More cool stuff on the beach

Leslie and Dave came down Friday for another superb minus-tide beach walk. The weather cooperated with a perfect sunny day, and we rambled the 3 or so miles from Maxwelton back to Scatchet Head, barefoot most of the way. Sights of the day were: that same otter again, a half-dozen bald eagles sitting on the beach, many tiny flounders hiding in the sand in the tide pools. A large bright-red anemone(another Christmas anemone, maybe...?), many moon snails, and we actually caught this one laying eggs! If you double-click to enlarge th photo you will see.. On the right, the snail's shell. In the middle, and partially covering the shell, the snails "meat" (although I'm sure there's a more scientific name for it...). On the left, the rubbery-looking thing is the egg casing. You see these laying all over the beach, looking for all the world like big rubber gaskets that the tide has washed in from a shipwreck. But what the actually are, as I understand it, is a mixture of sand, mucus, and snail eggs. This is the first time I've seen a snail actually pumping one out.

After our long day on the beach, we retired to the deck with wine. Dave apparently got a bit chilled. We decided the title of the picture should be "Summer Evening in the Pacific Northwest".

Saturday we went on the Whidbey Island Garden Tour. This included only 4 gardens, but what with stops for lunch, a visit to the best thrift store in the world, and a stop for shopping at the dump (where we scored an antique fireplace poker set, and 5 big iron tiki-torch stands), it took all day.

The gardens were marvelous but man, looks like waaaay to much work to me. One of them, ust downt the road from me, was truly an estate: main house, guest house (far larger than my own), and a fantastic remodelled barn that I sooo wanted to go inside. But the buildings were off-limits, so we had to content ourselves with wondering through 20 acres of flowers, shrubs, ferns, and the like. This turns out to be the (retirement?) estate of Artie Kane, who was a prolific Hollywood composer and conductor. Although his last movie listing was, sadly, Waterworld, he's got composer credits going clear back to The Rockford Files, and conductor credits for well over 50 movies including Good Will Hunting, Alien:Resurrection, Men In Black, Sister Act. And apparently a truckload of money.

Pollen flurries

Several times today I've been fooled into thinking it was hailing... it's the pollen cones from douglas fir, coming down in flurries. There are enough of them on the ground now to scuffle through like fallen leaves, and small drifts of them along the road in some places.

After a hard day of forced labor around the house (got it about half-clean, anway...), the north wind cleared out the rain, and my ramblings took me to my local path through the woods. There are these huge, prehistoric-looking flowers just starting to bloom, which my field guide tells me have the inelegant name of "cow parsnip". These things are a good 6 to 8 feet tall, with leaves close to 2 feet across, and big carrot-like white flowers.

Blackberries suddenly in full bloom everywhere you look.

Low Tide and Sunshine

I tried to make myself clean house today, but a minus 3.6 tide and sunshine lured me to the beach instead. Today's was possibly the lowest tide of the summer, exposing beach probably a half mile from shore near my house.Putting on my beachwatcher's hat, I saw:

Moon snails: I don't see how all that body could ever get inside that shell, but it does! These things eat clams, by drilling a hole through the shell and sucking out the meat.

Geoducks: Somebody else dug this one up; that looks like way too much work to me.

Christmas anemone: The colors don't show up too well here, but it's a festive red and green.

Also many aggregating anemones and possibly plumrose (or is it plumose, I'm not sure) anemones, and one pretty little unidentified light green anemone. AND a bright red sea cucumber, a couple of sea lemons, a mossy chiton, a whole bunch of assorted starfish, hundreds of rough piddocks, limpets, dogwinkles. A few herons, a bald eagle, many crabs (red rock, hemigrapsus, hermit), acres of eelgrass and bull kelp, and about 27 billion barnacles and mussels.

Oh, and walking back up the hill from the beach, 3 deer.

Now I'm sitting on my deck watcing the birds at my feeder. I have many black-headed grosbeaks this year, and of course goldfinches, chickadees, purple finches, down and hairy woodpeckers, flickers, pine siskins.

For the past two years, starlings have nested in my eaves just outside my living room window. I know that most birders hate them; supposedly they drive other birds away (haven't noticed that happening here yet), and I do admit that they can be noisy at times. But ever since I started really listening to their vocalizations, I'm quite fascinated. They have a huge "vocabulary" of sounds, are great mimics and I've even heard them do a spot-on bald eagle impression. I know that starlings will congregate in large flocks at times, and I certainly hope that doesn't happen next to my house, but the flocks that congregate down by the ferry dock put on just spectacular flying displays many evenings: huge amorphous clouds of birds taking on fantastical shapes in the sky.

