Make A Sweet Million

Day 199: Two million a year. Pretty cool if you can pull it off. For all the years I have been growing two "Sweet Million" tomato plants, they have lived up to their name. I buy them as starts in late April or early May, tend them indoors until June when they can safely be put outside. They grow side-by-side in an enormous plastic pot sunk to its waist in the garden directly outside the kitchen door where, along with chives, they are easy to pick even when it's raining.

I always grow two, but one would keep one-inch, juicy tomatoes on my table in numbers larger than I can reasonably consume, or at least at the peak of their season. Two at the start of the season, however, barely seems like enough. Picking them on my way to the mailbox as soon as they first ripen, the inventory is depleted on a daily basis. But come September (barring a hard rain), I will be in tomatoes up to my eyes. For a gardener who has consistently failed to bring zucchini to fruit, a Sweet Million is better than a gold mine.

Stinker

Day 198: Cropped from the original 4320 x 3240 image to a square 1600 pixels on a side, this is the best photo I've been able to get of Mr. Rufous "Stinker" Hummingbird to date. In other terribly blurry images, his throat shows its brilliant red color, but not here while he was in repose. Nevertheless, he is a handsome lad and if this is the best I can do, then so be it. But I'll be keeping my eye on you, Stinker!

Golden Girl

Day 197: The female American Goldfinch (Carduelis tristis) is far less flamboyant in her coloration than her male counterpart. Grey with a greenish-yellow tint in summer, when winter arrives she'll wear even more subdued finery, but she can be distinguished even then by the white bars on her wings and the characteristic swoop-swoop of her flight pattern. During nesting, the male does not set the eggs but carries food to the female and his feeding duties will extend to the chicks when they are hatched. A typical American Goldfinch nest sets in the fork of a twig or may be found among tall weeds and will contain 4-6 young.

Spring Gold

Day 196: The American Goldfinch (Carduelis tristis) is one of the most recognizable birds in North American field guides, at least in this phase of its coloration. During the winter, the males lose their bright yellow hue and more closely resemble the duller females. Goldfinches in flight rise and fall like a Christmas swag draped over a succession of hooks, undulating in a very distinctive pattern.

As with many finches, the Goldfinch has a heavy bill designed for efficient seed-cracking. In the wild, their favorite food is thistle seed, and at the feeders, their preferences run to nyger and black-oil sunflower seed

Rufous Hummingbird, Selasphorus Rufus

Day 195: Selasphorus rufus (Rufous Hummingbird) is a tiny little thing, smaller than Anna's Hummingbird but larger than the mountain-dwelling and somewhat uncommon Calliope hummer. The name derives from the male's rusty-red coloration, although the female (shown here) is largely green. The male has a red throat.

Rufous' vocabulary consists of a variety of "tzzzips," "bzzzzs" and "vrrrrrrrits," and 90% of those vocalizations are reputed to be swear-words by hummer fanatics. Hummers are very territorial and often wage "curse wars" over feeders and flowers.

This year, I seem to have an abundance of hummers, although to date I have only spotted one male, always from inside the house but on several occasions. He is as cagy as the Ravens, knowing exactly when I pick up the camera and start for the back door. By the time I've slid the door open, he's having lunch in the next county.

Paper Birch Meditation

Day 194:
The bark of the Paper Birch is strong, yet delicate.
The bark of the Paper Birch is scarred, yet beautiful.
The bark of the Paper Birch has imperfections, but it is perfect in every respect.

The Paper Birch teaches us to be kind when we must be firm.
It teaches us that each thing has its own special beauty.
It teaches us that each thing has a purpose which it and it alone can serve.

These are only a few of the lessons we can learn from the Paper Birch.

Pysanky

Day 193: Pysanky, also called "Ukrainian Easter Eggs" are an artform unto themselves. These are some of my own creations, made over twenty years ago, and many others were given to friends and family. Each egg is a unique treasure.

To begin, the artist takes a whole raw egg (for this explanation, we'll assume it is white). Hot wax is applied to the shell by means of a special took called a kistka, either electric or manual. In the latter case, the bowl of the kistka is heated in a candle flame to melt the wax. The first application of wax is done to the portions of the egg the artist wants to remain white, e.g., crosshatched lines and figure outlines. The egg is then dipped in yellow dye. After it is dry, the artist applies wax to the portions (s)he wishes to remain yellow, and so on down the line until the final dye bath utilizes the darkest color in the design. The egg is left to dry and then is given several coats of varnish over a period of days. The varnish protects the water-soluble dyes during the next and most dangerous stage of the process: blowing out the contents. Although traditionally eggs were left whole, they frequently burst as gases from the decaying yolk and white build up. Nowadays, most egg artists prefer to empty the shells.

