Musings from Mark

Until three days ago we were having an unusually dry winter, with many cool clear or foggy days instead of the usual rain.  Last weekend, the pattern shifted to cold, bringing snow (about 2-3″ all told) and ice to Corvallis.  Elizabeth and I spent last Sunday at beautiful Breitenbush Hot Springs.  There is perhaps no better weather to sit in 105º water than intermittent snow showers mixed with bursts of sun.  We had all manner of road conditions on the drive, from near-whiteout falling snow to slush to ice to some bare pavement around Albany where the temperature stayed just above freezing.

Yesterday marked the start of the “atmospheric river” aiming moisture and wind at our area.  We stayed just above the freezing point, but Seattle and nearby points saw 5-15″ of snow this morning.  Winds on the coast and in the high mountains gusted to 100-110 mph, blocking highways with fallen trees.

It has been raining continuously since midnight yesterday, over four inches in two days with another 1-2 inches predicted for tomorrow.  The coastal mountains have seen more like eight inches, rapidly melting the snow from last weekend.  The Marys River rose from low-medium to record flood stage in less than a day.  We are safe here but our friend Lisa (on the farm where we get our milk) now has water on all sides with her house a foot or two above the water.  I tried to stop in there to help out this evening but found all roads blocked by fast-moving water.  Thankfully it is only expected to rise another few inches as it spreads out over the wide floodplain, and with a small watershed it will recede quickly as the rain eases.

The Cascades are getting snow measured in feet, and if the weather eases I’m thinking of a cross-country skiing excursion this Sunday.

Last year a group of us took off the weekend after finals for three days on the sunny eastern side of the Cascades, sleeping in yurts at Tumalo State Park and skiing/snowshoeing during the day.  We enjoyed it so much that we did it again this year from December 11 to 13.  Different folks arrived at different times, but in all we had ten people: Kelly, Kevin, Katie and James, Rosalie and Andrew, Ebba and John, and of course Elizabeth and myself.

Last year the weather was warm and rainy.  This year we had the unending high pressure that keeps the valleys in fog and the mountains in bright sun.  The only downside was a relative shortage of snow – only the highest elevations had enough for skiing and the snow there was crusted and icy.

We shared food and music in the evenings; perhaps my favorite part was rocking out on the double-barrel cedar flute with drum, fiddle, and Kelly’s foot-tapping as accompaniment.  We went through most of the songs we knew and only stopped when the camp host shut us down at 10:30.  I don’t have any pictures from the yurts or the campground, but I can probably dig up a few from my friends.

On our second day we headed to Dutchman Flat, at 6200 feet, for cross-country skiing.  We chose an “intermediate” trail with some short climbs and descents that caused many wipe-outs on the icy snow.  But the beautiful weather made up for it.

Looking south toward Mount Bachelor.

The last part of the trail followed the closed-in-winter Cascade Lakes highway, which is groomed as a ski and snowmobile superhighway.  Easy to coast along in the shadow of the Three Sisters.

South Sister on the left, with Middle and North Sister behind. Broken Top on the right.

On Tuesday we left our beloved yurts behind and set out for snowshoeing on Santiam Pass and a soak at Cougar hot springs.  The weather was amazing – 33 degrees with no wind and bright high-altitude sun felt more like 60 degrees – comfortable with a sweater and no hat.  For the first half through an open burned-over area we didn’t even wear our snowshoes as the crust was strong enough to support us.

Looking north toward the jagged Three-fingered Jack

The trees were covered in fine ice crystals which drifted down as the temperature rose.

I don’t have any photos from the hot springs, but we all enjoyed it despite our stay being cut short as the rules forbid after-dark soaking.  We reconvened at the Pizza Research Institute in Eugene for some most delicious unusual pizza (with spiced butternut squash as a main ingredient).  As it turned out we missed a cold 20-degree night in Corvallis, and we returned to find an inch of ice on the hot tub.  We burned through about 80 pounds of wood to get the house back to a comfortable temperature.

