December 2007January 2008 February 2008

In the refrigerator - CREAM!

01/24 - Cream at Dungeness Valley Creamery

We had a big surprise today at the Dungeness Valley Creamery. They had, of all things, cream. The Browns had been talking about selling cream to the general public, but this is most likely a one time thing. Mount Townsend Creamery is redoing their cheesemaking setup, so they aren't buying any cream. That means, cream at the creamery, but it's an awful tradeoff. It may be a while before they start producing their wonderful cheeses again.

Keywords: food, mount townsend creamery


A beautiful day in Olympic National Park

01/22 - Hurricane Ridge Ski Area

We had a mixed Martin Luther King Day weekend up on Hurricane Ridge. On Sunday, high winds led to white out conditions, so they had to close the road. However, on Monday, the winds were quiet and the sun was out. It was a beautiful day for snowshoeing from Hurricane Ridge to the Hurricane Hill trailhead.

Keywords: hurricane ridge, winter, snowshoeing


Click to play the movie

01/16 - Spectacular Sunset, So So Movie

It has been cloudy lately, particularly up on Hurricane Ridge, but this evening, the clouds blew away and the park webcam managed to catch a rather spectacular sunset. We've made a little movie of it, and we've archived with some of our other Hurricane Ridge webcam movies.

Keywords: hurricane ridge, movies

01/16 - Signs Of The Season

We were down at Morse Creek, walking west along the Discover Trail towards Port Angeles. It is mid-January, so it is surely still winter, but we also found our first signs of spring. Check out the salmonberry flowers! This was just one bush in a sheltered area by a stream at the base of the bluff, but the flowers were out.

There was a river otter on one of the rocks. This isn't a very good photo. We are still learning what we can and can't do with our new camera. Our picture of a great blue heron came out better. We don't see as many of them as we used to back in the Boston area, but they like the mouth of the Lee's Creek, maybe because of the fresh water.

The first salmonberry flowers of the season

A great blue heron

The river otters were out

Keywords: flowers, morse creek, port angeles, spring, winter, salmon, otters

01/13 - Return of the Special Surprise Waterfall

It's a little hard to see in this picture, but our special surprise waterfall at Lake Crescent is back. It's about three miles from the East Beach Road trailhead, in the rocky area near the point. If you look up, you can see the little falls. It isn't quite as wet as 2006 when we last saw it. The water vanishes underground, so you can walk by it dryshod.

Keywords: lake crescent, surprise waterfall, kale, waterfall

01/13 - Dry Creek Farm Update

We dropped by Dry Creek Farm to buy some eggs. There were no eggs, but there was an explanation. Harley, once again, is between flocks. He has 179 hens ramping up for production starting in late February. That's a lot of chicken power. We'll miss his eggs, but we'll save the date.

Keywords: dry creek farm, farms

01/12 - Seattle: More Kaleberg Reviews

We have lately been amazed at Seattle as an great food town. Restaurants have been opening at a good clip, and our list of places we just have to try keeps growing longer. We took advantage of the holiday season, and some Kenmore Airline flight discounts to get into town and try out a few new restaurants.

We've posted FIVE new reviews, and that took some serious eating. Three of these are in Pikes' Place Market, which is just riddled with dining options, so it was high time we checked a few of them out. Which was our favorite? It might have been Quinn's. After all, we are suckers for meat, but Matt's and Chez Shea are up there as well.

Chez Shea - a romantic and elegant restaurant with romantic and elegant food in Pikes' Place Market

The Local Vine - a stylish champagne joint in fashionable Belltown

Matt's in the Market - the classic hole in the wall is worth looking for, even if they've remodeled

Quinn's Pub - more than a neighbor hood eatery, a true meat city

Steelhead Diner - a promising contender, a tribute to the 1980s

Keywords: restaurants, seattle, kenmore

01/08 - New Software - Sunrise, Sunset and iCal

For the past few years we've been using TideCal to compute good times and tides for hiking the beaches of the North Olympic Peninsula. If you look at the left hand sidebar on this page, you'll see that we use TideCal to predict upcoming hiking tides.

Apparently, a number of people like using iCal, the Macintosh calendar program, but it is sometimes hard to find the calendar you want. TideCal will make a hiker's tidal calendar, while other sites provide calendars with holidays, sporting events, historical birthdays and other such wonders. Now there is an iCal calendar generator for people who just want to know when the sun will rise and set. We call it Sunrise Sunset.

In the traditional of fine Kaleberg Kludges, it requires that you know your latitude and longitude (try getting a map bookmark from Google Maps), your time zone offset, and if you aren't in the US, when daylight saving time starts and ends. We make no warrantees or representations, just software.

Keywords: beaches, software, tides, historical, kale

01/06 - George MacDonald Fraser Is Dead

If the name isn't familiar, then perhaps you've heard of his best known character and hero of over a dozen of his novels, Harry Flashman. As Fraser's life spanned the better part of the 20th century, Flashman's life spanned much of the 19th. Flashman was a rogue and a poltroon. He had more than an eye for the ladies and did what he could to avoid battle. He was lucky with the ladies, but his battle luck ran against him. He repeatedly found himself front and center in face of shot and shell in the great battles of the era. Flashman met most of the villains and many of the heroes of his day, and his accounts of them were insightful and hilarious. Despite his cowardice, Flashman was a survivor of the Charge of the Light Brigade, Little Big Horn, the Retreat from Kabul, the Great Mutiny and the Raid at Harper's Ferry.

Now that George MacDonald Fraser is dead, there are no more Flashman papers to be revealed. It's a new century now, the 21st. Perhaps it is time to move our Flashman into the 20th? Can we imagine him having tea with Hitler and a dalliance with Eva Braun? Would he survive Hiroshima in the arms of an emperor's concubine? We can imagine him sipping cafe au lait with a young Pol Pot at the Sorbonne, or perhaps getting drunk at a brothel with Stalin having recently escaped from the Siege of Leningrad. Surely, there is room in history, for Flashman in Idi Amin's Uganda and Eva Peron's Argentine. He would have hobnobbed with Churchill and found himself on a Normandy beach on D-Day, despite his furious efforts to follow that countess to neutral Sweden.

Thanks to George MacDonald Fraser we can let our imaginations run riot. The 20th century offers much to a man like Harry Flashman who made so much of the 19th. Interestingly there is one place that it is hard to place him, and that is anywhere in the grand idiocy of the First World War. The war widow scene has already been written and the insane asylum metaphor exhausted.

Flashman's wry voice and self centered point of view gave us a wonderfully jaundiced look at the 1800s. We will miss George MacDonald Fraser, and this century will miss him as well.

Keywords: art

01/01 - Updated Cassoulet Recipe

We've updated our cassoulet recipe, including pictures from the 2005 build. Every two years we make a magnificent cassoulet, and each time we learn a few new tricks. It turns out that our recipe, first posted in the late 1990s has gotten a bit out of date. For the latest results click here.

Keywords: food, recipe

01/01 - The Adventure Trail

The newly opened Adventure Trail runs from Joyce to Lake Crescent, just east of the Lyre River crossing on the road to the Spruce Railroad trailhead. While we tend to be law abiding sorts and follow the rules, we couldn't help comparing this hiking trail sign with some of those End User Licensing Agreements that one finds on packages of computer software.

We have resolved to check out the trail in 2008, though early reports are that it is a good hiking and biking trail.

Click for a better view of the trail boilerplate.

Keywords: software

December 2007January 2008 February 2008