Two weeks to go until the big party called our wedding! Yahoo! Gosh, with all the planning that goes into it, no matter how abnormal it will be, it still takes time time time. SO, I've been splitting my time between prepping for teaching biology classes at Everett Community College and doing fun wedding stuff. Have we even thought about our big vacation following the wedding in
Banff and Jasper...
noooooo. But that is typical of us. I did take the time to figure out where local brewpubs would be - clearly a priority. But, I'm not going to get too excited, those Canadians don't really know what a hop is just yet. Although, I
remember a good stout from a brewpub on Prince Edward Island. Maybe they are catching on to stouts and porters and will eventually figure out what a hop is.
Anyway- enough
blabbling. Long story short - we haven't done anything interesting lately!
So, to keep you occupied or entertained or bored (whatever fits your mood) here are some more photos from the past month of our exploits outside gathering goodies.
These may look like raspberries - but NO! They are wild
thimbleberries. I fell in love with these wild berries that melt in your mouth while I was up in Alaska. Turns out there are a TON that grow right by our house around the Cranberry Lake trails. This makes trail running difficult. It turns into trail munching, jog jog, munch, jog, munch, jog. You get it.
Jay had never had
thimbleberries before, so we headed out on a gathering mission. They are sort of sparsely distributed but we still managed to get enough for munching, dessert (yes, that is a molten choc lava cake), and breakfast cereal. Yummy! Sadly, they have come and gone now. But I know where the patches are for next year.
Back to the kelp, I know. In addition to the kelp salsa, we also made kelp pickles. I'm still not sure if I got the brine right. I need a good brine recipe! Anyone?? This should be garlic dill....but it is pretty salty. I am guessing this is from the kelp. I am determined to get better at pickling gosh darn it. But this year isn't a good year for us in terms of time! Next year, however, I'm going to order pickling cucumbers and dill from our farm share and really go for it.
Kelp in the brine
Here I am putting the final touches on my mom's birthday present - a hand knit sweater! I will post pictures of that once she sends some to me with her wearing it. You can see that knitting and wool are also favorite activities for Lester. This makes knitting a contact sport.
OK - so we decided to ditch all wedding stuff for a few hours and go for a hike in the Cascades. We have an annual pass into National Forest land, so we were off to Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, about 1 1/2 hrs. from our house. We only had a map without trail descriptions, so we really just parked and headed off on a trail with NO clue of what to expect. We passed through a gorgeous meadow filled with blueberries and blooming fireweed, through an old growth forest with yellow cedars, up up up a mountain flank and then rounded a corner. Wham. Jaws dropped. The corner opened up to incredible views of Mt. Baker and the glaciers along its sides. A rushing meltwater stream cut through everything and when we turned around we also were treated to unreal views of the foothills of the Cascades. Not bad for being totally clueless about what we were getting ourselves into.
We head to Jay's cousin's house in Seattle tonight and fly out to Albany, NY tomorrow! Wedding blast in less than a week....exciting! yahooooo!
