I just got back from spending 8 great days on the Wonderland Trail. Scott, Bryan and I completed the full loop around Mt Rainier from August 20 – 27, 2010.

I wrote a short journal each day. My plan is to post those soon, but for now here are a few highlights from the trip:

Today is our last day on the trail. It is also the first time that I have gotten any signal.

I will post loads more photos when back home, but here is one to tie you over.

I rode the motorcycle down to the beach this weekend for a friends birthday. Each year, I consider doing this – yet, the bike is almost 40 and a bit unrealiable.

In the end, it ended up performing perfectly. Even the weather held up.

Good times.

The Game

Name:

Cloud Hunter

Controls:

Left arrow = Move Left
Right arrow = Move Right
Up arrow = Jump
Space = Fire a projectile

Purpose?

None really … When the “clouds” are shot, they will reset and start again. There is no score and no ending. Still kind of fun though.

Take a look at the source to see how simple this stuff it!

This weekend, I constructed a trellis for some new grapes in the garden.  It is locked onto the garden beds and seems to be fairly secure. The top cross bars are scraps of new wood, but the posts are twice-recycled. All the details are listed below:

This wood started as a pallet. Then, we notched it and used the 4×4′s for a garden bed. After several years filled with soil, many of the pieces are still in decent shape.

Each piece was cut to 5′ and given a light sanding.

Here are the scraps, ready for the fire.

A template was then made to mark each of the ends.

These cuts were made with a portable band saw. I tried several other methods, including both miter and hand saws – but this seemed the way to go.

Several cuts were made and then the gap was chiseled out. The chisel leaves a rough edge, but who cares? There is going to be a 2×4 stacked on top.

I also had to notch out where the post met the lip of the garden bed. Here you can see how close the cuts are.

And here we remove the wood. A sharp edge is your friend.

This one cleaned up nice.

The first two posts are set. Time for the middle one.

With everything strung up. Note that the bamboo and wire are not really attached – they are just to support our cukes and climbing beans.

We had a big party this weekend and lots of people brought meat to throw on the grill. As a vegetarian, I also love to grill – we had zucchini, asparagus, sweet potato and other great veggies. Sometimes though, you just want a burger.

Now, garden burgers are fine – in fact – we had a few on the BBQ for the party. Yet, every time I buy them, there is all this wasted packaging. Plus, sometimes I just want something a little tastier spicier!

So for this party, I tried my own burger recipe. It is based off of several others floating around on the net (including this meat related one).

I had low expectations, but these turned out rather good for a first try! Too bad I didn’t take any photos…

From flickr - thanks revrev!

Ingredients:

• Tofu – 1 block of firm , frozen then thawed
• Garbanzo Beans – 1 can
• Black Beans – 1 can
• Onion – 1 white
• Oats – instant, a “handful”
• Rice Krispies – a few handfuls
• Herbs and spices – see below

Basic Recipe:

I winged it this time, so this is not going to give exact amounts. This is more for my own reference… Feel free to modify and experiment…

All of the ingredients are processed one at a time then added to a large bowl and mixed:

Put the tofu in the freezer a few days prior – freezing/thawing the tofu gives it a porous, chewy texture. It is also great in stews this way! Just remember to start thawing it a few hours before the BBQ!

Dice a white onion and sweat it in a pan until the pieces start to become translucent. I also added some chopped chives and parsley to the pan. Once cooked, throw into the food processor with the herbs and spices. I used fresh basil, cilantro, soy sauce and a bunch of “Pappy’s spice rub”. Pulse for a few seconds to chop into small pieces (about 1mm – not to mush!). Place in bowl.

Drain the beans and process – about 10 pulses. Again, we want small pieces, not mush. Place in bowl.

Do the same with the thawed and drained tofu. Place in bowl.

Throw in a handful of oats.

Add the Rice Krispies while mixing it all together. A few handfuls seemed about right. They will soak up some of the extra liquid and help bind everything.

Let the mixture sit (covered) for a  few moments  before grilling.

Thoughts:

The burgers hold together rather well, but you need to keep them small, say about 2 inches in diameter and 3/4 of an inch high. Pressing them might help make garden burger size patties, but I didn’t not try.

On the grill, I let them cook on each side for a few minutes, then gave them a quick spray of oil few more minutes. It gave a really pleasing crunchy on the outside texture.

You might notice that unlike meat burgers,  there is very little fat in these things. I consider that a bonus. However, one person suggested adding banana to the mix. The added fat/sweetness intrigued me…

Until last week, I was happily using a first generation iPhone. Sure the network and software was a bit slow, but I’m from a generation that cut our teeth on dial-up modems and BBS’s (EEEEEEEE-CHHHCHHCHHHCGHGHGH). Who cares if it takes a few extra seconds to load BoingBoing while riding on the bus?

However, there was one feature in particular, that I was looking forward to: the new camera(s). I never expected how much I would use a cell phone camera. And while the convenience of the first generation camera was great, the photos always came out fuzzy and grainy. Even worse, there was no way to get up close when needed.

