Another anniversary

Morning

Poll Hopper

June 6th is the anniversary of Feathers and Flowers.  On this morning five years ago I hit the "publish" button on Blogger for the first time with great trepidation.  I can still remember that scary feeling of "being out on the Internet."

Ha!  Well, don't we get used to things? I seem to have no trouble now blabbering on in a way that sometimes borders on narcissism. On the other hand, I wish I'd had the discipline to record the "events of the day" many years ago.  Handwritten diary or blog, it doesn't really matter. Paying attention to the small things can be life transforming.

Anyway, that very first post is still on the blog  (click here) with a photo of my beautiful horse, along with all of the 1,587 entries written since June 2009.  Thank you, oh Great Google Storage Plan in the Sky for preserving all those words and thousands of images for a few pennies a day.

You know you've been blogging for a long time when you start to use your blog as a reference tool. (Now... how DID I make that recipe?) But the real gratitude goes to my little group of daily followers. Thanks for sticking with me.

Goodbye, old friend

Tolek and Charlie the Cat

May 2010

Our friend Leo Emerson passed away at the Seattle VA hospital this week at age 80. His close friends called him Tolek.  Amanda first met Tolek when she was in her early 20's, and over the years he became part of our lives, too. Amanda and Tolek had a unique friendship, and he was a generous source of support and encouragement through her young adult years, from college student to waitress, Peace Corps volunteer to wife and mother, and now, soon-to-be registered nurse.

Tolek was raised in a New England orphanage and joined the Marines when he was a teenager during the Korean War. He never lost his gratitude for what his country gave him.  He was the most highly-educated self-educated person we've ever met.  He liked art and collected rare books, especially literature and philosophy.  He also loved whimsical toys, silly mechanical gadgets and watches and pens.  His apartment was a wild mixture of used book store, Woolworth's and Aladdin's cave.  When Amanda left for the Peace Corps, he adopted her Charlie and turned him into the most spoiled cat in the universe. 

Above everything, Tolek loved conversation, even though thirty years ago cancer of the larynx had taken away his ability to speak without an electrolarynx, that external device that is placed against the neck. Many people in West Seattle knew of him because of this, but just a small circle of friends knew him well. His lived his life on his own terms.  He was brave, tough and ornery like an old Marine, and despite years of serious health problems never felt sorry for himself. Bless him, he had nothing but good things to say about the VA hospital that saved his life many times.

When I saw him for the last time at the hospital on Saturday, he said he considered himself one of the luckiest people in the world.  And our world will be a little less colorful without Tolek.

Dahlias

If you mulch in the fall,  dahlia tubers can usually survive the winter, something you can't do in many parts of the country. I thought I'd lost the first one in many years, and hoped that it wasn't my favorite pink ball.

Dahlias are so inconspicuous and fragile when they first come up it's easy to stomp on them or snap the top off when you're weeding. Sometimes I break the shoots off when I dig down to "check" and see if they're still alive.  The impatient gardener.  Like begonias, dahlias are very slow to start growing, and nothing much to look at until late August. 

But I was happy to see this little sprout yesterday. Once again, I almost ripped it out accidentally.  I don't use poison in the garden except under dire circumstances, but I sprinkled a touch of slug bait around to give it a head start.  There's nothing slugs like better than eating new dahlia shoots.  When they get big, an army of slugs can't kill them.

This picture is from 2009, so I've had pinky for quite a while.  It is amazing how such a tiny sprout grows into a magnificent 5 foot plant by the end of summer.

And then of course the whole mess has to be cut back to the ground and dragged off in the fall. With all the staking and flopping, dahlias aren't everyone's cup of tea, but I think the almost artificial symmetry and pure colors make them quite classy.

One of the "cuter" mammals...

There were animals fighting in our yard this week at night.  It wasn't that back and forth yowling of cats, with a big final scream to settle it so you can go back to sleep. More of a wild, scary Africa-savanna sounding fight.  OK, I'm exaggerating, but everything sounds bad when it wakes you up at 3 am.  I'm sure it was "just" raccoons.

