11/26 - How to Build a K'Nex Promenade Lamp

One of our site visitors asked how to build one of these lamps, so we uploaded some photos and diagrams to help out. This is a really pretty lamp, and not that hard to make.

For the photographs and diagrams, click here.

11/25 - Harbinger Winery: The Crush Is On

Things are bustling at Harbinger Winery. We dropped by and the grapes were in and the press was running. We tasted a number of their new wines, and really liked their Dynamo White made with riesling and cabernet sauvignon grapes. It may be autumn, but it looks like the white wine season may be extended a bit here at the Kalebergs.

• The Official Website
• Our Fan Site

11/16 - A Few Words From Dungeness Valley Creamery

We've just gotten word from Sarah Brown on what's happening at Dungeness Valley Creamery:

Hello to all,

Things are going well on the farm and in the creamery and we thank everyone for their support!

Fall is in full swing and that means two things for us. One, the fields are muddy and cows must come in...and two, the Holidays will be here before we know it. Thanksgiving is next week! Can you believe it? Although we will be closed Thanksgiving Day, we hope that you bring your family and friends out to the farm and visit our creamery beforehand (or after). Come pet the new babies and visit the mamas who provide you with the freshest and creamiest raw milk. Along with the whole raw milk you'll find nummy cheeses made by Mount Townsend Creamery from our "girls'" milk. These cheeses are sure to delight the palette of your Thanksgiving meal guests. Special ingredients make the feast special. Be sure to pick up local foods including the raw milk (with cream on the top), eggs, and freshly baked breads and dinner rolls. Remember, Nash's organic produce store is just down the road from us for your Holiday veggie needs.

Our Creamery store also offers other locally made gift items. You'll find cards, scarves, lavender products, herbal salves, photographs, artwork(BarnArt) and more. For our first Christmas, we will be featuring handmade "KeyAngel" ornaments made by my sister, Kim Bergstrom! All proceeds from the "Key Angels" will go to benefit Children's Hospital. At birth, the Children's Hospital performed emergency surgury and saved her life! She was a patient at Children's for the first six months of her life and wants to support a cause that means so much to her!

Next Holiday season we would love to offer fresh raw jersey cream and that is one of our goals. Another goal is to start making an aged cheese. For this to be possible we must have more help! We need four night milkings covered and one or more morning milkings. Calf feeders are needed as well. We just cannot add on any more projects until this happens. If you or anyone you know is interested please contact us.

One addition to our farm that has helped a lot is our new manure separator! This may sound strange to most of you but this is a huge relief to us as my dad usually spends most of the winter making the separator work. Well, our new one actually works...by itself! That means more time for our new creamery and also more manure solids for your gardens.

On a side note, a few new stores are carrying our raw jersey milk! They are The Olympia Food Co-ops east and west, Nash's (Sequim/Dungeness) and The Gifting Place (Port Angeles). We also have new drop points in Bremerton (Evergreen Market in Bremerton went out of business), Mercer Island, Poulsbo, and Quilcene. Please feel free to contact us with questions about any of these locations or possible new drop points!

Thanks again for supporting local farms and farmers! A community that depends on and supports one another is a healthy community!

Sarah Brown

Dungeness Valley Creamery
1915 Towne Rd.
Sequim, WA 98382
360/683-0716

11/08 - The View From The Bridge

The maples along the Spruce Railroad Trail are changing. The tree on the right is in the quarried out swimming hole, locally called the Devil's Punchbowl. We took this picture from the little bridge about a mile from the eastern trailhead.

11/07 - Nash Huber's Farm Stand

We recently paid a visit to Nash Huber's farm stand in Sequim, not far from the old Dungeness School House. Farm stands are always at their prettiest in the autumn, which is, for us, the time to round up the usual vegetables. That is, the brussels sprouts are in, as are the lacinato kale, the collard greens, the mustard greens, the beets, the cauliflower and even the cabbages. There are some pictures of some of the goodies and one of all our loot down below.

Also noted was the new sign on the door announcing that Nash's farm is salmon friendly. That's a big thing out here since Clallam County is sort of fish crazy. There are signs with little fish on them along the road side, usually at bridges. They mean that someone is likely to brake hard, leap out of their car and throw in a line to try their luck, so you had better drive carefully. Salmon channels are important out here too, and not just the kind they carry on cable. The county recently rebuilt route 112 where it crosses Salt Creek to give the fish a better shot at spawning.

11/07 - High Waters

If you've been reading the news reports, you might have noticed that there has been a lot of rain, and some flooding, out here on the Olympic Peninsula (and elsewhere in the region). Locally, Morse Creek is running high. That's our benchmark log in the picture to the right. The crook, where that large diagonal branch meets the base of the tree, is usually a foot or two above the water. Today the water was flowing over the branch.

