Musings

If you have sharp eyes, you can look through the muddle and see a small flock* of crows taking off from the creek where I was too slow to catch a shot of them bathing. I saw what seemed to me to be lots of crows during my mid-day outing. They were all busy, not standing, strutting, or contemplating the universe (loosely speaking), as the ones I saw yesterday were. Most seemed to be after food morsels today. The activity of this bunch was easy to identify—they were sluicing themselves in the creek.

As I tromped around upstream, “behind” the tracks in the first shot, I saw several bushes with these elegant and striking berries. Snowberries, I think.

Later on, I was back in the hood and away from the sound/sea/salty smell. This garage is displaying the occupant’s ride choices. If s/he opts for four wheels, s/he can go new or old. What a gleaming, bug-eyed vehicle!

* Yeah, I know the technical term is murder. Seems…strong…and negative….

Posted at 6:30 PM | Comments Off on Overcast, and still beauteous

Lovely day. The mountains were out in all their glory. At sea level, we found the Edmonds ferry leaving the dock from our viewpoint in the marina downtown. Love the fish art.

From another side of this lake we saw the Big Mountain, the R-one. In this cove we found an abandoned pier of pier-stubs, each with a resident cormorant. Elsewhere in this bay, we found a group of coots (what is the proper collective noun?), feeding I think (on cooties???haha), and at least two loons (love loons). Plus surf scoters and mallards.

Posted at 9:09 PM | Comments Off on Good bird count

Here are assorted photos from our Piedmont Park and BotGarden wander today. Lake Clara Meer is in flood; our favorite water’s-edge stroll is under about 15 cm of lake.

These 2016 daffodils are here a year early. Those are brilliant red camellias in the background, but this is their regular time to bloom, or only a bit early.

I love this aggressive moss garden on the shake roof at the Japanese garden.

In one of the “hot houses,” I arrived just after the foggers shut off. Ethereal.

I was a bit surprised to find the honey bees are also around, not just the untimely early flowers.

Posted at 6:52 PM | Comments Off on Photo day

My, was it ever raining hard. We had lake-puddles in the yard. Until the rain faded and the puddles drained away.

And when there was a break in the precip, I headed out to get some active minutes and fresh air. Maybe in the opposite order.

Poaching in the neighbors’ koi pond, I found a great blue heron. Who decided that I was too close, or perhaps too threatening. And took off. Whatta wingspan!

Great extended family XmasEve event this evening…over in Cabbagetown. Such fun with leeeeetle kids around….

Posted at 9:38 PM | Comments Off on Adventure close to home

How appropriate is it that a bumblebee’s deathbed is a flower?

Posted at 5:36 PM | Comments Off on Philosophical query

Bug that’s not currently emitting to any standard.

Today’s biggest excitement was that I was sipping my first cuppa and I heard a strange scrabbly noise off in the corner. Not a good (meaning: appropriate) noise for indoors. Looked toward the noise, and watched a sparrow pop out of my “bag for the UP.” Wha????

It flew up and tried to go through the glass in the door, which didn’t work. So I went over as unthreateningly as possible and opened the inside door and propped open the outside door, leaving and open avenue to the out-of-doors.

We had a smart sparrow. It exited within about ten seconds. Whew!

Then the Guru came in and said “have you had the door open this morning?” What kinda question is that? I was making coffee, was all I could think.

Turned out he’d opened the front door, stepped out on the stoop, and did whatever one does in the morning light in such a situation. And did not see the sparrow enter, as that is when it must have come in just moments before I heard it.

As to items on today’s possibly exciting list, I also got a haircut, although I swear this is not my hair color. Apparently it looks like that when wet. At the salon. In any case, that swatch is not attached to my head anymore.

Posted at 8:55 PM | 3 Comments »

Ginger blossom.

Learned new vocabulary today: fipple and aerophone. Fortunately for me, they’re related.

Only one branch is predicting autumn’s arrival.

In other news, I found hints of fall in a neighborhood tree…

…and saw the critter that the exterminator removed from a neighbor’s house.

Posted at 8:15 PM | Comments Off on Slow news day

The adult entertainment tonight was the lantern parade…great skellies! We watched from above for an hour as the parade slowly passed by…then descended to parade level for the last 15 minutes or so of parading. That’s a long parade!

Okay, well, the Beltline stretches it out…at best three paraders could walk abreast…meant the bands were stretched out, too.

Meanwhile, the favorite kitty entertainment, after eating and begging for food, is a catch-the-digital-mousie iPad game.

Posted at 11:54 PM | Comments Off on Spellbound

Time to cool off; thank you, lake. And look at that moon, that dot high in the afternoon’s center-sky.

On the beach, the flotsam and jetsam included this little gem, the nacreous home of an absent, soft-bodied creature.

Posted at 8:21 PM | Comments Off on Hot, sticky—time for a dip

Heat wave, without a doubt. And it’s SEPT! Howze this happen? No blankets needed…so little cooling at night. Sigh.

However, a bit of ground-fog in the morning highlights the overnight activity of this kind of spider.

Posted at 7:29 PM | Comments Off on Watch yer feet