Spring has....um....sprung?

May has been unseasonably cool for us this year but a few days ago, the weather was very spring-like.  The flowers were blooming....

...the goldfinches were feasting by the dozens.....

And then, after a day of Mary-Poppins-turn-the-umbrella-inside-out-and-the-patio-table-over winds, this rolls in.....

The rain made the flowers less than bright but were determined to be cheerful anyway.

We had driving rain like this off an on all day yesterday.  You can see the haze of rain splashing off the table.  The little iris buds are thankfully protected through the onslaught. 

Sunset.  But it didn't bring "sailor's delight" as the red sky promised.  Today was another day of torrential downpours interspersed with spells of....not dryness, really....more like....not raining.

It got up to 49 degrees today and the forecast for tonight is snow as low as 2,000ft.  I suppose if we lived in Prince Albert, Canada, this would be normal.  But we live in western Oregon and it's not normal.  Global warming?  I shake my head as I toss another log into the wood stove.

End Of The Year Fun

Mike wanted to take the whole family went up into the mountains to play in the snow this winter. It's been seven or eight years since we've done that. He had the last two weeks of the year off so the boys put their heads and work schedules together and we went up on 30 December. There had been a good snowfall the evening and night before so the snow was fresh, dry, untraveled, and about eighteen inches deep. We stopped at about 3400ft elevation at, literally, a wide spot in the road where it forked. We had come to a stop trying to read the snow-dusted sign and couldn't get going again without putting the chains on.

Well, we did go, just not the direction we wanted. Every time Mike gave it a little gas, we slid sideways a little closer to the edge of the road. Cameron was on that side of the pickup and kept saying, "Dad, should we put the chains on?" with a little more agitation each time as he saw the edge coming closer and closer. Mike is very competent driving in the snow and knew exactly what he was doing but I think he was trying to get a bit of a rise out of us, too.

He put the chains on, got himself out of the hole and decided this was as good a place as any to stop. Out came the snowshoes, skis, sleds, snowboard, table, chairs, pop-up shade, propane stove, lunch, and drinks. Mike drove up and down a good stretch of road to make a decent ski/sled run.

Richelle crouched behind Nick's truck, putting on the snowshoes the boys made when they were in Boy Scouts.

Modeling the snowshoes. I didn't get a picture of her hurrying to catch up with Nick and doing a face-plant.

Serena, Cameron, Jenn, and Richelle molding the first two layers of the snow-....um....something.

Mike getting involved in shaping the head. Nick is on the right.

The final product. I think they decided it was a dinosaur of some sort. Later, they added sticks for arms and short pieces of cedar branches for antlers. The decorations are broccoli and carrots from lunch.

Mike took a few turns on the sled and even went one more time so I could get a picture of him. Here, he's waiting for Richelle and Cameron to finish their run.

The "wide spot" in the road. The main road comes up from the left, I'm standing on the road to Hemlock Lake, and the road over the ridge to Highway 138 is to the right.

Cameron and Serena. For some unknown reason, I didn't get one of Nick and Jenn.

Short, steep, and oh! so scary. Richelle screamed every time she slid down. As everyone knows, the more you slide on a spot the faster it gets. By the time we left, Richelle was flying down the cut bank and the dip from the snow-filled ditch launched her into the middle of the road.

This is what a Pacific Northwest logging road looks like in winter at 4,000 ft elevation. This really is a road! The snow was about two and a half feet deep with spots where it was maybe three feet deep. (I just asked Mike and that's what he told me.) Deep enough that we were plowing it with our bumper and grill and throwing snow up over the hood, windshield, and pick-up. Jenn said they watched it blow over the entire truck.

Still too small

Every child hates the words "you're to short/young/light to do this" whatever "this" is and they can scarcely wait for the day when they're tall/old/heavy enough to do whatever it is they want to do.

Mike and I decided Richelle was old enough to take the responsibility of keeping the lower field mowed this summer and Richelle was eager to take on the job.

Yesterday, Mike walked along while Richelle took her first turn going solo on the riding lawn mower. She had difficulty keeping the engine running because every time she hit a bump, she bounced in the seat and triggered the kill switch located under it.

It finally died halfway around the field and Mike told her, "Honey, you just don't have a big enough bum for this, yet."

There are worse things in life than not having a big bum.