A single egg may take hours to complete, depending on the intricacy of the pattern and the number of dye baths, so understandably, egg-blowing is an edgy procedure. Once the egg is pierced at both ends and the yolk has been broken and stirred with a wire tool, air pressure must be exerted gently but firmly by mouth or with an egg-blowing bulb, expelling the sticky, viscous slurry into a bowl to be discarded. The interior of the egg can then be rinsed with vinegar water to eliminate any further possibility of odor occurring. After a week or two, the holes can be sealed with white glue. Pysanky should be kept out of direct light due to the instability of the dyes.

There are many good books on the making of Pysanky and the symbols used in the designs. Ask at your local library!

Debris Of Winter

Day 192: Two and a half hours of backbreaking labor, and at last the debris left behind by winter's storms is burned away to ash. Backbreaking, but it is work I love, or so I tell myself at the onset. By the tenth trip, staggering the distance of a long and narrow third of an acre with a pitchfork heavily laden with fir boughs, I am not so sure. When the blisters begin to rise through the holes in my tattered leather work gloves, I am less than certain.

It is an annual task, and I am not getting any younger, but when the first bright, warm days of Spring make themselves felt, it is a chore I welcome (more or less). I speak to the fire and smoke ("They say smoke follows beauty, so whyinhell are you always in my eyes?") and I inhale, rather unavoidably, the sweet scent of volatilizing pitch and charring needles. It lingers in my hair so densely that I can enjoy it even after a thorough shower, fills my sinuses with particles which will have me sneezing black for days, and yet I love the scent.

So too I love the crackle and snap of the fire, the leaping flames (well, once I get them going). It amuses me to feed ten-foot branches as thick as my forearm into the blaze, half-lifing each length into an ever-narrowing span. "Making little ones out of big ones," I remind the limbs. "Ain'tchew burnt in two yet?"

But I am not getting any younger. I think I mentioned that. Tomorrow morning, I will pay for my playing with fire today. I will rise before dawn, sniff the lingering smoke odor in my pillow and briefly, oh so briefly will consider whether there's any more yard waste needing to be burned. And then I'll try to shift out of bed and be glad it's over until next year

Forgotten Fruit

Day 191: Over half a century ago, the town of Alder WA sat above the Nisqually River, occupied largely by men in the timber trade and their families as it had been for many years previously. When Tacoma Public Utilities decided to dam the river, the town and adjacent Reliance were shut down and the area was flooded by the formation of the reservoir. At the time the dam was completed in 1945, it ranked as one of the tallest dams in the US, measuring 330 feet high and 1,600 feet long. Many of the residents relocated to the present-day Alder, but traces of the old homesteads' orchards can be found in nearby woodlands. This lovely bouquet of Springtime blooms at what is now called Stacel Point, a TPU campground.

Clouded Visions

Day 190: Light, bent and warped by glass, opens a window on sunrise in a parallel universe. Since I was a small child, mirrors and reflections have fascinated me. With poor vision, I soon discovered that a mirror contains the dimension of depth despite being a flat plane of glass with a thin silver backing. I can see no more detail in a reflection despite its similarity to a photograph than I can if I were to view the scene in reality, or at least not without my glasses. What Einsteinian secrets are in the physics of a mirror to create this phenomenon? And surely, if this is not physical depth, then what is it? Is it a window into a theoretical dimension, one of the 26 postulated by current science? The concept is out of reach of a group mind still too young to grasp it. I feel the answer so keenly that it aches to be let out, but I cannot touch it, cannot express it mathematically, cannot quantify or qualify it for extraction. These are the puzzlements which have kept me awake o'nights for lo, these many years, but the veil remains. My vision is clouded, in theory and in that dratted mirror.

Common Horsetail, Equisetum Arvense

Day 189: The Common Horsetail and its relatives are considered nuisance plants in many areas of the world, "persistent" being the word most often applied to the species in field guides. Although the young shoots were eaten like asparagus historically, the plant contains a high concentration of silica and if eaten in any quantity could qualify as "poisonous" due to long-term effects. Native peoples used bunched up handsful of Horsetail to sand wooden objects, and early settlers scrubbed their cast-iron skillets with the stems and fronds. Although rather unattractive after the branches emerge, Horsetails have a beauty all their own at this stage in their growth.