Enough rambling for today, I really must start on that house cleaning!

A Perfect Day on the Trail!

June 17th:

Olympia to Millersylvania State Park

35 miles

Sunshine and 70 degrees--- perfect biking weather!

The four of us were in Olympia by 11. There seemed to be no overnight parking in the little park by the trailhead, so I walked to the house across the road to ask for advice. A couple of middle-aged guys were out in their garage working on restoring an old pickup truck. The homeowner kindly suggested "why don't you just park here?" So we left our 3 vehicles in their yard. Back over to the park to finish loading up the bikes, we all got a little contact-high from visiting the restroom where someone had obviously spent the night smoking pot and drinking beer.

By 11:45 we were on the trail, Nancy on her new recumbent trike, Cheryl hauling a trailer behind her Bike Friday, and Gerry and I on our touring bikes loaded up like the Beverly Hillbillies' old truck, me complete with a teakettle bungied on top of my panniers.

I've never seen a prettier trail. 30 miles of silky-smooth paved off-road, almost all of it through quiet woodlands and prairie. We started out through a forest of tall firs and soon crossed a swamp full of blooming water lilies.

In just a few miles we came into the suburbs of Olympia, where we stopped at the edge of a big parking lot and watched a motorcyclist class practice riding very slowly around a marked course, while we had our lunch. For some reason which we could never quite fathom, this sorta tough-guy looking instructer kept shouting "yoo-hoo! yoo-hoo!" at his students. It was good lunchtime entertainment.

About a mile after that we came to a sign that just said "trail ends". This is so frustrating because the trail does NOT end here, it takes up again just across the street behind a building, but there's no indication of that at all. This is one of those cases where sections of the trail are owned by two different organizations: the first 5 miles by the DNR, and the rest of the trail by Thurston County. Why they can't each post signs indicating that the trail continues is beyond me!

Onward out of the suburbs, through tunnel-like canopies of leaves and wildflower covered prairie. Fields of daisies, set off by grasslands just beginning to turn from green to gold. Foxglove, columbine and many other unidentified flowers. This must surely be the perfect wildflower time of year to see the wildflowers in this area.

This is the Chehalis-Western trail, following a former railroad bed. The sign says more than a billion feet of timber were shipped along this route, to the nearby harbor where it was loaded on ships and sent to the mill in Everett.

We stopped briefly at the Monarch Sculpture Park for a snack and a rest. We've all been through this park before so did not walk through it this time, but it's definitely worth a visit. A few acres of trails through funky and sometimes humorous "found object"-type sculptures.

Somewhere around mile 25, the Chehalis-Western trail ends and we intersect with the Yelm-Tenino trail. Yelm is about 7 miles to the left, and we turn right for the 6 mile ride to Tenino. In Tenino the trail ends at Quarry Park, the site of an old sandstone quarry. Many of the old buildings in downtown are built out of this, and part of the old quarry itself has been turned into a public pool.

I like the name of the town, Tenino, and have always thought that Nintendo should be located there. Nintendo in Tenino, doesn't it have a nice ring? According to Wikipedia, the town was named either for a Chinook word for "fork in the trail", or for a survey marker with the numbers 10-9-0. I like the second version!

We stopped for dinner at pretty good Mexican restaurant (and pretty much the only choice) in downtown Tenino. After a quick trip to the grocery store for wine, snacks, and a fire log, we had another 6 mile ride, on pleasant back roads, to Millersylvania State Park. Our reserved spot was waiting for us, although we certainly didn't need midweek reservations as the park was mostly empty. Millersylvania is a huge old CCC park, with around 200 campsites mostly among tall firs.

Nancy was asleep nearly immediately after setting up camp, but Cheryl, Gerry and I sat around the campfire for awhile and then collapsed into blissful exhaustion.

June 18th

Millersylvania-Tumwater-Littlerock-Mima-Rochester-Maytown-Millersylvania

47 miles

Sunshine and 70 degrees -- perfect biking weather!

A leisurely breafast of steel-cut oats, granola, coffee and tea at the campsite. About 11 am, Meridee and Laura joined us. Meridee joined the Peace Corps and has been in Mali for about a year. Due to a death in the family, she's home for a brief few weeks before leaving us again to stay in Mali for another 16 months or so. What a woman... She flew in late on Wednesday night, and the first thing she wanted to do was get up early on Thursday morning and come out and ride with us!

