More Bainbridge Island Garden Pictures

Just a few more photographs that I've taken in this pretty garden.  I love housesitting here for lots of reasons but the garden is so lovely that that would be reason enough.

 

 Sorry, friends from Minnesota (and Canada)...flowers are actually blooming here in Washington!

 

This little creature is having a snooze, I think.

  

Heliotrope is such a pretty flower and they're just starting to bloom here.

What's so interesting to me is that they bow their heads.  I took this picture with the camera underneath the flower!!   I really did.

 

The lucky birds that visit this garden have several water features.  I love this one sitting on the rocks.  Isn't that such a clever idea?  There are a couple of others here and there, as well.  We've actually watched the birds splashing around.  Looks like they're having the time of their lives!

Frittata Di Zucchine

 

Today is rainy and my plans to travel to Poulsbo in search of photo ops have been dashed.  Poulsbo is seven or eight miles from Bainbridge Island.  It's a charming little tourist-friendly town.  More about that in a day or so...

So what to do on a rainy day?  Cook, of course!  What to cook?  Well, how about trying a recipe from one of the cookbooks I picked up at the library book sale?  Good thinking.

The cookbook was $1.00 (Yes, One Dollar - a steal!)  and it's a gorgeous book by Sarah Woodward called The Classic Mediterranean Cookbook.   It's beautifully illustrated and the recipes all look very doable.  Doable is good.

 

I chose this recipe largely because I had all the ingredients.  A good reason.  Plus I wanted to make an egg dish that didn't need to bake in the oven.  You do broil it for a few minutes at the end but that's no problem because I used a cast iron skillet.  I love cooking in cast iron pots.   Here's the recipe:

INGREDIENTS:

1 large onion

2 Tablespoons olive oil

1 pound (500g) small zucchini

salt and black pepper

6 large eggs

1/2 cup (60g) freshly grated Parmesan cheese

2 Tablespoons (30g) butter

METHOD (and I quote):

1. Peel the onion, cut in half, and slice into fine half-moons.  heat the oil and cook the onion gently for 20 minutes, until very soft but not browned.
2. Slice the zucchini across into 1/4 inch (5mm) slices.  Add the zucchini to the softened onion, season well, and raise the heat to medium.  Cook, stirring frequently, for 5 minutes.
3. Drain off any excess oil and discard.  Let the vegetables cool for 10 minutes.  Meanwhile, beat the eggs with the Parmesan.
4. Stir the slightly cooled vegetable mixture into the eggs and cheese.  Melt the butter in a nonstick frying pan approximately 12 inches (30mm) across over low heat.  When the butter begins to bubble, pour in the egg and vegetable mixture.  Let cook over low heat for 15 minutes.
5. Heat the broiler to medium.  When the frittata is almost set, place the pan under the broiler for 2 minutes.  Serve cold or hot.

 If you follow these instruction exactly I promise that you will have a perfectly prepared dish.  It was easy and it was delicious.  And I'm thrilled that I have this wonderful cookbook.  The next library sale is in a week or so and I'm heading straight for the cookbooks!

Just Look Down...

This faux starfish is perched on a rock in the front garden.

There's a whole series of great photo blogs all with the extension 365.  They're one-photo-a-day posts with very little text but beautiful pictures.

The first 365 blog that I visited was Thuccotash365.  It's POD's photoblog.  She's just amazing and her photos are unbelievable (and I covet her camera).  Sherry of Nite Swimming 365 is one of the 365 bloggers.  Very creative lady.  She was POD's inspiration, I think.  I haven't taken the step, yet, but I think I will at the beginning of 2011.  Anyone who loves photography will enjoy these photo blogs. 

Pam, at Sidewalk Shoes 365 once posted a great picture of a leaf on the ground.  The composition was just right.  Her caption (paraphrased) was "...if all else fails, just look down." I thought that was good advice.  Here are some of my own  Just-Look-Down photos...thanks, Pam, for the great idea!

Visit POD and Sherry and Pam at their photoblogs.  Plus you'll find more links to others and you'll be hooked! 

A rusty chain by the side of the house...might be an anchor chain?

My version of Pam's leaf...found this on on a walk through a preserve here on the island.

