Summer update: June & July (part of August?)

Oh well, I uploaded them and they are all out of order chronologically... that's OK :)

 Memorial Day picnic- we finally enjoy the yard we have laboured to upkeep for three years!

Strawberry harvest!

 Surprise!

 Strawberry- Rhubarb Crisp from the garden (the fruit at least is from the garden!)

 Waiting in line at the Anacortes Ferry Terminal to go to Orcas Island

 On the ferry

 Leo bathing in the kitchen sink - why not?!

Garden door project is officially done- painted to match the exterior trim of the house and finally that door is out of the garage :) Cut a small window in it for funsies (turns out to be perfectly placed for latch access). Also, I think that the winter winds will come whipping through and the window will give better airflow so as not to stress the latch too much.

Shelf installed in the laundry room. Now we will not collect junk on top of the machines! It is a small feature that makes the room feel more cozy instead of bleak.

Michelle prepared Shabbat dinner on a night when I was really pining for it. I came home to this and the love and sweetness brought me to tears.

Load up for a ride, Leo!

 Butterflies have been frequenting the secret garden

 M braids out garlic harvest. Turns out we had 53 heads!

 Up on the wall as both decor and so we can access garlic in the kitchen easily!

Cute little boy :)

 Frequent visitor to our yard. He is the ringleader of two other young bucks. That was a hot day and he bedded down for a siesta just outside the office window

 Greg shares valuable secrets with Leo

 And then we meet Aeofa ("ee-fuh") Greg's 10-week old lab puppy :)

 Serge reminds Leo that hiking is just something we do

Upside down picture: Sockeye salmon caught by our neighbor Archie. She turned out to be about 4.5 pounds.

 Leo considers the fate of seahorses in general and the resident orcas (who feed exclusively on sockeye salmon)

 Josie (Greg and Becky's daughter) has a good hold on young Leo!

 Grandpa G introducing Leo to the new dogwood tree, planted to honour his father and Leo's great grandfather.

 Grandma C and Grandpa G with a tree-happy baby

 "This is my new toy?"

 Gato love. Otto is probably cozy.... Fiona, not so much.

Cousin Surabhi and Aunt Barbara with Leo at his first food ceremony

 We tried to feed him carrots... he almost took to them :)

 Gorgeous boy

 Aunt Katie and Uncle Kevin explain the intricacies of BBQ on the 4th of July

Grandpa T and Nonna take us out to brunch for M's birthday.

Deer-proofing the cherry tree

Deer love new fruit trees... they almost destroyed our new cherry tree! So I chased them off again and put up a barrier in a couple of hours. No further visible gnawings... grow cherry, grow!

Catching up with old friends & coyote trip to San Juan Island

Took off on a Thursday, Saw OFrey and Reener on San Juan Island. Came back on a Friday... saw orcas on the way home! Had lunch with Tom and Marianne on the mainland.

Deer walking with Nick

Instead of going to my spot like normal, Nick and I went into the woods for a walk. We had no expectations, but let our curiosity guide the way. I had the hankering to look at mosses and lichens while he was exploring plants. We found our respective tasks challenging and we certainly learned a lot through the struggles of "unclarity." I do think we found and properly identified the Creeping Buttercup (Ranunculus repens) [p176] along the edge of the trail. The three leaflets were lobed and toothed, as described in Pojar and MacKinnon's  Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast.

Suddenly a game trail appeared and we felt the urge to follow it. Nick first wanted to look at a Bigleaf Maple (Acer Macrophyllum) while I went to the ground to sift through the mossy base of a Paper Birch (Betula papyrifera). And after an interlude of tasting and subsequently identifying and a not-so-licorice-tasting Licorice Fern (Polypodium glycyrrhiza) rhizome, we embraced the Black-tailed Deer (Odocoileus hemionus colombianus) which we assume made the path.

Sure enough... deer sign on the ground in the form of a pile of "Raisinettes!" And then another and another as we tracked its path for about a quarter mile. Though we may have strayed from the exact steps, hand it to us to look like deer and think like deer:
What is the path of least resistance? Where is a good place to take a break under shelter? What is there to eat right here? Where is the potable water?
We tracked it around a small patch of forest littered with tightly knit groves of Western Red Cedar (Thuja plicata) and tons of mosses. We explored the medicinal uses of Devil's Club (Oplopanax horridus) while observing its new buds just breaking the surface of the branches.

Nick analyzed an approach of how one might climb a particularly huge Bigleaf Maple while i got back into the tiny moss forest world. In the end, I saw more capsules, operculum and peristomes... correctly noticing subtle differences between species. I made a go at trying to identify one and think I got it right: Fan Moss or Large Leafy Moss (Rhizomnium glabrescens).

Then we headed home because I was getting cold and we were both a little hungry. We tracked out using a path we found and picked up a lot of OLD trash along the way... One Mountain Dew can must have been sitting there since the 80's; it had logos I've never seen. We filled up a paint container (that we found in a clearing) with debris and brought it to the trailhead.

We decided to leave it there, perhaps as a small trash recepticle for others who might want to contribute to cleaning up our forest... In fact, we left it right next to the crap that some "Hippier-than-thou" Bellinghamster "didn't see" while s/he was riding a bike as his/her righteous dog deposited it so neatly. Yes, I have coined this phrase and will accordingly pursue putting the phrase onto bumper stickers.