Made a cheesecake...(I think this is my first!) for lab birthday celebrations on Monday. I was going to make a plain cheesecake, but on a whim decided to go for chocolate swirl with chocolate chips. Nothing like cheesecake to make you feel a bit better after a rough weekend :)

I made a few mistakes...I wrapped it in foil and put it in a water bath, but I'm worried the foil leaked in water (we'll see if the crust is soggy tomorrow! Hopefully not!), and I made the crust come too far up the sides of the pan, so the actual cheesecake part wasn't able to cover it all. You can see bits of crust poking out the top. It looks kinda goofy. I just hope it tastes good!

Hang in there, everyone. Love you :)

I went for a second hike this weekend, this time with Kristopher. We intended to hike to the Tomie Peak lookout, near the Carbon Glacier at Mt. Rainier Ntl Park...but got stopped about halfway in on the access road by some enormous trees that had been blown down (or pushed) onto the road. So we turned around and instead hiked a nearby trail into Green Lake. We hiked straight in for 3 miles to get to the trailhead, the access road here had been washed out a few years back by some really heavy flooding, and never repaired. We then climbed about 1200 feet up in another 2-2.5 miles to get to the sights.

About halfway up, we came across Ranger Falls. I forgot my camera, however, so these are pictures I found elsewhere on the web so you could see where I was :) The don't look that big here, but in person they were enormous. I read online that the drop you see here is about 80 ft, with a total drop of 100 feet (there is a bit more below and to the left).

There was tons and tons of old growth forest, the type where you can't even see the forest floor...even the fallen trees were completely covered in many different types of green growth, mosses, ferns, and other baby trees. I felt like I was in Fern Gully.



And this is Green Lake, where we ate lunch. It was a bit clearer for us, you could see this awesome snow-covered peak up there where this photographer just caught clouds....and there was still a good bit of snow lining the edge of the lake. But my, was it green (and clear)! And cold...all that glacier melt water.

I think that brings my hiking total for the weekend to about 22-23 miles. I'll get in shape yet!

Saturday hike with Braulio, at the Boulder River trail about 1.5hrs from Seattle. We had a really nice day, the river was gorgeous (and running very swiftly!), and there were two lovely waterfalls to check out along the way. Lots of old growth along the trail as well. And we met with lots and lots of hikers with dogs--my two favorites were brother Bassett Hounds, trotting along with their little ears flapping and stomachs swaying, just like Snogger Dog. (If you don't know who Snogger Dog is, ask T&P).



Unfortunately, it was a very sunny day, so almost all of my pictures are overexposed. *Le sigh* Try to imagine water where all of that white glinting light is.

:)

Piper and Pippin love the spring time because it means all of their favorite birds come looking for our feeder! I managed to photograph a few of them. (I really need to work on taking better photos through our front window...some of them turned out a little blurry)

Here's a male purple finch (the female was with him but I didn't grab the camera in time to catch her)

And a pair of male and female goldfinches...

And here's the mystery bird...Dad, I'm hoping you'll know what kind of bird this is...

Yellow pear cherry tomato, already caged.


Sungold cherry tomato, already caged. This one actually put out a few flowers this weekend, but I nipped them off...I want him to keep growing before it starts putting energy into bearing fruit. The guy at the Tilth edible plant sale told me that this varietal is supposed to be well suited for pacific NW weather, let's see how that goes! I'm excited to watch these guys grow up this summer, my tomato plants last year got *enormous*.


Jalepeno pepper plant! He's so perky. (You can see my kale in the background).


Chrysanthemum. Gloria says its supposed to attract good pollinators.


This will eventually be chartreuse zinnias. I hope.


A couple sunflowers in the back, and some echinacea in the front. I bet I'll end up pulling out some of those sunflower seedlings eventually to make room...I'm not sure how big they will get. Or if you can even grow sunflowers in pots. If I had more pots, I'd just leave one little seedling in the middle and let 'em go. Oh well! They'll have to get used to the crowds.


English lavender.

Alas, this isn't even all of them...I have another planter with parsley, coriander, and mint, and another pot with lemon basil and dill, and another pot with some kale. And a small pot for some marigolds. And my piggy plant. And two pots worth of hens and chicks, which have tripled in size since I got them a year ago. Goodness! My patio is getting crowded.