rmcnair-huff@qwest.net
Special sections
- Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge visit, March 2001
Rob's books
Nature writing sites
Environment news
Resources
Rob's other Weblogs
Other stuff
- Nature Close to Home
- Creeping with Utah Nature Study Society
- The Nature Web
- Nature.net
- Nature writing references
- Nature writing
- Tidepool
- eNature.com
- Olympic Park Institute
- North Cascades Institute
- Orion Society
- Open Spaces
- Second Nature
- The World as Home
- Association for the Study of Literature and Environment
- Mac Net Journal
- Rob's Resume
- Natalie's Resume
- Rob's Portal
- Picture Album
Week Twenty, July 30-August 5
Sunday, August 5, 2001
Sometimes I wonder why I wait so long before taking pictures of some of the notable landmarks in my own back yard. Today we helped Katrina move into a new apartment, and since it is near Stadium High School, I took the chance to pop over with the digital camera and snap a few shots of the historic building. The first shot above is a postcard image, perfectly symetrical to show off the foreground, the turrets, the whole package as can be seen from above the hillside where the building stands as a sentry on the bluff above Commencement Bay. The second shot below is taken from below one of the spires that tops of the building that was constructed as a notable hotel before years later being converted into Stadium High School.
It was another muggy, sticky day, with fairly high humidity and the feel of pending rain in the air tonight. But no rain fell. All bluster, no follow through...
Saturday, August 4, 2001
Natalie and I spent this day on the road, traveling south to Longview to attend my cousin's wedding and then for dinner with Natalie's parents before we made our way back home. On top of the wedding, this is the 11th anniversary of the day Natalie and I were married, and boy was I glad that this August 4th was much cooler and more pleasant for being dressed up for a big event than it was back in 1990. I doubt the temperatures touched 80 today, while it was over 100 degrees in the church eleven years ago.
Today's photo was snapped at the wedding reception in Kalama, where family including my grandparents gathered to celebrate after the wedding.
Friday, August 3, 2001
This was an off-and-on rainy day, but just as the sun starting sinking this evening there was a perfect break in the clouds to set up the conditions for a rainbow. I rushed up to the back roof to take today's photo, and although it is too bad that the power lines are in the way, it does a good job showing a brilliant rainbow.
Today's rain made me glad that I harvested the garlic from the garden yesterday. I pulled all the garlic and wrapped it up into six bundles which are nowing hanging to dry in the shed.
Thursday, August 2, 2001
It feels odd, looking at the entries from the last couple of days, because I failed to get out and take a photo to go along with my thoughts. Not so today. Natalie and I wandered off to the edge of Mason Gulch this evening, this time carrying along the camera and the spotting scope in order to see what we could see in much greater detail thanks to the 300mm-plus scope. Unfortunately, the young red-tailed hawk that we normally hear crying out from the opposite side of the gulch was not there tonight. But we marvelled at the details we can make out with our spotting scope looking at familiar things like Mt. Rainier, where we could make out individual glaciers and their edges even on a partly cloudy and not-so-bright evening.
Largely because we had the scope along, we walked a bit further north to the site of the old library site and looked north across Commencement Bay toward Vashon Island and Maury Island, and I snapped the photo above framing this view in between trees, dark green leaves and the brilliance of summer.
One thing I am doing now with my photography is I am shooting higher resolution shots. Rather than shooting JPEG images with their inherent compression, I am bumping up to TIFF images that are shot at 300 ppi rather than the normal 72 ppi I would shoot for Web graphics. I realize I need to start building a more substantial and useable archive of digital photos, and while 72 ppi photos look great on the computer screen, they are not that great or that marketable for print publications. So, I am getting a bit more serious about the images, juggling CompactFlash cards and spending more time with the photos.
Wednesday, August 1, 2001
Welcome to fall! I woke to cloudy skies and damp ground outside after some light overnight rain, and it just felt and smelled like fall was in the air. Sure, by the end of the day it was warm and muggy and obviously summer, but there was a hint of what is to come in the air. And I am glad!Why do I so look forward to fall? It is a time of regeneration, for me at least. Nature is alive with change, and at least here in the Pacific Northwest, the key to that change is the return of moisture, rain, storms blowing in from the Pacific Ocean, and a hint of the darkness of winter to come. This is a land of damp, and these summer months when we go for a month or more at a time without measurable rain just don't feel right. At least not here, not in Western Washington.
Tuesday, July 31, 2001
We wandered out of a movie theater tonight and made a realization - the days are definitely getting shorter. We went to the local theater in the Proctor shopping district, about a mile from here, to watch Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor sing in Moulin Rouge, and when we emerged from the film it was much darker than a couple of weeks ago when we saw another film. We are fading toward my favorite time of year...fall. Squirrels are busy gathering food for the coming winter, and the sun is on its long slow march toward the south, with its rays working past the peaks of the Olympic Mountains like god-fingers peaking between openings in the clouds...
Monday, July 30, 2001
I am a happy camper tonight. Natalie is back home from her nearly week-long trip down the Oregon Coast, so we are settling back in, her with being home and all of our animals with having a full house once again. It feels good to have things back to normal.
Today's photo was taken by Natalie, during her drive home from Oregon. She saw the Goodyear blimp land and then take off from the small airfield in Chehalis and snapped this shot after pulling off I-5.
All rights reserved.