I love the Just-Look-Down approach to photography.  Will be doing this a lot from now on.

NOTE:  If you're interested in having your own 365 project, the link to the original project is here . 

A Hike to Gazzam Lake

One sunny day last week we decided to take advantage of the fine springlike weather for a hike to Gazzam Lake.  You may remember that I saw the signs for Gazzam Lake one day while I was out but was reluctant to hike the dark and woodsy trail alone.

A little about Gazzam Lake:  It's located in the northwest section of the 400+ acre Gazzam Lake Park and Wildlife Preserve.  The preserve is on the south side of Bainbridge Island.  The lake and wetlands surrounding the lake cover 13 acres and it has basically remained untouched by human hands (so to speak).  You can read more about it here.

There are lots of trails in the preserve but we stayed on the main trail and walked about a mile...maybe two.  Took us a couple of hours there and back but we dawdled a bit.  You can barely see the lake unless you detour onto one of the smaller trails that lead down to the lake which we did.

 
If you look at a Google map the lake appears to be huge.  It isn't.   But the water is clear and it was calm that day.   It's a pretty little freshwater lake and quite serene and we were told by a couple whose path we crossed that it used to be much larger.  There are lots of underground springs in the area but the water is being diverted for public use and the lake is slowly disappearing.  How sad is that?

A few pictures of the trail and lakeshore:

A Mossy Tree

 White moss or fungi of some sort.  Prettier in "real life".

Big old mossy boulders left by a glacier

that passed by a gazillion years ago.

 Mossy Logs at the edge of Gazzam Lake

Lots and lots of mossy natural elements abound in this preserve.  That's a good thing...means that the preserve is still holding civilization at bay.  Thanks to a number of land owners in the area who have donated parcels of land to the trust, this will never be developed.

We need to find another spot to explore and since the forecast for the week looks promising,  this would be a good week to do so.   Wednesday my sisters and brother-in-law are coming for the day.  We're celebrating both of my sisters' birthdays.  Am looking forward to a pleasant day.

Scenic Drive - Hood Canal & Port Angeles

These are the beautiful Olympic Mountains as viewed from the bridge over the Hood Canal.  I stopped the car just past the bridge and walked back to take this shot. 

Although you can't tell from this angle, the Hood Canal Bridge (according to Wikipedia) "... is 7,869 feet (2,398 m) long, making it the longest floating bridge in the world located in a saltwater tidal basin, and the third longest floating bridge overall..." Just so you know.  That's amazing, I think.

And THIS photo is a view of Hurricane Ridge.  Well, I think it's Hurricane Ridge.  I was just past Sequim (pronounced Skwim - does that make sense?) which is only about 15 miles from Port Angeles and took this when I detoured off the road after spotting a Starbucks sign.

Hurricane Ridge is not to be missed in the summer if you're ever over on the Olympic Peninsula.  Breathtaking views.  The road is closed right now because of a large slide of some sort...not sure if it's mud or rock or what.  But there's lots to do there in winter, too.  This link to Hurricane Ridge gives an overview of winter sports to enjoy if the mountain is open. But check it out, anyway...there's a webcam with a view from the ridge plus more photos.

Stacked Rocks at Ediz Hook

There's a 3-1/2 mile spit of land in Port Angeles Harbor.  It's called Ediz Hook and back in 1862 driftwood was placed on a tripod at the very end of the spit and burned as a navigation light for ships coming into the harbor.  Port Angeles Harbor is the deepest harbor in the Pacific northwest.  How deep I do not know...I just know that it's the deepest.

Nobody seems to know when it started but there's an interesting impromptu art exhibit out by the Coast Guard station on the Ediz Hook.  Balanced upon the rip rap along the shore are stacks of rocks here and there.  There are dozens of them.  So now whenever people drive out to the end, they'll stop and build a little piece of stone sculpture of their own or they'll rearrange one that's already there.

Just a couple of shots of the driftwood and rocks along the shore.  It's easy to find nice flat stones in all sizes which explains why building these little stone temples is a popular pastime.  Incidentally, I took these last three pictures on my last visit to Port Angeles (aka PA.)

