Country Kitchen

Last year, I began my efforts to consume more locally produced food.  I've expanded my geographic boundaries of "local" a bit, as I'm striving to increasing the proportion of foods we consume that are made & processed in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho (bonus points if the food comes from the Inland Northwest).  I now have a much better idea of foods that are easy to come by locally, and those that are more challenging.   So far, dairy products are the clear winner in terms of year-round availability.  As I've mentioned before, Spokane Family Farm provides our milk, Tillamook County Creamery Association is the primary source of our butter, yogurt, and some cheese.  I buy my eggs from colleagues at work. 

Over the past year, I also learned a bit about price and availability differences of local, organic, and conventional/non-local foods.  During the summer and fall, local fruits and vegetables are both abundant and inexpensive (and when I'm really lucky, only steps away in the garden!).  Local dairy products are less expensive than organic products, sometimes by as much as half, and I know a lot more about how they were produced.  The price of local meat varies, depending on source, type, and quantity.  I've found another issue with local food is that it requires a little more planning.  I have to remember to ask my colleague to bring in the eggs, so it's not something I can get at the last minute.  Last week we had a special treat--one of my husband's friends gave us a dozen eggs in a "variety pack"--it included both duck eggs and chicken eggs.  The shell on a duck egg is a lot sturdier and really had to be whacked to crack (good for toddlers). 

This morning we had a hearty country breakfast waffles with sausage and eggs.  Unfortunately, I didn't notify my friend in time that I needed more eggs, so our eggs were not locally produced.  However, the sausage came from friends of ours, Jim and Celia Boland, who started a sausage company, Hog Heaven Sausage Works.  Jim and Celia were able to get their facility federally (USDA) inspected, giving the Palouse a source of high quality, locally produced meats available for retail. 

The other great part about breakfast this, and every morning, is that we get to enjoy it on the country kitchen table that my husband made last summer.  We have such a small dining area, that is very narrow, but we really wanted a table that could seat six.  So my husband created a table to fit the space.  As a bonus, it matches the pantry shelves he made me two years ago, and I have a delightful little pantry area reminiscent of an old fashioned general store.    

I love our table!

Dry goods, anyone?

We found these great canisters at World Market.

Flour and Sugar!

Odds and Ends

We had planned to go cross country skiing today at Field Springs State Park.  As we watched the snow level rise on Moscow Mountain, however, we decided that it might not be the best idea.  Field Springs sits at about 4,000 feet, so the snow was likely to be slushy and/or spotty.  (Secretly, I think that the football playoff game today might have also had something to do with the decision to stay closer to home, but that is speculation on my part).

Despite the fact that our skiing trip fell through, I really wanted to get out of the house.  We decided to take a walk on Moscow Mountain at the Pond Nine area.  Moscow Mountain is a hunk of granite sticking up out of the basalt that makes up most of the rocks found on the Palouse.  We found more snow that we expected, but it was still mostly gone from the roads and trails.  

My friend Scott sometimes posts the "Heap of the Week" on his blog and the base of Moscow Mountain has a couple of good contenders so I thought I'd post some pictures. 

These heaps have been here so long they are starting to become part of the landscape.

I always wonder if these cars crashed here or were dumped here.  Probably the latter.

The other exciting news for today is that it appears that the winter lettuce and spinach I planted survived (sadly, the same cannot be said for the garlic).  I am optimistic that in a few months I will have fresh greens!

Spinach.

Lettuce

Winter Market

I made it to Moscow's Winter Market, held in the 1912 building, today.  The Winter Market is held four times over the winter, once each in November, December, January, and February. It is meant to satisfied the farmer's market urge for folks who struggle between the last weekend in October and the first weekend in May, when the Moscow Renaissance Fair marks the beginning of market season.  I love the idea of Winter Market, but winter veggies are hard to find anywhere on the Palouse in January.  Most of the booths are crafts (kudos to the Society Socks booth).   Tonnemaker Hill Farm was represented but their wares were restricted to apples, gourds, and dried fruit.  Fortunately, we still have a stash of dried plums and pears from our trees!

