rmcnair-huff@qwest.net
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Week Twenty-Eight, September 24-30
Sunday, September 30, 2001
Natalie and I spent this day hanging out with friends and touring the local art museum, but in between our museum tour and having dinner, we went to Point Defiance Park for a drive around Five Mile Drive. I stopped alongside the replica of Fort Nisqually at the top of the bluff, trying to get another good photo of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, but what stole our attention instead of the view to the bridge was a small douglas squirrel that sat in a fir tree alongside the car, munching away on a seed cone. Natalie hadn't seen a douglas squirrel around here yet, so she was pretty happy to watch it while I snapped a few photos of the surroundings. We have a lot of squirrels around north Tacoma, but most are the eastern gray squirrel. The animal I haven't seen, to my knowledge, is the western gray squirrel, which is fairly rare since it has been pushed out of its native areas by the more prolific eastern gray squirrel.
Saturday, September 29, 2001
This morning was my first real encounter with the mouth of Puget Creek and Puget Beach. I joined Natalie and others this morning as they did beach monitoring and photography during the low tide, and although I didn't really help out with the monitoring, I took this chance to get to know about the environment at the mouth of the creek where I have spent so much time working to improve the salmon habitat this year. I was surprised at the relative diversity of life along this small beach. I found a crab about half the size of my hand (it later died at the hands of a gull when the water retreated enough to leave it open for the picking), watched a variety of gulls and looked overhead as a kingfisher chattered and swooped over the beach, surely wondering who these intruders were in its fishing grounds.
Aside from the birds and single crab, there is a wealth of algae growing in thick blankets along the shore, making the walking pretty slick and messy in places. And mussels and barnacles coat everything stationary. Meanwhile, the crab-like pods on top of bladderwrack coat the rocks that are normally under the tide line. This brew of intertidal life emits a strong sea odor when exposed to the open air, and there were a few places where the smell was quite strong.
Remains of the old docks that held sailing ships against the shore still stick up from the beach here. I have seen a few black-and-white photos of this area, where huge ships set sail to take lumber from the mills along the waterfront to ports around the world. Quite likely, much of the lumber shipped from the mills along the Tacoma waterfront went south to San Francisco to help rebuild that city after the great earthquake and the fires that followed. Remains of the last lumber mill to operate on this section of Puget Sound are just a few hundred yards down the shore, at the new Dickman Mill Park.
It felt good to get back out and explore today. And although I didn't recognize any exotic bird life or wildlife, it is great to get more in tune with the environment around Puget Creek. In the coming weeks we are likely to see some salmon return to the stream, and like I mentioned to Natalie today, maybe I will start taking a daily walk down at the creek to see what I can see, to see if there are salmon coming home.
Friday, September 28, 2001
I take a departure from nature photos today. Natalie and Marie and I ate lunch at Southern Kitchen this afternoon and this shot of folks lined up to eat at the counter in one of the most genuine eating establishments in Tacoma was too good to pass up.
Thursday, September 27, 2001
Stuck in a rut...that is how I have felt over the last few weeks. One of the best examples is the new book proposal I am working on, for a history book based here in Washington state. I wrote a simple outline for the book last weekend, and every day since then I have meant to buckle down and write up the simple introduction to the book so that I can send it off to an editor who is interested in the idea. But today, just as the day before, I couldn't get motivated to do it. Instead, I toiled at my Lycos work and did a lot of this and that, but nothing so concentrated as real writing.I did get outside today though, to weed more of the garden and to do more work on some simple brickwork I am doing lining a bed along the front sidewalk. And while I was doing this work I chatted briefly with Elsie and found out that she will be finishing her move out of the house next door tomorrow. I suppose I should feel more about her moving away, but a few of her actions in the time that has passed since Warren died have reminded Natalie and I why we were good friends with Warren and not so much with Elsie. Now we hope that our new neighbors will be a good addition to the neighborhood.
Wednesday, September 26, 2001
It always seems that fall has the best natural lighting. Tonight, just as the sun was dipping to the west, Katrina visited and mentioned the moon rising over the thunderclouds I had been watching build to the southeast of our house. So, I rudely dashed outside with camera in hand and wandered across the street to snap the shot above.
The thunderstorm never made it here. It skirted down along the Puyallup Valley, as thunderstorms so often do here.
Tuesday, September 25, 2001
Nothing shows it is fall more than the blooming of the fall crocus. I snapped a photo of these crocus blooming today along the front side of the house.
Monday, September 24, 2001
I felt like I was in a race with the changing seasons today. Rain is predicted for much of the rest of the week, so this evening I decided I needed to catch up on some yard work. I spent a couple of hours mowing and cleaning up with the thought in mind that I need to get the work done now, before dampness leaves me stuck with an unkept, matted mess in the few areas where we have grass growing. And mowing was a chore. I tend to spend a lot of time outdoors, but I have very little interest in a manicured lawn. On the north side of our house, where moss and grass compete for space in the four- or five-foot section between our house and the edge of our property, the grass was 10 inches tall. I tackled it with our electric-powered weed eater, then raked up the cuttings to add to the compost pile near the back alley.For someone so interested in organic gardening, our garden is woeful right now. I still need to clean up more from the summer gardening, but even our summer efforts to grow a few of our own veggies was pretty dismal. Over the last couple of years we simply haven't put in much time in the yard. We have been wandering around the state researching books or simply exploring and observing nature instead of being so rooted in the soil here at home. It can be hard to find that balance and to remember to spend some time in my place every day rather than expending all of my efforts cleaning up Puget Creek or driving to the Washington Coast. There is always a struggle to find balance...
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