There’s a crab spider in the echinacea, sucking a syrphid dry. Last night my headlamp caught the gleaming black backs of beetles eating something I’d rather not step in. The other morning I picked up an apple and found a tree frog clinging to its curve, heart beat in its throat, copper back bright as a penny. A skunk lives under the back shed. Since we cut the long grass the doe no longer beds down here, but she still wanders through to browse the unprotected tomatoes and young apple trees. I’ll spend most of the day pruning the dead wood out of these long-neglected fruit trees and thinking about the habitats we might plant for all our creatures, great and small and humans included, if we can successfully beat back the blackberry and the English ivy, keep the bindweed, tansy, thistle, lesser celandine, and yellow archangel under tight control. If you have expertise, advice, or book recommendations on landscaping for biodiversity, we’d welcome them, because although this plot we bought at the edge of town is now ours to steward, it’s home to many and could have space for many more.

Ezra will be at the market stand from 10-2 and the bread this week is truly beautiful. Every fermentation yesterday was right on point, from buckwheat to wheat to rye. The plum cake is as much plum as cake. The berry scones have the last blackberry harvest of the year, picked from that very blackberry hedge at the foot of our garden that I’m aiming to eradicate. The cookies are crisp and buttery, just the way we like them.

Sophie
Owner | Baker

Along the roadsides and southern hills the blackberries are ripe. They hang fat and gleaming in the sun, tempting passing cyclists. This time of year you’ll often see me at the side of the road or pulled up on the sidewalk, bicycle discarded, hands scratched and lips purple, mouth full of sunshine.

A perfectly ripe blackberry is plump and firm between your finger tips. It separates from the stem with the gentlest tug. The attachment point is clean white. Press it between your tongue and palate and it dissolves with the sweet, dark taste of summer. For baking, though, you want sour with your sweet. Pick your berries a little firmer, a little less glossy. They separate with a twist and a snap so soft you feel it in your fingers more than hear it.

I rode back from the commissary late on Thursday. The sun had set, the sky ahead fading orange to green to white. At home, I pulled double-kneed canvas pants out of my pannier and on over my shorts, zipped my dad’s old hickory striped work shirt over my tank top, and switched my sandals for the boots just inside the door, not bothering with socks. I walked to the bottom of the garden. I was still wearing my helmet with its mounted light. The wall of brambles rose in front of me. I could hear a small creature scurrying underneath, the roar of the telephone pole factory like an airplane taking off, cars on the road behind me. On the other side of the hedge the neighbor’s dog stirred and growled on its chain. I pushed into the thorns, using the protection of pants and boots to reach deeper. The blackberries gleamed in the white light of my helmet. I filled one half flat and another till I had enough for the market bake. Then I picked up my boxes, turned off my light, and walked back to the house in the dark.

The creek is cool green and clear, running in and out of sunlight. A water ouzel bobs on a rock, hops into the riffle, and up to another rock, still bobbing. We follow her downstream, each taking our own path over algae slick rocks, over pebbles, over sandstone carved into fantastic, hollowed shapes, down waterfalls. We lose our small guide but keep going, walking in the creek or stepping stone above it, scrambling over boulders, swimming the deep pools. Water striders cast quick shadows on the sandstone. This park is in the center of the city but today no one else has ventured so far off the path. We’re alone in the dappled sunlight with the birds and striders. The running water drowns the sounds of traffic. The trailing blackberries are ripe, tiny and so sweet. We eat all we can reach, stuffing ourselves on summer.

Sophie
Owner | Baker

Just after sunset and the clouds above Lummi are violet, rimmed with pink. The water of the delta mirrors the sky. There are three, five, no, fourteen herons walking step by deliberate step south along the flats, necks stretched straight. Every few minutes one falls on its face. They are not graceful hunters. Purple martins swoop overhead, fork-tailed silhouettes against the graying sky. They land on the nest boxes mounted high on the old pilings, then swing away and up again. The humans walking down the beach behind us are talking loudly about college Greek life. The martins ignore them. I try to do the same. An eagle wheels out from the trees, makes an aborted dive, and circles back. The sky and the water fade to gray. The island rises, massive and dark between them. The moon is a crescent from full. Herons lift off by ones and twos. When the sky is empty of swallows, we turn and walk home in the dark.

