Islandwood on

Sundew.

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0000

sundew from a bog

We went on a nature walk through IslandWood today with an amazing naturalist. Probably the coolest thing we saw was a Drosera species, commonly known as sundews – the green swirls with the red tentacles in the photo. What makes them cool is two-fold, they grow only in bogs and they are carnivorous!

Mochi, mallets, yum.

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

When the storms hit after Christmas the Mochi Tsuki Festival at Islandwood, courtesy the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Community, was one of the casualties – fortunately it was just postponed.

We’ve never been to the long-time Island affair and we were excited, the gorgeous blue skies, perfect temperatures and outdoor venue at Islandwood certainly helped!

rice cooking over an open fire

I, for one, was unclear on the mochi making process. Like so many great foods it starts over an open fire – the firebox on the bottom, hot water in the tubs and the rice steaming in boxes over the boiling water.

Birds, flowers and ants.

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Birds

We accepted IslandWood’s invitation today for a bird walk, our first foray into proper birding with a guide, binoculars, book and camera. Actually arriving on-time for the 8 am start was accomplishment enough; had we not seen a bird at least the get-everyone-ready time trial resulted in victory.

Since it was pretty overcast and the Saturday walk saw few birds Mark, our guide, would instead focus on calls. As we walked through the woods he would call name after name of birds, which pretty quickly became a mess in my head. I could either remember the name of the bird or the call, but not both.