Despite having been up Marys Peak the previous evening, I convinced Liz it would be worthwhile to get up at 5 am and drive up out of the fog to catch the total lunar eclipse.  As it turned out, at least 20 other folks had the same idea – more people than I have ever seen in the parking lot on the mountain.  The inversion that kept the peak warm had ended, replaced by a stiff 30 mph southwest wind at about 32 degrees.  Clouds were pouring in off the ocean, with their tops at about 3500 ft – just low enough that we still had a clear view of the sky from on top.

Moon in total eclipse. As this was a non-central eclipse with the moon at the bottom of Earth's shadow, the bottom stayed a bit brighter.

We hiked to the summit for the sunrise, laying low in the grass with snowpants and down jackets to keep warm in the chill moist wind.  The view across the undulating, flowing cloud tops to the Cascade crest silhouetted against the sunrise glow was one of the most incredible sights I have witnessed.

Cascade crest, with Mt. Jefferson (left) and the Three Sisters (center)

Meanwhile, in the west, the moon was beginning to emerge from Earth’s shadow.

Partial eclipse. Almost like a crescent moon, but wrong time of month.

As sunrise approached, the clouds were rising, occasionally reaching our level and immersing us in fast-moving fog.  As it happened the sun peeked above the horizon at 7:37:30 am, just as the clouds engulfed the peak in a cold whiteness.

Zoom in on the Three Sisters in sunrise glow.

Sunrise! Visible for about 30 seconds.

Gone behind the rising clouds.

We got home just as our housemates were waking up, and in time to kill our remaining two turkeys – a hen and a tom.  The cold rain of the day before Thanksgiving inspired us to limit our turkey slaughter to two, with the other two to wait for a dry day after Liz’s return.  The process went smoothly, and the birds weighed in at 10.75 (hen) and 19.75 (tom) pounds.  We will miss the gobbling and entertainment, but we won’t miss the big feed bills.

Liz getting the last of the guts out of the tom turkey.

On December 9, with the valley still in inversion fog, we drove up Marys Peak to watch the sunset and full moon rise.  In the valley it was about 33 degrees, while on the mountain it was 50 and perfectly clear.

Full moon and Mount Hood over the "Willamette Sea" of fog.

Last rays of sun; sun set at 4:42:30 pm.

Full moon on full zoom, testing out the capabilities of my camera.

I’m still getting caught up on posting…

On December 3 I invited Kelly to get out of the valley fog and explore some new areas near the coast.  We headed first for Drift Creek Falls, famous for its 240′ long, 100′ high suspension bridge in the middle of nowhere.  With no wind the valley was clear but cold, hovering around 31 degrees.  Our first discovery was a type of mold or fungus we had never seen before.

Weird-looking "mold"

We were about to give up and bring some home to show Ali, when Kelly touched it and it melted – ice!  Somehow at just below freezing waterlogged sticks extruded long, hair-thin ice crystals through every pore, creating an ice formation with the appearance and texture of cotton candy.  We tried eating it – pure water with a slight flavor of the rotting wood it came out of.

The falls themselves are a 70-foot cascade over columnar basalt where one branch of Drift Creek falls into the valley of the other branch.

The bridge is beautiful and provides an otherwise-impossible view of the falls, and we pondered exactly how it was erected out here with no road access.  Helicopters?

The trail crosses the bridge and descends to the base of the falls.  The bridge itself was covered in a layer of ice, and we were glad to have the railings.

We took a loop trail on the return, exploring a bit more of the second-growth forest with huge rotting stumps of the original old-growth

Bird's nest fungi - the "eggs" are spore-bearing structures, and the spores are dispersed when rain splashes water out of the cups.

From the falls we drove to Neskowin Beach, home of the ancient semi-petrified stumps preserved when an earthquake caused their forest to sink below sea level.  It was 50 degrees and sunny – so different from the 32 degrees and foggy in the valley inversion.

Neskowin Beach

Intricate sand-patterns on the edge of the surf

As our final destination, I wanted to check out Mount Hebo, and 3154 feet one of the higher peaks in the Coast Range and supposedly with a good view in all directions.  We were a bit disappointed, as much of the top has been pulverized for a former Air Force radar installation and it is still covered in radio and TV towers.  It did have a decent view of Mt. Hood and Mt. Jefferson, as well as the ocean, but it lacked the wildness and serenity of Marys Peak.