January is just a hard month, especially during  a mini-warm-up such as we've been enjoying.  The days are still painfully short, and feels wasted if you're not skiing.  Here's hoping the temperature drops again and we get some more pristine days on the mountain!

Paradise Found

The Palouse is a dryland environment.  Our drinking water comes from an aquifer, and lakes are restricted to the channeled scablands--the areas of exposed basalt where the Palouse loess was washed away during the Lake Missoula floods.  Prior to settlement, the groundwater was so close to the surface it bubbled up in artesian wells (a primary reason the area was considered a good place to settle).  Now, aquifer levels are much lower and the only surface water in Moscow and Pullman is found in Paradise Creek--and locals joke that the name is a misnomer. 

That sentiment might change, because something amazing happened on the Palouse.  The United States Corps of Engineers, the agency responsible (for better or for worse) for most, of the hydro projects in this country, recently partnered with the University of Idaho and Palouse-Clearwater Environmental Institute to restore the stretch of Paradise Creeks that runs through the University of Idaho campus to a natural state. The Corps (and private contractors) unburied the creek from its concrete tomb, which ran between University housing and the Campus Recreation Center. 

How did this restoration project come about?  In the late nineties, the University of Idaho decided to restore Paradise Creek as part of their broader long-term planning efforts to reduce the threat of flooding and create a green belt between the University and the commercial area on the Moscow-Pullman highway.  However, the money to fund the project proved elusive.  The Corps and the University applied several times for federal grants, and even had already completed the Environmental Assessments and other feasibility studies to complete the project.  Then the economy tanked--first in 2002, then during the current long recession.  Budgets were cut, and the project was not funded.

However, in an apparent lesson that some clouds do have a silver lining, both the Corps and the University of Idaho applied for project funds under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act--better known as the economic stimulus package.  Because the project was literally "shovel ready," the project was funded (Project W912EF-10-C-0002).  You can watch a short YouTube video with more details about the project here. 

So, what did we get from this taxpayer-funded project?  Over the past several days we've had an intense warming period after weeks of cold and snow.  Coupled with this weather is a "Pineapple Express" weather pattern of heavy rain.  Rain on snow with warm weather equals very fast snow melt, which can trigger flooding.  Paradise Creek flows through our property as well, and is as high as we have seen it in the four years we have lived here.  I drove onto campus today to take pictures of the new streambed near the Rec Center to see if flooding was occurring.

Looking north, the new road bridge.

The area where I am standing was under four feet of water during a 1996 flood when the concrete tunnel backed up.

The new creek bed, diverged from where it formerly went underground.

New bridge for the bike/pedestrian trail that now links Pullman to Troy.

No flooding on campus and the creek is safely within its bank.   Meanwhile, in other parts of Moscow, the creek is nearing or exceeding its banks.  Here are several pictures taken from the Carol Ryrie Brink nature park.  The park has a natural floodplain filled with native plants that can withstand occasional floods.  The creek has crested, and has dropped 4-5 inches from its highest level.

The creek is so high that my intrepid neighbors, Mark and Beth, decided to have a leisurely Sunday kayak on the creek!  They told me the last time they were able to do this was 2003, giving an indication of the relative rarity of such high water events.

Rain, Rain, Go Away

I grew up in the Southeast.  There, the dreaded winter weather phenomena is either a nor' easter' (if you live on the coast) or an ice storm (if you live inland).  Of course, in the southeast, some might consider snow a dreaded winter weather phenomena, but those are just the folks who lack perspective.  Snow isn't typically destructive, while ice storms and nor' easters' are very much so.