The Face Of Fair Narcissus

Day 188: Were the face of Narcissus ever so fair as the blossom of this flower which bears his name, he had justification for his vanity. My garden is filled with the first gleams of bright orange eyes laughing up from shimmering faces.

These botanical jewels are a delight to rural gardeners because they are shunned by browsing deer and elk. Naturalizing easily in grass-covered areas, they are even durable against mowing shortly after the blooms have faded. It is best to deadhead the plants when the flowering period is at an end to channel the Narcissus' energy into the bulb rather than into seed production. The bulbs multiply quickly, so quickly in fact that they will double or triple in number over a period of two years and when dug and split, make wonderful gifts for gardening friends.

Vernal Festival

Day 187: We are quickly reaching the time of year when it is impossible to take just one photograph per day if you're at all interested in green and growing things. Beneath the shower falling from Mother Nature's watering can, her garden will soon be a riot of color. Today, even a short walk was graced by new blooms in emergence: a Salmonberry blossom richly wrinkled and pink as a rose, a delicate Oxalis, a Trillium or Wakerobin, so named because it heralds the robins' return. Spring has truly arrived in the persons of these flowers, and none too soon.

Snow Queens

Day 186: This species of Synthyris is called "Snow Queen" popularly: a lovely name for a delicate little flower which nods its numerous bells at the tops of four-inch stems.

Today I hiked in the company of a friend, covering approximately nine miles in Charles L. Pack Experimental Forest where the Queens were seen rising in a variety of different habitats. At times in open clearcut, we found them also in amongst deep mosses in the shady niches of the Wildlife Loop, or growing among lichens in rocky crevices; never more than a few in any cluster, most often spaced widely.

Perhaps just this once, their precise nomenclature matters less. "Take time to smell the roses," they say, or in this case, to spend a few moments among the Snow Queens, the ladies of Spring.

Dad's Puzzler And Solution

Day 185. Nowadays, you can find the solution to this simple puzzle in many places on line if you know where to look. "Simple," did I say? It is not as simple as it appears to be, not by a long shot! In fact, when "Dad's Puzzler" came into my hands, my mother had already spent many hours of her life attempting to solve it to no avail, as did I once I had it in my possession.

The puzzle belonged to my grandfather in his youth, and whether or not the packaging originally contained a solution is anyone's guess. After many frustrating attempts over a long period of years, I began searching libraries for a means to solve it, but could only find simpler versions with more moving parts. I'd work on it for a week or two, only to wind up stuffing it back in the drawer unsolved.

Then one fortuitous day, a copy of Scientific American arrived in my mailbox and I turned to Martin Gardner's wonderful "Mathematical Games" section first thing. There, to my surprise, was "Dad's Puzzler" and its solution. So elated was I that I recreated the magazine page with an Apple ][e, printed it out on a 9-pin dot-matrix printer and stashed it away in the box with the puzzle for safekeeping.

Should any of my readers feel inspired to construct one of these old-fashioned frivolities, I hope they will attempt to solve it unaided before turning to the printout. Believe me, it's cheaper than a movie and will keep you busy for much, much longer.

After The Lutefisk Is Over

Day 184: Many years ago now, my Norwegian fishing buddy and his wife invited me to one of the area's Scandinavian community lutefisk dinners. Now while most people will run as fast as they can AWAY from such an event, I welcomed the opportunity with open mouth. After all, life is too short not to try new foods. But lutefisk? Many of those rapid runners will protest that lye-soaked codfish shouldn't be classified as food. Oh well, I'll try anything once.

To make a long story short, it turned out I liked the stuff once I got past the gelatinous translucent look and the tendency for the material to bounce under application of fork pressure. To my ultimate surprise, it tasted like good cod, never mind the smell. Each year now, he and his wife again invite me to the lutefisk feed, served family-style, all you can eat. The meal includes mashed potatoes and cream gravy, Swedish (!) meatballs, carrots, pickled beets, and assorted crunchy vegetables. Afterwards, dessert arrives: a dixie-cup of orange sherbet and vanilla ice cream, two butter cookies and one beautifully embossed and rolled crisp krumkake.

It is the latter item which is made by this unusual implement from my own kitchen. You can never have enough krumkake.