We rode into Tumwater for lunch, then back out of the city on rolling, low traffic back roads, to Mima Mounds. This is an area of "lumpy" prairie that goes on for more than 20 miles (although much is developed). The whole area is totally covered with mounds, each about 8 feet in diameter and 8 feet high. There are lots of theories as to origin (probably glacial) but nobody knows for sure.

More rolling back roads and then a few miles on high traffic not-so-back-roads brought us to a latte (for me) and snack stop in Littlerock. By then it was nearly 5pm and we were feeling a bit pressed for time, as Maridee and Laura needed to leave by 8 to make the last ferry back to Vashon, and somehow we needed to fit dinner in there too! So, a bit of a push got us back to the campsite about 6, where we all spent 10 minutes "dressing for dinner" before being driven back to that same Mexican restaurant, as Meridee had a strong craving after a year in Africa.

June 19th

Millersylvania to Olympia

35 miles

drizzle, rain, sunshine -- perfect biking weather!

We got rained on last night! The drizzle slowed just enough for us to make breakfast this morning, after which we packed up our soggy tents, donned our rain gear and extra layers, and set off back to Tenino. Lunch stop at a nice little cafe, and then back on the trail where it REALLY started raining. And wouldn't you know, today's the day for a flat tire, and it has to be one of the little hard-to-change tires on Nancy's trike. With Cheryl's help, though, we were going again in just a few minutes. (That's me flat on my back, "helping".)

By the time we got back to the suburbs of Olympia, the sun was out. We sat at Starbucks and dried out while we entertained questions from passers-by and discussed our upcoming September trip (stay tuned).

Back to our starting point, our cars were safe and sound, and our friendly hosts were sitting in the yard as if waiting for us. We told them we planned to make this ride a yearly event, and they said they'd reserve a spot for us!

Ready to Roll!

Just finished packing for a 3-day bike trip, my first multi-day ride this year. Tomorrow morning I'll drive with 3 friends down to Olympia where we'll ride about 35 miles southeast, to Millersylvania state park, most of the way on the lovely off-road, paved, Chehalis Western trail. We plan to camp for two nights, explore the area on Thursday and then ride back on Friday. Hoping the weather stays nice for us.

Speaking of weather, I can't remember the last time it rained, and I also can't remember ever saying that in the Pacific Northwest in June ... or for that matter, in ANY month other than August.

Took a quick trip to the mainland today and noticed small jelly fish ( or sea jellies, as I think the more accurate term is) near the Mukilteo ferry dock. This may be common but I've never noticed them before. Part of the reason I've started this blog is that committing to write a little most days makes me more observant of what's around me.

The foxgloves are in glorious full bloom all around the island, including a few at the edge of my yard. My plant ID book says the "glove" part of foxglove is most likely a corruption of an old english word for "bell". Makes a lot more sense to me: I never could see how anyone would call those obvious "bells", "gloves".

Also I see that the ocean spray is beginning to bloom. This makes me a bit sad, as to me it signifies the end of spring, which means soon the lovely spring birdsong will stop, the days will start getting shorter, and..... you know where that leads! OK, let's not even think about it.

I let my TV die along with the demise of analog on June 12th. I will probably break down and buy a digital in the fall, but for now it's nice to have that monkey off my back. What an addiction it is! How long will I hold out?

Another Day in Paradise

I am feeling so thankful for my life right now, I'm looking for a way to share that feeling. So this is a test....

We are having the most beautiful spring here on Whidbey Island! Perfect weather since Memorial Day, unusual for here. Thursday I did a 6-mile hike up at Ebey's Landing. This is, on a sunny day, possibly the most beautiful place on earth. Trail starts out along a hill overlooking a prairie valley of verdant farm fields. Then continues along a steep, high bluff above the ocean. This time of year the bluff is covered with wildflowers.After following along the bluff for a mile or so, the trail dips down to the beach, and then you walk back a couple of miles along the beach.

Yesterday, still in perfect weather, I did a barefoot walk along the beach near my home, and saw: a half-dozen bald eagles. Many herons. An osprey carrying a fish back to his nest high on the bluff above. An otter pulling mussels off of a rock in the tide flats.

Today it was overcast for most of the day so I went to the woods instead, a 2-mile hike through the old-growth forest at South Whidbey State Park. Lovely song of the Swainsons' Thrush echoing through the trees, ripe salmonberries for the picking.

Actually I spent most of the morning searching the web trying to figure out what the bird is that's been singing this loud, clear, musical song near my house for weeks. I have yet to be able to spot the bird, and no luck in finding a match for the song on the web.