What the ****?

Monday, November 22

No, seriously - what the ****?

THIS IS NOT WHAT WE SIGNED UP FOR!!!

Okay, everybody back east, now you can laugh.  Sure, it may not look like much of a snow storm to you, but this is BEFORE Thanksgiving, and, more importantly, this is Port Townsend, where it doesn't get really cold and it doesn't get  really hot, remember?

Yes, go ahead and feel smug as you bask in your 62 degree weather.  We'll just hunker down as that cold Canadian air blasts us with 40 mile an hour winds and the snow falls sideways.

Here's an interesting thing about the weather here - or should I say the weather forecasters - no-one gets overly excited much about it.  If this were happening back east the local news stations would have had us preparing for Armageddon days ago with dire predictions about Thanksgiving Thunder!!, or Frozen Turkey!!  There would have been nasty scenes at the supermarkets as  the shelves were stripped of every last loaf of bread and can of tuna, let alone turkeys and Libby's pumpkin pie mix.

The weather guys here said there would be some snow in the Puget Sound region and that might make the evening commute a bit longer than usual, and the winds would be picking up a bit and oh yes, the temperatures would be falling to record lows as well so you might want to check your pipes before they froze - but that was it!  No biggie.

Luckily this little house is quite sturdily built so while we are totally exposed to those Canadian blasts we are quite snug and haven't felt the house shudder at all.  Plus we have a fireplace, music and wine which go a long way towards making this seem less like a disaster and more like an adventure.  Okay, a bloody cold adventure, especially if the power goes out again.

Oh, I didn't mention that?  A week ago we had a freak wind storm - a leeside trough as I learned from Mayor Michelle who was on the beach with her dog next morning.  It's rare, and fierce, and sweeps down from the Olympic Mountains and blasts its way through leaving a trail of debris in its path.  The lights flickered a few times around 8.30 that night and then went out.  Everywhere.  We scrambled for candles and actually found them - a minor miracle in itself - and then decided to just go to bed and hunker down (I have a feeling that phrase is going to become overused rather quickly.)  My one real concern was that if the power hadn't come on by morning it could get ugly as I would have no way to make tea, but then I remembered that Clever Husband had insisted on packing the Coleman camping stove so all I would have to do is have him find it in the massive pile of unpacked boxes still in the garage.

The lights (and heat) came on again four hours later so all was well.  But the excitement didn't let up as we heard on the morning news that the southern Puget Sound area had had a 3.6 earthquake earlier.  Again, just another news item that morning - no biggie.  We didn't feel a thing and saw not even a ripple.

November is the exciting month for weather around here and so far it's living up to its reputation.  But the girls are coming on Wednesday for Thanksgiving (hard to believe how much I miss them) and this is not what they signed up for either.  Hilary will be hardest hit as she's been in L.A. since August.  And this is their first visit to PT.  Oh well, I'll just have to stuff them so full of turkey that they won't be able to move from in front of the fire.

So, other than the exciting weather news, I have to report that I suffered my first cold in probably a decade.  Must have been those nasty woodworkers as the day after the "ball" I started to feel a bit off.  Dan left for his week long trip to Boston and NYC and I got sick and spent the entire week honking and sneezing and spitting.  Nice.  Lost the entire week.  The Business Plan suffered and I'm still trying to catch up so I can have it finished before Christmas.

On Sunday the 14th we joined our fellow townspeople at the dock to officially welcome our new ferry, the Chetzemoka - named after a local chief who was welcoming to the first white settlers here.  His descendants came to bless the ferry and then we toured the ship.

Its nickname is 'Eileen' and it does, indeed, lean to one side, but the ship builders say that's all part of the plan.  Hmmm.

Here she is beside the loaner ferry from Pierce County that has been valiantly filling the breach for the two years it's taken to build the new one.  There were 2 old ferries - the Steel Electrics from the 1930s I think - which were both yanked from service a few days before Thanksgiving two years ago after some dangerous conditions were finally noticed.  It was a disaster for the merchants downtown as PT was without a ferry for a few weeks during the busiest shopping time of the year.  Yikes.  PT has struggled along with just this little one instead of the two big ones since then.  No wonder no one has much good to say about it but I was sad to see her go.  She was the little ferry that could, and did, even though she wasn't meant for the treacherous waters here.

