rmcnair-huff@qwest.net
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Sunday, March 25, 2001
Another rainy and sometimes blustery spring day greeted us in the Puget Sound region today, but despite the weather, the hyacinth bulbs blooming in front of the house added color to the gray day. I spent very little time outside today...relegated to indoor pursuits and work. I have to get out more tomorrow...spend some time in the garden, and check to see if the pea seeds I planted last weekend are about to emerge. No signs of anything pushing through the soil yet...
posted by Rob McNair-Huff 3/26/2001 12:54:52 AM
Saturday, March 24, 2001
A busy and sociable weekend got in the way of projects today. But this was definitely still a day when I was very in touch with nature. Natalie and I got up in the morning and spent three hours doing habitat restoration with our college alumni association on Puget Creek, a small stream that runs into Commencement Bay less than a mile from our home in the north end of Tacoma. We planted native trees, hemlock and cedar, then spent the latter part of the project working with the 60 other volunteers to pull blackberries, pick up trash and make the creek bed and surroundings more hospitable for the recovery effort that has salmon returning to the once polluted creek.
By afternoon the weather started to turn, with a few showers falling shortly before I snapped the picture above of a bulb blooming along the sidewalk in front of our house...
posted by Rob McNair-Huff 3/26/2001 12:54:05 AM
Friday, March 23, 2001
I spent precious little time outdoors on this beautiful spring day, due to work concerns and oddness in one of my friendships, but I did step outside tonight near sunset to capture the image above from our front porch looking west over the roof of the neighbor's house across the street. The high-wispy coulds are a precursor to a change in the weather, from the unusually sunny and warm temperatures of the last few days to more standard spring fare - clouds with a chance of rain. You won't hear me complain about rain at all right now though. We need it here in the Puget Sound region that is as thirsty now as ever. Rivers are running low, reservoirs behind power-generating dams are empty, and salmon trying to make their way down the rivers to the sea are struggling for survival. The environmental news this spring is not good...
Meanwhile, in our garden, peas that I planted last week, along with lettuce, are yet to emerge from the soil. I am keeping an eye out for their appearance and the start of the annual battle with slugs to see how many of the tasty plants will rise to bloom.
posted by Rob McNair-Huff 3/23/2001 08:56:03 PM
Thursday, March 22, 2001
We marked the change of the seasons from winter to spring a couple of days late, with a 5.5-mile walk around the outer trail at the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge today. Natalie, M and I set out in the morning to view the birds, view the plants bursting into bloom and greenery, and view any physical evidence of the 6.8 earthquake centered 35 miles directly beneath the refuge that took place on Feb. 28, 2001. We found plenty of all of the above. The outer dike around the refuge has cracks in it caused by the quake, and I read last week that the ground in this area actually moved three feet during the 40-second-plus quake. But contrary to reports otherwise, it looks doubtful that the dike is about to fail.
Among the animals we saw during the walk was a mink swimming across the Nisqually River and climbing on the rocks along the shore below us, birds that Natalie and I haven't seen before called Yellow Rumps, a wide collection of ducks, scoters, mergansers, hawks, finches, and also the first true signs of spring - swallows have made it as far north as the refuge! That means that they should be in our neighborhood within a week or two! Also, to my surprise, we saw two types of butterflies. One moved so quickly that I couldn't identify it or get a photo of it, but the other appears to have been a Hoary Comma, and I did get a photo of it!
I put up a photo page with some shots from todays walk on my Web server on a special Nisqually page.
posted by Rob McNair-Huff 3/22/2001 10:34:39 PM
Wednesday, March 21, 2001
The second day of this spring provided a great chance to work in the garden, but the remnants of winter are still with us. Temperatures last night dropped into the low 30s, and I am not optimistic that the snow peas I planted in the garden last weekend are going to sprout anytime soon with overnight temperatures that low. Temperatures started to dip as soon as the sun went down again this evening. I snapped the picture of the Narrows Bridge tonight just after the sun sunk to the west, behind the Olympic Mountains that you can barely see peaking up from the vantage point where I hastily snapped this shot with my digital camera.
posted by Rob McNair-Huff 3/21/2001 09:44:42 PM
Tuesday, March 20, 2001
Today marks the Spring Equinox, and in honor of the season, I have a new project that I will be carrying out in this Weblog between now and the Summer Solstice. The picture above of Mt. Rainier taken from the Tacoma Community College campus in my home town of Tacoma, Washington, is the first of many daily photos of nature and my surroundings that I plan to post to this blog over the coming months. I plan to take a photo and edit it for use on this site each day until solstice, and I will also try to write a little about the world and happenings that led me to include the photo.
I couldn't resist taking this picture as I drove home from visiting with M this afternoon. The vantage point from one of the highest elevation points in town offers a straight shot view of the mountain without the common interference caused by power lines and buildings. I drive past this view or variations of it quite often throughout the year, and I never grow tired of seeing the majestic mountain that stands witness over Puget Sound to the west and a large swath of the desert areas to the east. Not often does the season pass into spring without coulds obscuring Mt. Rainier, or The Mountain as locals refer to it. But today, with temperatures in the 60s, it was easy to forget about the drought that our region is suffering and simply enjoy the beauty of a spring day...
posted by Rob McNair-Huff 3/20/2001 10:45:46 PM
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