Originally the plan was to do the annual Snow Lake hike this last week of August, but the response was, as the little ones like to say, a big fat zero. There's been an unseasonable amount of rain this year, some people were out of town, some unextractable from town... but we weren't about to throw in the towel. We just switched gears. Farther, longer, warmer. Bring the towel!
It's August, but it sure felt more like Fall, so off to the hotsprings we went...
The drive up was nice. Sunniest day all week.
I hadn't been since they shut down the road and built the foot bridge, so we took the bike and trailer to cover the extra mileage.
I tryed four times to shoot a vid while riding up, but each time the cameras settings got jostled and rearranged, rough road—
I love it when the environment contributes creatively...
The path to the springs is beautiful.
When we first got up to the springs a group of ten year old girls were just leaving. My "warrior queens in training" as the woman who was with them put it. Alright! good to see... we may phrase it differently, but no doubt we're on the same page. The rest of the afternoon we had the whole place to ourselves.
The next morning we got there right around the same time as a couple and their four year old son—perfect. 
The little ones had a great time and I got to go back into the dark steam of the cave. It was so nice just soaking for hours and letting the body rearrange, drinking clear water right out of the stream, and then walking back down the path all relaxed and peaceful.
The last soak was shared with a small parisian family and their NW host. Good company all around.
Here's a vid that's not a vid... wanted to see what a long pan of a still would look like—with sound. Does sound make water move? maybe only sort of...
The current caretakers are really nice. I'd actually never been in the summer. Usually I go when there's snow, or the possibility thereof. That's my idea of the perfect hotspring experience. But it seems that winter also coincides with the time of year when the caretakers cabin is inhabited by a... well—as a friend put it—a rather curmudgeonly gnome.
So it was a nice surprise to be handed a bag of home-baked cookies and chocolate when we checked out. (We'd woken up that morning, not only to all night of rain, but our food bag, that I'd hoisted up on the food storage wire, was lying on the ground amidst soggy pine needles, a big hole chewed in the bottom from which protruded a half eaten bar of chocolate... Closer inspection revealed that the bags tie line had been ingeniously severed (chewed) by an intrepid squirrel or chipmunk. Somewhere out there, a very well stimulated furry animal was flying through the forest...)
Had we known, the tight lidded plastic food-storage buckets would have been the way to go, but the caretaker didn't realize we were staying overnight, and we didn't know about the crafty chipmunks...
Back at the car CP was sound asleep. The road is rough - but apparently not too rough to sleep. All that soaking makes for good napping...
Earlier she said, "next time, let's stay four days!"
Sunday, August 31, 2008
up the Middle Fork
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
house lost it's identity
That's what a neighbor said...
After serving more than a decade as ornamentation and critter habitat, the medusa's head of bunched up vine remnants growing up from under the eaves at the top of the chimney is gone. Removal was brought on by pigeons nesting, leaving long excremental streaks down the side of the house (not to mention birds being the carriers of some rather nasty virals these days) that I just wasn't willing to put up with. I waited til the young were nest free, and then, clad with respirator and crow bar up I went, and down it went.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Quillisascut revisited
hey, what are the names of these two? R? LL? these two and the goats below too...
thanks : Gibbet + Cupcake
It sure was good to see everybody, and eat with everybody - even the goats got wheelbarrows full of freshly pruned grape vine clippings. Yum! and a quick way to compost all those clippings... not to mention, I imagine, an excellent diet for making cheese that pairs well with wine.
Not that it's all about cycles of consumption, there's much more to goats than that. Sunk like the Titanic beneath their initial shyness lies an ocean of inquisitive mischief that any time spent with them will reveal - if not prove contagious. I do believe it's carried its way into the music, a snippet of dylan, the goats head edit.
Vida + Kelpie
Here's some pictures of the goat milking station, an integral part of the farm. That's Rick and Lora Lea, experts in residence - - and the connoisseur kittys, holding out for foam.
