Tuesday, February 16, 2010

310 Days

Once upon a time,  In the spring of 2009 a girl made a plan.

It was a grand plan and she sketched it out carefully.

She carefully recorded the varities of vegetables, rotations, days to germination, plant spacing, and days to readiness off of each seed packet since she knew her feeble mind could never remember such details.  

 
She got a little dirt on the plans on their excursions to plant but no matter.

It was the information that was important.

A girl can never have too much information,  dirt smudges or no.


Spring turned into summer and most of the plants behaved just as they should.

Just as the plan showed they would.

And summer turmed into fall and most of the spring plants were finished and were replaced with new seeds and a new plan.

Late in the fall the girl's husband wondered aloud about a particular plant that did not seem to be following the same schedule.

It just grew and grew.

Lots and lots of leaves but nothing else.


"Oh well"  said the girl  "I don't remember what that is and we don't need that spot anyway. Let's just leave it and if it still hasn't done anything by the next spring we'll pull it out then"

And so it went.

And then one day in early February the girl saw something.

Something purple was showing in the center of the mounds of leaves.

So she got out her plan....her record of important information.
"OK! It's Purple Cape Cauliflower! But it sure is huge and why in the world did it take so long?" 

You see the girl had forgotten to write down the days to maturity for this plant. Nada. Zilch.

And it happened that she had used the end of the seed packet so she didn't have that either.

And when she looked it up in the seed catalog it wasn't listed in the latest edition.




You see the normal cauliflower did just what it was supposed to do and caused no angst at all.

But neither did it peak the girl's curiosity.


But this:

This amazing thing went on for 310 days!

About 10 months!

Finally with the failure of her informational system, the curious girl looked online to see what it was really supposed to be.

And she discover that it should have been 240 days to maturity... off by a mere two months.

But she was very glad indeed to see this monstrous cauliflower.

And so she took some pictures to show her friends.

And she put a bucket next to it to show scale so her friends would be able to tell how large it was.





And because she thought the bucket was amusing as she pondered what sort of parent would not notice their child's feet sticking out of a bright yellow bucket.
She finally harvested the huge cauliflower and the abudance of inner leaves.
And remaining outer tough or eaten leaves went into the compost pile.


She decided that a roasted cauliflower and leek soup would be just the thing and that it would go great with the extra loaf of whole wheat herb and asiago bread that she had made two days before.
She took some more pictures so that her friends could see how the size compared to a cup measure.

And how it was light colored underneath.

The girl had a reputation for choosing vegetables to grow for no other reason that visual coolness.

She chopped the cauliflower and tossed it along with some garlic cloves and leeks in a little olive oil and oven roasted them  for about 30-40 minutes. After which she pureed the stalkier parts and garlic with some chicken broth and left most of the florets whole....cause she was that kinda girl.
Then she added some sauteed shallots and chopped carrots, the florets, and a basic roux to thicken the soup.
While that was all going on she made one of her stranger inventions.


You see when the "normal" cauliflower and brocolli had started to be ready for harvest the girl and her husband had developed a liking for roasting them. 

And since the girl was sometimes a little lazy she didn't always take off the leaves closest to the head.

She just tossed them in the olive oil and salt and peppered them with the rest.

And the two started to fight over the little leaves.

She doesn't really know if she invented this by accident or if there is a place in the world that they eat these all the time.

She thinks it would have to be a place where they grow their own food cause you never see leaves like these in the stores.

And like I said she is sometimes lazy and doesn't take time to Google these things to find out if she invented them.

What she does know though, is that if you roast them just like your other vegies...

except not quite as long....they can be sensitive...
they turn out just like a short of crunchy chip thing.

And she will have wrestle her husband for them.

THE END.

Cath

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Aimless Wanderer - Part 2

In December Sean added some new electronics... a pretty cool chartplotter etc. that he got through our friend Jude ...and new stereo...
and this spiffy boat name that I made for him on my little electronic cutter.
It was like an act of Congress deciding on the exact placement.

There were five or so of us discussing, measuring, and moving the pieces around.

