Sunday, February 18, 2024

Great Backyard Bird Count, 2024 edition

I've done some counting the last few days, dutifully completing checklists on the Cornell / eBird site. I was disappointed to realize, after having a stellar day during Thursday's rain/snow mix afternoon, that the count didn't officially begin until Friday, but I've borne up bravely as is my way. And the birds have been pretty obliging: flickers, towhees, golden-crowned sparrows, song sparrows, thumbprints, juncos, finches, chickadees, Steller's jays, robins, starlings, and singletons of yellow-rumped warbler, downy woodpecker, Anna's hummingbird, and ruby-crowned kinglet have all been putting in appearances.

Sadly, I find that either I'm less capable of holding a camera steady than I used to be or my camera seriously needs to be overhauled. Of course, shooting through at least one layer of plexiglass most of the time doesn't help any either. But, for posterity, a mess of out-of-focus and/or over-processed photos:

Yellow-rumped warbler (at a distance, through plexiglass)

Spotted towhee (ditto plexiglass)

Seriously "sharpened" ruby-crowned kinglet (ditto other disclaimers, too)

Classic birding shot

More successful though still blurry: Steller's jay

Spot the song sparrow; the flicker is incidental.

Ms Northern Flicker

Over-adjusted golden-crowned sparrow (*Such* a handsome fellow!)

Neighboring tree with FIVE flickers, five starlings and two or three robins

Mr Downy Woodpecker (at a distance, through plexiglass)

SO many thumbprints bushtits. The day before the count officially started.

House finches and goldfinch at the feeder. Stealth towhee.

And, if it will upload, a video notable for its soundtrack of birdsong and precipitation:




Wednesday, February 7, 2024

Sick Day Soup

 

View out the kitchen window, 1
Searching for dinner options last night, I leafed through Joshua McFadden's Six Seasons once more and was mighty tempted by a winter squash risotto, even though I knew we didn't have the proper rice--or a handful of other items the recipe called for. But I also sort of felt like I was coming down with something so we ended up with a simple pasta instead. During that search, however, I happened across a soup recipe for which we did have all the ingredients and thus, soup was made today. Eventually.

Recipe as it appears in Six Seasons
I like this cookbook, I truly do, but I keep thinking that it seriously needed a better editor or proofer. If you followed this recipe religiously, you'd be dumping whole potatoes and turnips into the cooking pot. I assumed that's not what Mr McFadden had in mind, however, so I chopped them up. It seems like he truly would use just water (six cups), but I opted to go with five cups of weak broth instead. I don't regret that decision.

Means of Production, Soup
The above photo is responsible for this post--and it's the light on the fresh herbs that is responsible for the photo; I so love the way the sunlight sneaks into the kitchen. 

I may have gone a bit heavy on the rosemary both because I had a lot of rosemary (I still used less than a sixth of what is shown above) and because the soup seemed likely to be a little blah otherwise--despite the use of broth. I don't regret the extra rosemary decision either.

Everything but the broth in the pot

There's a lot of cooking--on very low heat--of the vegetables before you add the liquid. I'm just not sure there's that much flavor to be extracted from potatoes and turnips, but I dutifully followed the instructions. It didn't hurt any, I'm sure, and it gave me a surface on which to place the herbs. I supplemented the fresh thyme with a bit of dried stuff too.

Finished soup
The actual final soup is a little more attractive than it appears in the photo above. We're thinking we'll truly finish it with pats of butter as suggested in the recipe. Accompanied by the baguette Scott kindly hiked up the hill to purchase earlier, we think it will be quite fine, though I'm doubtful it's a recipe that will be in heavy rotation around here.
View out window, now with Mr Anna's hummingbird cameo

Updated to include an actual final bowl of soup, post-butter addition. Does it look better? As predicted, it was quite fine, but I doubt we'll make it again any time soon:
 

Is soup "bowled" in the way (affected/restaurant) people talk about "plating"?


Thursday, January 18, 2024

Noted for posterity

 A tale in two screen shots:


Not quite cold enough to snow (or ice up the roads, fortunately)


Roughly 6.5 miles today puts me over 9,000 miles (recorded)



When the Farmers Market Gives You Beets . . .


