Forest Wildflower Walk

I went walking today in search of wildflowers and found them. I'm not really sure what some of these are, but here are my guesses, some substantiated. 1) daisy fleabane 2) spring beauty 3) wood sorrel and may lilies 4) hooker's fairybell 5) trillium 6) pacific bleeding heart 7) mixed mints 8) lawn daisy 9) gigantic skunk cabbage 10) tiny mushroom 11) fiddleheads 12) spotted slug; the tip of my shoe is shown for context of size.

Rose

Classic American Fare

After recovering from a two-day bout with my worse-than-usual monthly infirmity, jc and I headed out for that greatest of American fast food, local Chinese.

Oolong tea

Hot and Sour Soup

I ordered Kung Pao chicken.
(with Crab puffs- my favorite)
I didn't like it and traded it for...

Broccoli Chicken
All for only $9.90

My fortune cookie advised me to make use of my active imagination.


Rose

The Tunnel- movie review

link

Triumph of the Human Spirit is the overwhelming message of this movie. I wept and bit my fingernails and sat breathless on the edge of my seat as the powerful true story played out. It is the story of East Germans who escape to West Berlin and dig a tunnel to get friends and family out. There is escape and capture, loyalty and betrayal, birth and violent death, lowest tragedy and highest heroism, selfishness and sacrifice. In a time when current events have made us all but forget the Cold War and the Iron Curtain, it is a poignant reminder of those times. jc points out that it isn't very entertaining, but I contend that it more than makes up for it in other virtues.

rc

Spring Sights

An early evening walk in the golden light before sunset
Giant horsetail- an invasive species

May lilies

A fruit will grow here later

An unknown lichen

The changing sky make silhouttes of trees

The sun glimmers from behind the clouds as it dips toward the horizon

Rose

Breaking News

Older brother Big M's wife (we'll call her Little M) is going to have a boy in November. Welcome to the family, Baby M.

(addendum: this will be my fifth auntdom. Mr. Clean has three boys and Robin has a girl.)

Meantime, here's my baby again.




rc

Guilty as Charged

I had my hearing in traffic court today. The officer showed up in a Hawaiian shirt. He read the date of the infraction wrong, but when I pointed it out, he denied his mistake. Despite my excellent moving-radar-doesn't-work/roads-weren't-icy-at-all defense, delivered through my sweaty, shaky, palpitational anxiety; the judge agreed with the cop.

The good news is, he offered me online traffic school to keep the citation off my record. So the ticket is paid, I'll do the driving school, and it will all be over. As a native pointed out to me, don't expect to get a ticket overturned in a poor town like this. Cops are just fundraisers.

Now I'm ready to have a drink and watch DVD's all night.

Rose

I'd Rather be Fishing

We're back in town, and here's some local color.

The fishing fleet should be going out soon.

Crab pots stored in stacks.

Glacous-Winged Gull
One of many local gull species.

Looking up the river, the piling is a channel marker.

Looking out the mouth of the river to the Pacific Ocean.

"The Bar"

Rose

Kitties Make a House a Home

Ailleanach is my nearly constant companion. She has gotten friendlier lately, cuddling up with me in bed or on the sofa.

r.

Leftover Images from the Trip

Pintail- flocks of these were everywhere

Got the car stuck in soft sand at the roadside in the middle of nowhere. Here are the ruts from spinning my back wheels. Below is the desolate roadside scene.

Lake Abert and Abert Rim

a fault scarp mountain and companion lake

jc requests a city destination for our next vacation. We're thinking of San Francisco.

Rose

Lava Beds National Monument

Approaching the lava beds from the high desert, with snow-covered peaks in the distance.

lava tube caves

"aa" rocks from cooled lava flow

miles of aa from a distance

petroglyphs

(right) petroglyph cliffs

(left) fault-block mountain

Rose

Sage Grouse Lek and "Not a Parking Lot"

I woke in the chilly predawn to temperatures in the twenties. To see the Sage Grouse display, it is best to arrive at the lek before sunrise. As the rosy rays of the sun kissed the sagebrush, I was still miles from the lek.

I turned off onto the rutted and dimpled gravel road. The directions said to travel 8.4 miles. At ten miles an hour, the grouse would be done displaying by the time I arrived. A small herd of Pronghorn Antelope bounded off when they heard the car.

After traveling nine miles and seeing no signs of the Grouse, I turned back. It was then that I spotted the white ruffs of the males catching the light. I had found the lek.

I was treated to an hour-long display of the males puffing out their chests and fanning their tails in competition for the females.

Then I headed down the road to chase other birds.

This pair of Sandhill Cranes let me snap a picture before flying away.

A Rough-legged Hawk strikes a characteristic pose.

In the afternoon, I woke up jc and we went for a ride. As we sat on a small country road watching American Avocets and Black-Legged Stilts in a soggy field, a local in a pickup truck and dirty baseball cap pulled up alongside. "You f---ing hippies!" he yelled. "This isn't a parking lot!" We waved and smiled and he continued on his way.

Later we have plans to sample the local Thai fare.

Rose

Malheur National Wildlife Refuge Birding

Snow Geese

Say's Phoebe Northern Shoveler
Mud Lake
Long-billed Curlew
High Desert Museum
Franklin's Gull

Bovine Family