Saturday, January 13, 2007

Online Education Free

Online Education Free
Check out these free online courses...many of them offered through Itunes Podcasts.

Costco.ca Photo Centre

Costco.ca

Going to Costco? You can pick up prints that you have emailed to the photo centre at any Costco. You can make your Xmas cards here, or any other cards you like...so what are you waiting for?

Happy Ukrainian New Year!

Culture - some interesting things about the Ukrainian people
Just got reminded from our friend, Jean, that today is Ukrainian New Year's Day.... a time of gift giving...equivelant to our Christmas.Okay, I already did all that on Christmas, so we'll celebrate with blueberry muffins instead.I did a little purge of my fridge after I grocery shopped today.....Ugly after being away...All better now, after I removed about eight apples from my crisper. I peeled and sliced them and nuked them with a little water and sugar for applesauce or apple betty.I found the blueberries in the depths of the freezer. Not really my fruit of choice, but okay in muffins. I made Sonia's orange muffins and added blueberries... They are delicious.
Hmm I thought I had her recipe on my blog...It is easy,so I'll write it out for those of you yearning for a hot muffin.

Sonia's Orange Muffins.

Recipe is doubled already in order to make 24 muffins.
This recipe is easy to alter for your own ingredients on hand, such as lemon and poppy seeds ,instead of the orange, or you could add chocolate chips or cranberries,mango pieces,pineapple or apple chunks.
heat oven to 375*

1 1/2 cup white sugar
1 cup margarine
2 eggs

4 cups white flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp. salt
grated orange peel of one orange
orange juice you can make it a little stronger if you are doing it from frozen juice. ZYou'll use as much as it takes to make the batter look like muffins...or a thicker cake.

Cream sugar and eggs and margarine together until well blended. In another bowl or large 8 cup measuring cup, mix the flour and baking powder and soda and salt and grated orange peel together. Then, add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture, while beating. If it gets too thick,add orange juice to thin it a bit. Continue until all flour is added and enough orange juice is added to make it the consistancy of muffins ( around 3/4 cup? liquid )...on the thicker side if you are adding juicy fruit. Then fold in your chocolate chips or your blueberries or mango pieces or poppy seeds or apple chunks or whatever.

Spray your muffin tin with Pam and fill 2/3rds full with batter. Bake for 15 + minutes,turning the oven down to 350* near the end if you smell the bottoms scorching.I always start the muffins in a hot oven to get them rising quickly. Once they are up and firm, you can adjust the oven back to 350* for the last five minutes. I have a convection oven that cooks everything pretty hot and fast, so 15 minutes is plenty for muffins. Just poke a toothpick or knife into the muffin to see if they are cooked through.

Turn out of pans immediately and start eating them!Yummy! Thanks Sonia for sharing...

Oysterville...north Island on Willapa Bay







We took a pleasant drive up to the north end of Long Beach to see lots of new housing going in. The locals aren't happy about all the developement. Something like 350 new houses all ready to move into. The prices were still pretty high for hoses not on the beach and what you would call a basic bungalow.Also there were timeshares and townhouses-and apartments to purchase...all could be managed andd rented out when you weren't there. There was even a golf course or two!
We turned east and drove the five miles across the penninsula to Oysterville, where we loaded up on fresh oysters to take back for our dinner. Just dipped them in egg and rolled them in cracker crumbs, then fried them up to perfection in a couple of minutes. Oyster farming and Cranberry farming are two of the mainstays, besides fishing and tourism.All we could see was mountains of oyster shells. Don't ask if they reused them all, but it was clear that some were reused to "Seed" the oyster beds.

Oysters Are Cool

Oysters Are Cool
Much information about Washington Oysters.Click on the link "an Oyster's Life" to learn how the oystrers are grown and harvested...and who would have known there are several varieties of Oysters out there. Clams are also plentiful, but I didn't know enough about cleaning them and getting them out of the shells etc.Shucked oysters were easy to prepare.mmm! As well, we had a little crab feed with Tillamook butter. Yum!
Ok..time for some breakfast.. I only took about 200 photos,so this story will go on for a few days!

Danger !




I guess this batch of photos depict the area around the lodge a little better. We had the corner suite on the left. Neat and tidy with a separate bedroom and a fireplace that burned Presto Logs. They left us a new log evey day,and we bought a few at Jack's General store. You might see in one photo, the downed tree. Well, there were lots of trees all along the penninsula that had been blown over with their last storm. the park, in front, had many flooded areas from all the rains. The nice thing is that they had a hot-tub and sauna room at the park for everyone to enjoy. I think we may have been the only ones at the resort, so we didn't have to fight for a turn in the tubs! It was just nice to relax and enjoy the ocean and knowing that one didn't have a thing to do.