I didn't take any photos of downtown  but we'll be going back there from time to time so more to come...

Zentangle - Amazingly Fun Doodle Art

NOTE: Thanks to Pam for the head's up on the bad links. I've fixed them, I think.

I've been bitten by a bug.  A not-so-new art form that I have recently re-discovered.  It's a form of doodle art and it's called Zentangle or Zendoodle.

I remember doodling like this years and years ago in school.  It's fancy scribbling.  And, if memory serves me correctly, it often involved doodling the name of my most recent heartthrob entwined with hearts and flowers.  It almost always accompanied daydreaming.

I was reacquainted with it on How to Zentangle; I've only completed two of them but I'm already hooked!  There's another Squidoo page that's similar - it's Doodle Art. Both have interesting YouTube video tutorials and links to other related pages.  The beauty of this is that anyone can do it.  Doesn't matter if you can't draw a straight line.  In fact, there are very few straight lines involved.

I've got a couple of very artistic grandchildren who will gobble this stuff up.  I can hardly wait to introduce them to this doodling adventure.  They'll think I'm a genius!

Tomorrow:  Pictures from my Port Angeles trip.

A Day Trip to Port Angeles

I'm heading over to Port Angeles in about an hour to spend the day with my sister.  We're going to spend the day browsing through antique stores and bookstores, for the most part.

I think it might be a clear day...little too early to tell, yet.  If so, I'll have my camera at the ready.  In the meantime, thought you might like this picture of a little spirit that's tucked into the garden here.  I just love it.  Wish I knew what it is...some sort of Alaskan or native spirit, I'm guessing since the homeowners are from Alaska.

Have a lovely day...keep fingers crossed for sun.

Almond Triangles

Beware. These are sinful.  Very, very sinful .

This recipe appeared in the Minneapolis Star Tribune just before Christmas.  It was the grand prize winner in an annual contest the Trib holds each year looking for unique holiday cookie recipes.

I fully intended to make them as a Christmas cookie but through clever procrastination and getting ready to leave for our trip, I didn't.   Clever procrastination because the recipe looks kinda time consuming...it's not a recipe to throw together at the last minute.  It's not a difficult recipe, though.  If it looked difficult I might have just thought, "Well, this looks yummy!" and that would have been the end of that.

So I tossed the newspaper page in with the recipe books I wanted to bring.  Thank goodness!  I made them a few days ago during a really, really rainy day.  Good decision!

I think they need a day to "cure" or whatever you want to call it.  They're better the next day.  The winner of the contest said that they freeze well which is fortunate because if I don't stick the rest of them in the freezer I will eat them all.

They would be fabulous to give as a gift in a pretty tin or cookie box.  Not just for the holidays, either.  An any time gift.  So here's the recipe.

Almond Triangles

2 cups (4 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature, divided

3/4 cup granulated sugar, divided

1 egg

3/4 teaspoon almond extract

1/2 teaspoon salt

2-3/4 cups flour

1 cup packed brown sugar

1/3 cup honey

1/4 cup heavy cream, at room temperature

1 lb. (about 5-1/4 cups) sliced almonds

Carefully line a 10- by 15-inch jellyroll pan (or rimmed cookie sheet) with aluminum foil, shiny side up.

To prepare dough:  In a bowl of an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat 1 cup (2 sticks) of the butter until creamy, about 1 minute.  Gradually add 1/2 cup of the granulated sugar and beat until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.

Add egg, almond extract and salt, and beat until thoroughly combined.  Reduce speed to low, add flour and mix until just incorporated.

Press dough evenly into pan and push dough up sides.  Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Using a fork, prick dough in 20 to 24 places all across the dough and bake 10 minues.  Remove from oven and transfer to a wire rack to cool.

To prepare topping:  In a large suacepan over medium heat, combine brown sugar, honey, remaining 1 cup (2 sticks) of the butter and remaining 1/4 cup granulated sugar.  Cook, stirring occasionally, until the sugar dissoves.

Increase heat to medium-high, bring mixture to a boil, and cook for 3 minutes without stirring.  Remove from heat and stir in cream.  Stir in almonds.