Still, we have the big spanking new one now and another one promised for next summer as well as the tantalizing prospect of a passenger only ferry direct from Seattle.  Think of the thirsty hordes who'll be gasping for a nice cuppa as they disembark (and walk right past my Tea Room.)

Then we took part in the annual town portrait in which I managed to be one of the few people not actually looking at the camera when the photographer said "Say Cheese- emoka!"

The other bit of excitement this month had nothing to do with the weather.  It was to do with a navy nuclear submarine.  I guess that should also be the subject of a Full Disclosure blog (along with the Paper Mill  -  ah, the Paper Mill ....)  Yes, we have a nuclear submarine base within spitting distance of town - well, if the Canadians are blasting us as they are now.

Dan and I get ridiculously excited about submarines.  I actually see them all the time and call for him to come up and see - and mostly they turn out to be a low slung tanker or some such thing. Remember we were told by some ex-navy chap we met in a trailer park that we would never see them?  They stay below the surface and are top secret etc.  But one day we did see one in the far distance.  Dan confirmed it with the 'What Ship Is That?' book the owner left behind.  Very cool, but too far away to photograph.

This time however, I was right.  And it was way closer and seemed to be coming right at us.  More worrying, though, was the white smoke coming from the conning tower which is something you never see, apparently.

Dan saw through the binoculars that there were actually crewmen out on deck - in all different uniforms so it wasn't one of those ceremonial lining up as they cruise into port for Fleet Week sort of thing.  And then two Coast Guard cutters came barreling towards it and escorted it right past the house and around the point towards the naval base, with two other navy tugs appearing from seemingly nowhere.  Oh-oh.  A fire on a nuclear submarine?  Sailors still out on deck in ragged bunches.

One woman who was down at the point when I took this picture said we'd never know what had happened but I felt sure it would be all over the news.  I checked the local papers for two days and asked everyone I met.  No-one had heard about it (don't they look out their windows?) and there was nothing on the news wire.  It began to feel surreal. Dan speculated that the navy would come in the middle of the night and burn our house down if we kept on talking about it so I gave up.  But hey, if we all start glowing in the dark the next time the Canadians blow down our power lines you'll know why.

THIS JUST IN!!  Check out this article on the PT Leader website:

Earthquake off Whidbey Island shakes Port Townsend

A magnitude 3.1 earthquake was felt in Port Townsend and Jefferson County at 3:56 p.m. Monday, Nov. 22. The U.S. Geological Service recorded the earthquake at a depth of 5.7 miles under the Strait of Juan de Fuca west of Whidbey Island. The location is an estimated seven miles west/northwest from Coupeville, and eight miles west/southwest from Oak Harbor. It's about 15 miles north of Port Townsend. Here's what a few readers on the Port Townsend Leader Facebook page said about the quake: "The cats alerted and I thought something crashed in front of the house," said Kathy Lundquist. "Looked out, saw nothing." Gareth Phillips reported: "Oh, that's why while standing under a large cedar tree around 4 p.m. the snow laden tree just unloaded on me."

We didn't feel a thing either.  No biggie.

The Clotted Cream Chronicles

Sunday, November 8

It just keeps getting better.  I tracked down another supplier of cream - not fat Jersey cows (and more on my trials with their clotted cream another time), but local Puget Sound cows at least.  The farmer's wife and I met downtown where she handed me a half gallon from the back of her truck.  Laura is one of the few Americans I've met who knows what CC is -  her family has Devonshire roots.

I may be on CC overload by this point, but it seemed to me that the batch I made with this cream was not quite as heavenly as the the first two, meaning I didn't feel the urge to dab a little behind my ears, but it was still quite good.  When I removed the CC the liquid underneath still looked very creamy so I decided to try another batch. No it's not secondhand cream - I prefer to call it the second flush.  It resembles double thick cream - a more liquid, but still spoonable version of pure CC.  I test drove it on my scone which I had with Pauline's Plum Jam from the Farmer's Market yesterday and it was excellent.  Clotted cream AND Double cream - what abundance!

