Sol Duc

We do not usually travel on holiday weekends. It’s so rare, we were nonplussed last week to realize that, way last January, we had made and confirmed plans for a weekend in the Olympic mountains of Washington State, and that our plans fell upon this weekend: Memorial Day. All we were thinking as we found a date for our trip was the likelihood we would be finished with lambing, and the lambs big enough to not require worrying about over a weekend, and that our destination, which is high enough in the mountains it can’t open until March, would be Open. All those things fell into place. The weather cooperated, and so did Richard’s Dad, for whom this trip was in celebration: 90 birthdays completed this year! So, daunted or not by the date, we set out with the masses of Americans hitting the Interstates for the onset of the vacation season.

Sol Duc is a hot springs resort inside the Olympic National Park. Early in the 20th Century it was the site of a deluxe hotel and sanatorium catering to the wealthy folks who could make the trip from Seattle into the mountains. That establishment perished catastrophically in a fire in the 1910’s. It’s a fate that seems to have fallen onto hot spring resorts fairly easily. Their locations were always far from emergency services, and safety precautions appear not to have been part of the plan. Unlike many spa spots of the last century, this one rose again from its ashes as a more modest destination. Folks arriving to take the waters today can camp nearby or stay in the little individual cabins clustered around the 1960’s era lodge with bath houses and a restaurant.

It seems odd to note, at this place originally a magnet for the infirm seeking a cure, access ramps for walkers and chairs have been added only in recent times. Two or three of the cabins are accessible (meaning stepless), and the lodge has a ramp attached to the front. Two of the pools have railed ramps leading into the water.

So, we collected Pop in Silverdale, Washington and set off into the wilderness. We took a side trip for the views from Hurricane Ridge, where the wind was mild and the view, though ceilinged by clouds, was ample. Pop summited the ridge with us, though he had to skirt the late, soft snow on the official path.

Here he is with Richard.

Both of them sat as models for the view from the Ridge:

I am not in the photo because I was on my knees with my nose in the liverworts taking photos of the blooming Glacier lilies (Erythronium grandiflorum):

…and here’s the view from behind:

From there we continued on, into the deep woods and steep inclines. We arrived at Sol Duc in time for a lunch at the poolside deli, afternoon check-in, and a change into our bathing clothes. Now, before you view the splendors of the spa pools, you must prepare yourself. After all, this is only the end of May. Unlike the Glacier lilies, who express their spring emergence in screaming yellow, we of the Anglo Saxon persuasion are the color of Cream of Wheat under our winter wraps. Here is a view of the poaching pools at Sol Duc. (As usual, the photographer is spared public exposure.) The temperatures in the mineral pools range from 98F in the children’s wading pool to the far right, to about 101-103F in the “Fountain Pool” in the foreground, to a simmering 104-106F in the round pool to the left at the back. At the far background you can see the corner of the large chlorinated swimming pool where the temperature on Saturday was a bracing 77F, and on Sunday had fallen to a truly alpine 75F. Only the youngest and most active patrons leap into that one.

Nothing in these photos can describe the purgatorial smell of the waters. It smells bad, but it feels good.

The guests make up a truly international group. Even this early in the season, there were travelers from Japan, Southern and Northern Asia, India, the Middle East, Central America, Central Europe, Northern Europe… and we few from Oregon and Washington. I didn’t interview comprehensively, but Sol Duc clearly draws its clients from nearly everywhere, and from all ages. And from all shapes! It was a fine thing to be able to go in public in my swimsuit and really not care that I am lumpier than I’d like to be. There were far lumpier women, and some of them had no tremors at all about their swimwear!

We took the cure for a couple of hours on Saturday, until the spa crew came out to do one of the twice-daily tests of the water in the pools, then went to recover for a while in our cabin. I imposed a short ukulele session on Richard and his Pop (Richard is no doubt happy I have taken up uke rather then trumpet in my advancing middle age), and then R. and I left Pop to read about the geology of the Olympics while we walked the pretty path up to the Sol Duc falls. Here is the top view of the gorge where the river plunges into a narrow chute:

And here is view from the bridge:

Oh, look: along the path I found where someone with the same initials as ours had proclaimed their affection for one another!

