It’s been longer than I thought since I posted. No OLS meal this week, at least not formally. We just didn’t have our act together after getting home. We ate a lot of local food, just never as a complete dinner. Our local efforts this week included chicken salad sandwiches one night (everything within 50 miles except condiments), a couple of big dinner salads, Cincinnati chili made with 3 Sisters Beef, a breakfast scramble and our contribution to Saturday’s dinner (more details below) of cucumber / onion pickle salad and our ribeye steaks from 3 sisters (yum!). We’ll do better this week, I promise.

This weekend we headed up to some friends’ cabin on Whidbey Island for their annual party. They invite a whole huge lot of people to come up and spend the day and the night enjoying the water, the view and a keg of local beer (Diamond Knot). We were lucky enough to snag an invite (or rather invited ourselves - thanks Mia!) to head up Friday night after work - so arrived about 10 pm.

We spent the weekend mountain biking, hiking, paddling, bocce’ing, socializing, enjoying the view and drinking beer. Saturday night was potluck with everyone bringing something to throw on the grill and a side dish to share. There was a lot of great food! Today was for relaxing.

The weather was amazing - blue skies, warm sun and calm water. It was great to see everyone - including many friends that we don’t see nearly often enough. I even found out that friends of ours in Oregon (they drove up) have chickens too! What are the odds of that? Well, actually pretty good here in the PNW.

I promise to get back to writing about local food and chickens this week, but in the meantime, here are a couple of photos illustration how wonderful the weekend was and the absolutely different point of view you get from the water gliding along in a sea kayak.

 
Can you see the bubble? Adults and kids alike had a great time making them, popping them and watching the ones that made it.

 
Ever wondered where Penn Cove mussels and oysters come from? Well, this is it. I paddled with a friend over to check them out. I saw about 8 seals in the water, some quite close. Definitely called for a pause to watch, enjoy and wonder.

 
This seal wasn’t so quick to jump off the mussel raft when I approached. At first I wasn’t sure why, but then I heard the slurping sound of a nursing baby and spotted the little face peaking out. You can see it too if you look closely enough. Mamma and pup were only about 30 feet from me. I stayed and watched for about 5 minutes. A great way to end my afternoon!