I have one more attempt with my Jersey cows and then I'm calling it quits.

And in case you're wondering, yes, my clothes do feel a teeny bit tighter lately, but it's all in the interests of science.  At least I don't have to directly inject the clotted cream into my body - I get to enjoy it first.

Wish I could say I was as far along with my sausage rolls and Cornish pasties.  The pastry is making me crazy.  I am sending out an SOS for my Aussie and English friends to please check their old cookbooks and send me suggestions.  Neil is already on it (please, please find your Mum's recipe for Pastie Slices!) but I need all the help I can get.  I've made two batches today and had to throw out the first one as it cracked all over the place  - version 2 is in the oven with 2 different kinds of sausage that I made today with the fat happy pork I got at Nash's yesterday.

Psst! The good stuff''s in a cooler around back.

This counts for fast food in the Pacific Northwest.

Look at the size of those oysters.

 





























So, yesterday was a pretty full day.  First the Market for my pork, veggies and Pauline's jams - she grows all the fruit herself and has more orders than she can handle but won't take on an employee as she's nervous about her recipes.  Hmmm.

Had lunch at Dos Okies Barbeque and caught up with Larry the owner (one of the partners from Oklahoma, hence the name.)

He runs the best barbeque place in town (okay, the only barbeque place in town) and it's, shall we say, modest in terms of curbside appeal, but the food is great.

When we were out in July we stopped by for lunch with cousin Susan.  Larry joined us at our al fresco table we yakked for a couple of hours.  He introduced us to everyone who stopped by as if we were old friends of his and by the time we left we felt we were.  Those were two of the happiest hours I've ever spent in a parking lot.







I love his sign:

Then we headed to the Woodworker's Show where Dan did the secret handshake with his fellow woodies and was happy, happy in his natural environment.

He even bought me a belated anniversary present from Seth, a talented chap whose designs appealed to Dan, probably because they share a similar aesthetic.

Dan gave me the one in the middle.

This is the first piece by another woodworker (besides me) in this house.  Did you know I took a couple of woodworking classes and made a footstool for my Stickley chair?   Okay, full disclosure - I designed it and cut all the pieces (and did the mortice and tenon joints!) and Dan finished it and put it all together for me as a surprise one Christmas.










Then it was home to prepare for the ball.  Time was marching on and still no costume.  My clever husband waved his magic hot glue gun and voila!  A costume appeared.

Okay, so you've all seen a movie where someone is told that it's a costume party and he or she turns up in some outrageous outfit only to find it's not a costume party at all, right?  R-i-g-h-t.

Black Tie and Carhartts (a kind of overall favored by the manually inclined) was perhaps a teeny inside joke that we didn't quite twig to.  Of course, it didn't help that Tim, the chap behind it all, and an Englishman to boot (which should have alerted me - bloody Poms) did stress that creative attire was expected.  Dan managed to find the tails from his Groucho Marx costume and a black tie and was, indeed, quite creative I thought, despite not having a pair of Carharrts.

And my American Ash Veneer headdress and matching belt, not to mention the fabulous wood necklace and earrings I bought at the Woodworker's show while Dan was distracted, were rather understated and clever I thought.  Turns out, no one else wore wood.

The brooch is the 'Woman of a Certain Age' gift from cousin Susan for my 50th birthday.

But guess what?  It didn't matter!  Okay, there was one woman who had a small carpenter's thingy in her hair-do and some clamps attached to her skirt, and one chap who did indeed wear Carhartts and a black bow tie - but that was it.  But no matter, this is Port Townsend, where the weird are welcome and there's no such thing as wearing the wrong thing.  In fact, I got more compliments about my hat than anything I've ever worn - ever.  Someone suggested adding it to the Silent Auction but this is a priceless original DM Design and I won't part with it (the belt popped off halfway through the evening proving that a glue gun is no match for Clotted Cream.)