Having exerted ourselves, we returned in time for dinner in the lodge restaurant, after which we took our weary bones to bed. I do not ever recall such indulgent behavior! Eat, bathe, eat, sleep… and then we rose in the morning in time to eat again, and bathe again…

Here is a shot of the bathed-in waters as they exit the pools and return to the stream below the spa:

It’s steaming slightly even after making its way from the pools. In the far background you can almost see a little brown guest cabin. Here is another view of them, this one from the Sol Duc brochure:

This may seem a trifling thing to note, but I was pleased to see that all the lights in the cabins were compact fluorescents. I don’t know whether to cheer for the Park Service or the management at Sol Duc, but I say, “Good for them!”

Alas, on Sunday we finally did have to put our proper clothes on and pack the car for our return. On the way out, we stopped at one of the Park Interpretive Centers and took note of this quote:

Though our spirits were, at that moment, surpassingly rich, it seems wise to keep it in mind: all things are connected.

Arrived home, and the farm scarcely seems to have noticed our absence.

Cutting Grass

You may think swinging a scythe is the last thing you might consider when the grass needs mowing. But that would be because (1) you have never tried it, or (2) you tried it, but you did not have a fine instrument of cutting in your hands. It turns out those old iron scythes resting in barns across the country are not Samurai blades of mowing. They are as heavy and tiresome as they seem.

But a scythe, beautifully made, can be beautiful to use. Sharp and ringing through the grass, it is balanced, economical, fumeless, and healthy for you. It does not require fueling (other than the obvious tea and cookies you will require after scything). It swings like a long arm of your own, leaving stems in a neat windrow at your side.

Here is Richard running his Austrian bladed scythe mounted on a custom measured snath. I have one, too, that fits me, but I am the photographer. Using the scythe, I feel pleasingly odd, nicely oxygenated, and as Green as can be imagined. I have learned to care for my blade, learned to hone well, learned to swing and move with confidence. This is a wonderful tool that has nearly disappeared from the American countryside. Compare its gentle voice as it cuts to the obnoxious growl of an edger, or the roar of a lawnmower. The scythe wins, blades down.

If you are at all interested in learning about scythes (even if it’s only because it seems so odd), try this site:

http://www.scythesupply.com/

By the way, the photo above won a free (his second) work kilt for Richard from Utilikilts in Seattle. I took the shot, so I guess I was the winner, but a kilt is primarily a guy garment, and I passed it on. You have to watch out if you are a woman and your man goes about in a kilt. Other women will be following him for blocks and all through the Costco aisles. They will stop him on street corners. They will behave as if you are not standing next to him, clearly with him. If you are nevertheless interested in them, try this site:

http://www.utilikilts.com/

At High Tide…

happy as a clam…

is a sheep in tall grass!

Early Indications of a New Project

It may not look like much is going on here:

Lonesome road. Surveyor’s tripods. They’ll be in the way if someone comes along.

The surveyors are confirming (we so hope!) our property lines. It’s a first visible step in our new house project. They have already completed the topological survey of the ground where the house will stand. We needed elevations taken because the house will be earth sheltered. We thought it would be good to know ahead of time whether the lay of the land was as we think it is, and likely to bury the wall we want buried.

So, as I drove out to work on Friday I caught this shot of the men shooting our lines. Even though there is little, at the moment, to suggest a house will rise (or, maybe “descend” would be the better description, for a partly underground house), it has taken a long time to get to this point.

Expect reports to follow at intervals!

Pancakes and Greens

One of the oh-so many pleasures of spring is the arrival of fresh greens. I know, we can have them all year long from the markets these days. I do like to shop the small green grocer in town, though, who buys from local sources and whose stock tends to follow the seasons. In summer we will have our own greens from the garden, and sometimes I am diligent and plant a winter garden that will have produced coles and tender tops by now. But this year, I was not diligent…

When I was a child, my father’s mother used to make up spring salads using dandelion greens and miner’s lettuce, in combination with mixed leafy lettuces. Nothing was better after a winter of iceberg salads than those mixed up bowls of wildlings wilted with warm oil and served with bacon and vinegar. Oh, boy, I am about to launch into a memory of bacons that I might better hold until another occasion. This issue is for greens. Well, and some bacon, too.

