BROWN BEAR ON THE WAY TO EAGLE

**OK. After months of rain and wind and cold weather, I am short of a "Spring" photo for this posting.

**However, I was brousing the pictures of our last drive to Eagle, and came across this reminder of how wild and how close some of the animals are along the highways in the northlands. If a close watch is maintained, bears (black and brown), cariboo, sheep, moose, swans, and host of other critters can be enjoyed in their own natural habitat. In this case, I was behind the van, and Brer Bear was ambling along the roadside, lookin' I suppose for the next meal.

**I'm thinking about printing this shot in 8 x 10 and hanging it with some other Alaskan highlights. Whatcha think?

THE LATEST PRUNING EVER

Only twice, I think, in prior years have I managed to complete the pruning of my "gentleman's orchard" around Valentine's Day but the job is almost always done by the end of February. I've always considered mid-March to be rather late and have always had to contend with rising sap when weather has delayed the chore very long. Today is the 22nd, I can see the end of March from here, and not all the orchard is finished and the sap is beginning to rise. I'm pretty sure I should stop climbing ladders and clambering around in these trees someday. The trees are getting bigger, the chore takes longer, and I've been sore for most of a month now.

At its largest, the orchard consisted of 27 trees, but now it is down to 22; stone fruit like peaches and apricots didn't do well so they are history. The survivors are seven varieties of apples, a couple of kinds of domestic pear, four Asian-pears, four kinds of plums and four cherry trees. The odd-ball is a "bitter" quince; ideal fruit for making quince jelly (although the hard yellow fruit must be blended with apples to be edible); the irony is that no one has even tried, so far.

This year's persistent precipitation - both rain and late snow - has caused almost continuous delays in this important annual task. In fact, I finally gave up and started pruning, and while still on the first tree I had to contend with snow and snow pellets! Over the next few days, even working through several light showers, I endured so I could get the task done before the sap began to rise. The daily temperatures to date have been well below average, and until this past week there had been no sign of swelling buds or other clues to the spring awakening. Not so today. After only two or three days in the 50's, suddenly, and very suddenly indeed, several of the trees I had pruned over the past (soggy) week are full of fat buds and will be in blossom within a few days.

So far this year the weather has been so constantly cold and wet that I haven't even applied a protective spray yet this season. I like to get a couple of treatments of mixed lime-sulphur and horticultural oil to discourage scale, several types of scab, and some other things, and keep a large number of nuisance insects from hatching. If I can get these sprayings in before blossom time, it really cuts down on problems later and lets me get by without using even a mild pesticide. I'm racing the bud-break, hoping to time at least one spray application when everything is in bloom.

Although it has never happened before, there seems to be a chance that trees of several different kinds, which ordinarily take turns blossoming each year, could this season all be in flower at once. I've never seen that happen. All it would take is a few more days of warmth. The problem with that scenario is that I have not yet seen the insects required to do the fertilization at bud break to assure the setting of fruit for the season.

Most of the pruning job is done. I still have a plum tree to do (maybe an hour and a half), and all the cherries. Since I pruned all the cherry trees heavily last year, if I don't get to them right away, I can tidy them up after the fruit, if any, is firmly set. At this point, since low snow is still being forecast, I'm worried about frost. I need both warmth and friendly insects like mason bees - we don't get honey bees much any more. The cherries are vulnerable this year to bacterial canker since it has been so wet. That calls for a protective spray of a copper based treatment called "microcop". All the pruned material must be picked up and hauled away so the area under the trees can be mowed and the trees fertilized. That will be nice...

Then I can tackle the rest of the yard, etc., etc.

Anyone want to trade a condo for an acre of mowing and pruning?

ADVENTURES IN AN ASIAN MALL

**Today, after morning services, Patty and I were escorted through a fairly new market place in Southeast Portland on that city's infamous 82nd St. Our teacher and guide was our beautiful friend Joan, who twenty years ago arrived here from Hong Kong. She is truly an expert and so enjoyed sharing the store experience with us. She had her shopping list along for she frequents this amazing grocery center on a regular basis. The first photo below shows the main entrance which opens into a maze of hallways filled with shops and eateries which includes the huge grocery and kitchenware emporium.

**This second shot shows the inside entrance to the food market. Unfortunately, once we passed through this doorway, I seemed to forget I was carrying a camera!. The store inside is immense, and apparently Sunday afternoon is the most popular time for the nations to gather their families and obtain their groceries for the coming week. We went up and down every aisle in the store and I will have to skip a lot to tell you a little of what we saw.