At this time of year, there isn't a lot of fresh produce available at the Farmers Market and what there is tends to be sold in larger quantities than we usually buy. It all makes sense, but sometimes we end up with more than we can use in one week and then I start obsessing about how I'm going to use it up before it goes bad. Such was the case with a bag of beets purchased a couple of weeks back. We used some pretty immediately and then the remainder preyed on me. It's this sort of situation that calls for Joshua McFadden's Six Seasons: A New Way with Vegetables.

The options for beets were fairly limited, but I was happy to find a recipe for which I had most of the ingredients on hand, many of them purchased at the Farmers Market; I needed to go to the store for only couscous and cilantro. Oh, and I added a few turnips to supplement the carrots since we'd also purchased a large bag of turnips while having eaten most of our carrots already.

The beets in question were gold which I considered a positive: I didn't have to worry about staining the sink pink while peeling them and I think they looked pretty when mixed with the carrots, turnips, and onion on the tray. (Note: I didn't worry overmuch about quantities and I opted to roast everything together for 20 - 25 minutes rather than starting the beets on their own first; who has the patience for such fussiness after peeling and chopping up all those root vegetables?)

While they roasted I made the couscous, once again opting to go a little simpler and just leaving the smashed garlic in the mix, rather than trying to fish it out after the couscous had cooked (why, Josh, why?) My goal was to have all the components ready simultaneously as I wanted everything to be as warm as possible when it got mixed together.

Unfortunately, I'd forgotten entirely about the cilantro so I had to chop that after everything was out of the oven and off the heat, thus resulting in things being closer to the recipe's "slightly warm" condition. It was still delicious--and pretty to boot!


*Not covered in the above in any way, the citrus vinaigrette for which I subbed red wine vinegar for champagne vinegar. I also shook it in a jar rather than using a blender or food processor. Scott noted that he'd never have considered citrus with roasted vegetables, but that it really worked.

Wednesday, January 10, 2024

Wintering over water

The Big Storm hasn't materialized around Seattle, meaning that I've been able to get out on Bessie every day this week. Oh, I think I've been sprinkled on at least some most days, but it's still been, in a word, glorious. Yesterday was windy, but I realized I wanted to see what the clouds were like from the overlook we've been visiting regularly since the early days of the pandemic. It was worth battling some wind.

Today, I was more after mileage so I was happy to discover that the South Park branch of Seattle Public Library had a copy of Better Living Through Birding on its shelves since I'm trying to be a little more frugal about buying books. After picking up the book (and some free COVID tests!), I turned profligate and stopped for a coffee and pastry at The Scene in South Park. It wasn't entirely fiscally responsible, but it was damned fine. (Not to be confused with Real Fine Coffee which is also quite excellent.) Perhaps it was the coffee, though more likely it was a bit of a tailwind, but the ride homeward seemed much easier than the ride out had been. Views along the Duwamish helped:
 Indeed, the riding was so pleasant, I opted to continue along towards Alki, stopping en route to admire the views across the water:

Bessie started to feel like she wasn't getting her share of pixels so I pulled off onto a relatively new bit of pier/promenade to pose her against the skyline.
It was when she was posing by the Alki Statue of Liberty, however, that a passing stranger noted that her basket was reminiscent of an eagle's nest that had been around a while. I opted to take this as a compliment.



 

Monday, January 8, 2024

Bike-by Update

Post-ride recovery: crumpet and hot tea

 I'm still hazy about what I'm doing while not going to work every day. Oh, I still think I'd do well to find someone to pay me for something, but I don't know how likely that is to happen, and I really like not having to get up and get out by any particular time. 

 But, thus far at least, I'm still getting up (eventually) and getting out (most days). The forecast is for tomorrow to be significantly windy, with increasing rain and possibly snow by the end of the week so I thought it'd be a good idea to get Bessie out while I could. I took the scenic route* to fetch some essentials (because one doesn't like to be out of kitty litter) and so picked up some extra miles. It was a fine ride, as it happens, made all the finer by a civilized tea and crumpet after I got home. 

 Some day, perhaps, I'll do some sort of 2023 wrap-up recording books read, miles biked, etc. but, for now, a portrait of Bessie from Saturday's ride, when the rain held off until the final twenty minutes when it seriously poured.


 

 

*"Scenic route" is a bit of a stretch here since it was wet enough that my glasses were covered in rain drops so I was doing well to see the pavement, signage, and other vehicles.