Gavia Immer, A Little Loony

Day 1183: Common Loon (Gavia immer) is a study in high contrast. The sharp blacks and whites of his plumage would seem to make him obvious, but against grey sky reflected in shimmering, wind-rippled water, his camouflage is almost perfect. These diving birds can stay under water longer than you or I could hold our breath comfortably, a skill Mr. Loon employs when he's hunting a trout breakfast. He is also a powerful underwater swimmer and can travel farther than an observer might expect before surfacing from a dive. It is the Loon's voice, however, which has made the bird famous. As Roger Tory Peterson describes it, it is "a long falsetto wail, weird yodeling, maniacal laughter; at night, a ringing ha-oo-oo." Seen here on Mineral Lake, Mr. Loon was competing with the local Otters for his meals.

Palmate Coltsfoot

Day 182: Palmate Coltsfoot is another early-spring bog plant common in many areas of the Pacific Northwest. In Latin, it may be classified as either Petasites palmatus or Petasites frigidus var. palmatus, but in either case, "palmatus" refers to the deeply lobed palmate ("hand-like") leaves which emerge after the flowering heads. The stem is woolly, as is the underside of the leaves. Although Coltsfoot is considered edible, it is not particularly valued as a food source. However, historical records tell that Native peoples who were forced inland from the sea by white settlers burned the leaves and used the ash as a substitute for salt.

Down In The Swamp

Day 181: The South Swofford Wetland Trail is a muddy, sloggy, soppy mile and a half regardless of the season, but is well worth the trek. Ospreys and eagles often fly overhead as wrens and warblers dart among covering brush, deer and elk are numerous, and wildflowers of many species can be found by an attentive eye. Lichens and mosses abound amid old cedars and maples, alders and evergreens, and the path offers many views of Swofford Pond and the waterfowl which populate it.

One of my favorite times of year to walk the South Swofford Trail is in the spring when the Skunk Cabbage (Lysichitum americanum) is in full flower. The plant grows in swamplands such as the one shown here. The leaves follow the flowers in this western species, and at full growth may measure four feet long and two wide. The common name derives from the odor of the plant which, although vaguely reminiscent of its namesake, is not altogether unpleasant.

You Got A Problem With Me?

Day 180: You wouldn't want to meet this White-Crowned Sparrow in a dark alley! He seems to have an attitude which says, "Don't mess with me, buster," affecting the punker hairstyle and stance. Actually, he's a rather timid little fellow, but manages to hold his own among the flock of Juncos who compete for the seed spilled on the sidewalk. Jays, on the other hand, scare him tweetless.

Felix Piscator

Day 179: Felix Piscator is determined. He has arisen at the ungodly hour of 3 AM, breakfasted, packed his lunch and donned his fly-fishing vest in the hopes of catching a trophy trout before the sun rises over the horizon. He is well-equipped with Royal Coachmen, Dark Hendricksons, Zugbugs and the like, and of course he wears his lucky fishing hat without which he cannot possibly hope to succeed at his venture. Felix P is prepared to experience that which John Buchan referred to as "a perpetual series of occasions for hope." Therein lies the Fisherman's Credo because as all piscators know, it's not about catching fish. It's about fishing.

Kaleidocinth

Day 178: In a deviation from my customary nature photography, today's exercise began as a simple Grape Hyacinth poking its innocent head up from a clump of Dianthus. Viewed side on, the colors and textures of the leaves intrigued me, the tiny white tips on the blossoms so delicate, and the whole flower an essay in geometry. Seen from the top down, the mathematic formula of the flower is apparent, but in lateral perspective, it begged for kaleidoscopic intervention. Besides, it hides the weeds.

Wild Currant

Day 177: Ribes sanguineum, the Red-Flowering Currant, is one of our earliest spring bloomers in the backcountry of the Pacific Northwest. Loved by early migrant hummingbirds, the trumpet-shaped flowers may be held as erect clusters or may hang from the stem in cascading drupes. It is not uncommon to see groups of hummers warring over access to the sweetest flowers, nor to hear them cursing one another with high-pitched "tzeets." The blue-black fruit of this Wild Currant is edible but small and rather bland, unlike its domesticated cousins.

April Snow

Day 176: It came down hard yesterday afternoon, melting as soon as it touched the ground as April snows are wont to do in the Pacific Northwest. They're all bluff and bluster, little tantrums Mother Nature throws when she realizes she's going to be forced to let go of winter's chill and give way to the pleas of gardeners who want to work the soil. She can't hold out against us forever! We can laugh at her hissy fits even when they powder our mornings with frost. And sure enough, following this snit of snow, our patron nodded off under a ray of sun and when again she woke, all trace of it was gone.

