My teapot passion

Here’s a little personal indulgence. I have a longtime passion for Japanese iron teapots. The love affair began the first time I was served from one in a Japanese restaurant, followed by a longing – for years – for one of my own. My husband bought my first, probably 20 years ago. It’s the one on the upper left. It has since been joined by seven others, plus two miniatures. Though enormously functional, it is their beauty that draws me, the grace of their lines, the clean strength and solidness of their forms. My husband recently built shelving for my little collection and they are finally displayed together on a prominent wall. They’ve never looked better.

Bill again

Last month I posted several shots of Bill’s Snow Cones after we met Bill at Fort Flagler State Park. We recently saw him in Port Townsend. You get to see him again because I hadn’t gotten a shot of this side of his mobile snow cone van. It really is quite a sight. He’d barely turned off the engine before photographers began snapping, me included.

Geocache

We went camping for a couple of days and took an evening walk. A woman with a small dog was at this bench. As we approached, she hurriedly twisted, reaching behind the bench, then quickly stood up. As our dogs did the requisite nosing about rituals with each other, we chatted. “I guess you saw what I was doing,” she said, and then explained herself. An avid geocacher, she had just replaced a box she’d located under the bench. I won’t tell you where this was.

Geocaching is a contemporary form of treasure hunting. The woman we met used a GPS geocaching app on her cell phone, but a GPS device can be used. Caches are hidden around the world. Find one, sign the log at the cache, and earn bragging rights. I’m sure it can be addictive. I have enough of a similar challenge finding my car keys from day to day.

Saskatoons

It’s been a great year for native saskatoons or western serviceberry (amelanchier alnifolia). The berries grow on trees of varying sizes in the Dungeness Recreation Area and they’re ripe this month. They’re a favorite of cedar waxwings and small flocks converge on the trees for feasts.

One of our neighbors snacks on these berries and we started grazing, too. Until this year, we were the only humans we saw eating them. This month we met a Cherokee woman who was gathering the berries for a pie and a day or so later encountered an Eastern European couple who insisted they were a type of wild blueberry. In fact, it’s a member of the rose family.

Scapes

I’ve begun to harvest this year’s garlic crop, starting with the Juan de Fuca Wonder from Blythe Barbo and her Barbolian Fields garlic: great big heads, almost the size of apples. And the shot above shows what they looked like above ground. These are scapes, the wondrous stalks that garlic sends up as it grows. I think they are sort of otherworldly and fascinating as they bend and curl. Eventually they straighten and face skyward. Scapes can be sautéed and can be used as flavoring. They have a mild garlic flavor.

This is what they look like if they start to “bloom.” There are tiny bulblets inside that can be cultivated like seed to grow more garlic, though it’s faster to plant cloves from a head.

It remains to be seen how my garlic does as it dries. We had a rainstorm that thoroughly wetted the ground right around the time I intended to harvest – not good. I waited for the ground to dry out. . . I’m not sure if it was quite dry enough. We’ll see.

Two!

Though this blog will celebrate seven years at the end of this month, today I’m celebrating my own modest two years as Mme. Sequim Daily Photo. I follow Norma, “Lavender Lady,” (four years) and Shannon (one year).

Thank you for visiting this blog. It means a lot to me. Really! And an extra big thanks to those of you who comment. I love hearing from kindred spirits, wherever you are.