Out west, I was introduced to entirely new dreaded winter weather phenomena.  The worst of these is clearly freezing fog.  Freezing fog will, at times, suck your will to live.  It carries a deep, penetrating cold that can't be lifted, and it is causes acute claustrophobia, dropping visibility to near zero.  Freezing fog appears to be primarily a late fall, early winter event, although it can occur throughout winter.  The worst part of freezing fog is that it shuts down air travel, and in many cases, road travel as well.  This result is particularly problematic if you live in a rural area, as we do.  I recall one Thanksgiving where I was tasked with picking up a friend from the Moscow-Pullman Regional Airport after the holiday.  When I arrived at the airport to pick her up, there was no plane to be found (at the MP airport, only one flight is present at any time, excepting crop dusters and private planes).  The airline staff told me the flight had been diverted to Lewiston, 35 miles and 1,500 ft south of Moscow.  She told me she would call the plane to tell my friend that her ride was on the way if I started driving.  That was the most white-knuckled drive I have ever undertaken, and I am including traveling over mountain passes in snowstorms.  Visibility was about 8 feet, and that is a generous recollection.

Freezing fog does produce some amazing ice sculptures though, if you ever have enough sunlight to see them.  

     

My other least favorite winter weather phenomena is the one we are currently experiencing: rain on snow.  While it doesn't inhibit travel, it is utterly unpleasant and makes having enjoyable outdoor experiences prohibitively difficult.  Currently, the snow level has risen to 4000 feet, which means we are either not going to be skiing this weekend, or are going to hike pretty far up Moscow Mountain to do so.  It also means that my backyard could be flooded at any point, although the house is high enough for that not to be a worry.

I'm hoping the temperature drops again soon, and rain is replaced by powder.  Because, in addition to adding the enjoyability of winter recreation, snow also adds enough light to make these very dark days of winter seem somehow brighter. 

   

Wallowas

The inland northwest has a secret.  A disjunct mountain range in the northeast corner of Oregon, known as the Wallowas.  Not part of the Rockies or the Cascades, they are the result of the North American continental plate--which used to end near the current day Idaho/Oregon border--crashing into Pacific islands.  Unlike other mountain ranges in the U.S., they run east-west, rather than north-south.  Much of the Wallowas are designated wilderness area, and most approaches involve a 7+ mile hike and 2500+ ft elevation gain. They don't exist on the beaten track to anywhere, and you don't end up there by accident.  But, for all this contrariness, the Wallowa mountains are one of the most beautiful places I have ever been.

Chief Joseph Mountain

My husband recently returned from a backcountry ski trip to Aneroid Basin in the Wallowas.  While what happens in the yurt, stays in the yurt, he did inform me that the snow was either really good, or really bad, in typical backcountry fashion. He is also sharing these pictures.  Since I didn't earn these turns, I won't offer any commentary, but rather let the images speak for themselves.

     

Ringing in the New Year

The year is young and I am feeling optimistic!  We said goodbye to the old year with a ski trip, and rang in the new year with a trip to Seattle to visit some dear friends.  We are not city folk.  I hate traffic and if I enter a mall it is to make a targeted strike (trousers for work, dress shoes, etc.).  However, I do have a soft spot for Seattle, done right.  Some Seattle neighborhoods feel more like a small town.   I'm most familiar with West Seattle, but the pattern repeats itself throughout the city.  I truly enjoyed the lazy days after the holidays when most people are hunkering down at work or trying to clear their head after a long New Year's night.  Parking was easy to find, crowds were minimal, and the weather was amazingly good for January.  New Year's Day dawned clear, and even Mt. Baker and Mt. Ranier decided to grace us with their presence!  I will never take this for granted, especially during the winter.  The first time I was ever in Seattle, interviewing for graduate school, one of the host students told me that the year before, the region set a new record:  that January they had recorded only 19 hours of sunlight without cloud cover.  I was duly impressed by this statistic--and a bit terrified!  (Although, to counter that example, New York City receives an average of 50 inches of rain per year to Seattle's mere 37.  It's just that Seattle's rain gets spread across so many days!)


Unfortunately, I didn't get any good pictures of Ranier, though I had some excellent views of the Olympics from Lincoln Park in West Seattle.

By Tuesday, the weather had reverted to something a bit more seasonable, but we were able to find a break in the rain to spend some time at Kubota Gardens.

All in all, we had a wonderful and relaxing time.  I feel refreshed and ready to be back to routine!