Sharp-Shinned Hawk

Day 175: It is difficult to distinguish between Sharp-Shinned Hawk and Cooper's Hawk. Field guides tell us that Sharp-Shinned is smaller, but with no member of the opposite species to stand side-by-side, an accurate assessment is hard to make. That said, this bird was barely larger than the Steller's Jays who often perch on these same branches.

The photo is less than perfect. It was shot through my bird-netted and grubby living room window. I was certain the Hawk would fly away as soon as I opened the door, which did indeed prove to be the case. I saw no evidence of a victim, although the posture shown here is a stance which could indicate that the bird is defending its kill.

Nature takes its course. The strongest and most intelligent members of the species survive.

Longmire Meadow

Day 174: Many journeys begin at Longmire in Mt. Rainier National Park, from hikes of the Wonderland Trail which encircles the Mountain in 94 miles or the Rampart Ridge loop at a mere five with a 1300' elevation gain or a climb to the summit of Eagle Peak 3200' above the starting point, an ascent of 3.5 miles one way. Winter travel on any of these routes is arduous and route-finding may be tricky, so it is essential to go fully prepared for any emergency.

Today, however, it was a short walk around the nature loop for a Crow still loosening up following knee surgery, so no pack was required and the tripod was carried by hand. The gentle walk was less than a mile, the elevation gain significantly less than a hundred feet, and the weather turned rather snowy immediately following this shot overlooking Longmire Meadow.

Super Optic Wonder

Day 173: No, it's not Wall-E's cousin. It's Mr. Super Optic Wonder, and if perhaps not quite an indispensible item to carry backpacking, it is a fun toy.

What does it do? Well, out of sight on the reverse, there's a compass. You should always carry one of those as well as a map, and more importantly, you should know how to use them properly. GPSrs are nice, but if you're out for two weeks and your batteries go flat, you're going to be up the creek, perhaps literally.

Also on the back is a magnifying glass (the red piece), a very useful tool. The legs on which the instrument stands are binoculars. The forward lenses of the binocs can also be employed singly or back-to-back as magnifiers. The mirror can be used as a heliograph (Morse code included on the back) or an observation level in conjunction with one of the binoc lenses or just for personal grooming. The yellow plate is a universal sundial. A whistle is built in, as is a small battery-operated flashlight. The protractor is part of the quadrant apparatus (similar to a sextant) by means of which you can obtain the height of a visible object such as a mountain or fire tower by measuring its elevation in degrees from the observer's position if distance is known (refer to your map for that information).

All in all, this is one of the handiest multi-purpose gadgets in my arsenal even though it can't pitch the tent or cook your dinner when you're foot-weary at the end of the day.

Turdus Migratorius, American Robin

Day 172: Turdus migratorius...the name makes you feel sorry for the easily recognizable American Robins who wake us up each morning with their song of "Cheery-up, cheery-up, cheery-up, chirp!" And who hasn't enjoyed watching Robin playing tug-of-war with a reluctant worm? This species is common thoughout the US and Canada, and is seen year-'round in most areas. However, that's where the "migratorius" portion of the name comes in. The winter Robins in our yards are not the same population as the summer batch. In fact here, our winter visitors are Alaskan transplants who will head back north when the weather warms up. As for the first segment of merry Robin's Latin name, let's just say I cleaned the fence with my photo editing software.

Spring Fling

Day 171: In any other year, I'd have mail-ordered my spring seeds from Park Seed in January, but with a painful knee, I could not seem to force myself into a gardening mood. Plants such as my favorite gazanias need starting indoors eight to ten weeks before last frost. When April rolled around, I still hadn't ordered and in any event, it was too late to break out the Jiffy-7s and starting mix. Time to shift to Alternate Plan B!

This year's garden will be the product, quite literally, of a Spring Fling. The seeds in these packets are meant to be broadcast, a "scatter garden" of assorted wildflowers and hardy, self-sowing annuals, including Bachelor's Buttons, Tidy Tips, Chinese Lanterns, Strawflowers and native species in red and blue shades. It's a lazy garden, but it promises to be a colorful one.

No Foolin'

Day 170:
"He who fools when Fools is past
Is the biggest fool at last."

So my mother used to say to me when my April Fools' pranks continued on into the next few days following the first of the month. Now I ask you, is this flowering plum fooling? Or is it on the level when it tells us that Spring is here? Could such a delicate and lovely face hide falsity in its blush? Never! As fair as the flower, Spring follows in truth.