When I tried to get CP, who usually likes to go swimming, to come swimming with us in the afternoon right around goat milking time, she resolutely refused, not wanting to miss a milking of the goats.
Without other kids along I was a little worried at first about bringing her, but she loved the farm and took to it with an inquisitive and independent spirit. Thanks go to R + LL and of course, the kittens, for making it possible.
It turns out there were other kids... just not human.
Without much fanfare, 2008 kicked off the the premier year of the Columbia Log Jam Invitational. The crowds were sparse, but a good time was had by all. Here's Karl, trading in his knife for a stick.
On the way back from swimming we picked these wild black cherries. Once correctly
positioned in The Tree, a whole gallon can be picked without further climbing. Hands down, hands up, best cherries ever!
Not Ephrata Bud. Chef Karl with family recipe potatoe sausages basking in the evening sun.
Did I mention we ate really well? For breakfast, from scratch, croissants and pain au chocolat baked to perfection. And that was just the start of the day...
Still, there was work to be done between meals.
A more traditional feeding of the goats.
And work to be done making meals. R + K conducting smoke.
Smoked to perfection, here it is served up.
Later I found out this was Lightening - firing a few extra synapses - a born circus goat... and I'm wondering, maybe next time, if not already too big, what would it take to balance Lightening on my head?
I think it could be done... maybe wear a turban.
After glowing testimonials from Rick we were sold - we stopped for a Soap Lake soak on the way back. It was hot, 101 degrees, but as soon as we were in the water, even ankle deep, the heat just disappeared. The lake totally lives up to its name, very slick water, feels just like soap, and even suds up when you rub it against your skin. It didn't take long for me to go native and slather my body with mud like all those other people strolling and lolling about. Mostly russian and ukrainian, as were the bunch below that I hit up for a mud shot. So I asked them why the mud? They shrugged and said we heard it was good for you. Which was about my level of knowledge...
I also noticed all these bright red flecks in the water, that when cupped in the hand and examined more closely, squiggled about like little shrimp. It reminded me of the great Salt Lake, with its oolite producing shrimp. The photo above is of a concentration of these shrimp along the shoreline - they really are that red.
When we got back, I did a little research about Soap Lake. It turns out the shrimp are integral to the healing properties of the lake... "Soap Lake water also contains ichthyols, an oil like substance sold over the counter in Europe to treat infections and abrasions. The icthyol in Soap Lake water most likely come from decomposition of tiny brine like red shrimp that flourish in the water from late spring to mid-summer."
It also turns out that Soap Lake is a highly unique meromictic lake, having layers of water which do not intermix. It is also in danger of losing that unique property. Since the advent of the grand Coulee dam, Soap Lake has lost half of its mineral concentration due to irrigation and changes in the water table resulting from the building of the dam. The Soap Lake Conservancy, a group organized to preserve the lake, has good information.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Iowa
It's been a couple of decades since I've been here, but the Maquoketa Caves were beautiful as ever. And really fun for the kids, by which I mean all of us.
At home we had a marsupial interlude, an opossum, caught, released and bewondered.
The day after the 4th I went on the Tour de Brew with Steve and Bill. You start out the ride with a beer and a card and proceed to peddle 35 miles with enough stops in between to complete a poker hand and keep you beer fueled... none of that hipper than thou PBR crap, just a choice of one of three excellent (and strong!) hand crafted beers. Prizes go to the winning hands at the end, and of course, there's more beer. Naturally, amongst the beauty of the rolling farm hills and the wind in your hair, this leads to theorizing, if not strategizing, about card distribution methodologies and the finer points of poker. Well, maybe not so natural... in a lot of ways it was a family event, I loved that about it too, though it did occur to me that truly the only way to drink beer correctly is to pair it with bicycling. A brilliant idea. Kudos to the organizers of this event.