Who knew it was such an ordeal?



He also needed the official numbers which were much less controversial thank goodness or we might all still be standing in his yard this very moment discussing placement and it's effect on the world in general.


Most of December he and Arik spent aboard the Miss Sarah as a member of the crew for the crab season opener.

It was a particularly good crab season so they were out for almost the full month with a couple of days off for Christmas.

In between he worked on rounding up various permits and gear and preparing to work his own boat.

He had his fair share of trials and tribulations throughout the process.

As they say ... things worth doing don't come easy.

Finally on the last day of January,  all the pieces had come together and Collin was home to act as crew for him.

Being the new guy in the port on a day with some swell the local Coast Guard opted to escort them through the bar.





Hi Collin! Glad you remembered your sunglasses.  Did you put some sunscreen on? Do you know where the lifejackets are? How in the world are you going to get those crab pots out there?
Sorry, the mommy thing just kicks in out of nowhere sometimes.










Then I went over to the beach and worried over there for a while and enjoyed the sun.


They were kind enough to give me a heads up on the way in so I used my sprinting powers again and ran over to the jetty.

I almost got distracted on this one when the cool clouds started forming up...
But see?  I got the boat in the shot.....just doin my job.


Back in to port safe and sound.

I confess to being a bit of a worry wart about this kind of thing.
 
You see I have three of my four guys out on the ocean right now.

These two out together...

and Arik working out of Kodiak, Alaska for January through March.

I know they've been on the ocean since they were tiny tots... but still.

They are all very understanding about the whole worrying mom bit.

They send me messages and let me know all is well when they have time.

Mostly though I pray a lot.... and I just try not to think about it too much.

Cath

Aimless Wanderer - Part 1

Back in October Sean bought his latest floating vessel.

If you know Sean very well you know that this is one in a long line of floating vessels.


He bought his first when he was about 7 years old (a little Sabot sailboat) and has been shopping for the next boat ever since.


This, is his second commercial vessel. He did some live catch fishing last year and decided it was time for an upgrade so that he could spend more days on the water.




Captain Sean is all business... his brothers, however, are not.
They think it's pretty funny that Captain Sean has a boat named the Aimless Wanderer and in one of their favorite movies Captain Ron has a boat called the Wanderer.


He chose this 24ft Radon after months of research,

days of discussion,


and more than a few trips to look at various potential boats.


He just kept coming back to the Radon and finally found one that was well cared for and just right for him.



The day of the test run was a spectacular one at our port.

I profess to being more than a little ADD on days like this.



As soon as they rounded the bend I was easily distracted by the colors and patterns.

Oooooo lookey.



This guy is not nearly as easily amused as I am apparently.



Oh and over there!

Check that out!


And up in the sky...



And then I remembered that I was supposed to be at the end of the jetty to shoot the return.

Dang!

Get thee to the jetty.


I came really close to missing the whole thing.

This time I found ways to stay on task and indulge myself in the color and light of the day.

Shhh don't tell them I was distracted.


It's not like they don't know about this problem of mine.


It's certainly nothing new...



Ooooo lookey there!

Check out the color in the water....

Oops ... I mean check out that cool boat and that awesome crew.


Oooo and the repeating lines in the wake....


...I mean look at how that thing sits in the water.



Oooo and all those vertical rust colored pillars..

...Gosh I love days like this.
They were all duly impressed with performance of the boat.

It was everything Sean had hoped.


And I was just happy I made it out the end of the jetty in time.

If I can't get a little more focused tho, I may need to spend more time at the gym so I can cut down my sprint times from the launch ramp to the end of the jetty.

It was a close one.

Cath

Friday, February 5, 2010

While the Gettin's Good

We've gotten our share of rain for the past few weeks.

But the thing is...

when you live on the Oregon coast...

everyone knows that pretty soon the sun is gonna shine.

And we all pray that's it's gonna be Sunday when that happens so that we can take full advantage of the gift.

And when it happens...

you get stuff like this...


And this...


And you almost forget about the rain.

Cath