Last night it blew like stink and this morning was still wild. Remember the Coast Guard Sea Rescue Demo on Friday?  I didn't expect to see it again so soon but this morning the helicopter was buzzing up and down in front of the house for an hour and a half.  Not a good sign.  Nothing on the local news wire yet.  Turns out the waters of the Straits of San Juan de Fuca are quite notorious.  Extreme rowers (yes, there really are such madmen) train here for the Cross Atlantic rowing race (don't these people have mothers?) because the conditions are similar.
 

By midday the wind had dropped to nothing and the boats were back out on the water, including our new ferry, the Chetzemoka, which has started trial runs prior to its official debut next week.  That day the whole town is turning out for the annual town photo which this year will be on the dock in front of it.  Then we get to go on board and have a party.

Taken from the deck.

Oh, and for those of you losing sleep over the tidal dilemma, No. 2 Brilliant Daughter (Hilary) has taken pity and supplied the following info (this is why we're paying the big bucks for college) and pay attention: there's a quiz at the end.

Tides are affected largely by the gravitational pull of the moon but also to a lesser extent by the sun.  Assuming you know what gravitational pull means (I lied, I really don't) you should be able to reason out why the tides don't occur like clockwork (er ...)  Here in California we have mixed semi-diurnal tides, meaning two high and low tides of unequal strengths each day.  I assume it's essentially the same up in Washington.  Anyway, the strongest high tide will occur when the sun and the moon are in the same position (how is that even possible?) because their masses (and their gravitational pulls) will be exerting attraction on the oceans in the same direction.  So back to why they aren't regular.  Everything is constantly rotating - us around the sun and the moon around us (see, that part always confused me in school, I can't get the whole 3D thing to work for me) - so throughout the day the moon and the sun might be in opposing positions. If it were solely the moon that influenced the tides, it probably would operate like clockwork.  But since there's that secondary force - the sun - it messes with the balance of the attraction so that it isn't exact.

Oh, another thought.  The earth is constantly in rotation as well (think of a spinning top when it starts to wobble; we're on that kind of axis) so that also probably has some affect on the strengths of the tides. (Now my head is spinning and I'm starting to feel sick.)


Thank you Hilary.  It was sweet of you to try to enlighten me.  I think I'll just have to go on being surprised  by the tide each morning  and give up trying to understand the reasons why.

 Another biblical sky over Port Townsend.  That's the paper mill smoke stack in the lower right corner.  Ah, yes, the paper mill .....

Time and Tide And Other Things I Don't Understand

Friday, November 5

Time - how can it be November already?  We've been here nearly 6 weeks.  My Trailer Trash days seem far behind me, even though some people think they'll be with me forever just lurking beneath the surface, sort of like herpes.  And yet it seems like we arrived only a couple of weeks ago and not just because the garage is still as inaccessible as the north face of Everest or the World's Best Business Plan is still an embryo.

But here's proof that time marches on.  This is the sunrise taken a  few days after our arrival.

And here it is a few days ago.

See how far to the right the sun has moved - how is that possible?

Tide  - I can't actually see the beach from the house so I can't monitor the tide's progress from here.  It's only when I get to the beach that I find out where it is.  After the first week, when the tide was so low in the mornings that the dogs could run on the sandbar 20 yards out, there was suddenly no beach at all.  Really.  Overnight it seemed.  So I decided to find out why and looked up the tide table in the local paper.

It makes absolutely no sense to me at all.  Yes, I know it's all influenced by the moon and the gravitational pull (whatever that is) but you'd think that with roughly 2 high and 2 low tides every 24 hours they'd sort of even out to one or the other every 6 hours.  But no, here is 4 hours between high and low, and then nearly 9 until the next high.  Then you look a bit further down and it's even more weird and confusing.  And they say you can predict this stuff?

