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Week Eighteen, July 16-22
Sunday, July 22, 2001
The Earth simply doesn't want to stop shaking around here lately. We had another earthquake this morning, the third sizable local quake since our big 6.8 quake on Feb. 28th. This shaker was small by comparison...just a 4.3 quake centered near the epicenter of the Nisqually Quake, about 30 miles underground. I woke up this morning around 8:15 a.m., right about the time that the quake hit, but the shaking from this was little more than a bump lasting 8-10 seconds at the most. It's funny, but this kind of quake really doesn't excite me much this year. Maybe in a more quiet year...
My photo for today is of a sweet pea bloom alongside the front porch.
Saturday, July 21, 2001
They may not be at their peak right now, but the strawberries along the front walk up to the porch are still pretty tasty. I snapped the shot above this afternoon, moments before I ate the berry. We have two kinds of strawberries planted along the sidewalk. Those closest to the road produce berries first, then they die down once the temperatures rise. But in July and August and sometimes in September and October these berries closer to the house produce bigger, sweeter berries.
I spent some time this morning out working on the weekly task of cutting back morning glory and Japanese knot weed behind the compost piles along the alley, and we actually had some mist falling. It didn't last long, and it still wasn't enough to even register as the first rain for the month...
Friday, July 20, 2001
Natalie and I visited the garden of a new acquaintance and client who we are going to barter with to create a Web site for her, and while wandering her garden here in the north end of Tacoma we happened upon the painted lady butterfly above. I have taken photos of painted ladies a number of times in our yard this year, but the partly cloudy conditions had this butterfly acting pretty lethargic - just perfect to move in very close and snap a very detailed photo. Just as I took a quintessential shot of a western tiger swallowtail earlier this month, this is about as good as it can get for a painted lady photo.
Thursday, July 19, 2001
What looked like an environmental disaster unfolded in the industrial section of the Tacoma tideflats today, when a metals processing plant somehow had a huge pile of crushed and shredded car bodies catch fire in the middle of the afternoon. Black smoke reached high into the sky, first blowing east by the lower level breeze, then pushing up to a higher altitude to blow to the northwest over Commencement Bay. Fire crews aren't likely to put the fire out for good for quite a while, even though they are pouring so much water on it that water officials warned tonight that water pressure could drop for thousands of customers tonight.
After walking to the rim of Mason Gulch to snap the photo of the fire, Natalie and I returned home and got ready to head to Parkland for a meeting of the South Puget Sound Salmon Enhancement Group, one of the umbrella groups that has helped fund projects for the Puget Creek Restoration Society. We went to the meeting to have a presence before the board and staff of the salmon group and to meet some of the folks from that larger group.
My secondary photo for today's entry is of a moth we found in the walk-in closet downstairs here. I haven't tried to identify it yet...
Wednesday, July 18, 2001
Work consumed my day, but I did wander out this evening before an online work shift to glimpse the bush beans in the garden. The beans are in full bloom and soon we should be able to taste some fresh goodies from the garden!
Tuesday, July 17, 2001
I spent a good bit of time outside today, including about 10 miles of biking to go visit M in University Place and then return home. It was partly cloudy and pretty muggy, and once again a few raindrops fell, but still not enough to register in the rain gauge.
It feels good to be getting out on my bike more these days. I rode about 20 miles last week, and I am starting to use the bike for more utilitarian purposes - running to the grocery store, running to the bike shop to work on their Web site and Internet connectivity, etc. I haven't taken a recreational ride on the road bike or in the mountains for a long while, but to tell the truth, I haven't felt until very recently that I was in any kind of physical shape to handle a more strenuous ride.
For today's photo I wandered to the north side of the house and snapped a stem full of yellow flowers set against the background of our blue house.
Monday, July 16, 2001
The first raindrops of July fell today, but other than a little spitting on the car windshield as Natalie and I made our way to the Proctor District to watch the movie "The Bridget Jones Diary" tonight, it was too little to even register on my rain gauge.
I snapped a photo of the swirling, gray cloud bottoms to the south of the house this afternoon. For a while it looked and felt like we could be in for some interesting weather, but it was too breezy and the clouds never got organized to form thunderheads...
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