The Best of New Zealand

Well, after spending MONTHS going through our 3,200 pictures and my parents 500 pictures from their visit, we finally have a "Best of New Zealand" slideshow ready for viewing. This doesn't mean all the photos are going to knock your socks off, some are gorgeous and others are not great but they tell the story of our trip. It has been great to relive the trip through these photos and we hope you enjoy reliving it again as well!





The entire slideshow can be found here: http://picasaweb.google.com/globalscents/BestOfNewZealand#

Another news flash - Randi (our friend who was just visiting) has hired me to help out as a co-lecturer with her online ecology class at Northeastern University's College of Professional Studies. This is pure mutualism here, she has a lot going on in her life and needs some relief from the online teaching duties, and this would be great for my teaching experience and our bank account! Yipee! The class already started, but I just got the books yesterday and have to put together an online lecture for next week, so I'm in! Enjoy New Zealand!!

Randi visits and brings great wildflower luck!

Our friend Randi visited us for a long weekend out in Anacortes. She came, primarily, to work with Jay on a manuscript they have been working on for a while now. They decided it was time to get that puppy off to a journal! But when they needed a break we would head outside to play.

It is a tradition now - all visitors must drink wine with us at Deception Pass State Park. But we took Randi to a spot we had never been to before, and boy, I don't think we will go anywhere else in the park again! It was gorgeous. Wildflowers were blooming everywhere you looked and the low evening light painted the already colorful flowers in an exceptional glow. We were in plant land and everyone was having a blast staring at the flowers. Some people (not old fart Julie) even chewed on flower parts. Good thing Randi and Jay randomly selected to chew on the common camas, rather than the meadow-death camas. Jeez!

Broad-leaved stonecrop in bloom

Field chickweed

Common camas

Beautiful sunset - Bowman Bay

Brown-headed cowbird! New bird sighting for us - exciting! These neat birds lay their eggs in other birds nests (they are brood parasites). The poor, unsuspecting, hapless parents raise a bird that isn't even related to them. In fact, the nasty chick will even push the parents true chicks out of the nest to their death. Hungry and nasty little birds, but they play an important role in the ecology of our forests and grasslands. And they have a really pretty song.

Washington Park in bloom

Last Sunday we headed over to Washington Park to check out all the wildflowers that were in bloom. What a treat to have this awesome park five minutes from our house!

Shooting stars

I think the pink flowers are sea blush, Plectritis congesta, the white flowers might be tufted saxifrage, and the yellow flower may be meadow death-camas. We are not super positive we are right about these IDs but we are trying to be good naturalists and learn all the plants and animals out here. Not an easy task in this diverse ecosystem.

Look at all the bull kelp (Nereocystis luetkeana) starting to get big with all these long, sunny days. I'm awaiting the day when I get to go out and harvest some to make kelp salsa! Yummy.

Our friend Randi arrived on Wednesday night. We scooped her up in Seattle after having a great dinner with Jay's cousin, Dave, and his wife Sophia. So we are busy and having lots of fun, as usual.

Spruce tip syrup

How to make Spruce tip syrup!!
#1 Find a tasty Sitka spruce like this one that is bursting with tips. The tips should be fairly large and it is good if they still have that little brown tip on them. I think that brown tip gives the syrup that delightful pinkish color. Maybe you can make syrup with any species of spruce?? Someone will have to experiment, sounds like my friend Jessica has some spruce trees in her front yard. Maybe she will find out?2. Marvel at the lovely smell of all the spruce tips when you have them bagged up and waiting in your fridge for their special night

3. Cover the spruce tips with water. The water should just cover the tips completely.

4. Bring the water and the tips to a boil. Turn off heat and let the tips steep until the water is cool. I give it a stir now and then and inhale the yummy smell.
5. Clean your canning jars and get them lined up and ready to go. I keep mine in hot water when I am almost ready to can.

6. Drain the syrup water out into another clean bowl. I use a colander for the initial sieve because the tips are large and block anything with finer holes. Then I actually squeeze the liquid out of handfuls of tips. WATCH OUT though - Sitka spruce have super sharp needles. I gingerly start squeezing the tips to make sure I'm not going to spear my hand. Then I squeeze the tips hard and get every last drop out of them. Once the tips are drained, they can go in the compost or trash. Then you can strain the syrup water (should be a light brown) through a finer sieve to get last bits of needles and brown tips out.
7. Figure out how much syrup water you have. If you got 2 cups out of it, you add an equal amount of sugar. That's the part I don't like telling people about. But - truth be told - the spruce tips add the flavor, not the sweetness. That has to come from sugar you add in. So equal parts sugar to water.
8. boil boil boil baby boil

9. How do you know when you are done boiling? Here is a trick - put a small plate in the freezer. When you think the syrup is thick enough from boiling forever, let a few drops drip onto the cold plate. This gives you an indication of how thick the syrup will be once it cools down. This batch probably took almost 2 hours of boiling to get thick enough. This is also when the color changes from brown to a rich pinkish-red. Why? I have no clue.
10. Can the syrup. Once the lids were on we boiled the sealed cans for 15 minutes. We left 1/2 to 1/4 inch of space between the syrup and the lid. Not sure which once is better for syrup.
11. Take the cans out after that boiling time and and let them cool over night. It is fun to listen to the pop of the canning lids as they seal when the can cools down. Ahhhhh.