One of our favorite spring breakfasts is this one.

We call it Savory Pancakes. It could be Onion Pancakes, or Pancakes and Greens. We reserve it for weekends, when we can indulge in a lazy schedule for breakfast, or for company. It’s supposed to feed four. Ahem. We usually clean it all up, just us two.

INGREDIENTS:

For the batter:

1 cup white flour (I use unbleached white flour, but use what you have)

2 or 3 teaspoons baking powder (Since ours tends to get lazy by the time the can runs low, I am generous.)

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 eggs (Farm fresh are best, of course, but if you live and shop in the city, make do. I note, however, that we are in farmers’ market season now, and fresh eggs can be had at those wonderful gatherings of local small producers. Don’t go to the farmers’ market looking for cut-rate prices and bargains; the object is to get good food as fresh as possible, and while it probably won’t meet chain store prices, it will be more than worth the trip and expenditure!)

1 1/3 cup milk (Yeah, and go get a cow, too, while you’re shopping.)

3 Tablespoons melted butter, cooled a little

1/2 cup green onions, chopped small

Also:

Some oil or pan spray for cooking the hotcakes

A generous double handful, or a nice bowl full of loosely held fresh greens: dandelions, spring nettles [gloves!],* beet tops, or spinach, or a mix of them all. Spinach alone does very well for this preparation. Remove the stemmy parts.

A cube of butter: Don’t be shy. This will be good!

About 1/4 cup of chopped fresh parsley

1 fresh lemon

16 slices of bacon: Thin cut is best for this. Avoid strong sugar or maple cures as you don’t want the sweetness.

Turn your oven to its practically lowest setting. It’s going to be a warming oven, so maybe about 200^oF.
Digression: Forgive me if I write this like you have never cooked before. I don’t know who comes to read here, and I remember the gratitude and enthusiasm I brought away from my first copy of The Joy of Cooking, where every procedure is explained with care. That old book, printed in the 1970’s, is ragged now, and still the best cookbook on the shelf. Later editions do not, in my opinion, offer as much to the learning cook. So, if you would be so kind, think of this as my expression of the way I would have appreciated receiving a recipe at the time when I had little experience as a cook.

Make up a batter by combining the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl. Most recipes will tell you to sift the ingredients together and return them to the bowl. Digression: I really think our commercially ground flour comes to us pretty much without lumps and coarse patches these days. With the exception of some very special recipes (like Angel Food cake), I don’t think we need to sift the way we were raised to (for those of us who were raised in the mid-20^th Century; and that’s as close a date as you will get from me!). Beat the eggs and milk together, mix in the melted butter, and bring the liquids to the dry ingredients. Beat them well until the batter is lumpless and smooth. Add in the chopped green onions, stirring. Let it rest while you prepare the hotcakes.

Start the bacon cooking on low heat. I like to cut the rashers in half shorty-way for this dish. Do it now or after cooking, either one. While it’s doing, steam the greens until they are limp and set them aside in the warm oven. For convenience and to limit the number of items on the stove, I do this on a screen spatter lid over a skillet of water brought to the boil. The greens wilt in nothing flat and I will drain and dry the skillet and use it for the hotcakes in a few minutes. Handle the greens gently as they are tender now. Lay them out on a plate so you can pick up individual leaves later. When the bacon’s finished, set it to drain in the warm oven. I like the bacon to be below crisp for this.

Melt the cube of butter. Squeeze in the juice of the lemon. Add the chopped parsley. Stir it together and set it in the warm oven.

Heat your skillet for baking the hotcakes. In the absence of a griddle (we hope to change that soon!), I like to use two or three smaller pans better than one large one. I can control a cake in each one, and they don’t run together.

If you need to adjust the consistency of the batter, do it now. I prefer thinner cakes to thicker ones. Pancake batter can vary a lot depending on elevation, temperature, humidity, and so on. I shared this recipe once with a gal who complained the cakes were too thick. If they seem so, add just a little more milk to the mix. Cooking is a combination of science and art: make them how you like them. The plan here is to come out with about a dozen cakes from quarter-cup dips.

