It's hard to take a picture and send a text message while balancing on a log walking through windfall looking for mushrooms :)

Pretty picture

Sunset on the farm

Yuletide cheer.

Amy is havin a wreath-making party tonight.

Her name should be ginger.

This is lucy. Gary & Amy's new puppy.

Boiling up some crab w my brother

I've got big balls

Only one actually. The rest are pretty small. I think technically they are called floats. I tried to ship three of the big ones back from the kuril islands with me but only one made it whole. Now my fleece coat is shredded because it was protecting one of the other ones that didn't make it. :( but all the little ones made it fine. They were stuffed inside my rocks and shirts and pockets and everywhere i could think of where they wouldn't bang each other. Its bad when your balls hit each other. :)

I like sunsets

Golden harvest

Mushroom picking is pretty good in the woods these days. This pic is from a weekend harvest where i netted about 25 lbs of chanterelles and cauliflower mushrooms in an afternoon. The cauliflower mushrooms ended up in a stroganoff with lamb and the chanterelles made some awesome breakfasts for me and friends. a quiche, a french omelet, and a scramble to name a few.

Got Bricks? (Don't try this at home)

Yahoo! On Sunday i got 6oo bricks off craigslist for my permeable driveway project. This is a picture of them trying to break my truck. I think i might have been close to blowing the springs. Then i got home and decided to bust up the concrete in my driveway before i put the bricks down so i wouldn't have to move 'em twice. Then i decided i might as well lay down a pattern when i put down the first bricks. So i actually got a pretty good start on the project! More pics soon.

update: apparently the bricks weigh almost six each. That means I was more than 100% over my rated load. Yay Ford, thanks for making a truck for brave people like me :) But it does explain why my tow hitch hit the ground coming out of the driveway...

ps - This is a 1991 Ford F-250 with a snowfighter (Dana 60) 4.10:1 front end, extra leaf springs, and a 7.5 liter (460 cubic inch) engine. He's an old AT&T repair rig for the mountains in Idaho. His name is Thor ;)

Sicilian Sunset at Orange Park (near Catania)

The picture doesn't do it justice, but this is where we are staying - a little bed and breakfast villa and orchard called Orange Park about 10 km outside of Catania (Sicily).

Today was moving day - we were staying in Catania yesterday and the day before at a B&B downtown, and we just moved into a place that we'll be based out of for the next week or so.

I'll spare you the pics of the swimming pool and the rooms. Anyway, I am in love with Sicily. I might have to move here. The only things I think that I would have a problem with (based on my limited exposure so far) are the traffic and the people density... but those things bug me in Seattle too. Now when I see rural Sicily, that will be the test... :)

Tonight there are eight of us staying here. Tomorrow the other nine arrive. Tomorrow is a shopping and van rental and airport trip day. the next day is when our field work starts. We'll be exploring the eastern flank of Mt. Etna and looking at basalt deposited on top of either carbonates or evaporites. Maybe both... I'm not entirely sure. Anyway you can bet it will be hot and it will be nice when we go swimming in the Mediterranean. I'll keep you posted. :)

Kharimkotan

This is part of the 1933 landslide on Kharimkotan. We wandered around the landslide for a day and it was one of the neatest places I saw in the Kurils. Also I found about a million glass floats washed into a wrack line by the 2006 tsunami.

the airplane broke my balls

I just heard from my friend molly who took the big glass floats I found on Kharimkotan back with her in an extra luggage bag. Too bad for me only one of them made it. Well, here you can see two of them. I found three. they were heavy and I carried them for miles and miles on my back. Oh well. memories anyway.

Hmm. I don't seem to have many pics of myself in my russia pics. Well. Here I am after the Kurils standing in front of a lion at the Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk Museum. I think the beard might have to come off... italy is kinda warm. breakfast time now in Catania, gotta run!

Around the world in 8o days

Well since i dont have a global carrier or phone yet i guess i will be makin my next post from a computer. I am about to fly to seoul, then from there to Yuzhno-sakhalinsk where we wil be doin research for the next two months. Then another month in sicily. Wish me luck :)

The Final Board

Gary took 4th place here and $1,200! Pretty sweet. Last year I got 10th and $600 so we're moving up in the world. Next year we need to both get on the board.

2008 Derby day 2

Today isn't so pretty. But that's good because it will keep Gary's fish up high on the ladder. It's blowin' 10-15, and we even took a wave over the stern, but our lines are straight down and we're fishing in 310 ft o water, drifting into the wind. The fishing is actually pretty good. Gary just got a 35 pounder.

