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Week Fifteen, June 25-July 1
Sunday, July 1, 2001
I am beat. My entire Sunday was spent outside, working on weeding projects and then starting to put a fence in our backyard for the dogs. After all was said and done, I think I suffered more from the heat than the work. By the end of the day, all I managed to accomplish on the fence was to set four of the posts in concrete and call it a day.
By nightfall, I was ready to appreciate the sunset, and it was a beautiful one at that. I may have to compile a page of sunset shots from this Weblog, along with pages for butterflies and all of the photos I took at Puget Creek. Tonight the weather is cool, with a cross breeze blowing through the livingroom...perfect to sit back, sip my Earl Grey tea and enjoy...
Saturday, June 30, 2001
Chores around the house and the yard ate up the better part of today, before we had friends over for dinner and to hang out tonight. While I was dead-heading this years blooms off the rhody bush in the front yard, I saw the small west coast lady butterfly in the photo above hanging out in our yard. I wonder if it is the same butterfly of the same type a couple of weeks ago?
Friday, June 29, 2001
I spent a few minutes in great butterfly watching habitat today. M and her son and I walked down Bridgeport Way from her apartment to a small park in University Place, and in the center of the park in perfect sunny conditions there was a clearing with thistle, mullen and other native plants either blooming or about to bloom. And, drifting overhead and alongside us were a dozen or more swallowtail butterflies, including a pale tiger swallowtail, western tiger swallowtail and I believe another type of swallowtail.
With high temperatures today in the mid-70s it was hard to imagine that just two days ago we had more than an inch of rain fall in one day. This is a fickle season...
I need to correct something I wrote yesterday about my visit to Swan Creek Park. That wasn't my first visit. I have been in the upper part of the park before, biking with Jason. He and Jana take their dog Kitty down to the park to walk pretty regularly. I am not sure that they have ever seen the area we were working in though.
Thursday, June 28, 2001
Natalie and I spent the morning hours today pulling invasive weeds with a small group of native plant aficionados near Swan Creek, a large piece of land at the eastern end of S. 56th Street here in Tacoma. I have never seen this area until today, but it contains a long trail that leads down the Swan Creek canyon into Puyallup and it also is home to a rare type of pea vine that grows in small patches among the second-growth forest and along some of the trailsides. The pea, lythrus torreii, was the reason we were down in this large nature area weeding, trying to help fight back the onslaught of a non-native geranium commonly known as Herb Robert.
Both of us were tired and sore after our three-plus hours of weeding and hiking this morning, so we napped for a couple of hours before rising again to get ready for an Audubon Society picnic tonight. It was a day spent on environmental concerns, capped by a tour through the gardens of a local gardener who has transformed her one acre plus lot near Fircrest over the last 40-50 years. It was a full day, full of nature and those who care about her...
I snapped the photo above of a tiger lily in the wild in the natural area at Swan Creek. I have to go back to Swan Creek soon, to investigate the trails and see what I can see.
Wednesday, June 27, 2001
Summer days don't get much wetter than it was today. Since midnight, more than an inch of rain fell. It filled the rain barrels to overflowing and then some. Around our yard, signs of the wetness are everywhere. I snapped the shot above of foxglove blooms near our back porch. The rain finally slowed as nightfall approached, and before the sun went down a rainbow formed to southeast of our house. So far this year we have only had 16 inches of rain fall at home, and one-sixteenth of that fell today. After a winter in which rainfall was sparce, I think we can call this a make-up day...
Tuesday, June 26, 2001
I couldn't resist. I was looking around our yard to find a good subject for a photo today and had to delve into black and white photography by shooting some daisies growing near the raised garden bed in the front yard. When I put black and white photos in my Weblog I actually shoot the photos with our digital camera as color, then use an image editing program to change them into black and white. The shot above also has the contrast bumped up, to make the flowers really pop out.
This was an overcast and muggy day. It felt like we could have thunderstorms at any time, but they never really materialized. Just a warm, humid Pacific Northwest summer day...
Monday, June 25, 2001
My outside time today was spent walking the Ruston Way waterfront with M and I. And it was a perfect low tide for I to wander down to the shoreline and turn over rocks in search of tiny crab. The low tide also made for some interesting photos. The shot above of a sailboat anchored just beyond pilings that stuck 15 feet or so in the air was taken directly down the bluff from our house. The pilings mark the spot where Mason Creek, which runs through the inaccessible Mason Gulch, empties into Commencement Bay.
M and I sat and watched for a while, taking in the waterfront views, when I noticed a kingfisher hunting from one of the pilings. He would leave his perch and hover momentarily, then hurl himself into the water, most likely to catch small herring or some other small fish.
Another creature fishing along the shoreline was the blue heron in the photo below. The funny thing is that M and I have been for morning walks twice along this same stretch of the bay and seen a great blue heron fishing on the same point. Who knows...maybe it is the same heron...
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