Birds

This is the second year I've had bird feeders and I thoroughly enjoy watching the exuberance of finches that they attract. By far, the most common bird is the goldfinch (they call them wild canaries here) but I also have purple finches, black-headed grosbeaks, evening grosbeaks, Oregon junkos, towhees, mourning doves, and every once in a while we see a bluebird.


Here is a new bird I can't identify. He showed up here just a few days ago. Maybe migrating? I've made the mistake before of trying to identify a juvenile on a website that only describes adult males and I wonder if that's what I have here. He's awfully clear of color for him to be a juvenile, though. The streaks on his head are either a very dark blue or black, his back and wings are a blue or slate-blue, and his beak is a little longer than the all-purpose beak of the robin. More like a woodpecker. Anyone have a clue? I'm surprised I got a picture of him because he doesn't stay in one place long. He just flits down, pecks on the ground a bit and darts away. I've not seen him eat from the feeder, just on the ground under it. It's quietly driving me nuts!


This picture is a common sight. These goldfinches are waiting for me to leave so they can swarm the feeders.


The finches wait on the power line and in these trees next to our house. I count about twenty in the picture and six or seven had just flown away as I snapped. That makes about thirty-five finches impatiently waiting for me to leave.

Check out the clouds in the pictures. They were the reason I was outside with the camera in the first place and they covered the sky. The new heading picture was taken at the same time.

A Dull Excitement

Yes, I know that my title is an oxymoron. But what else do you call it when something has the potential to be exciting but in reality is quite dull?

Yesterday, we heard a helicopter fly over the house. At this time of year we always run out to see if it's carrying a bucket and we ran out yesterday. First, I saw the helicopter. It was carrying a bucket. Then I looked around and saw a plume of smoke rising from the mountain northwest of us about three miles as the crow flies. If you look at the picture at the top of my page, imagine you can see a low ridge to the right of the tall cedar. That's where the smoke was. Pictures? You expect me to remember to grab the camera?

There had been so many lightening strikes the last 36 hours that I didn't know if the chopper had been on that fire or another one so I called and they said they knew about it. Okay, so I'm not all that worried about it because they're on top of it, right? I kept checking the smoke all afternoon and evening and it didn't seem as if it was getting a whole lot larger or thicker so I went to bed. Okay, okay. I sacked out on the couch fully clothed until Mike got home.

I checked the smoke when I got up and it was a little bigger and a whole lot thicker. Shortly after that, we heard the chopper and a spotter plane. We watched the chopper drop at least six loads of water and by noon the fire was pretty much out. I don't think they had men on that fire. I think they used only the chopper and plane because the terrain is so steep there. In fact, they have to log that area with choppers.

If I'd sat down and thought about it, I wouldn't have worried at all because:
#1. The ridge runs east-west.
#2. Fire runs faster uphill - in this case, north.
#3. We are south of that ridge.
#4. There's another ridge between us and it.


No. No need to worry. So it ended up being a dull sort of excitement. It was very cool watching the chopper dump the water bucket, though. I think they carry about 300 gallons of water and when they open the flap at the bottom it looks like a waterfall.

Flowers and baskets

Thought I'd post some pictures of my roses and of the hanging baskets.




This one I picked as a bud and watched it open indoors.



This is the same rose shot with the micro setting. I spritzed it with water and Cameron took the picture.


Cameron took this one too. He went outside in the dark and rain where he used a tripod, the low-light setting, and a mini-mag for lighting. That kid sure has an eye for the artistic. He had a little trouble because of the rain. This is really the only one of about eighteen shots that turned out very well because with the low-light setting, things have to be perfectly still or they'll blur and raindrops hitting a flower cause just enough motion to make things interesting.



And now (drum roll, please) the persecuted hanging baskets.....

Himself wants to yank out the alyssum and put in something that will bush out and droop faster. If I can only keep his impatient fingers away from them another week, he may become grumpily resigned to their rate of growth. I may talk him into inserting flowers into the sides of the basket through the coconut fibers. That'll give him the illusion that the flowers are filling out, anyway.


A picture of our front patio. The full baskets hanging on either side of the windows are my Mom's Day gift from him. THAT is what he wants the new baskets to look like already. Never mind that they were started WEEKS ago!

Garden

Here's a close-up of an azalea in my garden. I was having fun with the micro setting on my camera and ended up with this shot.












And here's a shot a bit further away. Living on the "wet" side of the Cascades has its advantages, rhodies and azaleas being two of them.