Day        High      Tide  Height   Sunrise    Moon  Time      % Moon
           /Low      Time    Feet    Sunset                    Visible

W   27      Low  12:47 AM    -1.4   7:49 AM     Set 12:45 PM      85
    27     High   9:08 AM     8.8   6:01 PM    Rise  9:13 PM
    27      Low   1:41 PM     7.0
    27     High   5:35 PM     7.7

Th  28      Low   1:35 AM    -1.2   7:50 AM     Set  1:28 PM      77
    28     High  10:04 AM     8.7   5:59 PM    Rise 10:24 PM
    28      Low   2:54 PM     7.0
    28     High   5:55 PM     7.4

F   29      Low   2:27 AM    -0.8   7:52 AM     Set  2:04 PM      67
    29     High  11:00 AM     8.7   5:57 PM    Rise 11:39 PM
    29      Low   4:36 PM     6.5
    29     High   7:31 PM     6.8

Sa  30      Low   3:26 AM    -0.2   7:53 AM     Set  2:33 PM      57
    30     High  11:49 AM     8.7   5:56 PM
    30      Low   6:04 PM     5.7

I chatted over my dilemma with a few of my beach buddies - Terry (Sam the Chow mix), John (2 whippets), Laurie and Nancy, fellow recent newbies from Minnesota and St. Louis, and Esko (2 Vislas).  John even made a brave stab at trying to explain what a negative tide was but even he couldn't tell me why.  The consensus was to stop worrying about it and continue to be surprised each day.  Excellent advice.

Another thing I don't understand is how to keep my mouth shut.  I know, I know, I should wait until we've signed on the dotted line and all, but I can't help it.  When people ask me what I'm doing I can't say "I'll tell you but then I'll have to kill you."  This is a small town - there are very few secrets.  The building still has a big For Sale sign in the window - there aren't too many of those on Water Street.  People figure it out.  And tomorrow I'm going to meet up with Pauline, an Englishwoman who makes fabulous organic jams and marmalades, at the farmer's market here in town.  I've got another vat of clotted cream on the go and will make a batch of scones in the morning and take them to the market for an impromptu tea party.  The good kind!

I'm also going to meet my local pork connection.  Nash's organic farm grows amazing vegetables as well and even wheat right across from the Jersey cow farm in Sequim.  He feeds his pigs barley he grows himself and lets them roam each veggie field after harvest like a clean up crew.  We're talking fat, happy pigs here.  They get slaughtered humanely, quickly, in the field and then are sent to a local butcher for, well, butchering.  If I had my extra fridge already I could get on the list for my own half pig, cut up to my specifications and delivered already packaged and frozen.  As it is, I'll have to wait until the next breeding cycle in six weeks or so.  No piglet mills here!
http://www.nashsorganicproduce.com/PigBrochureFinal.pdf

Sorry to the vegetarians out there but if I'm going to eat meat, this is how I want it to be.  In New York we heard a lot about local food, organic, free range everything but somehow everyone involved was just a bit too self righteous and smug about it.  There doesn't seem to be any pretension here - it's just what they do.

Tomorrow I'm going to try some of their ground pork for my sausage as well as some of the shoulder roast to grind my own.  And maybe I'll drop off a sample of my scones and clotted cream there too as Sid seemed quite tickled by the whole idea of it.

In addition to the pork I'll be collecting my first box of veggies from them.  I subscribed to a small box every week.  Jerusalem artichokes are being harvested right now.

And of course, tomorrow is the Woodworker's Ball.  Turns out it's a typical Port Townsend event, meaning people are going to be kitted out in some interesting outfits.  Suffice to say that Dan is now going to have to be a bit of a fairy godmother himself (Susan's busy) and conjure me up a costume out of wood.  Stay tuned!

Last thing for today.  I saw a coast guard helicopter flying overhead at lunchtime and remembered there was to be a rescue display at the maritime center.  Off I went  (any excuse, right?) and gathered with a bunch of fellow townspeople on the pier to watch as a dummy was thrown overboard and a diver dropped into the freezing water to hoist it back up.

Waiting for the show as well.

This was the worst weather we've had since we arrived and the poor chap standing next to me was severely under-dressed.  I offered him my scarf, we got chatting, and it turns out he's the reporter for one of the local papers (there are 2, a daily and a weekly.)  And yes, you'll be pleased to know I kept my mouth shut - sort of.

 Dan's cunning new gull shape antenna.















Actually Jay's guard gull got chased off his turf by these:

And finally, Mt Ranier at dawn: