Canning Fall Fruit

Nectarine Italian plum skillet jam from Food in Jars

Apple sauce with rhubarb preserves

Ryan's fresh bread

I've been going great guns on the fruit canning - jams, preserves, apple sauces. Even after five years of living in the Lower 48, I'm still overwhelmed by the variety and condition of delicious fruit that can be cheaply purchased here. I miss out on so much of it when I'm in the field in Alaska that I'm buying it now like there is no tomorrow.

I've been experimenting with different apple sauces (with apples from our tree) this year. I made apple/pear sauce and then apple/pear/raspberry sauce. This weekend, three of my friends came over to help me chop the remaining 10 lbs of apples (thank you Amy, Hana, and Will!) which made the whole process go SO much faster! We used most of the apples to make regular apple sauce with a little cinnamon and the rest were flavored with rhubarb.

In addition to the apple tree, we have an Italian plum tree. It produced tons of fruit the first year we lived in the house and then none last year. I was thrilled that it had plums this summer. I read a recipe for Italian plum jam with star anise and (having no idea what star anise was) was excited to try it. Of course I found star anise for next to nothing in Malaysia, so I bought two packages of it. When I got back from Malaysia the tree was loaded, but they weren't falling off yet so I figured I had a couple of days to get my life (and sleep cycle) together before I had to deal with them.

Ryan and I finally went out to pick the plums and apples and all of the plums were GONE except for one, which was totally out of reach. I was devastated. I think they were destroyed by the crows. There weren't even any laying on the ground around the tree. There were only tiny little shreds of skin. Ryan tried to comfort me by saying we could buy some at the farmer's market. Which we did, but it's not the same. I'm mostly mad at myself for not picking them as soon as I got home, but how could I have known the crows would devour them? That did not happen the first year we lived here; they fell onto the ground and even though a few were picked at by birds, most were still good. In any case, we did buy plums at the market and I did make the star anise jam and it was delicious. But I'm still sad we lost a tree full of our very own (free) plums.

Fall Colors in the Mountains - Lake Ingalls

Our first view of Mt. Stuart

Frank, Jennie, and I at Lake Ingalls

Jennie and Frank and Mt. Stuart

Jennie and Mt. Stuart

Larch in fall colors

We had a big snow year last winter (La Nina) and now that the snow has finally melted enough to hike high up in the mountains, it's almost winter again! I made it out for one last (and first?) hike this season to Lake Ingalls on the East side of the Cascades near Cle Elum. Unbeknownst to us, this hike was recently featured in Sunset Magazine as one of the best fall hikes near Seattle. Needless to say, the trail was full of hikers trying to enjoy the last days of summer. And now I know why; this is an amazing hike. If you have the chance to head up to Lake Ingalls, DO IT. It's a long hike, and there is quite a bit of elevation gain, but it's never terribly steep. There are a few rocky sections that require a bit of scrambling though.

The views of Mt. Stuart were stunning. The larch in fall colors were beautiful. The temperature was perfect - chilly enough not to get too hot, but not cold. If I had known there would be such a great camping spot at the top, I would have brought my tent and sleeping bag. We could not have asked for a more perfect day for a hike. In the words of Jennie, "For all the people who complain about the weather in the Pacific Northwest, I would just like to point out that this is October!"

Kodiak Dawn

I took these photos early one morning this summer on my way to the airport in Kodiak to meet Ryan. There are some beautiful sunrises in Kodiak, but I rarely see them in the summer because they happen so early. As I ran out of the door that morning, I glanced at my camera, considered taking it, but then thought "I'm just driving (30 miles) to the airport and back, why would I need to take any photos?" I regretted that decision as soon as I came out into the flat stretch in Middle Bay and saw this view. As I rounded the corner near Salt Creek, I remembered I had Patrick's camera! I'd taken it home for the weekend to post some of the photos on my blog while he was out deer hunting. I backed up and snapped these photos (which made me late to pick up Ryan - for which he was very understanding!) It turned out to be awesome that I had Patrick's camera because it is a very nice SLR camera - way better than the point and shoot I had. I thought they were worthy of sharing, but had forgotten them on a CD in Kodiak until my mom sent them last week (thanks Mom!).

Fifteen Pounds of Apples

Our apple tree had another great year. It's still exciting to me to have a fruit tree. We ignore it all year long, do absolutely nothing, and it produces 15 lbs of fruit! In some years anyway. We picked the apples when we got back last week. This year's crop was not only bigger than last year's, but only ONE of the apples had worms! Last year about half of them did. Pretty impressive since we don't spray the tree or anything. Check out our blog post from last year to see how much more impressive the apples were this year.

So far we've made apple/pear sauce and apple/pear/raspberry sauce with more to come this weekend. The Vitamix (on loan from Ann Marie while she's in Malaysia) has been an awesome tool for pureeing canned goods - no need to peal the apples or pears! I could get used to that...

Taman Negara National Park

Boat ride to Kuala Tahan

Ann Marie on the canopy walkway

Ryan and I on the walkway

Looking down, 45 meters above the ground

Blow gun demonstration

Aiming at the teddy bear

Quivers full of darts for the toy blowguns

It's finally time to sit down and blog about the final part of our trip. Things have been a little crazy since we got home - adjusting to the time difference, going back to school and work, starting to train for the Dawg Dash 5K at the end of the month, buying all sorts of cheap/in season produce and madly canning or freezing it, and being sick from the anti-malarial medication I have to take for a month after leaving the jungle - oh joy! And then there's the fact that Ryan left for a job in St. Louis on Saturday night with a full three hours notice. Never a dull moment!

If there is one place I could pick to go back to in Malaysia, it would definitely be Taman Negara National Park. We really only had one full day there, but I am glad we went. Just getting there was an adventure. After a death-defying minibus ride from KL to Kuala Tembeling, we boarded a long dug-out riverboat (with sideboards just for the comfort of the tourists) and headed upstream for three hours to Kuala Tahan, a small town full of guest-houses and hotels that serves as the jumping-off point for Taman Negara. We got there too late in the day to head into the park (across the river) but we signed up for a "night safari" which consisted of driving around palm oil plantations in the back of a pickup truck (with a padded seat) looking for wildlife with a spotlight. We did see an amazingly beautiful little jungle cat, a snake, a flying squirrel (very cool, even if far away), and lots of birds. But it was really about the experience. =)

The main tourist attraction IN the National Park is the canopy walkway - 400 meters of hanging walkways 30-45 meters above the forest floor. We had read that it fills up with tour groups by 10am, so we headed out early and were there when it opened at 9. We had the entire thing to ourselves (well, besides the park employee who hurried past us with a hammer to nail in some boards before we got to them - don't worry, he said it was fine, lol) - lucky because only four people are allowed on each span of walkway at a time, and everyone has to stay at least 5 m apart. As you can imagine, that means very limited stopping to look around and take photos when there are hoards of tourists waiting for their turn.

Walking through the forest canopy was very cool. And a lot scarier than I imagined it to be. I like to think I'm not scared of heights, but I have to admit, I hung on to the (rope) railings for dear life. Forty-five meters is a long ways up.

We hiked up to a (not very high) vantage point after the walkway. Hiking in 90 degree weather with 90% humidity is not my forte. I don't know if I've ever been that sweaty. It didn't help that I took the leech warnings very seriously and was wearing wool socks, shoes, pants, and a long shirt. I'm glad I did though because Ryan got a leech on his sock, luckily he caught it before it got through to his foot! Thank goodness our hotel had a pool to cool off in when we got back!

In the afternoon we went on a guided trip to an Orang Asli village (a group of hunter-gatherers). I'd read about these tours in the guidebook and had seen the advertisements at the tour offices. As an anthropologists, I was VERY intrigued by the opportunity to visit real, live hunter-gatherers. But I also didn't know what the tour would be like. Would it be good ecotourism or the kind where native people were rounded up, dressed in clothes that look authentic and thrown into posed photos with tourists? It was hard to tell. My curiosity got the better of me though. There are few people in the world today who still live as hunter-gatherers and I may not have the opportunity again to visit one such group.

I am really glad we went. While the guidebook said that a little of the money from the tours goes to the Orang Asli, most of the it goes to the tour group. I did like our guide though. He seemed well-educated, respectful, and he seemed to actually be friends with people in the village. We watched an Orang Asli man start a fire (see video) and then he taught us how to shoot a dart out of a blow gun. Blow guns are used to hunt animals that live in trees. Poison is used on the darts. However, the poison usually isn't strong enough to kill an animal. The hunters have to follow the wounded animals until they fall out of the trees and this can take hours. Everyone in our tour group got to try shooting a dart out of the blow gun at a teddy bear target. I am quite proud to say that I am the only one who hit the teddy bear (beginners luck of course). I didn't try again - I'd like to leave it at one perfect shot.

This group of Orang Asli have been living at this village location for about six months. At some point, they will decide to move on. They might come back to the same location eventually, they might not. Sometimes they live inside the national park, sometimes (like now) they live just outside. Right now they are close enough to Kuala Tahan that they can go in to the market to sell products from the jungle (primarily honey) and buy clothes and other goods. But they don't always live so close. Visiting the village was definitely a cool experience. These Orang Asli are open and welcoming to tourists, they even invite people to stay with them for days on end - something we would have done if we'd had more time.

There are between 500 and 600 Orang Asli living in and around Taman Negara all together. Some groups are more isolated than this one and live deep within the park. Others live closer to towns and have more permanent houses and their children go to school. This group seemed to be somewhere in between. Our guide told us they are interested in "learning things" from people who come visit their village, but they're not interested in moving into a permanent town and sending their kids to school. They all speak Malay (in addition to their own language) and the chief even speaks some English. This groups still subsists almost entirely as hunter-gatherers though. It appeared that rice was the only food product they bought at the markets in town.

If you're an anthropologist, you can probably guess that our guide HEAVILY emphasized their hunting techniques, weapons, the animals they hunt, the time of day, etc. without mentioning plant foods at all. So after the whole spiel, I asked what sorts of plants they eat. He listed a bunch of plants they gather, including some sort of wild yam (I think). He then added that the yams make up the majority of their diet (I KNEW IT!!). This is amusing to me, because Anthropologists now recognize that generally, gathered plant foods (collected by WOMEN) make up the majority of most hunter-gatherer diets. Not meat. However, hunting is more sexy. Would you rather shoot a blow gun or dig up a yam? Yep, that's why.

I also got a bit of nerdy amusement out of finding out that this group of Orang Asli cultivates tapioca (which involves planting a tree, pulling it up 7 months later and using the roots). This was funny to me because the national park claims that there has never been ANY cultivation in the park. You know, it's natural. Pristine. That's what people want to hear. And it's an easy way to pretend that indigenous people didn't have any noticeable impact on the landscape. But you can bet that if they cultivate tapioca on one side of the river, they do it on the other side too.

Okay, phew. That's the longest blog post I've ever written but I wanted to get that done because Taman Negara was so dang cool. Back to real life. If you can call you're sixth year of grad school real life.

More highlights from Malaysia - Melaka

Chinatown

The riverfront in Melaka

A replica of Dutch ship which houses a maritime museum

Ryan and I in front of the ruins of a 17th century Portuguese church

There are so many things still to catch up on from our trip to Malaysia! After Langkawi, we spent a couple of days in Melaka, south of KL where we explored the city and did some shopping. Melaka has been an important trading port throughout the history of Malaysia, even before Europeans arrived. The maritime museum was particularly interesting, especially because it was inside a replica of a Dutch ship that sank of the coast of Malaysia in the 17th century. We learned more about the spice trade and about the history of European settlement in Peninsular Malaysia. I read plenty about that at the National Museum too, but only remembered a fraction. Maybe now that I've read about it twice, I'll remember more!

We stayed in a guesthouse in Chinatown - a cool old part of the city. I'm glad we stayed there; it was definitely the happening place to be. It was close to good hawker stalls (street food), restaurants, gift shops, and the riverfront. After Melaka we headed to Taman Negara National Park - more about that tomorrow...

Oil Platforms in the Gulf of Thailand

Multiple processing platforms with attached well head and two attached living quarters

Supplies being unloaded from a crew boat at the living quarters

I was amazed by just how massive these structures are

Sunset with four well head platforms on the horizon

The living quarter platforms are very well lit at night, whereas some of the unmanned well heads have almost no lights at all.

The flare towers always make for dramatic photos (the flare towers are for burning off excess gas).

One of the most amazing things I experienced while working in the Gulf of Thailand was visiting the oil platforms.  I learned that there are actually many different types of platforms.  Most are unmanned "well heads" where oil or gas is extracted. There are literately hundreds of these in the Gulf.  From these platforms the petroleum is piped along the sea floor to a "Central Processing Platform".  Attached to the processing platform by a walkway are the living quarters (LQ).  The LQ are their own little world where people work, sleep, eat and attemt to live normal lives.  There are offices, picnic tables, and even a small soccer field underneath the helicopter landing pad.

To get from our boat to the platform required a ride on a basket.  I found riding on the basket fun, but was surprised by this method of transport given the overwhelming focus on safety by the oil company.  The only thing that keeps you from falling off the basket is your own arms wrapped tightly around the ropes, no safety harness, no redundancy.  So I couldn't help but laugh when I was riding on the basket and thinking about how I was told earlier in the day that I needed to ware safety glasses while scooping mud with a spoon.

The amount of infrastructure in the Gulf was impressive. It was not unusual to see a dozen or more platforms on the horizon.  It made me think a lot about our dependency on oil and what we will do when it is all gone.  I'm not just talking about America, all around the world we are consuming more and more oil and its important to keep in mind that it won't last forever.  It might not be our problem in this lifetime but its never too early to start thinking about alternatives.  Maybe all those platforms can be fitted with wind and water turbines and solar arrays to produce alternative energy rather than extracting fossil fuels.  But then how will you get there to service the platforms?  Our ship took on over 20,000 gallons of diesel fuel at the start of the survey!