As you cook the hotcakes set them in the warming oven. You will assemble the plates when all the cakes are cooked.

Using a quarter-cup measure, ladle the batter into the pan or griddle surface. Digression: A pancake is ready to flip when the upper surface is covered with evenly spaced bubbles in the batter. There is something of a window here, but you don’t want to flip too soon or the cake won’t be cooked through; flip too late and one side will be too dark. Well-made pancakes are thin enough that they are really cooked through when the first side is done. We flip and bake the second side so they are golden and appetizing top and bottom. As pancakes are finished, place them in the warm oven until all are cooked.

Now, take a hotcake and place it on each serving plate (2 or 4 plates: be your own moral compass!). Gently place a few green leaves on each cake. Place a bacon strip or 2 on each. Add a cake on top (Be stylish: don’t just pile them up like lumberjack cakes. This is cuisine here. Deal them out like a hand of playing cards so they will be pretty!), a layer of greens, and the bacon. Keep it up until you have a lovely plate full of golden hotcakes, greens and bacon. Get that melted butter, lemon juice and parsley from the oven. Stir it first, because it wants to separate, and pour it generously over each plate of hotcakes.

Rush it to the table where your guests are slavering by now. Serve it with lots of good strong coffee and maybe a small dish of fruit on the side. The fruit will provide a little bit of sweet accent to finish the meal.

Yes? We like it.

*Note on nettles: Tender spring nettle leaves are edible and nutritious. But you must cook them before eating! And you really do want to wear heavy gloves for collecting them. The sting will make its way though thin rubber gloves. If you are collecting in a big way and your leather gloves get soggy, it will find you there, too. If you’re not certain what to collect in the wild, don’t do it. If you’re uncomfortable about eating stinging nettles, even cooked, then go on to tamer fare. There are plenty of nutritious greens that come without a challenge.

Threats

Tender lambs… such a temptation.

Last week I came home to see the sheep standing alert in their group, mothers next to their lambs, lambs obedient and oddly quiet. Of course, my ears stood out from my head, trying to pick up any unusual sound. I scanned the pasture and woods edges. Tension was vibrating in the yard.

I saw it then, just in the moment when the hawk let out one of its signature cries. Oh, that perishing, beautiful sound of the Red Tail Hawk. It’s a magnificent bird, that can sweep a small animal off the ground in a brief snatch. We saw it take a songbird right off the feeder on our window one day. A burst of feathers, a cry of alarm, a shadow of wings — it was all so immediate, so complete. No one could have moved in the moment of attack. No one could have been fast enough. The garden fell silent in the instant, and stayed so for half an hour afterward.

This hawk was poised on a fir limb over the pasture. The lambs were in the yard with the ewes. We were all aware of one another.

As I contemplated what to do — there is not much protection to be offered in the moment of a raptor’s stoop — as I worried about that, a band of crows came from the further woods, yelling like hoodlums. They beset the hawk as a mob. It’s called mobbing, this behavior of crows against predator birds, but it was more like watching a gang mugging. I could hear the thumps as they hit the hawk. One crow followed another. Disorderly. Loud. The Red Tail yelled back. If it’s possible to detect anger in the voice of a bird, it was there. It clung to its limb for an impossible interval. I’ve seen hawks driven off by crows before, but this one was determined to stay. It fought back with wings and beak and talons. But there were a dozen of the crows, and only one brave hawk. One hunting hawk, waiting for a moment over my flock of sheep. For a short time I was a spectator cheering for my enemy. At last the hawk gave up. She lifted herself on her grand wings and beat off to the west, the murder of crows trailing behind her, calling insults in the way teenagers do when they have won.

I was relieved to see her gone. What could I have done against her? But I confess to only grudging gratitude toward the crows. They are their own kind pest around here. Last spring, when they arrived, they pillaged our hen house without mercy until we managed to arrange a bird netting curtain in such a way the hens could pass under it, but the crows were shy. They robbed us of eggs for six weeks of the best laying season before we thought of that.

So the hawk was gone, the crows cheering themselves into the afternoon sun, and the lambs were safe for a day.

