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Week Seven, April 30-May 6
Sunday, May 6, 2001
My body aches, but it is a good ache. It is the ache caused by a weekend full of being in the outdoors, planting things, nuturing nature, playing in our garden, creating. Natalie and I drove across town today in search of organic tomato and other plant starts, to get our garden up and running. Normally we grow our own starts, but the time limitations caused by finishing our book about the Olympic Peninsula and my hesitation to want to use the florescent grow lamps when our power rates have been boosted 47 percent since December kept us from doing our own starts. Now, since I planted the tomatoes and put up string for the peas and planted peppers, it looks like we have an instant garden growing in the front yard as the daylight fades.
Today's photo is a shot of the golden chain tree in full bloom along the sidewalk in front of our house. The closeup of one of the blooms I included with an entry earlier this week really didn't do the tree justice, so I chose this shot over one of all the work that Natalie and I did in the garden today...
Interesting news links for today:
A new Narrows Bridge and power to boot - A Canadian group proposes an alternative to building a second Narrows Bridge in Tacoma that mirrors the current span. Instead, they propose a bridge built along the water's surface underneath the current span, and they say the bridge could pay for itself if they added tidal turbines to produce power under the new bridge...
Saturday, May 5, 2001
I was in butterfly heaven today as Natalie and I worked with members of the Puget Creek Restoration Society down at Puget Park. Today we were working with handicapped volunteers to assist them in planting trees and shrubs that will form a thicket along the lower part of the park. The idea is to provide some shade to the creek that will help keep the water temperatures cooler for salmon habitat. And one of the goals of the society is to work with handicapped people to come up with effective ways to allow those who are interested to help out with the project.
After we spent a couple of hours planting along the creekside, we took a cookie and water break and while others sat around the picnic tables talking, I wandered back to the lower meadow where we had just been planting and found a variety of butterflies busy at work, feasting on nectar from the dandelions and also landing on the turned up bits of sod we had sitting around where we had just planted trees. I was able to get unbelievably close to the Painted Lady butterfly that is the largest photo above. This butterfly seemed to be missing one of its antennae, but that certainly didn't seem to bother it.
Before we started our work planting trees, Natalie and I saw a few of the Veined White butterflies such as the one above alongside the lower pond. Being an avid organic gardener, it is too easy to dismiss any white butterfly as a cabbage moth, but the small dark spots on the wings of these white butterflies were a giveaway.
The third small, colorful butterfly I saw in the lower meadow around the same time I saw a few Painted Lady butterflies around. The Mylitta Crescent is much smaller than the Painted Lady, about half the size. But it is just as colorful.
One of the projects I want to take on this year down at Puget Creek is a survey of the variety of butterflies that make their home in the gulch from spring to fall, and this was a great start!
Interesting news links for today:
U.S. Scientists See Big Power Savings From Conservation (Free New York Times subscription required) - Contrary to the Bush administration, scientists say that conservation could go a long way toward solving the power shortage on the West Coast and across the U.S. So much for the immediate need to spoil pristine lands for more oil and gas exploration...
Friday, May 4, 2001
It is the season for golden colors, and the bees are loving it. Today's photo is a close up of one of the many blooms on the golden chain tree along the street in front of our house. I will have to take a more comprehensive shot of the whole tree in its blooming glory for another day, because this year the tree is putting on quite a show. It puts on a huge show of blooms every other year, and this happens to be an up year, much to the delight of the hundreds of bees buzzing from bloom to bloom in search of pollen. On a quite day, when the sounds of the town are at a lull, you can stand under the golden chain when it is in full bloom and swear that you are in the middle of a bees nest for all the buzzing...
Thursday, May 3, 2001
Bumblebees and other types of bees had a banner day today, especially this morning as the sun was shining brightly before clouds moved in to obscure the brightness and contribute to the humidity. I snapped the shot of the bumblebee above alongside the lower pond at Puget Park, where it was slowly loading up on pollen. I took M down to the park this afternoon to take a look at the trees that fell at the beginning of the week.