The Dunes and Pacific Ocean

 

 

 

 


The wind has blown the sand all up into the dunes. The shot was looking back down the trail towards Sunset Lodge. We didn't know we had a view of the occean from our room until day two, when the mist and clouds rose!
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Silky ,having a ball on the beach.

 

 

 

 

A huge flock of seabirds flew in front of my camera...too bad I wasn't focussed on at least one of them. You can see thqat Silky was smiling! I think that she would have run for a mile if she had been off the leash! We had to watch for the occasional vehicle taking a drive down the beach. We became too chicken in our new Vue to attempt it. Also, it seemed to be high tide,every time we drove down to the beach. Less space between you and that angry ocean! For some reason, it was a lot more do-able with our big 4x4 truck! I recalled seeing lots of tow-truck operators in Ocean Park!
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Long Beach Photos

 
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This was a huge wave that crept right up onto shore. Amazingly, the birds always keep to the edge of it.

Our Mini Trip Con't






So here we are at a rest stop about half way down from Port Angeles to Olympia. The highway travels alongside Hood Canal where crabbing is a big way of life at all the little communities along the way. You can see the crabbing pier going out into the canal that separates the mainland from what appears to be an island you see from Seattle, looking westward.Although it looks like an island, it really is a long irregular pennisula that connects to the mainland at Shelton, a city north of Olympia. The Canal curls around the base of the pennisula where a body of land five miles wide, keeps that piece of pennisula from being an island. (Click on the map at the link above to make it larger. )
The drive was an eyeopener to another way of life...one of fishing, crabbing and oyster farming. We stopped at a roadside cafe and settled for fresh shrimp and fries and a delicious Oyster burger...Yum! That got us started on fresh Oysters for the remainder of the trip!
We skirted around Olympia in a blink of the eye and took the I-5 south to Longview and then westward over to Astoria. The bridge photos are of the amazingly long bridge and causeway that crosses the Columbia river at Astoria, and also serves as the division between Oregon and Washington State. We crossed that mighty Columbia,so many times on our journey, that the styles of bridges became more and more fascinating -almost as much as where the next bridge might actually be located! The river is so wide that any bridge is an engineering feat,as all must be high enough to allow freighters and ships to pass beneath them.
On my map, it shows the bridge at Astoria to be 4 miles long. It felt like it when you came to the crest of the bridge and could see the long stretch of causeway joining the main structure to the other side of the river... Not to mention, it was a beast to cross on the snowy morning of our return! I'll have to continue the saga tomorrow when I am awake.
have a great week-end...Remember...it is Hockey Day in Canada and all of the focus will be on Nelson! Tune into CBC all day tomorrow for coverage of the big event.
"The Creator"

Monday, January 08, 2007

Quick note from Long Beach

Ity is so nice that Internet service is available everywhere.. I am at the local library, only a a half block from our Inn, the Sunset Lodge, north of Long Beach at Klipsan beach. We have a lovely room with a view of gardens and walking area and hot tub area, witht he dunes in behind. This afternoon, we'll walk on the beach as the weather is decent. We had a beautiful drive down the penninsula,after crossing on the Cojho. That was a little rocky-rolly alright.
We made it to Astoria,just as it grew dark. All the way down, from Port Angeles we could see serious evedince of major storms..lots of downed trees and even power lines. We were happy to get out of the Park areas.
Ok, my time is nearly up on my puter...so we will talk to you all again. We are here for three more nights.
Have a good one! No snow here yet!


"The Creator"

Quick note from Long Beach

Ity is so nice that Internet service is available everywhere.. I am at the local library, only a a half block from our Inn, the Sunset Lodge, north of Long Beach at Klipsan beach. We have a lovely room with a view of gardens and walking area and hot tub area, witht he dunes in behind. This afternoon, we'll walk on the beach as the weather is decent. We had a beautiful drive down the penninsula,after crossing on the Cojho. That was a little rocky-rolly alright.
We made it to Astoria,just as it grew dark. All the way down, from Port Angeles we could see serious evedince of major storms..lots of downed trees and even power lines. We were happy to get out of the Park areas.
Ok, my time is nearly up on my puter...so we will talk to you all again. We are here for three more nights.
Have a good one! No snow here yet!


"The Creator"