12. Plan on making waffles or pancakes for breakfast in the morning and start gorging on yer syrup! (It's tasty on vanilla ice cream as well - if you can't wait for breakfast)

Another FUN trip to the Oregon coast - but this time we were campin'

The northern coast of Oregon is a rainy, sunny, wet, dry, foggy, and misty place. Our friend Erik and his friend, Dan, planned a camping trip to Nehalem Bay State Park and we joined in for the fun! I admit, I was also hoping to encounter juicy Sitka spruce tips, which you can pick and then use to make Sitka spruce tip syrup. That is the best tasting stuff on waffles ever. The weather forecast wasn't exactly spectacular, but we didn't care because we had good friends, good rainfly power for the tents, and good beer. The weekend trip started out with a longggg drive from Anacortes to OR. Starting north of Seattle we encountered the giant slab of concrete that is the land of WA commuters. Everett, Seattle, Tacoma, and then Olympia. One city after another and then another. Ugh. At least in the east coast (I can't believe I'm saying this) our cities are a bit further apart so come rush hour you only have to get through ONE city. Here on the west coast, we made it through Everett traffic only to hit Seattle traffic, then through Seattle only to hit Tacoma, etc. You get the picture. I might have gotten grumpy.

But when we drove over the Columbia River into Oregon, the views were incredible and we were off the crazy highways. The drive was actually gorgeous. We arrived at the state park when it had just started raining - but Erik and Dan had dinner ready and a fire going! We set up our tent quickly when there was a break in the showers and settled into good beer and good conversation with friends. The heavy rain came when we were sleeping in our tents, great timing!

The next morning we had a tasty breakfast and headed out to Oswald West State Park for a hike through the coastal rainforest. We did find those yummy spruce tips - see the picture above. Erik and Dan patiently waited and even helped while we dug our way into forest thickets to get our hands on the spiky spruce and those tasty tips. Yipee! We had such odd weather on the walk - ranging from misty rain, hot sun, or downpours. What fun! We found a big banana slug which Erik attempted to eat (see that pic below - this may be a joke) and lots of wildflowers. A soggy lunch followed and then we headed to Tillamook to taste cheese. We even ended up at a winery called Nehalem Bay Winery and sampled their unreal Blackberry wine (I imagine having that with a chocolate lava cake) and a divine Pinot Noir.

After visiting the winery, we headed back to our campsite and spent far too much time trying to rig Erik's new tarp over our picnic table in preparation of the continuing showers. Once that was done, it was cause for celebration. Beers were cracked open and we walked to the beach from the campsite. Jay and I were both blown away by the similarity of the OR coastal sand dunes and Cape Cod National Seashore. Both shores have the same species of beach grass - although I guess this beach grass was introduced out in Oregon. Interesting. So, the places may look shockingly similar, but there is one big difference. You would be nuts to swim here and you would be nuts NOT to swim in the balmy Atlantic during the summer months.

Here we are drinking that tasty Pinor Noir we found. Yum.

The next morning we headed up the coast towards Ecola State Park. We stopped at a random spot along the coastal road and walked/slid down the steep shore to the beach for some intertidal fun. Jay was drooling over all the anemones, Dan seemed happy taking in all the neat information Jay's brain is filled with, and Erik tried to walk into the sea cave (the ocean didn't really let this happen). We found some awesome tide pools filled with Anthopleura species (anemones) and Pisaster sea stars. This was a fun little jaunt - even I was blown away by the aggregations of anemones on the vertical sides of some of the larger rocks.

All those blobs by the sea stars (Pisaster) are anemones!

We ended our awesome trip with a tasty lunch at Ecola State Park - complete with a view of a migrating gray whale! On our drive home, Jay and I decided to take a more scenic route through WA towards Olympia. We hit the jackpot with some smaller Sitka spruce and cashed in on the spruce tips. I plan on making that yummy syrup tonight! Yipee!

Lummi Intertidal Inventory

Well, I had a lovely week back at work! If you missed the fact I got a super part-time job, read the previous blog for that update. The super part-time bit is that I don't have work for another 3 weeks and then we will start up the survey again. We basically work with the lowest tides and that only happens once a month. Working on the Lummi Reservation is a real treat because I get to spend time on lands that white folks are normally not permitted on. We were able to go over to Portage Island, which is actually an ancient burial ground, for some of the work. This afforded us fantastic views of Mt. Baker and the Chuckanut Range (just to the south of Bellingham). The weather was astounding all week. I even worked in shorts yesterday! Another bonus of the job, meeting people our age. Yesterday was the last day of sampling for the week and we all headed out to Bellingham for a beer or two afterward. It felt so grand to sit and sip a cool beer with people I enjoy spending time with. Although I have only known the other team leaders and our supervisors for a week, I really like them and I hope to spend more time with them outside of work.

We are off for a long weekend of camping with our friend Erik in OR. We are headed to Nehalem Bay State Park, on the northeast coast of the state. We were going to try and stay in one of the yurts the state parks have, but it looks like those are already booked. Bummer. I do love yurts. But, it will be wonderful to get back in our tent and curl up in my Nepalese down sleeping bag! And update on that trip will follow next week!

Oh - final tid-bit of exciting news! We finally decided on where to go for our honeymoon. This has been difficult because, as you know, we like to go FAR far far away from America whenever possible. But, we just spent all our money on that huge trip we took and can't really swing going back to Africa - which is what our original idea was for a honeymoon. So, we decided to stick a bit closer to home and explore some wild corner nearby... a place that is too far and too big for a weekend visit.....we are off to Jasper and Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada! Yipee! Camping, hiking, canoeing, and a bunch of nights in a nice room courtesy of my Mom and Dad's timeshare exchange. Wow!