A Northwest Springtime Carol

Leslie started it, and I helped. I bet you can guess the tune

 

 

Cats are roasting by the woodstove fire

Cold rain whipping at our nose

Blue plastic tarps being hung by a wire

And folks dressed up in rainproof clothes

Everybody knows some weenies on the barbecue

Help to make the gray skies bright

Beer and chips and some wine after dinner

Make it easier to sleep tonight.

We hope that summer's on the way

With lots of sunshine and no rain so we can play

And every bird watcher's heart will heave a sigh

When the new baby Hummers learn to fly!

 

And so I'm suggesting that without delay

All Boomers just like me and you,

 

Should wish each other many sunny hours each day,

Happy Springtime to You!!!

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Farm, Rain, and Macaroni Salad

I know I'm in the midwest... lunch at two salad bars in the past two days, and they both had four different types of macaroni salad.  Yesterday's lunch was at Wheeler's, in Standish, where my dad grew up. Wheeler's  is our traditional stop when we drive up to the Hagley farm for a visit. It's been there since 1935 and has some of the best chicken noodle soup I've had anywhere, with homemade noodles.  They still have those cool individual jukebox things in the booths, although sadly I don't think they work anymore.

After lunch we drove out to the farm. I'm sure I've written about this before, but here goes anyway. It's a Centennial farm, started by my dad's grandfather, and now being run by the 4th and 5th generations, with the 6th generation starting to help a little. One of that generation, Delia, is raising chickens and pheasants to show at the fair this fall. Parts of the 3rd through 6th generations live in several houses scattered around the farm, and there's a continuous parade of them through Grampa Louie and Gramma Gin's (my aunt and uncle) house. I love seeing this!

While we were there I finally got the big close-in flash bang thunderstorm I'd been wanting. It can stop raining now, thank you. The farmers up there haven't been able to plant yet because the ground is so wet, and it's getting late. The golf course and park in Midland are still underwater, and I need the river to go back down another foot or so before I can kayak.

Today I went to lunch with my cousin Pat, here in Midland. She's from the Whittington (mom's) side of the family, and we always enjoy reminiscing about Vera (my mom), Onie (her mom), Dorothy and Marie, the four sisters and Grandma, and five very strong, loving, wonderful woman that we miss so much.

Dorothy, Marie, Grandma, Onie, and Vera

Fifty baby pheasants!

Tiny pheasant. That's Delia holding him or her.

Below, two short videos for your enjoyment. Still can't figure out how to caption them, but one is "floating down the Chippewa", and one is "Frog Chorus"... which is a bit of a waste of bandwidth since the video is just black, but crank up the sound on this one!

Adventures in kayak management

After my nice high water paddle the other day, I left the kayak tied up in my muddy little take-out spot (which long ago, by the way, was the cows' watering hole) in an inch or two of water. When more rain was forecasted I went back and turned it upside down so it wouldn't fill with water. Clearly, I didn't think this through. After another inch and a half of rain last night, today it was floating, upside down, in about three feet of water. And of course when I flipped it over I ended up with much more than 1.5 inches of water inside, which I had to bail before I could even manage to pull it up to a drier spot. OK, a lesson learned.

I decided to put the sprayskirt on the boat and leave it, hoping that maybe the elastic will stretch out a bit after a few days and make it physically possible for me to get it fastened to the boat while I'm in it. My god, it took me three tries to get it on there even without me in it!

The sun came out this evening and i squeezes in a 17 mile ride after dinner.

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Spring sounds

A trip to town today so that I can upload pictures, have a latte, and get groceries. The videos above are my attempt to capture the wonderful sounds of the woods in the spring. The first one has a wood thrush singing, and the second starts with a cardinal and then various other birds.

 I had bought a GoPro camera, one of those new-fangled video cameras that you can strap to your head or bike helmet, but I returned it today. I think they are just not ready for prime time yet. They need  some ID work for ease of use, and sound-recording just isn't very good. The videos above, and all of the other photos, are taken with my little $80 point-and-shoot pocket camera.

The river was at least back within its banks yesterday, so I decided to do my usual 3-hour float down from Magruder Rd., about 7 miles upstream from home. It was a cool sunny day when I started, but quickly changed to cool, cloudy, and breezy. I finally bought a spray skirt for the kayak so I wouldn't be sitting in water the whole time and having to sponge-drain periodically. However, some problems. First of all, I forgot to actually put the spray skirt ON myself before getting into the boat, so I spent the first five minutes ungracefully squirming into it while trying to keep the kayak upright. Then came trying to get the elastic fastened to the cowling. Imagine reaching a foot behind yourself to stretch the elastic over the rear, holding it in place back there while you get it stretched over each side, and then stretching it 3 or 4 feet to the front, while trying to make sure it doesn't snap back off of the rear. After several attempts at this and quite a few cuss words, I gave up and made do with it fastened around only the front. This kept me mostly dry, but ..... how in the world would anyone ever get it fully fastened? Either it's a two-person job, or maybe I can fasten the whole thing before I get in the boat and then try to thread my body through the hole.....?

Hickory Tree rising above the apple orchard

Oriole at the grape-jelly feeder

My favorite tree in it's springtime glory

High water

High Water and Perfect Biking Weather

Just back from a perfect 30 mile ride. Flat, 60F, sunshine, trails and roads with hardly any traffic. And a latte stop. It really doesn't get much better! I did much the same thing last night.

4 inches of rain in as many days, ending just a few days ago, has brought Midland their 3rd flood of the spring so far. Not that the town really floods, just the big golf course and park along the river, and a couple of low-lying roads. Still, the river is high enough that I am hesitant to put the kayak in. Normally there is only one place along my usual route that's more than 4 feet deep, with much of it less than 2 feet. You're much more likely to have to drag the boat through a shallow spot than get in trouble in deep water. I've never worn a life jacket on this river, but right now I think I would want to. And since the ones we have here probably haven't been used in 30 years, I'm a bit reluctant to depend on them.