Introducing the new camera

With awesome macro!

 
Video

How about macro video?

When uploaded directly from the phone it is compressed a bit:

Here is a comparison of the two:

This is just a quick update of the garden situation. See the previous post here.

Done:

1. Ground leveled
2. Ditches dug and filled
3. Sprinkler and electricity in place
4. Cedar box rails (2×8 + 2×4) in place and staked

To Do:

1. Till all this mud to mix with new soil
2. Fill with soil
3. Add 2×4 caps (you know, to make it pretty)
4. Then time to think about the pathways and lawn….

Last Friday was bike to national bike to work day. I did take the tall bike down to the convention center, where I was attending a conference, but it wasn’t really “to work”. In fact, since the move last month, I haven’t manage to ride the full route…

We now live on the opposite end of the city. Getting from my house to campus is about 15 miles – 10 of which, are a steep crawl up Barber/Capitol Hwy. According to google maps the route should take about 1hour 45minutes on a normal bike and I believe it. On my way to the coast,  I have taken the climb on my lightweight racer – by the end, my shirt was drenched in sweat.

Now add a cargo bike

Add to all this the fact that Jamie, my friend at Metrofiets, has been challenging me to take one of his bikes to work.

These bikes are great for hauling cargo, but can be mighty slow to push uphill.

And sweeten the deal

However, his personal bike currently has a Stokemonkey electric assist hooked up.

The electric assist is awesome! It does not turn the bike into a motorcycle; you still have to pedal along. But, it does put some wind in your sails. With the stoke monkey, I was easily maintaining a 10-15mph clip uphill- passing other brave cyclists on road bikes.

If you have the opportunity, it is worth it. On the way here, I only found 2 negative aspects:

1) The controls

On this bike, the throttle was placed on the left-hand side. It was probably to avoid conflict with the gear shift on the right-hand side. However, this means that my hand would have to leave the throttle to signal, causing the bike to drop from warp at the most inopportune time.

2) The dirty looks

Cargo bikes and Metrofiets, in particular, tend to make people smile. They are still not very common, even in a bike town like Portland and curiosity gets the better of people.

However, today I got the “other kind of look”. That’s what I get for passing a spandex-clad race cyclist on the uphill :)

We have been in our new home just over a month, and the time seemed right for a little destruction.

To the right you will see my lovely, partner with her new, favorite toy: a Bobcat Mini Track Loader with the largest trenching attachment that we could rent.

It is a rental from Portland Rent-All and was quite a deal for all the use we got out of it. Along with the trencher, we rented a bucket and cultivator attachment. Check out how cool the cultivator is in this video someone else took.

The plan

Now that we have a double lot, it is time to expand the garden. The plan is to build raised beds – the equivalent of 15, 4′x10′ beds with 11′ mulch borders on the sides for long term berries. In front of the garden will be a decent patch of lawn. But first, we have to level the lot and build a sprinkler. Here is a sketch of what we have in mind.

A work in progress

During the previous few weekends we had been trimming the massive trees that are on the property. Since the house has two fireplaces, we decided to borrow a chainsaw and salvage all the burnable material. However, even after setting aside all twigs over 1″ in diameter, we still had to haul away 1400lbs of material!

Last weekend, we had some help pulling out all the old/dead rhododendrons and lilacs that lined the back 50′ of the yard. Many of these were huge and required quite a bit of effort to remove the stumps. We did end up saving a few to replant, or give away. There was also about 5 wheelbarrows of urbanite chunks (broken concrete) that needed to be removed from the area.

On Friday we rented the Bobcat and went to work. The cultivator made quick work of the lawn – well at least for an hour, until it threw a tread. Three hours later, with the tread repaired, we were back on task. After chewing the lawn, we rotated between the cultivator and the bucket to pull the soil around. By dusk, we had everything fairly level and compact.

Saturday was mostly trenching. The machine worked great, easily digging 30″ deep,  but there were a few issues. 1) Progress is slow and you really have to think about the trench order/direction. Backing up to a fence can leave a six foot gap that you will need to dig by hand and it’s a pain to run over already trenched sections. 2) It rips through small roots great, but large roots are a big problem. Guess which we had :)

The rest of Saturday was spent cleaning/returning the equipment and building the sprinkler manifold. Gary (my super cool father-in-law) did a great job with the manifold and we even managed to get a few of the hot lines run. We also ran 300′ of underground romex for some electrical boxes.

Sunday was full on sprinkler build. Well more like: build, run to the store for parts, build, run to the store… It took all day, but now we have four zones – two for the garden, one for the lawn and one for the mulch zones on the sides of the garden. The mulch zones will be for long lasting berry crops like grapes, currants, blueberries and raspberries.

On Monday (today), I got up very sore and tired to go into work. A big thank you to our families for all the hard work they put in this weekend. It was exhausting.

Next, we have to figure out some water flow issues and get sprinkler heads for the system. After that, it will be time to build boxes and get some sod.

Update

2010-06-03 – here are some new photos