12/25 - The Too Big House

We've been big fans of Sarah Susanka's Not So Big House books, The Not So Big House: A Blueprint for the Way We Really Live and Inside the Not So Big House : Discovering the Details that Bring a Home to Life. Of course, we don't agree with Ms. Susanka 100%. We feel that her rival, Sara Sue-Sank-Her, has a number of valuable points as well. We are particularly fond of her contrarian book, The Too Big House, for those of us who feel that too big is just right.

12/23 - Fruitcake Is Illuminated - A Special Report

Wow, have we been busy. It is definitely time for an update. What have we been doing? Well, we illuminated our fruitcake. Read our special report for more on this. That's just a close up on the right.

We've also been decorating the cookie tree. We have some pictures of last year's cookie tree here.

12/13 - The Port Angeles Christmas Firetruck

Every year the Port Angeles fire department runs their collection for the local food banks, Operation Candy Cane. They deck out one of their trucks with lights and get Santa up on the top of the rig to hand out candy canes to all good boys and girls, and to those who give something for people short on food. You can't miss this food drive, what with the lights and sirens it's quite a spectacle. We always give cash, since we doubt that a bunch of lacinato kale is going to do as much good as a few leaves of lettuce.

The firemen may be back fighting fires now, but you can always find a local food drive or food bank if you want to be good.

12/07 - Flat Screen and Pregnant - A Kaleberg journey into computer French

Christmas season often finds us browsing the internet for presents. It's also finals season, so we find ourselves browsing in French to keep our vocabulary up to date. Such is the price of being a homework helper. All this highly focussed browsing often gets us to interesting web pages, for example, those with gift ideas in French. This led us to ponder the tribulations of being écran plat and enceinte, flat screen and pregnant. It turns out that this is quite easy in French, if you speak proper computer French. For more on this, see our latest Kaleberg journey.

12/05 - What It's Like Out

Just a quick note on the outdoors on the Peninsula. We were up at Hurricane Ridge snowshoeing over the weekend, so we cxan report fairly good snow up in the hills, but the Lake Angeles trail is still best climbed from Heart of the Hills in hiking shoes, or boots. There is just not that much snow on the forest floor, even when there is snow by the road.

We were also out at Lake Crescent, and it looks like most, if not all, of the snow on the Spruce Railroad Trail has melted. There is still ice on the access road, so drive carefully.

12/01 - Winter High Tide on the Dungeness Spit

Whenever we mention hiking the Dungeness Spit, we always mention checking the tides. The winter high tides can be a real problem since the sun, earth and moon are so aligned that low tides in daylight are often drowned out by the primary winter tidal components, and at best reveal little of the beach. While a summer low tide provides a broad stretch of sand for walking, the winter presents more obstacles.

The picture on the left was taken at the 1/2 mile stake that is the last point on the spit for jogging. We walked out, and we walked out carefully. There was not much beach, and what there was was covered with rocks, logs, kelp and gravel. It was not easy going, and we turned shortly after this picture was taken. Click on it for a better look at the obstacle course, though we have to admit, it is a pretty picture.

According to our tide calculations, we guess that the next good hiking will be in early February 2006, though the trail will be rocky. The sand gets washed out in the winter, so the trail will be rough going. As spring comes in, the sand returns, but it is still worth checking the tides.