04.26.08
Lovely low tide
Our outing to Fay Bainbridge State Park coincided with a great low tide this afternoon, which gave us lots of squishy dark silt and little warm tide pools to play in.
B’s handprint:
S. and friend:
04.25.08
A bed of sparrow grass
Isn’t that particular corruption of asparagus delightful?
What’s that white shoot? A spear I guess. 
This afternoon I put in 25 asparagus plants, and I found they take a lot of room in the garden. I split them into two beds, and I’m interested to see which bed produces better. These are one-year-old crowns, so harvest time will be three springs out.
But then! All the sparrow grass I can eat!
04.23.08
A plot of earth in April
I harvested the first crop of spring spinach from the garden this afternoon. We put up this almost invisible lightweight deer netting last month, and it’s done the trick! I feel crazy clever.
Buoyed by my agricultural success, I decided to make a spinach lasagne for dinner:
The bowl contains chopped spinach, ricotta cheese, shredded Romano, minced garlic, and onion (I’ll leave the onion out next time, actually; the kids weren’t exactly begging for more onion). A jar of basil and tomato pasta sauce, whole wheat lasagna noodles, and lots of grated mozerella ed è squisito!
04.19.08
Leaf print skirt
Well, I got right to work because I was so taken with Lynn’s leaf prints. I found a plain white cotton skirt:
I picked some leaves from the backyard that looked like they had some chlorophyll to give up, placed them on the skirt with a board underneath and a paper towel on top, took a hammer, and beat the pulp out of them. Fun!
You know you’re done when you’ve got a good image of the leaf on the paper towel.
Voilà!
Happy Earth Day!
Earth Day being right around the corner, Winslow joined in the spirit of worldwide celebration/education today. The girls and I went to Eagle Harbor Bookstore’s science demo with Lynn Brunelle, who is super cool. (She won a couple of Emmys writing for Bill Nye the Science Guy and has written several books for kids.)
She showed how to make a leaf print T-shirt and a solar pizza-box oven, which the girls are really keen to do. Too bad it’s hailing outside! Maybe when La Niña lets up a bit we’ll try.
Cello lesson #15
I had a really good cello lesson on Thursday. I played through the last 3 pieces of Suzuki Book 3 with C.F. with some confidence, which translates to expressiveness with the bow. He wants me to practice an etude that focuses on double stops (a term until now, I was unfamiliar with)—chords, which on the cello means just two notes at once. We went through it slowly. Quite challenging!
I’m just beginning to add vibrato, on occasion, when it comes naturally.
04.11.08
To Blakely Rock and back again
We paddled out of Eagle Harbor for the first time this morning! The sea was kind and calm and it was easy going, until a biggish boat passed by. We turned to face the wake and as the swell loomed, I looked into the great yawn of the deep and felt pretty panicky. I shouldn’t have worried, because the wave sloshed over the front of the kayak, but I didn’t even get wet.
Here’s Blakely Rock–we’ll have to go back and get a better picture. The bottom of the sound rises really quickly as you near the outcropping and it startled me–so I put the camera down and took up my paddle.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was moving over the surface of something living, something sentient. Ancient mysticism and superstition and magic totally make sense when you feel so small amid the forces of nature (yes, even in the middle of the Puget Sound with ferries criss-crossing all over creation!).
The Seattle skyline was pretty hazy this morning, despite the bright sun.
Ah, back in Eagle Harbor again:
Looking west, the Olympics are so beautiful!
Sunday stroll at the Bloedel Reserve
I’ve heard it’s one of the island’s gems, but hadn’t visited before today. The Bloedel Reserve is tremendously beautiful, burgeoning with native plants and birds, coming alive with spring and the promise of summer.
We saw a very regal-looking heron:
and a sleeping swan:
Here’s K. and S. under a magnificent magnolia:
Here’s Grandpa D. and S.
Here’s part of the zen garden:
The skunk cabbage was rife, ripe, and redolent:
To market, to market
Yesterday proved to be nice enough for everyone to walk to town to do some shopping and lunch. All of us are partial to Indian food, so Gandhi’s it was. K. picked out her present from Grandpa D. and Grandma K. from Oil and Water–she got a nice sable brush, some acrylic paints, and a canvas. Window shopping and gallery-peering are always rewarding in Winslow, and for the most part, we dodged the raindrops!