Spread almond mixture evenly over crust.  Return pan to oven and bake until bubbling, about 15 minutes.  Remove from oven and transfer pan to a wire rack to cool  While bars are still slightly warm, cut into triangles.

NOTE:  I recommend reading the entire recipe before starting.  I almost beat all four sticks of the butter at once which would have been a disaster.  Also, when I added the almonds I was convinced that there were waaaay too many almonds and you could probably get by with a few less.  But, in the long run, there really weren't too many. 

ENJOY!

It's raining on my parade...

Rain Spotted Copper Cat in the Garden

 
There's a saying that "Some people walk in the rain, others just get wet."  Well, I'm getting wet.

Yesterday my sister came over from Port Angeles and we had a great time despite the rain.  We stopped in the Children's Hospital Thrift Shop to see if there were any goodies.  I love thrift shops.  There weren't any goodies but it was fun, anyway.  Then we went to another book sale at the library.

I picked up two cookbooks (one vegetarian and one on Mediterranean cooking), a little book of Zen thoughts, a book on computer terminology  (hey, it was like 50 cents...and I might need it sometime.), another book by Lynne Truss called Talk to the Hand; The Utter Bloody Rudeness of the World Today, or Six Good Reasons to Stay Home and Bolt the Door.  She's the author of Eats, Shoots and Leaves which  I thoroughly enjoyed.

So, I haven't been out with the camera.  I did manage to snap a few shots in the garden here at the house now and then when Mother Rain was catching her breath.

 Garden Art - Wooden Gate with Leaded Glass

This garden gate is one of my favorite spots in this yard and I think I'll see if we can create something similar when we get home.  I mean, how hard could it be?  What a statement if it would make either in our lakescaping or our perennial garden.

I love this rocking chair, too.  A bright pop of color on a dreary day!  Who could be gloomy with this sitting on the porch, I'd like to know?

On another note, my sister brought me a box of Rooibos red tea which is naturally caffeine free but not an  herb...I'm not wild about herbal tea for some reason.  This tea comes from a bush in Africa and is said to be high in  antioxidants.  I honestly didn't know it was caffeine free until after I had tasted it.  It's delicious.  I like it with a little milk.

So that's it, folks...this rain isn't leaving any time soon.  I'm going to spend the rest of the day reading and drinking tea.

Trumpeter Swans of the Skagit Valley

Before we settled in here on Bainbridge Island, we spent a few days with my sister and brother-in-law.  They have property in an area of Mount Vernon called "the flats" or the Skagit Flats.

The soil in the flats is incredibly fertile, I'm told, and it is prime farmland.  You can practically see the trees and shrubs grow!   Tulips are the signature crop there and 500,000 people visit each year during the two week Skagit Valley Tulip Festival in April.   About 2,000 acres of tulips are in bloom at this time in a spectacular rainbow of colors.  We are going to be back in Washington in April - perfect!

So  how does this relate to Trumpeter Swans, you ask?   First a little background:

Trumpeter Swans are one of the rarest of the native birds of North America.  They're also the largest of the waterfowl.    They typically arrive in the Skagit valley about October every year and stay until March.   They spend much of their time in those fertile fields the Skagit Valley is famous for...particularly the corn and potato fields.

This January hundreds of them descended upon my brother-in-law's land in the flats!  Seems to me that this is the first time so many of them have chosen these particular fields in all the years they have lived here.

My sister and I drove out there one day.  It was just amazing!  I took dozens of photos.  It has taken a good part of today to sort through them for a couple of good shots.  I think these will do.

I took these photographs standing in the road that borders on their land.  That's how close I could get.  It was terrific. 

I probably stood there fifteen or twenty minutes.  Periodically three or four more would fly in and land; once in awhile two or three would leave.  They have a wingspan of about eight feet!

If you look closely, you'll see that some of them are gray.  That's the color of a juvenile Trumpeter Swan.

Trumpeter Swans are called "trumpeter" for a very good reason.  They really do sound like trumpets!  When you are near an entire field filled with them it sounds like the brass section of an orchestra warming up!  I  tried to capture the sound with the video application on my camera but the danged video isn't any good.  Really blurry and although the sound is good, I got dizzy looking at it.  I wouldn't do that to you, trust me.