Working offshore in Thailand

Holding a core tube of mud - being required to wear coveralls, a hard hat and PFD all the time didn't help me deal with the heat.

The Miclyn Energy from an oil drilling platform. Transferring between the boat and platforms was interesting as they use a crane and a basket.

Living quarters attached to a processing platform.  On top is the helicopter pad and backed up to the platform in a crew boat.

Everyone on the aft-deck gets very wet when you back into 10 ft seas.  Most of the time the seas were only 2-4 feet.

Prior to our vacation in Malaysia I spent four weeks working in Thailand. For three weeks I was offshore in the Gulf of Thailand aboard the 61 meter Miclyn Energy. The vessel was on charter to perform environmental sampling and I was there to operate our Vibrocorer and assist with other operations. I worked closely with three other Tetra Tech employes and also with a group Thai people familiar with other sampling methods. This was my first experience working abroad and it couldn't have been better.

The boat was only 5 years old and was well equipped, both mechanically and in terms of living space. There were about 30 people on board, about 12 science personnel and the rest were part of the boat crew including a catering crew of 4. Everyone was very friendly although language barriers prevented me from conversing with most of the crew.

The weather in the Gulf of Thailand is extremely hot, especially for someone from Alaska.  I can't really say I got use to it. I'm not sure I ever would.

More Langkawi Photos

The Langkawi Cable Car

The sky walkway

Ann Marie and her roommate Tomoko on the walkway

Rich and Ryan on the cable car

Cooling off in a waterfall pool

Rubber trees

Sunset in on the Pantai Cenang Beach

I thought I'd share more photos from Langkawi since we had an exceptionally awesome time there. One of the many highlights was riding the cable car and walking on the sky walkway among the mountain tops. On the first day we tried to ride the cable car, there were so many people up there that they closed the ticket line for a couple of hours. We vowed to be there first thing in the morning the next day to beat the lines. After being slowed down by a flat tire, we still got there early enough to avoid most of the crowds. What a view!

We loved Langkawi and I would recommend it to anyone who's going to be in the this part of Southeast Asia. The beaches were beautiful, the ocean was calm and warm, the waterfall pools were great for swimming, and there was a variety of cheap accommodation and yummy food.

Home!

Ryan, Ann Marie, and myself on our way to Taman Negara National Park

I made it - after 41 hours of almost non-stop travel-if my cross-time-zone math is not mistaken. It's hard to believe that the day before yesterday I was in the jungle in the middle of Malaysia and this morning I woke up in my own bed in Seattle. Air travel is amazing.

My return trip started Saturday morning in Kuala Tahan (right outside Taman Negara National Park) in central Malaysia where we took a 2 hour river boat ride to Kuala Tembeling and transferred to a bus (3 hours) back to KL. I had a few hours to unpack, organize, and repack, eat dinner, and buy a few last souvenirs before I took the light rail to the airport to catch my 2am flight to Shanghai (5 hours). Amazingly I had a whole row to myself, even though the plane looked pretty full otherwise, so I was able to sleep most of the way. In Shanghai I had six hours which went fairly quickly with two hour-long naps...until my flight was delayed two hours. The 10 hour flight didn't seem so bad compared to the 12 hours on the way there! Except for the last 35 minutes...it was so turbulent that many people had their barf bags out (including me!) and I saw two little kids throw up in front of me. I was SURE I was going to loose my breakfast before that plane landed and it is a miracle I didn't. I felt green for hours after we landed. I couldn't bring myself to eat lunch even though I was hungry so I stopped for a smoothy on the way home.

After arriving in Vancouver, BC at 10:30am, I waited in the longest line for immigration I've ever experienced. I was reminded that Canadians are really nice though! It was a good hour and a half before I got my bag and made it to my car in long-term parking. At the border there was a bit of a wait too. I pulled into my driveway at 3pm and went straight to bed for two hours. After grocery shopping and taking care of a few things around the house, I went back to bed at 8pm SURE that I was exhausted enough to sleep for a good 12 hours. But I underestimated the effect of crossing nine time zones (I think). I've been up since 2:45 this morning. I stayed in bed, convinced I would fall back asleep but hunger finally drove me to the kitchen at 4. After trying again to go back to sleep, I finally got up and started a canning project at 6:30. And now, at 8:30, I'm headed to the airport to pick up Ryan!

Southeast Asia is a long ways away, but I would go again in a heartbeat.