Besides my short walk with M at the park this afternoon, I wandered out for my first jog in who knows how long - two miles around the neighborhood here on top of the hill in North Tacoma. Since I haven't been out for a run in a while, I was reminded as I ran up a steep incline with a sweeping view of Commencement Bay, Vashon Island and Maury Island off to my left that I get to see my surroundings from a whole new perspective when running compared to driving, biking, or even walking. Each has its own pace, and running offers a great chance to take in details that I miss when cycling. I hear the sounds of the neighborhood, notice the people out working in their yards, smell the flowers along the sidewalks. It isn't that I don't want to notice those things when biking, but the speed at which I pass by makes all the difference.
It feels good to keep growing even closer to my neighborhood, both through my involvement down at Puget Creek and through the walks, jogs, bike rides and whatever else I can do to get out and experience the natural world around home.
Wednesday, May 2, 2001
Back to the flowers. After days of rain and wind, today was the first day this week with an appreciable amount of sunshine. Unfortunately, work kept me holed up inside the house much of the time, but I did step out and do some gardening and take in the sights, such as these pink flowers blooming in bunches along the walk to our front porch. One side of the sidewalk is full of strawberry plants in full bloom, while the other side has herbs greening up for the summer and an assortment of flowers.
Interesting news links for today:
Add Orcas to Endangered Species Act, group asks - citing the dropping number of orca whales in Puget Sound, a group plans to petition to place the killer whales on the ESA. And the impact of this on those in the Puget Sound region would vary from more spending and regulations to protect salmon habitat and to reduce pollution.
Tuesday, May 1, 2001
We returned to Puget Park this evening before dinner, and crews from the city parks department had already done their part to clean up the fallen trees we found in the rain yesterday. Thankfully, rather than removing the trees, they simply cut away the two eight-foot sections that blocked the trail and then tossed them off to the side of the trail. It looks like they will leave the trees to decompose where they fell, just as nature intended. Since it was much drier today, I had to finish what I started yesterday, taking a closer look at how the domino action took first a rotting old maple tree down that then fell across and snapped off two other trees near their base, and then toppled another by pushing it over, roots and all. One stump still sticks up in the air a good eight feet or so, where the shattered remains of the stump show the force that marked the event. I snapped photos of the aftermath again today, as much for my own documentation and for the Puget Creek Restoration Society as anything else.
Today's photo was taken as Natalie and I drove down to Puget Park along the steep hill on 36th Street. It was one of those spring moments where one side of Commencement Bay and Northeast Tacama was highlighted by sunshine, while the Browns Point and Dash Point areas shown in the photo were being hit by a rain squall. Typical spring weather. The showers never hit Puget Park while we were there, although Natalie and I did jump a time or two while we walked along and heard the snap and creek of trees rubbing against each other in the wind. We also watched a pileated woodpecker, quite likely the same one we saw in the park last week. I wasn't close enough to train the camera on him. Maybe next time...
Monday, April 30, 2001
The results of yesterday's windstorm and the winds this morning that gusted up to 34 mph at our house were easy to find about 100 yards up the trail in Puget Park this evening. Natalie and I went for a walk at the park around 6 p.m. tonight and just a bit down the trail we found a huge gap in the tree canopy. A maple tree with a rotten section in the trunk fell either yesterday or today during the wind storm. As it fell it snapped off two other trees and sent them to the ground, crossing the main path that cuts through the middle of the gulch. The trees also snapped off another tree about 30 feet up in the air, sending shards of tree pieces exploding into the air. From the looks of the aftermath, the trees falling must have been quite a show, and I am sure there was quite a thud when they hit the ground.
I took the top photo for today while trying to walk the length of one of the fallen trees, but its bark was so coated with lichens and moss that it was too slippery to make it to the far end of the fallen tree.
It was pouring down rain when we found the downed trees, but we decided to see what we could find farther up the trail. It was near the western edge of the gulch that I snapped the second photo for today. The rain let up by the time we reached the end of the gulch, so I snapped the water that was cupped in the end of a bright green leaf. It was interesting how, after being beaten down by rain for a day, the trail looked completely different than the last time we walked it. It is all a sense of perspective, but on this walk we found all kinds of fungus and mushrooms and animals trails that we hadn't even noticed before. Awesome!
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