**All of the Pacific Rim countries are represented in the products on the shelves and stacked on pallets throughout. Passing a huge deli counter we found dozens of noodle products in the midst of the coolers to our left. Egg, Rice, Udon, and spinach noodles in a score of package sizes filled the cooler; these were the fresh noodles and there was a long row of dried noodles of every kind elsewhere. Many soy products were available here too, and exotic beverages, and confections and more.
**The colorful produce corner was clearly a place to obtain various vegetables and fruits, but while a quick glance revealed many familiar items - carrots, lettuce, cabbage, and such, a closer look at all the rest - the majority of what was on display - made it clear that this was not an ordinary American produce department. Here were huge tubs of purple yams, and packaged lotus root, and enormous tubers of every kind, and taro, and other root crops. A dozen feet of mixed "salad stuff" was followed by an equally long section of spices and herbal greenery - mints, basils, anise, fennels, and who knows what else - large bags of bulk bean sprouts, multiple sorts of mushrooms, and a host of tropical-style fruits. Grasses in cello trays, and bamboo shoots, and starfruit, and water chestnuts, and a couple of big tables of other strange and appealing fruits and products beckoned.
**Then we began the rows of canned and bottled goods: a hundred sauces and seasonings, vinegars and mirins, a multitude of pickled items and juices and starters like miso and fish concentrates. All the ingredients for every kind of sushi and soups and seasonings and toppings and seed. Wrappers for Spring Roll and Lumpia, and Pot Stickers in a score of sized and materials. What would be seen in abundance and in many varieties on the regular shelves would be seen again in the cooler sections in fresh varieties and prepared offerings. The frozen section was enormous; every possible food wish could be satisfied there!
**Fubonn's fresh meat section contained every imaginable kind of animal cut from every imaginable animal. I saw parts of domestic creatures that I would not think any American would recognize, let alone considering eating it. Maybe some folk know about tripe, but do you realize what happens to all the other parts of a sheep or pig or cow after the "red meat" has been wrapped and set out for purchase? Most of us don't know, and we don't want to know, but there it all is in the meat market section! Just beyond begins the fish counters. Another eyeful of strange offerings. We can deal with real fish, both whole and in parts, but what about all kinds of shelled creatures from the sea? Shrimp and lobster? OK. Various clams? OK. Sea cucumber? Well... And I'm afraid to describe the available choices further.
**By now you have the idea. Anything considered to be food in the Asian and Pacific nations is probably available in this special store. On thing for sure, shopping there on a Sunday afternoon is a spirited family affair in which everyone expresses their emphatic opinion and the crowds solidly pack the mile of aisles. All in all, I had a wonderful time learning from Joan, noticing many of the rare and special foods I had only seen previously in the pages of my oriental-type cookbooks. Just past the checkout counters, bulky stacks of rice and beans mutely reminded shoppers of the basics of most Asian foods. On the other side a table of "lucky bamboo" made a last appeal at the exit to the mall hallway, and plenty of arrangements were being selected by the patrons.
**Without doubt, I am going back, but on a midweek morning when I can study the products at some length without having to move and move and move again to allow others access to whatever happened to be in front of or behind me today or to let shopping carts and cart drivers pass along to keep their bunch of folk together. (BTW, The only single customers I noticed in any numbers were ancient women of impossible age doing the daily/weekly chore. Believe me, they had the right of way, and knew it!)

**Finally Finishing our walk through the mega-market, we parted with Joan, completed our own shopping by revisiting an area or two, checking out, and putting our purchases in the car. Back inside again, we visited several little shops - a bakery, a tea shop, and a bookstore (all in foreign languages), and looking around in the hallways - before enjoying meat and noodle soup in a small restaurant. I've already started my shopping list. Ya wanna go?

TABITHA AND THE WATER CYCLE

Sometimes it's fun to be the Grandpa. This is especially true when a busy Mom is overbooked, or the other kids are ill, or the crowd is going in different directions and the Grandpa gets to go along on a Home Schooler's Field Trip. My favorite is chaperoning train trips to Seattle, but this outing was a kick too.
This exploration with a bunch of youngsters (including my Tabitha) was to the Water Resources Education Center, a complex along the river in Vancouver. A dozen and a half K-2nd graders were investigating the Water Cycle and how it affects the environment and the health of fish populations. (Shhhhh. They didn't know that; they were just having fun!) The instructor seemed comfortable working with this age group and easily adapted to the random questions and individual behaviors. The "other moms "along, more accustomed to the individual learning styles of their children helped herd the students from station to station and the lessons proceeded quickly from point to point.
Wow! The words were BIG, but the kids learned them first by manipulating illustrated cards into the right order and then by making a "memory bracelet" with a colored bead for each important term: .

Sunshine, Surface Water, Evaporation, Condensation, Precipitation, Distribution, Percolation, Transpiration, and Accumulation.

It was pretty amazing to hear the tiny voices carrol out the scientific vocabulary, loudly correcting each other and delighting the teacher. At the final station the class got to sit near one of the huge aquarium tanks and learn about some of the fish which live in the Columbia River and its tributaries. The favorite was the odd looking sturgeon which can grow to nearly 20' in length and over a hundred years in age. Several of these odd looking, boney, armored young fish were quite active and showing off in the clear water.

After the "lessons" time was allowed for exploring the many hands-on displays and colorful discovery & experimental teaching gadgets.

Each child seemed to find a favorite and everyone enjoyed "learning" without realizing it. I enjoyed watching individual kids finding a display, investigating its purpose and finding the simple truth being presented. You know the child "got it" when he carefully and patiently explains the science involved to his mother. Tabitha told me how to tell one tree from another and I was pleased to learn how to do that with the "magic marble machine". Good Times!!