Towers on Mount Hebo

On December 5, Ebba successfully defended her doctoral thesis, a cause for much celebration.  With her parents and friends here, we sampled all six of our fermenting carboys.

Left to right: pinot rose, chardonnay, apple cyser mead, blackberry mead, spice mead, pear mead.

Last summer while hiking near Bald Hill we found a rose bush covered in strange mossy growths.  I didn’t take a picture, but they looked like this:

Rose gall (photo from Wanderin' Weeta blog)

After some research, we learned that they were “mossy rose galls”, inhabited by the larvae of the Diplolepis rosae wasp:

Rose gall wasp, credit to hedgerowmobile.com

John put the galls in a jar, and we forgot about them for four months.  When John opened the jar today, imagine our surprise to find these beautiful creatures:

Female (top) and two males, taken with 20x magnification through John's dissecting scope.

Female close-up.

These are Jewel Wasps, Torymus bedeguaris, which parasitize the gall wasp larvae – meta-parasites!  No gall wasps hatched out, either because they were all parasitized or (more likely) because they were more sensitive to dessication as the galls dried out.

I don’t have a complete photo record of the Thanksgiving weekend, as I’m waiting to get pictures on others’ cameras.  There are plenty of pics of the turkey slaughter, but as none of them are mine I’ll cut to the chase and report that our holiday bird was 19.25 pounds and has provided four solid meals since the big dinner.

On Thankgiving Day John and Ian (Ebba’s brother) took the boat out on the Willamette River, and I took Ebba’s dad mushroom hunting near Alsea Falls.  We didn’t expect much this late in the season, but we came home with a good collection of chanterelles and a few hedgehog mushrooms.

Alsea Falls, 11-24-11

Thanksgiving dinner had fewer guests than we originally planned for but still a good group with Ebba’s folks and Sierra, Jason, and kids.  Two-year-old Timothy provided entertainment (and occasional annoyance) continuously running around and playing with everything within reach.

The next day – our first rain-free day this week – I did a 24-mile bike loop over Dimple Hill, returning by way of the lab to start some cells growing.

Looking south over Corvallis from Dimple Hill 11-25-11

The Cascade peaks are not usually visible from Corvallis due to clouds in the winter and haze in the summer.  I hadn’t even realized the Three Sisters could be seen from here until I saw them glowing on the horizon.

Three Sisters from Bald Hill park

On Saturday morning the men went out trap shooting, and since I’ve never fired a gun and wanted to try it I tagged along.  Dave (Ebba’s dad) has all of the photos of me shooting, so I’ll post a few when I get them.  While it is exhilarating to fire a weapon, my overall impression of trap shooting was as a fairly boring and consumptive sport – not something that will become part of my weekend routine.

Ian right after firing

When traveling in the forest after a windstorm, one should always carry a chain saw…

We were stopped just short of our destination by this 10″ tree – just slightly too large to move or drive over.

Should have brought a chain saw

Peterson family (+John) with galliform companions

The voles have found our beets again – my first trap setting last night caught one, but there are probably more in the tunnels.  We gave our largest beet to Sierra, but not before taking a picture.  Many are over two pounds, and all are still delicious and not at all woody.  Probably more beet biomass than we can eat in a winter, unless the voles help…

Our largest beet (4.75 lbs)

Peace Seeds, a local seed company, has an interesting selection of unusual root crops.  After enjoying oca (Oxalis tuberosa) last year, we bought some more and this year also planted some mashua (Tropaeolum tuberosum).

Mashua (left) and oca (right), harvested yesterday.

Oca is closely related to wood sorrel, and indeed the tops look quite a bit like a weed.  The tubers develop in October, and it is the last root crop to be ready to dig, around Thanksgiving here.  The texture is potato-like both raw and cooked, but it has a tart flavor somewhat reminiscent of rhubarb.  Delicious when roasted in a citrus-based sauce!

Mashua is related to nasturtiums, has beautiful vining foliage, and is little-cultivated outside of the Andes.  Aside from its food value it has a reputation as an “anaphrodisiac.”  According to Wikipedia:

It has been recorded by the Spanish chronicler Cobo that mashua was fed to their armies by the Inca Emperors, “that they should forget their wives”. Indeed, studies of male rats fed on mashua tubers have shown a 45% drop in testosterone levels.

