rmcnair-huff@qwest.net
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Sunday, April 1, 2001
I snapped the shot above of the flowering bushes along the north side of our house during a brief sunny spell this afternoon after I returned home from Port Townsend. Shortly after taking the photo, thunder clouds started rising overhead. On a drive to go out to eat, Natalie and I stopped a couple of times to watch what looked like a funnel cloud developing underneath a dark storm cell near downtown Tacoma. There was a definite updraft, but no rotation. By the time we emerged from the restaurant it was pouring down rain, and once we returned home I heard at least one clap of thunder...
Saturday, March 31, 2001
Drizzle, sunshine, and now howling winds have marked this Saturday in Port Townsend. The shot above was snapped this afternoon near the Point Wilson lighthouse at Fort Worden State Park. M and I walked along the beach as the storm started to blow in from the Pacific Ocean. We gathered stones from the beach at low tide until I was simply too cold to stay out any longer. But the real storm winds hit an hour or so later.
Friday, March 30, 2001
On this partly cloudy, damp day I walked by the lupine plants in the picture above at least a half dozen times before I remembered my mental note that the raindrops and dew cupped in the just-opened leaves would make a great photo. I snapped the shot just before heading out of town for Port Townsend for a couple of nights...
Thursday, March 29, 2001
We returned to Puget Creek today, this time to take M on a tour and listen to the wind rustling through the treetops. There wasn't as much wildlife to see this time around, with the threat of rain in the air, but we made the most of our time. I was surprised how much shorter the walk seemed today compared to the long, observant walk we did yesterday. That park, the second oldest in Tacoma, is a small gem making vast improvements over the last few years, thanks to volunteers. I did explore an area I had never visited before, walking a barely noticable trail to the source of the largest stream running through the gully. And right where the stream emerges from the hillside, I found trash - a golf ball and a propane tank. I carried both of them out the trash can at the water-end of the park.
The picture above, and the more detailed picture below, are of a set of decayed leaves that Natalie and I spied when we were doing the planting and cleanup project on the creek last weekend. Natalie reminded me of the leaves on our way back to the car today, so I simply had to snap some shots of them. They are like small sections of lace....almost hauntingly beautiful.
posted by Rob McNair-Huff 3/30/2001 10:25:07 AM
Wednesday, March 28, 2001
Natalie and I returned to Puget Creek, where we did the habitat restoration project last weekend, for a walk this afternoon. We ventured all the way up the gully to the bridge that carries traffic on Proctor Street high overhead, then a short while after starting the walk back down toward the car we saw the large doe in the photo above, standing alongside the trail and eating new leaves from the salmonberry bushes lining the trail. Other than the deer, we also saw a number of small warblers feeding among the undergrowth, as well as robins and squirrels. The trail was wet and muddy after the heavy rains of yesterday, but it was still very walkable. I hope to start walking along the creek and gully at least once a week. Both Natalie and I want to get more involved with cleaning up the area. In fact, on our walk out, we ran into Scott Hansen, the head of the recovery effort along Puget Creek, and we chatted with him for a while before heading home.
posted by Rob McNair-Huff 3/28/2001 11:24:20 PM
What better way to capture a rainy spring day than to snap a shot of rain drops suspended from the bottom of branches in the snowball bush in our front yard? Our day was marked with much-needed rain, nearly an inch. And as I write this tonight the wind is howling, blowing with a peak gust of 31 miles an hour. But what a perfect night to settle down and light some candles and just listen, listen to the sounds of rain tapping against the window, the feel of breezes slipping through the walls and around the windows in our old 1928 house, and the sounds of the wind pushing against the nearly immoveable house.
I had a hard time deciding what to shoot a photo of today. On a gray day, the possibilities are limited. I nearly snapped a shot of the new neighbor's destruction in his yard. The fellow had dump truck after dump truck hauling away debris, trees, bushes, as he removed every scrap of vegetation - plum trees, firs, a large maple tree - all so he can put in a retaining wall and plant grass. And to top it all off, he managed to cut the phone lines for the entire block this morning. But alas, the weather was too wet to snap a shot of the destruction. Maybe tomorrow...
posted by Rob McNair-Huff 3/28/2001 12:30:11 AM
Monday, March 26, 2001
The sun broke through a few times today, but despite the sunshine, it was a cold, and at times blustery day. Natalie and I marked the day with an afternoon walk over to our favorite overlook on the bluff above Commencement Bay. Along the top of the bluff, near the site of the first library built in Tacoma, I snapped the shot above of a plum blossom just as the sun slipped lower toward the Pacific Ocean behind me...
posted by Rob McNair-Huff 3/26/2001 11:38:21 PM
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