Nova went beach-combing down at Alki when she was here on Memorial Day weekend and brought home a plastic bag of fragrant treasures: shells, wet feathers, stones, crab claws with pieces of crab meat still attached.  I lost track of where she left that zip-lock bag, but the wild creatures found it in the yard and ripped it to shreds.

Beach refuse must be worth fighting over.  So why don't they just walk down to Alki Beach and get their own stinky crab scraps?  Actually, I know why-- because city raccoons have a very small home range.  Why move around when everything you need is within a few blocks?

Each morning while I'm sitting at my computer they walk through the front yard. I recognize the regulars, like the one who had the end of of his tail cut off.  Like all animals, they have no sense of property and if it feels good and safe they just make themselves at home.  I know they can be a nuisance, but I enjoy watching them.

What else is new in the wild kingdom? These nice mornings the back door is open while I'm doing chores in the kitchen and the Stellar's Jay is training me to leave his peanuts on the gate. He sits in the plum tree making a racket, then swoops down and grabs it before the crow.  I was looking on the Internet trying to find out if crows are smarter than jays.  They are both members of the Corvid family.   

I know we shouldn't use human personality traits to describe animal behavior, but the crows are like street bullies, used to getting their way but wary of people.  The Stellar's Jay is more of a brash and quick thief. But all the birds in the Corvid family have astonishing memories and problem solving abilities.

Naturalists say crows and jays have languages of their own and are able to do tasks that three and four-year-old children have difficulty with.  So it's probably no big deal teaching a senior citizen where to leave their peanuts.

Here's what Mark Twain had to say:

There’s more to a jay than any other creature. You may call a jay a bird. Well, so he is, in a measure, ’cause he’s got feathers on him and he don’t belong to no church perhaps, but otherwise he’s just as much a human as you and me.

Young Woman on the Shore

Young Woman on the Shore

Edvard Munch

I like this Munch painting better than his most famous one.  Munch was a dark and psychologically intense man, so maybe it's a good thing he doesn't show her face.
  

The Scream

Edvard Munch

Nothing to scream about in the weather department.  Instead of the usual Seattle "June gloom" we're headed into a long stretch of warm dry days.  After so much rain, this makes the flowers very happy.  In some places, they are actually choking out the weeds. Go, daisies! Cloudy or not, June is the most beautiful month in the garden, and the NWS is predicting warmer than normal temperatures this summer.  Bring it on.

Copper River treat

It was beautiful in our neighborhood yesterday, and fairly quiet, too-- I suppose because everyone was out enjoying the perfect sunny day instead of mowing their lawns. We spent time cleaning up after the roofers and then I washed the windows and tried to get caught up on the weeding.

We toyed with the idea of riding the West Seattle water taxi over to the waterfront for supper, but as the day went on the thought of searching for parking at Alki and fighting the tourist crowds became less appealing.  I decided to make a treat at home instead.

No, I don't spend this much for a piece of fish very often, but this is fresh Copper River sockeye!  And to put it in perspective, on the Seattle waterfront ten bucks buys you a mediocre, greasy fish n' chips in a cardboard basket.

There are many different and elaborate methods for cooking Copper River salmon.  But I think the fish should be the star of the show, and simplicity is best.

Forget about healthy olive oil, and start with a nice gob of butter.  The healthful benefits of the wild fish fat will make up for it. Heat the butter on medium high with a teaspoon or so of fresh lemon juice.

Sprinkle the fish lightly with seasoning salt.  I always start skin-side-up to allow the "presentation side" to brown for about 5 minutes.

After you flip the fish, the skin cooks and will pull away when you serve the fillet.  Sprinkle the top with a tablespoon or so of fresh dill. We like salmon moist but cooked through-- not raw and translucent in the middle like most chefs would do.

That fillet made two generous, luscious portions.  Certainly more Copper River salmon than gets doled out to diners in fancy restaurants. 

OK, this last picture is out of focus because I was in such a big hurry to tuck in.  The perfect dinner for an early summer evening. Bon Appetite!