I haven't taken many pictures as I'm finding myself much more drawn to sounds rather than sights here in the spring. The frog chorus at night is just amazing, as is the birdsong during the day. I will try to figure out how to post some recordings. First I guess I have to get some sort of sound recording app for the iPad....

 

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HOT

It is HOT here today.... thermometer on the car says 89, and it must be about 89% humidity. I went for a walk and then had to come back and take a nap. I don't think I would survive summers in Michigan anymore. Thunderstorms are on their way, which should cool it back down some.

Yesterday, in about the same temperatures, I spent
the afternoon kayaking. Which kept me cool, as I don't yet have a spray skirt and was sitting in an inch or so of water most of the time.

I then spent a very pleasant part of the evening down at the river, staring at reflections and listening to birdsong. Turn up the volume on the video!

I was hoping for fresh asparagus every day, but my dad says the deer have about killed off his 30-year-old asparagus patch. Still, I found 6 nice stalks last night, and another dozen or so this morning, some 8" tall or more, which I swear weren't there last night. Amazing how that stuff grows!

And here are some nice pictures of springtime in Michigan.

May Apples

Trilliums

Violets

White Heron aka Great Egret

More spring photos

I can no longer figure out how to add captions to photos from my iPad. And, these photos are most definitely not from Michigan. The first is, as you might guess, Mt. Rainier, and several of my biking buddies.

Mt Rainier

The 2nd and 4th are my "upstairs" garden, and the 3rd is my mostly finished $$$$$ hillside project. I realize Its hard to get a sense of scale on that one. The walls are about 4 feet tall, and the hillside slope is crazy steep,negotiable mostly only on hands and knees. I now have 116 plants in, with a little drip irrigation thing going to each one. Hopefully this will keep my house, which is about 3 feet to the left, on top of the hill.

 

 

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Springtime at Chippewa Pines

I'm just in from an evening walk in the woods here at Chippewa Pines. Violets, may apples, wood thrushes, cardinals, orioles. It's lovely. Pictures coming soon.

Got here about 3am on Thursday and spent about half the day sleeping, although I did manage to get my kayak in the river for a short paddle.Today I went into town to stock up on groceries in preparation for being the chief cook and bottle washer for my dad for the next month.

I've been lusting after a Kia Soul for the last several years, so I paid a few extra bucks at the car rental to get one for the month I'm here. Lust has now dimmed quite a bit as I have discovered they have less space inside than my little Subaru Impreza. Possibly a bit more comfortable for backseat passengers, and, oh, they're so pretty...still I think I will stick with Subarus.

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In transit

I'm at Chicago Midway for a two hour layover before completing the last 2 legs of my 7-legged trip to Michigan (car bus bus train plane plane car). Was hoping to spend an hour or so walking, but after a half hour my right knee said NO. This is a first for me. Man oh man, I do hope it is the last. So instead I'm eating popcorn from Nuts on Clark, perhaps the best popcorn anywhere.

I sat down next to a nice older gentleman on the plane in Seattle and, against all of my rules, started a conversation. Nice enough, he's some sort of driver who delivers big trucks across the country and now is flying back after making a delivery from the east coast to Victoria. He spends close to 300 days per year on the road and has been doing this for 30 years, happily married for more than 40. Problem is, then he wouldn't shut up. I was trying to read, and even with all the "leave me alone now please" body language I could muster, he just wouldn't. I realize that if you drive for a living, when you're not driving it's probably nice to have someone to talk to. But, sigh. I'm just not that nice a person! At last someone came and occupied the seat in between us, and he gave up. Back to my rule of never starting conversations until the last half hour of the trip.

The "someone" was the nicest little old spanish speaking lady (is abuela the right word?), about 4'6" and roughly spherical. we really couldn't talk with my non-existent spanish and her limited english, but she was so sweet, offering me various snacks and trading off arm-rest useage with me. She was praying the rosary as we took off, and when we landed she raised her hands in the air and said "Thank you my god! Thank you!"

 

 

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Springtime in the PNW

One week from today, I'm off to Michigan to spend another month at beautiful Chippewa Pines. If you want to follow my adventures while I'm there, I highly recommend entering your email into the "follow by email" gadget to the right. That way, you get notified when the blog is updated.

 Meanwhile, I'm trying hard to get my house and yard in a condition that I will look forward to coming home to. Yesterday I mowed the lawn ( for the first of the 3 or 4 times per year that I normally hack it back) and did battle with blackberries, with only minor blood loss.  I've managed to mostly free the pretty evergreen huckleberry from it's ugly blackberry prison. Hopefully the pile of brush will dry out enough to burn before this year's burn ban sets in.

The $$$$$ hillside project that I started last year is nearly complete. I now have 3 big retaining walls, lots of baby salal, evergreen huckleberry, swordfern, a few cyanothus, 3 vine maples, 2 smoke trees, and one mock orange. Tomorrow I'm hoping to get the watering system installed which they will need to get them through the first couple of years. Then, if the deer don't eat them, the watering system works, the  blackberries don't re-invade..... perhaps I will have a beautiful, stable, no-maintenance hillside. We'll see....

Here are a few pictures from springtime 2013.

Big eyes on the Seattle waterfront

Rainier from the big city

Seattle sculpture park

Fremont Bike Mural

Yes folks, Jan 1st-Dec 31st

Seattle sculpture park

Shaggy mouse nudibranch (aka sea slug), about 3 inches long. Cute, huh?