Maybe I'll get another chance before we leave Washington.  I hope so.

Out and About

View Larger Map

Thought you might be interested in this Google map of Bainbridge Island.  You can see the ferry routes and its location relative to Seattle.  Clicking on the View Larger Map link will reveal more streets and some of the harbors.

Yesterday was really nice. Not cold and not windy. Some clouds. Some sun. I got a late start but decided to venture outside and just drive wherever the road looked interesting.

You could say that on Bainbridge Island, this is typical.  Towering trees and narrow roads. It would be very easy to get lost.  The good news is that at some point you will always arrive at the water's edge.  I patted our Garmin Nuvi (GPS) on it's little head and threw caution to the winds.

Just a few blocks from the house I stopped to watch a ferry making a right turn and heading out of the harbor toward Seattle.  

 

I drove north on Madison through Winslow to School House Road and turned west.  There was a sign for Fort Ward State Park so that was my first destination.   Traveled several miles of winding, hilly, curvy roads.  Got there.  The gate to the park was closed but I ventured up the road and came upon a new housing development.  Well, huh!  Didn't get a picture but there were probably 30 houses or so right on the other side of this old fort building.   There were neighbors chatting in their driveways and children riding bikes.

This was one view on my way back.   I pulled into the lot of an old dilapidated service station and crossed the road to take this picture.  Pretty.  A bit further, I saw a sign for Gazzam Lake and turned down that road.  It wound around through the woods and actually involved a hairpin turn or two.  Went past a few houses that were just beautiful but nicely built to blend into the hillside.  And speaking of hillsides, a few of them looked as though a stiff breeze would send them off their cantilevered  foundations into a ravine.  No thanks.

About a mile past the turn I came to a dead end. There were a few cars parked in a small clearing by the side of the road and a path which I assumed would lead to Gazzam Lake.  Since I was alone and am sort of a scardy cat, I decided to leave and come back another day with Jack and maybe my sisters and brother-in-law.  I'm going to find out, first, if it's worth the hike.

On my way back to town I came to an intersection with this interesting street sign.  Just had to take a picture.  Toe Jam Hill Road?   I'm going to the Historical Society Museum in the next week or so and will certainly inquire about where the heck that came from!

This is the marina on Bainbridge Island.  The couple we are housesitting for have a sailboat here.  Have never been on it but we're housesitting for friends of theirs in April.  They'll be home...maybe they'll take us for a sail!

Today is rainy.

The Rain in Spain...or on Bainbridge Island

This isn't as impressive as it was in "real life"...partly because the sound of the rain skipping down the rain chain and splashing into the little pond was positively zen-like.  That little frog peeking out is a glass frog.  It's transparent although you can't tell from the photo.  One of those instances where it loses in the translation.  Either that or I really need to learn more about my camera. 

That was yesterday.  Today is sunny.  We went to the library book sale which is held twice a month, I think.  I got Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynn Truss.  The subtitle is "The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation".  I am not great at punctuation...too many exclamation points and probably too many commas...and "dots"...  Anyway, it's a witty and comical guide to punctuation and it's my new little reference.

The title?  Well, as the story goes:

A panda walks into a cafe.  He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit.  The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says, at the door.  "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda.  Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China.  Eats, shoots and leaves."

Just so you know.

Bainbridge Island Ferry Ride

We did go to Silverdale, yesterday, but I didn't take any photographs of the Hood Canel.  The main reason is that I was wrong...you don't cross the Hood Canel to get to Silverdale...you cross it to get to Port Angeles where my sister lives and we did not go to Port Angeles.  I forgot about that.

You DO cross the Agate Passage, however which takes you off Bainbridge Island and onto the Kitsap Penninsula.  I tried snapping a picture on our return trip but the bridge was in the way...not conducive to a quality picture.  What I need to do is go over there, park and find a good vantage point.  And I will do that.

It's raining, today...no surprise...so I'm not venturing out unless it stops.  On the other hand, I did want to post some pictures so I dredged up a few that I took a couple of years ago.  Since very little has changed scenery-wise, just pretend they're more recent.  I like these pictures.