Yesterday afternoon, around 4 o’clock, I stepped outside and looked eye-to eye with a coyote. She was standing at the corner of the sheepfold, looking around here and there, uneasy to begin with, and then suddenly wary when I appeared by the gate. Me, too! This was not what I wanted to see at the fence.

She was pretty, to tell the truth, silvered and ruffy around the neck. I’m certain she has a nest of pups back in our woods, hungry tummies waiting for dinner. She is probably hungry herself, looking for something to take the edge off the grumble in her belly. Something to fill her teats with milk. But my sympathy stops when I contemplate that the dinner she is looking for is lamb chops from my lambing pens.

Once again I was helpless, standing there looking into the golden stare of a predator.

In this event, the sheep were anything but quiet. Every sheep on the place was bawling. The lambs stood close beside their mothers, but all of them were hollering at this woods dog. I don’t know how other breeds of sheep confront a coyote at the fenceline, but these Jacob sheep were ready to take it on. “Come on! Just give it a try, you dog.” I do not welcome the thought of my sheep standing off a coyote inside the pen. I’ve seen the destruction coyotes can leave behind. Last year we lost a flock of just maturing Bronze Turkeys to a dawn coyote raid. A few years before that, it was a beautiful pair of breeding Toulouse Geese. This coyote was dithering with uncertainty. She looked from the sheep to me, to my fat Yellowcat in the barn forecourt, back to the sheep… I called Yellowcat, “Kitty, kitty, kitty…” until she came to my side of the fence.

It’s a lesson to be learned, I suppose. As we delight in the increase of our flock by the arrival of a new crop of lambs, somewhere out in the woods another kind of mother is tending her own clutch of offspring, somewhere in a treetop nest of sticks, a raptor mother is dropping regurgitated prey into the throats of her babes. I understand it. But I can’t be impartial in the matter. They may be magnificent in their way, but they are not mine.

The coyote mother made her way back into the woods yesterday. I had no way to hunt her. We depend on the mothering instinct of the ewes, to keep their young ones close. I might think I possess them, but these lambs are not mine, either. I hope they stay vigilant and strong-willed, my Jacob sheep.

This is part of a bounty hunter’s display, photographed around the turn of the 20th Century. Coyotes have been successful even in the face of aggressive hunting by bountymen. They must receive the wisest of teachings from their mothers, to carry on among us the way they do.

May Day

It’s a strangely confused date. We have the modern era ’s International Workers’ Day celebrated on May 1st in honor of the working class and labor movements. But much before that, we had the May Day of Maypoles and Beltane. It was a seasonal celebration of transition and purification practiced by the pre-Christian Irish. May Day and Beltane fall near a “cross-quarter” date, one of the midpoints in the progress of the sun from the spring equinox to the summer solstice. As they say in music,

Summer is a-coming in
Loudly sing cuckoo
Groweth seed and bloweth mead
and springs the wood anew
Sing cuckoo!

Ewe bleateth after lamb,
Calf loweth after cow,
Bullock starteth, buck farteth,
Merry sing cuckoo!
Cuckoo, cuckoo!
Well singest thou cuckoo,
Nor cease thou never now!
Sing cuckoo now, Sing cuckoo!

Sing cuckoo, Sing cuckoo now!

And this, to me, is May Day.

Years ago, when I was attending university, on a beautiful May Day afternoon, two friends and I decided to cut classes and make our way into the Washington Park Arboretum in the hills above Portland, Oregon. We thought it in keeping with the season that we took a bottle of mead with us, and we sat on the grass admiring the sunshine. We felt bold in our disregard for schedules and grade point averages, joyfully disobedient. It was the 1970’s. Somehow we were unsurprised to see a young woman come riding along the path astride a tall palomino horse, her ’70’s style long hair blowing behind her in the breeze. We smiled at her and lifted our bottle in greeting. She smiled at us, and said not a word as she passed us by. She likely thought we were a bunch of sots in jeans and t-shirts. We all thought she was probably a myth lady.

In memory of that May Day past, I offer this lady:

She is, of course, Lady Godiva, by John Collier, painted about 1897.