We saw Ferdinand along the way. I guess he lives in Iowa now. I think he ate all the big flowers, but you can see there's a little one, right beneath his nose.
last beer stop
Back in the Amana Colonies I ate the best hotdog this year. Maybe the only one... whatever, it could have been a hamburger, it would have been the best one too. It was sooo good. The Beatles cover band, less so. But who cares? We had the winning poker hand...
Back at the K-ranch fam pho—
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Monday, December 3, 2007
advent snow
On a technical note, this is pretty exciting... the movie posted above is a Flash .swf file, meaning I have control over size, quality, playback skin, and poster (still image that appears as the video placeholder), all of which I have no control over if I (or anybody) posts using Blogger's video upload. Posting .swf's can be done by uploading them to a server and linking them to your blog. Code to link your swf can be cut and paste from here.
On an artistic note, the vid is about 2 hrs. condensed to 1:10 mins. Some of it in "real time" (shot at 1 frame/2 sec. @ 30 F/sec.), and some of it further condensed in post production. Still sounding rather technical I know... but then again how do you divorce tools from artistic production? They are so very intertwined... For the music I tryed some Eno first, but the snow proved repellent to electronic forms(except for maybe static?) in favor of more direct tonalities. The punctual sounds of the piano seem to better shape time and snow. Bach's Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue in D minor fit.
The snowball fight was completely unplanned (I had started filming before it was even a thought), but then thoroughly encouraged.
Also—should, per chance, you not be seeing anything... you may need to download flashplayer 9
Saturday, November 24, 2007
tracking tracking everywhere
Everywhere I turn these days someone's mining data. I went to fry up my fishead the other night and found this tag in its jaw : projectCROOS.com and from their site : combining genetic information with digital traceability systems to track Chinook salmon stocks and individual fish for management and marketing purposes.
I guess once we've effected our environment enough to impact resources, it's time to track it. I know the situation can't be reduced simply to that point of view, but I like to step back and contextualize any given situation historically and socially—get the big picture view—before I get lost in the details. With that sort of tracking and breakdown of bio-information, one can identify what river system the salmon is from all the way back up to the spawning tributary... along with a lot of other information. Which present some pretty powerful possibilities... and therein lies the point of revolution. Where our digital age will take us, with its greatly enhanced accessibility to tracking information, revolves around that word, possibilities. Void of context, information is neutral. It can be incredibly useful and beneficial, but used, just as easily, to less noble ends. Take Rapleaf for instance, a company I stumbled across recently while googling the word "contrite."
Rapleaf is a company who aggregates other peoples information and sells it to whoever wants to pay for it— for a fee you can trace anyones e-mail address to everyplace its ever been... which not only seems unethical, but I'm surprised its legal. Often I feel that our constitution, regarding right to privacy issues, hasn't caught up with the digital age. Leech-like business models such as Rapleafs will also impact the whole social networking scene, at least amongst professionals—for how much control do we really have over where our address goes? One can go to Rapleaf and find out if one's profile is listed, but as one commentator noted, in order to do this "one must enter one’s email address. Once an email address has been entered, the profile is made. Joseph Heller would be quite impressed." In addition, if someone looks up your address, Rapleaf, as a 'courtesy,' will send you an e-mail notifying you about it. Which is good, but double pronged, since it also functions as spam. Smart, but devious. Which also applies to their site. Not unsurprisingly, the company has gotten a lot of flack. So they posted a full fledged apologia (aka "contrite") , which one surfer incisively dubbed as "Radical transparency excellently played."
We live in paranoid times. Setting the tone, from our president on down—it is, unfortunately, not unfounded.
Man that salmon head was good!! It's a little known fact that some of the best meat is in the head. Like eating an artichoke, the process has its very own rhythm—there's no quick way of doing it. It requires diligence and close examination—anatomical fascination the bonus side effect. At one point CP asked if she could have an eyeball and I said sure, handed it to her, and she popped it in her mouth. Just like that. With the unadulterated purity of a three year old. I didn't let on, but boy was I proud, in a sociological sort of way. Next time I'm going to have to try one too.
