on our patio in Bakersfield every spring.  We will enjoy them while they are here.