Today's Harvest

Seven sugar snap peas. I think that might just about do it for my peas this year. Very tasty though. Next year I am planting 7 times as many peas and building them a very tall trellis.

Raindrops on Roses

The roses were so beautiful this morning after a very light rain fell that I had just had to photograph them. I stood on a ladder shooting for nearly an hour, mesmerized by the water droplets.

Secret Bunny

I've been exploring Discovery Park lately and there are all kinds of secret bunnies there. This one was clever enough to hide under the bench in the rain.

Model

I have a shoot tomorrow photographing two grown women for their headshots (don't ask, it was a favor for a friend). Since I haven't done anything like that in forever I made J come out and model for me. We walked around getting rained on while I looked for scenic parts of the neighborhood to use for backdrops. At the end, we returned home and I noticed that there was particularly lovely soft diffuse light in our carport of all places. I made J pose and I put the back wall out of focus and I think it really looks like a soft daylight studio shot. I can make a studio out of my carport! This was a revelation. Also a good reminder that I really know what I'm doing. I can take a good portrait almost anywhere.

West Tiger 3

Another weekend hike, this time up West Tiger 3 which is probably the closest real hike to the city of Seattle. People go there because it's close and steep...but it's not particularly scenic. These first two photos make it look a lot better than it is. It is pretty much up for 3 miles to reach the unspectacular summit (bottom photo) and then 3 miles down. I don't think I'd feel the need to do it again unless I was training for something. Otherwise I'd rather drive a little further for a really great hike.

Cherries

Our cherries are finally ripening and today I climbed the tree (which was not easy or particularly safe) and we were able to pick about 4 pounds. We made a small amount into cherry cobbler and froze the rest for now.
 
We also made lasagna from scratch and watched Harry Potter.

Veggie Harvest

This time, a vegetable harvest! 6 carrots, 3 sugar snap peas, and one unripe tomato that broke off of the plant. This highlighted for me the difficulty of actually growing enough food to feed people. I would have to plant 10 times more just to feed the two of us. I also learned that carrots are difficult to harvest all the way to the ends. They really want to stay in the dirt and they break off and make me go fishing for the end with my bare hands in the earth.

Rainbow

Today I separated an egg yolk from the white for the very first time, I made my own homemade mayonnaise for the very first time, I turned half of that mayonnaise into an aioli for the very first time, and made a tuna-artichoke-caper-aioli topping for our bruschetta (amazing!). After dinner I had a craving for chocolate ice cream so we walked to Walter's, or should I say we were led to Walter's by the most amazing rainbow! It's very silly to get excited about a rainbow but they really do make me happier, especially when they come without any rain like this one did.

Harvest

So far, the strawberry harvest has been at a rate of one every couple of days. But they are getting bigger and better tasting than the first one. And the plants are sending out runners in all directions. What am I supposed to do with all those runners? Can you cut them and plant them elsewhere? These are things I do not know.

Morning Glories

We came home from our hike to find these Morning Glories blooming for the very first time. Last year, I had some old Morning Glory seeds from the $1 bin at Target and I planted them around our carport since it would be a good place for plants to vine. Nothing happened and I forgot about them. Today, when I saw these....are they the ones I planted or were they there before we moved in? Is it possible I just didn't see them last year? Anyways, I am claiming them as mine and very pleased to see them.

Wallace Falls

If you know me and J at all, you'll know we were dying to push on to the Upper Falls because 1) we are not the kind of people who will bow out of something early for any reason and 2) we were promised it was the most lonely! Since we are new to hiking in Washington State, we are still translating guide book vocabulary into meaningful knowledge. Like, what does "crowded" mean? And what does "Casual hikers need not apply." mean? Anyways, we hiked to the top (it was harder than the previous sections but totally fine, in fact we shared the top with children and grandmas) but found it...get this...extremely crowded!?! The hell?! I was promised a lonely waterfall because people are too lazy to hike to the top!!! Anyways, aside from that, we found a free rock/log to sit on to eat our picnic without a view and waited for people to thin out so we could go take a look. Please note the frickin' waterfall rainbow in the lower left corner! Overall, it was a great great hike that almost any fit person could just jump in and do without too much trouble.

Wallace Falls

They are cleverly named Lower Falls, Middle Falls, and Upper Falls and the guidebooks promise something like "Lower Falls is the most scenic, Middle Falls is the most spectacular, and Upper Falls the most lonely. The first three images here are from Lower Falls. You get a very nice view of where you're headed (the huge waterfall in the distance) but you have to duck down an unmarked but legal path staircase to see the true Lower Falls which is ridiculous...splashing into a beautiful blue green pool. Since people are lazy and no one took the extra 25 feet of stairway down, we had it all to ourselves. The last image is from Middle Falls so I guess they think that's the most spectacular of the views.

Wallace Falls

J and I have been going hiking lately. A weekend, get up early morning, and head out about an hour drive from Seattle (in any direction, really) to go be (not alone) in nature. This weekend I picked Wallace Falls which is up north and east a bit. It was one of those hikes that's like seriously crazy-talk awesome. Everything was beautiful, the trail was great and not too hard, and it was just like, "Um, yeah, this is good."  It starts out following a nice little rushing river, which is the only noise you can really hear.  Then it gets steeper and moves on to the waterfalls that have made it so popular.  There are really 9 waterfalls over a half mile of river but from the point of view of the hike, there are three major ones that are your destinations.

Happy Birthday

Happy 34th Birthday to Mr. Grumblehog. He keeps getting better looking with age. It's a work day so he came home, put on his apron, sat for his portrait session, and is now making me pizza. We will go out an celebrate tomorrow night.