Monday, April 2, 2007

Our First Razor Clam Digging Adventure

After a 5 hour drive that was suppose to take only 3 and half hours, we finally arrive to the pitch black grounds of Cape Disappoinment with the fog horns in the distance. As, we drove through the winding roads to our Yurt, we had no idea of what lies ahead of us. Being city folks, we knew this Yurt was going to make our trip fun or miserable. Prepared for the impending coldness, I(Cheryl) wore my fleece socks and three layers of shirts. As we pulled up to the Yurt, we shouted in the car with tremendous joy. We almost tip the car over from jumping up and down in our seats.

The HEATER, and lightswitch were used immediately! After we unloaded the car, we kicked our feet up, sit back and brew ourselves a cup of tea. In the spirit of Saint Patrick's Day we had Irish Breakfast Tea while we played a few games of scrabble.


The next day, we decided to visit the 2 lighthouses in the area, since the best time to clam dig wasn't until 4pm. Both lighthouses were only a 10 minutes drive away.


The first one, was a retired lighthouse. We paid to climb up to the top, where several cameras were mounted to record the errosion of the beach. The very same beach we will later be on to dig our clams! Eck! We never knew how cool lighthouses were!






The second lighthouse was on Cape Disappointment and is still being used today! (We weren't allowed in) It wasn't from sheer excitement of learning more about lighthouse, but rather it began pouring rain and strong winds.





When 4pm rolled around, we put on our "space suits" and hit the beach! The beach was only a minute away. So, we walked onto it with our CLAM GUN!





Yes! We are eating them! Yum! We had such GREAT time that we can't wait for next year!

Sunday, April 1, 2007

Some Dirt


Before dating, Greg and I spent many lunch breaks, as science nerds do, talk about the technicality of gardening. Does the soil have the right pH? nitrogen? or potassium?

Steming from our past (pun intended), we recently began our adventure together on growing heirloom tomatoes together. Despite that it looks borderline illegal, needless to say, we will soon be proud parents of specialty heirlooms! The funny green plant is a Shamrock slowly working its way to join the compost pile.

The seeds were purchased from the good ole internet (http://www.rareseeds.com/) under Red Tomatoes. They are the "German Red Strawberry" and the Principe Borghese, which won the 2006 Seattle Tilth Tomatoe Tasting http://www.seattletilth.org/events/06ttresults.

I spent the most of my April Fool's Day preparing the soil for my tomatoes plants. I reckon it will take another 3 weeks before I can do so!