We only have about a pound, so hopefully it won’t have any unwanted consequences…

For as long as I’ve lived here there has been an ugly styrofoam boat in our backyard.  The story is that our landlords found a good deal on a boat trailer that happened to contain a decrepit boat, and they dumped the boat here.  Here it is in early 2009:

We moved it over along the fence to make room for garden expansion, but it remained an eyesore.  The landlords gave us the OK to haul it to the landfill, so we decided to get rid of it today.  It weighed 360 lbs according to the landfill scale – too much for us to lift so we hacked it in half and carried the halves to the trailer.

Boat pieces loaded in trailer

The Coffin Butte landfill is about 10 miles north of town.  Coffin Butte is a small mountain that used to have a quarry and that is now being back-filled with garbage.  Normally people aren’t allowed up at the dumping zone (there are public dumping bins lower down) but since the boat halves were too big for the bins they waved us through.

At the landfill, ready to dump.

Sailing on a sea of trash

Beautiful sunset over the mountains vs. maximum ugliness in the foreground.

One of these years humanity will learn to stop making things that can’t be recycled…

Winter has arrived in the mountains, with over a foot of snow falling in the most recent storm.  We drove up Marys Peak after the first snow two weeks ago – the weather at the top was drizzly but we got in plenty of snowball tosses.  By now there may be too much snow on the road to make the drive, though I will try it if/when the weather clears.

Elizabeth and friend Kate on Marys Peak, November 6, 2011

I’ve been planning a solar shower since July, but since then it has always been a second-priority project, and with the garden in full swing and plenty of summer events I didn’t have time to work on it until now.  I got the panel for free from my off-grid friends Jesse and Eva, who got it from a hoarder but couldn’t make use of it in their cloudy valley.  The tank is our old well pressure tank, left on the property when the landlords removed it four years ago.  The pump was found on Craigslist for $15; it had a stuck shaft but was easily fixed.  Despite all of that cheapness the project total still came to around $400-$500 with insulation, plumbing, and supplies for my panel mount.

Panel aimed at the setting sun

Inside the panel water flows upward through parallel copper pipes encased by the black sunlight-absorbing aluminum fins.  The two faucets on the wall are the hot and cold for the shower.  Actually building the shower will be my next project…

Dual-axis adjustable panel mount

I wanted to be able to both tilt the panel and rotate it to face the sun.  Ideally this would be done automatically, but dual-axis tracking systems are well out of my budget.  So I settled for this design of my own imagination.  The 1 5/8″ post is sunk almost four feet into the ground, but with the 100 lb panel it is still a bit shaky.  I may add angle braces or pour some concrete around the base.

Plumbing inside the barn

The plumbing is all done with PEX plastic pipe, which is becoming the new standard for home plumbing.  It is freeze tolerant and can withstand temperatures up to 200 degrees, which is what I needed for this system.  The shutoff and filter in the foreground will be enclosed in an insulated box to prevent freezing.

Tank, pump (blue), and mixing valve (upper right) inside a very well-insulated box.

The box is built from 2×6’s and pressboard that were lying around the property.  It is insulated with R-19 fiberglass and lined with reflective insulation, for an estimated R-value close to 30. Cold water enters at bottom right when hot water is used.  Otherwise the water flows in a loop, out of the tank at the bottom, through the pump and out to the panel, and back into the tank at the top.  At the upper right is a thermostatic mixing valve, at $74 the most expensive part of the system.  When the tank exceeds 115 degrees (which will be common in the summer), it mixes in cold water to keep the output at 115 degrees and prevent scalding water from reaching the shower.

95 degrees - almost warm enough for a shower

This remote thermometer has a five-foot capillary tube and is inserted into a thermowell in the back of the tank.  Today the temperature rose from 70 to 95 degrees – not as much as I might have hoped for.  With the low winter sun our tall apple tree shades the panel for 2+ hours in the afternoon.

My bedroom has been smelling a bit musty lately, and I looked behind my dresser today to discover this solid coating of gray mold.  I sprayed it down with 50% bleach and it is now sitting outside our front door de-bleaching.

Unwanted fungus!