11/05 - First Snow at Klahane Ridge

We seem to be watching winter come to the high country in slow motion. The rain stopped for a day, and we, and a fair number of other hikers, set out to see how things were doing up on the ridge. Just a few days ago there was frost; today there was snow. There was not a whole lot of snow, or we wouldn't have made it up there, and it had mostly melted save in the highest areas and in places where things lie in shadow. Still, there was snow, and the hanging gardens are now silver and gold as the foliage turns towards winter.

11/01 - Halloween Party at Kastle Kaleberg

We just could not resist. What is a Halloween party without properly ghoulish food? (And we don't mean transfats). On the right are our devil burgers made with Parker House rolls, buffalo burgers, sweet onion and pickles. The little devil horns are little diamond shaped chunks of red pepper, and don't they look good enough to eat?

We also wrapped up a bunch of sausage mummies, but the photographs just didn't do them justice. We used sausages from Sunrise Meats down on First Street, and we were quite pleased. The shop doesn't look like much, but they've got really good meat, and if you ask nicely, frozen fish.

The reckless eyeballs below and to the right are hollowed out tomatoes stuffed with arugula, mayonnaise, and bacon, and decorated with a black olive for the pupil. They're a bit messy to eat, but who can resist an inside out BLT?

11/01 - Our Shaman Transforming on Halloween

The Kaleberg manse is a rather mystical place in the best of times, but around Halloween things get even worse. We've always had our shaman mask to greet the hundreds of trick or treaters trolling our neighborhood, but this year our shaman mask was transformed, and our shaman had company. The wood carving is by Ron Telek a Nishga artist from British Columbia who has created a number of carved wooden masks depicting mystical transformations. The glowing skulls are little Mexican sugar skulls that we created with molds from MexicanSugarSkull.com and stuffed with little flashlight bulbs in sockets from Radio Shack. The jack-o-lantern was grown locally, in the United States, so this Halloween montage is sort of a tribute to NAFTA, which some folks find pretty scary in and of itself.

11/01 - Klahane Ridge Ground Frost

The high country is wet but open. We managed to crawl up the Switchback Trail to Klahane Ridge. There wasn't any snow, but there was a bit of ground frost and some pretty ice flowers. Winter is icumen in.

11/01 - Dry Creek Farm: The Chicken AND The Egg!

We had not been seeing Harley at the Farmers' Market so we dropped by the farm and checked out the farmstand. We didn't see Harley, but the farmstand was there, and someone was gathering the eggs, greens and other goodies. The eggs were as good as ever, and having loaded up on these wonderful certified organic eggs, we decided it was time to take one of our Dry Creek Farm stewing hens out of the freezer and cook Moroccan.

The dish you see on the right does not look like much. Yes, that is a later of eggs and herbs on top. The black things sticking out of it are kalamatas olives, and the yellow things are bits of pickled lemon. Underneath it all lies the savory cooked hen. We use the recipe in Paula Wolfert's immortal Couscous and Other Good Food From Morocco, but in some ways ours is more farm house authentic. After all, what sensible Moroccan house wife would serve up a hen who was still laying eggs. Sure, the local emir might serve up some spring chickens, but the real home recipe was probably a version adapted for stewing hens.

The secret is simple. Just ignore Paula Wolfert's timing and cook the hen until the meat is tender, about two hours in our case. We've adapted her recipe for Djej Masquid Bil Beid:

We rub our stewing hen with garlic and salt then put it in a big pot with 1 cup chopped parsley, 3 cloves of garlic, 1 cup grated onion, a pinch of salt, 1/2 tsp ginger, 1 tsp black pepper, 1/4 cup of butter, a pinch of saffron, and 3 cinnamon sticks. We fill with water to cover the bird and then bring it to a boil and simmer it forever, maybe two hours, maybe longer. The meat should be tender, taste it.

Then, we put the chicken in a deep baking dish, tossing any loose skin, bones and the cinnamon sticks and we cook down the boiling liquid while we crack and beat a dozen eggs and add two dozen split, pitted kalamatas olives, a couple of salt cured lemons and 1/2 cup of chopped parsley. When the liquid has cooked down perhaps by a factor of two, maybe a bit more, we pour it over the chicken and then pour on the egg mixture which will comprise the upper layer.

To finish, we put the casserole covered in a 350F oven with the lid on for about 20 minutes. Then we take off the lid and let the eggs brown, raising the oven temperature if we are in a hurry.