Sophie
Owner | Baker

You don’t have to go far to get away. Turn off the road. There are no paths to follow but the braided creek. It’s slow going, bushwacking through the willow and poplar, backtracking around impenetrable bramble thickets, working your way downstream. Everything is young here: the clean-scoured gravel bars, the thin trees, the sword ferns growing tender green from the debris of winter floods, the creep of trailing blackberry vines, and have you ever seen so many wild strawberries? You cross the creek barefoot, holding your sneakers and grimacing at the cold. On the next bar you find an opening in the willows wide and flat enough for a tent. You’re a quarter mile from the road, from the speeding cars, the people, the big houses, the flat, manicured lawns of this horse farm suburb, but all you can see are willows and sky. All you can hear is the water running towards the Middle Fork, towards the Nooksack, and on towards the sea.

The creek rushes by. You’re a city dweller, used to traffic, to trains, to sirens, and dogs barking. Here, the noise of the water is so loud it quiets the night. In the morning you wake to birdsong. You make coffee on the campstove, retrieve a cinnamon roll, only slightly smashed, from the bear bag you strung up between two skinny alders. The sun rises over the trees. You pack up the tent and stove, wade, barefoot and grimacing, across the creek, scramble through willow and poplar, around the bramble thickets, and back to the road.

Sophie
Owner | Baker

Rain last night, and this morning the tops of the cedars are blurred by clouds. It’s officially spring, if not by the Julian calendar than by the forest: the nettles are up. Out past the back fence, past the thickets of rose and ironwood and the fallen willow, past the cedars and the cairn that marks the grave of Loki the dog, there’s a stand of alder. In the summer it’s all nettles, so thick you have to whack and high-step your way through and still you’ll emerge with ankles tingling. But right now the nettles are just a few leaves tall and tender, pushing up from the moss in patches. We had one pair of gloves between us; I took the right and E the left. I was clumsy at it, despite using my dominant hand, and kept accidentally pulling up the little plants when I meant only to pinch off their top leaves. E, being a farmer and much practiced at harvest, was quick and tidy. And if his bag was twice mine when we walked back through the moss and alders, past the cairn under the cedars, by the fallen willow and the thickets of the rose and ironwood, and through the back gate, well, everything went into the same pot in the end.

Sophie
Owner | Baker

Non-standard sleds tested or observed in Squalicum Park, in order of speed, from hot damn to don't bother:
1) white water kayak
2) is that an inflatable hot dog in a bun?
3) waxed cardboard box, folded flat
4) aluminum sheet pans, but afterwards they may be irredeemably lumpy and all your cookies will be crooked forever
5) laundry basket

Enjoy the snow while it lasts!

Sophie
Owner | Baker

Nothing new this week, but here's an interview I did on business and capitalism that went up last week on the Institute for Washington's Future and a newsletter reprint from December, 2017.

How to love the sky in winter

Here is my hypothesis: it isn’t the gray that makes our winters feel oppressive, it’s our built environment. If you spend your days working in an office from dark to dark, or tucked away in your house, hiding from the rain, these short, wet days are grim indeed. And when the sky presses low, as the asphalt presses up, and the walls of brick and stone and wood close in from all sides, I too feel trapped. But that, I think, is the fault of the asphalt and walls, and not the sky.
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On wild winter days, when the wind blows hard and the rain comes down sideways and the damp cold slides deep into you and settles there to wait for spring, the city is a miserable place to be. But go out walking on the beach, along the dark strip of pebbles between seaweed and driftwood. Turn up your collar and lean into the wind till your eyes tear and your cheeks flush. Breath in the cold and brine. The sea is violent and alive, white caps racing for shore. The beach is strewn with treasures. Or trash. Bring a bag to collect the storm’s flotsam, whatever it may be.

And when the storm lifts, and the clouds race over you—altocumulus over cumulus, and the brief glimpse of the cirrus high above—those are the days for open spaces. The brown, stubbled fields of the Skagit Flats have their own, subtle beauty in winter, and above them, the sky is wide and bright, even on an overcast day.

