Goodies from the Garden

Above: Rhubarb and blackberry pie, hhhhmmmmm.

This was my first try at rhubarb pie and a lattice-top. Perfectionists will notice that I forgot to weave the lattice. My next pie will be perfect (I will apply myself!). The taste, however, was fantasmabulous. Now, I'm going to dream of ways to use up my blackberry reserves. I have bags and bags of frozen blackberries, which I picked last summer. Must finish them up before it's time to pick more!

Above: My greenhouse, the envy of many gardeners. Chock-full of tomatoes and basil.

I also have to get going on the tomatoes and basil planting. They are going outdoors this week. The garden promises to be very productive. More garden goodies coming this summer.

Above: The New Century, An enormous car-carrier, viewed from the local ferry.

The car business must be very slow. How do I know this? The car-carriers, these enormous cargo ships, have been anchored in the Plumper Sound anchorage, some of them from a month or more. This one is the New Century, built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. It was here for a few weeks in April and early May.

To give you a true idea of the size of this ship, here's the description from the above link:

New Century 1 is the world's largest car carrier. Built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and owned and operated by Toyofuji Shipping Co., she is 325 feet long, 105 feet wide, and has a draft of 27 feet. She carries her capacity of 6,000 cars at 20 knots.... She is a ro-ro (roll-on roll-off) and is equipped with several ramps so that the cars can be driven off the ship.

These ships bring in the Japanese and Korean cars to North America. Cross the ocean, then stop - in sight of land - but no dice. Gotta wait a while to unload their cargo. I wonder what life on board is like? Must be quite boring...

At night, from shore, they look like a city block. Bright lights, big generators going full blast. Waiting for their turn.I write in the plural, because right now the New Century has left for other ports... but it's sister ship, the Nippon Highway, is anchored in Plumper Sound. That photo if from a photographer on the island across the water from me, Kevin Oke. Very beautiful images on that blog!

Beauty and Danger, revealed

Above: Stinging nettle (Utica dioica)

What a lovely plant, you may say. Lovely green, vigorous, great texture. Whatever you do, do not touch this plant... or you will regret it. That emerald beauty is stinging nettle (Urtica dioica). When you touch the plant, the hairs break off and deliver a nasty mixture of the following:

The stinging hairs of stinging nettle contain the compounds acetylcholine, histamine, and 5-hydroxytryptamine. Acetylcholine is found naturally in mammals and is involved in firing nerves, whereas histamine causes swelling (Mitchell and Rook 1979).

What would be the ultimate revenge? Eat the nettles, of course. On my island, people rave about their nettle soup and last spring, I tasted nettle ravioli at the Saturna Café. I liked it very much.

So, about a week ago, I went out with a pail, clippers and gloves, and collected some nettle tops. Very carefully. I rinsed them and blanched them (blanching is cooking very briefly in boiling water, then stopping the cooking by dipping the herbs/vegetable in ice water). Then I chopped them and incorporated them in a risotto. We shared the risotto with a bottle of white wine and everyone liked it.

For all you brave ones out there, here is a nettle risotto recipe from Mariquita Farm, in California.

Moving on to other dangers lurking in the forest... Below, this little beauty (it's barely 6 or 7 inches tall) is the Calypso orchid (Calypso bulbosa). A good number of them have been blooming on the forest floor for the past three weeks. Nice little flashes of hot pink in the abundant greenery of mosses and ferns.


But if you look closely, very closely, at the orchid, you'll notice the beginnings of a death trap. See those fine lines? The beginning of a web... Somewhere on that orchid, a spider is busy creating a trap to capture the unsuspecting insects that will visit this little jewel...

Above: Death from within?

And then we arrive a the really sad story: a birdlet in the middle of a road. I don't think this little one flew there, or even fell out of its nest (the trees were too far away). I think it was kidnapped, and accidentally dropped on the way to the dinner plate of whichever bird kidnapped it...

Above: Poor little guy, didn't make it.

Over the past few weeks, I've noticed a lot of shrieking from parent birds. Commotions in the forest. Some birds chase the kidnappers and dive bomb and attack them furiously. The size of the attacker doesn't matter, the parents take them on.

Maybe this is what happened here: the kidnapper dropped its prey because of the parents' furious reaction. But the little one didn't make it.