That first is the view that you see from the ferry ride between Seattle and Bainbridge Island.  Notice the Space Needle? Jack has been  to the top of the Space Needle but I haven't and never will because I am terrified of heights thanks to an unfortunate experience on the cliffs of San Diego many years ago.  That's another story for another time.

This is Winslow from the ferry.  Doesn't it look just so quaint?  It is.  A small town with a big presence, actually.  Bainbridge Island has successfully limited the number of chain retail stores and fast food establishments which is just perfect.   There are a number of wonderful local spots to frequent which is how it should be.

That's Mount Baker in the distance.  Click on the photo for a larger and much better view.  Such a beautiful mountain.

And THIS is a picture of Mount Ranier.  Again, you'll get a better view if you enlarge the photo.  I just love the sun glistening on the water with the sailboat bobbing along.

I promise that the next shots I post will be new...

Sunrise on Bainbridge

Just a quick post because we're going to be out and about, today.

This morning about 7 a.m. I snapped the first photo of the sunrise.  Just a few minutes later daylight merged perfectly with the sunrise (2nd photo) and I could tell that we are in for a beautiful day. 

We're going over to Silverdale to the nearest mall.  We've got a Christmas present to exchange and there's no local store on the island.  To get to Silverdale, you have to cross the bridge over the Hood Canal so I'm certain that there will be some photo ops.

I think we'll also do a little exploring.

Wishing everyone a sunny day.  Stay tuned...

The Past Five Days in a Nutshell

We were on our way to Bainbridge Island, Washington...left Lake Mary about 10 a.m. on Wednesday morning (the 30th) and headed to Fargo, North Dakota.

We worked all afternoon blending up our yummy smoothies at a high school wrestling event called Rumble on the Red in Fargo.  The "Red" is the Red River which runs through Fargo.  That river can be just brutal but that's a whole other story.  In any case, the lines for smoothies were non-stop all day.  I'm not kidding. Non-stop.  We had two awesome workers and between the four of us we could hardly keep up.   So we were really tired when we closed.  But we had places to go and people to see so we trucked on down the road in a westerly direction and ended up in Dickinson, ND, a distance of 283 miles (I just looked it up on ask.com).  I think it took about four hours...give or take...slept like a log.

Crazy Mountains in Montana

Thursday morning (New Year's Eve day) we headed out about 7 a.m. thinking that if we could make it to Spokane, Washington, we'd have a fairly short day on Friday.  Just past Big Timber we came to the Crazy Mountains.  They're the first mountains going west through Montana and quite beautiful.  The tallest peak is about 11,000 feet.  There are several theories about how they were blessed with the name Crazy but none of them all that interesting.  Shot this photo through the car windshield which, as many of you know, is pretty normal for me...if we stopped every time I wanted to take a picture we'd never reach our destinations!  I just keep fingers crossed that a couple of them will be worth keeping.

 Approaching Snoqualmie Pass in Washington's Cascade Mountains.

The roads were clear and for the end of December that's really saying something.  There was hardly any snow at all in Montana as you can see from the Crazy Mountain photo.   Started snowing lightly as we were approaching Idaho, though, and got a little dicey about 30 miles from Coeur D'Alene.  The weather report included a winter storm warning for that part of the country and at that point Jack suggested that we drive as far west as we could before stopping....anything to beat the impending storm.   We finally called it a day when we reached Moses Lake, Washington.

Moses Lake, WA is 776 miles from Dickinson, ND (ask.com, again).  A long day.  We checked into the hotel at 8:50 p.m., turned on CNN and watched the New Year arrive in New York City, said, "Happy New Year" to each other and crashed.

Up and at 'em about 8 a.m. on Friday.  The only other mountain pass that we had to cross is Snoqualmie Pass which is a couple of hours west of Moses Lake.  It was snowing, of course.  29 degrees F.  45 mph speed limit.  Remind me, again, why we left home???

Long story short...we made it to my sister's house in Mt. Vernon...have spent four fun days visiting and tomorrow about noon we'll take the Edmunds ferry across to Kingston and then it's about a 20 minute drive to Winslow on Bainbridge Island.  I'm really looking forward to that, too.

Happy New Year, my friends.  Stay tuned...