rob@whiterabbits.com
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Week Forty, December 17-23
Sunday, December 23, 2001
We pulled off Interstate 5 near Chehalis to snap a photo of Mt. St. Helens in the distance as it was highlighted by the late afternoon sun today. This was a travel day, as we packed up our holiday gear for a short trip to Longview, and at this time of the year it is an unexpected perk to get a peak of our most famous volcano in clear sunshine. The temptation to turn off the road near Castle Rock and drive inland for a sunset shot of the mountain of my childhood was strong, but this is the holiday season and other things take precedent. It is time to be with family and celebrate!
Saturday, December 22, 2001
A saucer of clouds hung over Tacoma much of the day today, but all around us was sunshine. Natalie and I joined her parents for a holiday visit to her uncle's home in Kent, and on the way to the dinner we were driving down the steep 36th Street hill toward the waterfront when I had us pull over so I could snap a shot of the snow capped North Cascades peaks highlighted in the distance to the north. Shortly after climbing back in the car and starting back down the hill, Natalie spotted a Cooper's hawk flying overhead, coming from the treetops in Puget Gulch and headed toward Mason Gulch and our neighborhood. I wonder if this is the same hawk that visited our yard twice in one day recently?
Friday, December 21, 2001
The weather turned unbelievably nice for the day with the shortest period of daylight of the year. The skies weren't perfectly clear, but other than a few wispy clouds, it was a day of blue skies and bright sunshine.
I opened my morning with a quick drive to Olympia and back. We had to turn in an environmental grant application at the very last minute, and so despite a contentious board meeting for the Puget Creek Restoration Society last night that had Natalie and I both wondering about our involvement with the group, there I was spending a couple of hours running an errand for the group. I made the most of the task though - noting a half-dozen red-tailed hawks sitting in trees, on light poles and on power poles as I drove south, and then making a swing down by the Washington state capitol campus to stop at a great bakery to buy a few loaves of their to-die-for cinnamon bread.
I picked Natalie up from her work down in the tideflats area of Tacoma an hour or so after returning home from Olympia, and with the nearly clear skies, I couldn't resist taking yet another photo of Mt. Rainier. Oddly enough, this shot looks up toward the 14,410 foot giant of a volcano from a spot in the tideflats that in holds the soils of Mt. Rainier from the time when it was estimated to have been a 16,000 foot mountain. A huge eruption and landslide sents thousands and possibly millions of tons of rock and debris in a flow that helped fill in the Kent Valley to the northeast of here and also added to the soils in the Tacoma tideflats. I sure wouldn't want to be standing in this spot when Mt. Rainier wakes from its current slumber and once again sends mud rushing down the Puyallup River valley and into Commencement Bay...
Thursday, December 20, 2001
Rain fell hard off and on again today, making for a gray day void of many photography opportunities. I took my photo of the branches of a tree reflected in a puddle along the street this afternoon as I walked from home to the service station where our car has been being repaired. And as I walked on this day that is nearly the shortest of the year, the breeze blew in my face and light rain fell under 37 degree temperatures...
Wednesday, December 19, 2001
I lay in bed as Natalie closed the front door and made her way down the front steps toward the pickup and a drive to work. But she didn't make it to the pickup. I heard the door close, I heard a loud thump and I heard a yell that set Abe to barking in the back yard. And I was out of the bed in a flash.
Natalie had slipped on a thin film of ice on the steps and landed on her back on the four steps leading down to the front sidewalk. And as a result of her fall, she stayed home and fought the soreness all day. I didn't get outside at all other than taking care of the animals and running out to help Natalie up after her fall. It was simply a day to be home and nesting.
The reason there was a film of ice on the steps was simple. Last night was the coldest so far this year, with temperatures dipping down to 27 degrees, and in all likelihood, there was some fog in the air overnight that froze to the wooden steps. I will put some non-skid strips down on the steps once time and weather allows...
Tuesday, December 18, 2001
Looking back on the thousand-plus photos we have taken over this year, it is hard to believe that it is winter once again and that another year is winding down. It is hard to think that it was all the way back in February that Natalie and I made a celebration trip to Sequim to mark finishing our book. Sequim and more specifically the Dungeness Spit are on my mind tonight because of some news I read on a bird watching list to which I subscribe. It seems that the stormy weather over last weekend caused major changes to one of the world's longest natural sand spits. The high tides and waves broke through the spit in three or four places, creating breaches in the narrow spit. I hope that the locals who seem to think that the spit will simply repair itself soon are right. Dungeness Spit is one of the unique things that makes our state of Washington what it is....
Monday, December 17, 2001
It is hard to believe how hardy some flowers can be. Even after inches of rain, steady winds and a pretty constant series of overnight frosts, this California poppy is still in bloom underneath the golden chain tree in front of our house. Today was a good day to be a flower in bloom. After a glorious sunny day last Friday, we had a couple of dark, damp and pretty miserable days over the weekend. But the sun was back in its glory today.
I kept an eye on the snowball bush in the yard, hoping to catch a glimpse of the hawk that made its visit twice in one day last week. I haven't seen the large sharp-shinned hawk back in the neighborhood yet. That is probably a relief to the pine siskins, Oregon juncos, chickadees, starlings and other birds that are regular visitors at our feeders.
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