But best of all are the low, gray days with their steady rain. In the city, the nimbostratus is a dull blanket, the rain inexhaustible and exhausting. But go out walking in the woods. Find old woods, if you can, with Douglas firs and red cedars wider than your outstretched arms, and an open understory. Layer up with wool and leave your rain coat behind. It’s hardly raining under the trees, more a dripping mist, and the plastic is loud. Without it, you can hear the forest: rain hitting the leaves of sword ferns, the wind breathing through the trees, and off and above, a raven chuckling. The low clouds catch on the hills and treetops, pooling and whisping away. If you stand still, in just the right place, you might even have a moment alone with the forest, no freeway rumble or flyover, no stereo boom or human voices, just the wind and rain moving over the landscape, and the quiet sound of your own breathing.

I heard crows mobbing and looked up for the threat. No raptor circling, but a liquid chuckle from the tall fir across the street. Ever since there are ravens everywhere. That black bird there, probing the lawn, perched on a low, swooping branch, strutting the roof gable, calling from the woods, flying a wedge-tail silhouette against the cold, blue sky. They must have been here all along but I only saw what I already knew: garrulous urban crows, and the occasional raven in the hills and forests out past the city’s edge.

Sophie
Owner | Baker

Orders are open for the LAST MARKET, Dec 19. We'll be closed for a month afterwards so stock up!

Red Wheat
Elwha River Spelt
Mountain Rye, cut or whole
Seedy Buckwheat, cut or whole
Vollkornbrot, cut or whole
Gingerbread & Pain d'Epices
Cookies & Shortbread

MENU for WEDNESDAY, DEC 9
Order by Sunday night for pickup the following Wednesday.
Pickups in Birchwood, Columbia, Lettered Streets, Happy Valley/Fairhaven

Red Wheat ($7.50)
Mountain Rye ($7.50)
Wild & Seedy "Toast" ($8)
Cookies: Chocolate Chip Hazelnut, Bittersweet Chocolate, or Gingersnap ($15 / 6)

Does it matter if we ride the bus, build a free library, buy goods from our neighbors instead of corporations, plant trees? Does it matter if we learn, protest, organize, vote, make art, donate our time and money? Does it matter if we shout our rage and grief for imperfect world we have and the imperfect world we’re making? No. You and I are two of eight billion. Yes. Individual action matters when it helps bend society towards change. Thank you for being good neighbors. Thank you for standing up, speaking out, and reaching for change. Thank you for living out loud and joyfully.

It’s a beautiful morning at the beginning of a beautiful day and I’m going to spend it out with friends in the hills and fields and quiet.

Enjoy the day and the market. It’s Hannah’s birthday, so be sure to wish her happy when you stop by the stand!

Sophie
Owner | Baker

P.S. As often happens when I’m filled with big emotions, I’ve been thinking these past anxious days about poetry. Here, if you’d like them, are two that read for me like a deep breath: an old favorite from William Stafford and a new favorite from Ada Limón.

TODAY AT MARKET and NEXT WEEK FOR MARKET PREORDER
10am – 2pm, 1100 Railroad Ave

With the changing season and new flour and I've been struggling to keep my fermentation on schedule. There are a lot of loaves with holes in them today, and even more loaves that might have holes (I had to stop cutting them in half to find out before I cut them all). Both--holed and possibly holed or whole loaves--are $6.50.

BREAD:
Red Wheat ($7.50 / 720g)
Elwha River Spelt ($8 / 750g)
Mountain Rye ($7.50 / 750g)
Vollkornbrot ($8 / 750g)
Seedy Buckwheat ($8 / 420g)
Bread 2nds ($6.50)

SWEETS:
Gingerbread Cake ($6-$16)
Gingersnap Cookies ($5 / 2)
Chocolate Chip Hazelnut Cookies ($5 / 2)
Bittersweet Chocolate Cookies ($5 / 2)
Brown Butter Shortbread ($9 / half dz)

FALL BREAD SUBSCRIPTION / WEEKLY PREORDERS
Order for the coming Wednesday or sign up for all the remaining Wednesdays through Dec 16.
Pickups in Birchwood, Columbia, Lettered Streets, Happy Valley/Fairhaven

RED WHEAT Subscription - whole wheat table bread
MOUNTAIN RYE Subscription - seedy rye & wheat
TOAST Subscription - a new tinned loaf every week
Nov 11 - Toasted Sesame
Nov 18 - Oat & Honey
Nov 25 - Rosemary Cornmeal
Dec - TBD