MMMorels

Julie's son found these beauties right in the Altair campground.
I wasn't so fortunate. only found oyster mushrooms.

Natural Camoflauge

I saw this little guy (gal?) while hunting for the elusive Morel. You'll probably have to click the pic to enlarge it and see who's hiding there Look at the middle part. The only defense this little thing has is to be still. Also when they're this young they don't have a scent.

I ran into mom a few minutes later and was watching her when Sheridan called and scared her away (my ringtone is a Tarzan yell, it was pretty funny seein the look on her face - and mine too I bet! Too bad the doe and I were the only witnesses...)

Little 'but

My halibut wasn't very big. 29 lbs actually. But I got it by 7:30 on the first day so I had a few glorious hours on the board :)

Big 'but

Gary got a nice one!. 77 pounder. Got it about 7am, maybe a little earlier, on the first day.
We had both our fish caught and were into the dock by just after 8am, which left me plenty of time to go hunt morels after we cleaned the fish.

derby daze

2oo8 halibut derby at sunrise on the first day. That little bump you see is Mt. Baker. We're about seven miles offshore. This is crazy smooth water.

Girls Kick 'but

Jessie got a nice halibut last weekend in her first HOUR of fishing. Gary, Chad, Shane, and I spent DAYS and didn't get a single one... That woman can fish! :)

It's a cold spring to be bald.

no more hair :)

More snow brewing in the Olympic foothills.

Halibut fishing with a view of the snowy Olympic foothills

Snowy Spring Dad Eyebrows.

Dad's eyebrows make good snow catchers

Christmas In April - redux

We planted this christmas tree a kajillion years ago. It's a blue spruce. Now it has more snow than 2 hrs ago.

Lake dawn in the snow.

Still comin down :)

Dad's explorer

Christmas in april :)

Mom's van. Happy april!

a couple minutes of snow :)

Spring is construction season

Looks like the beavers in the park by my house are doin a remodel on their cabin :)

The wee hours at meadowbrook pond.

Couldn sleep. Went next door for peace and quiet. U cant see the picture but the cottonwoods are silhouetted against the night sky and their perfume hints of vanilla and cinnamon. I can hear the creek pouring over the weir as restless ducks quack awake the sleepy ones and the occasional wingflap as a spooked bird hops to the other side of the pond. Usually with four quacks. Sometimes in pairs. They are more active than u think at night. A heron is hunting downstream of the bridge. I had to move slowly not to spook it. And four birds splashed down with muffled wingbeats just now. Disgruntled quacks greeted them and now again only the sound of the stream pouring over the weir. But wait. I hear chewing... Somewhere a hidden beaver munches the spring bark of a dogwood or a willow or sweetgale. And perfume barely touches the late night breeze.

Spring flowers by the fountain.

nice mix of blooming shrubs on campus. These are in the same patch of trees where i saw two great blue herons building a nest last weekend.

Wintergarden in the Arboretum

Walking through the arboretum today with Wen was beautiful. Wet, and cold, but very much feeling like Spring. Birds singing and buds bursting hint of days of warmth and perfume nearing this city. Shaking of the grip of winter, the flowering rhodies frame this tree still sleeping on a crisp spring day.

Japanese Scholar Tree

Like poetry, the scholar's branches dissect the infinite into comprehensible forms.

Cherry Blossoms and snow in the Quad

According to NOAA, a cold upper upper-level trough parked over western WA for a while. Thank you trough. I don't think I've seen cherry blossoms and snow in the same place before.

Practically all grown up!

These r jennifer's new kittens. Well, not so new anymore. :) sure r cute. I thinK it is an evolutionary strategy.

Truck 1 Car 0

my brother stopped for a pedestrian today and this is the car behind him that didn't. This is what happens when u rear end a stopped F-250 and u r goin about 3o mph. The crosswalker was fine. The driver was shaken. Todd was irritated. The other car broke Todd's trailer hitch and bent his bumper a little. Slightly more damage to the other guy's car. Of course the guy had no insurance. Sheesh.

jennifer's cat just had kittens :)

080315_184949

How did he get upside down?

I fell asleep talking on my phone and this is what i woke up to.

I think i might have won

The night was getting foggy right around this point.

Gary knows ppl

The party is in full swing in this picture.

All ages dance party

Rye shows how to do the safety dance on a cement barn floor.

Its a pool party!

Notice the strategic placement of the hundred-year-old window near the pool table.

Gary's birthday party

happy birthday gary! This is a rare pic of gary where he is not flicking off the camera. You have to sneak up on him to get pics like this. :)