Only Hurricane here is the Ridge

I am more than grateful to not have to board up my windows and stock up on water and food like my son and friends in Florida have to do for the next two months.

You see, it's hurricane season there: June, too soon; July, stand by; August, a must; September, remember; October, nearly over; November.... well, who knows what it was for November? Pretty rare for intense storms in November.

So the only hurricane I think about out here is Hurricane Ridge... is it open? Are the roads clear? Can I go up in my car or do I have to take the shuttle (because there's too much snow).

Deer are unafraid of humans on the Ridge. 

Going up to Hurricane Ridge reminds me ever so faintly of the family trips up to Miller State Park on Pack Monadnock in Peterborough, N.H. (And I find it interesting we have a Miller State Park here in Clallam County, too, but not for the same guy.)

Driving back down from the Ridge taking photo from sunroof.

First, there was the decision to go, and sometimes it must have felt to my parents like herding snakes to get all four of us into the station wagon.

Then there was the food, coolers of beverages, fruit, ingredients for cooking over the campfire and as I'm remembering it, I was 9 or 10 and probably not a lot of help.

The drive from our house to the base of the mountain was less than half an hour, but as most kids remember things, it seemed so much, much longer.

The road was winding, and sometimes when I have dreams of roads up mountains, my brain uses that one as a backdrop.

Once on top, we charged around on the smooth granite looking for the best site to claim as our own for the evening, expecting it would get cool enough for a campfire. I know we usually went up there late in the summer because the hunt was on for blueberries on the low-growing bushes.

And the best part of all was climbing up the forest ranger lookout tower  (The link will take you to Chuck's webpage about the park and you can see his photos. I don't have any to share.) to see how far we could see without binoculars. For me that was the stair in front of me because I was so nearsighted.

But I could push my coke bottle glasses into my face and increase the clarity a little bit that way. Honestly, I didn't mind it because I didn't know any different. My life was a haze from early on and only by the light of the moon at home in bed could I read without straining my eyes. Strange.

What moves this even more into the Twilight Zone is that the park was named for General James Miller, a hero of the Battle of Lundy's Lane in the War of 1812, and a native of Hancock. I was unaware of the humor of the Universe that would 10 years later march me down the aisle with a guy who had the same name, but I'm not sure if the joke extended to his being a distant relation of the General.

Coming down the mountain after running around, eating all kinds of foods, including marshmallows, melted chocolates and graham bars, it was almost a certainty someone would call out, "I'm feeling sick..." and my father would rush to find a wide enough spot to pull over before his vehicle was permanently sullied.

And my last visit to the park was when we drove my mother up there for a picnic with assorted other relatives and by then she was getting a haze in her eyes as she was approaching 90, I think. As we reminisced about 'the good old days,' she reminded me that coming up to have a cook-out was no picnic for her. I said, "Yup, that's pretty much what I'd think about it now if I had to bring a wild bunch up here, but I am grateful for the memories I have."

I'm not sure if I knew then that might be my last visit as well... who knows when I might return? But my memory carries me up and over that last hump in the road to the parking lot and I don't have to ask permission to get out of the car and rush to the highest rock to look down on home.

Summer's Closing

Sterling Silver, old rose's last bloom.

I cannot believe it is the latter part of August and summer, such as it was for us, is closing down.

Oh yes, we will have some gorgeous warm days now, but the sun is setting earlier and earlier and the signs are all there.

A huge clue for me is when my Sterling Silver rose puts out one last burst of glorious lavender color and although the floribunda has several blooms, usually only one has its trademark scent in any density.

So, that day has arrived. I picked it so I can enjoy it inside for a few days, but there won't be many.

And unfortunately, I cannot provide you, my dear readers, with a sample sniff... it's a heady rose smell, really quite strong, with an energy that just heals you as you inhale. I cannot describe it much better than that.

Please enjoy the photos and intend with me that we all enjoy the fall and all the beauty it will bring us as we let the roses rest for another season. (Shot with my Canon EOS Rebel with a telephoto and a macro, just for fun.)

Where is summer?

Another day with brief sunshine and very cool temperatures leads me to wonder where summer is.


I went to Home Depot to see if they had any, and after the clerk looked at me quizzically, he laughed and said, "Oh, it must be on back order."

My garden doesn't seem to care that the daytime temps don't get above 58 degrees lately.

Bees are pollinating my raspberries - looks like it will be a
big crop if all the blooms stay on.

The raspberries are in bloom and the bees are busy cross-pollinating. I wonder a little about where their hive is and what their honey might taste like.

I discovered that eating a 1/2 teaspoon of raw local honey this year helped me to avoid the congestion of allergies. Nice.

Peonies bloomed and passed, the dogwood blossoms draw in the hummingbirds and the clematis that Beloved gave me last year is in a glorious state of color.

Interesting to think that he is now with a new girlfriend and couldn't care much about how his gift is still being appreciated. But I am grateful for the color and the present joy it brings.

The dogwood blossoms are quite pink and lovely this year.

I have been out and done some weeding and assessing what really will need to come out this summer and be replaced with something new and healthier.

It really is delightful to go out in my own yard and around the area when the sun is out and the colors are rich in so many gardens. But the rain or blustery winds have kept it cool enough that even a short walk is not that enjoyable.

I think the hot weather we had in April was too much of a tease and now I am impatient for the next season. And really, each day has it's own joy, it's own moment of delight... and I expect if it bolted into the 80's I would be no happier than I am right now.

The solstice will be upon us soon, Mercury will go direct, and everything is in order.

Patience... everything is working out for me, and when I truly allow that concept to sink in, I'm doing just fine where I am.

Clematis, a gift from Beloved last year, blooms with a more
intense color than it did when gifted to me.

"Once in a blue moon..."

The phrase has come to mean "not happening frequently, a rare event" because the blue moon refers to a full moon that comes twice in a month or the fourth moon in a quarter (usually there are only three). You can read more about it here.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_moon
While the color of the moon is rarely actually blue, just it's usual cheesy color, if there has been some heavy particulate matter in the sky it might cause a color variation.

We had the rare chance to see a 'blooming' balloon as the moon was rising. I went and took pictures.

Morningstar Balloon Company beginning to inflate.

There was little wind, which was a good thing, and not too many folks actually were aware of it; guess it was mostly by invitation and if you were a FB fan of someone who knew about it, you got 'invited.'

I've only seen balloons inflated on television shows, never on site. It was interesting to watch it go from a sliver of silky materials to a fully inflated balloon with a fire below.

There was an idea that I might offer up a balloon ride to my Beloved for his 65th birthday, but he stuck a pin in that one... "Not interested in doing that - at all!" he said quite definitively. Turns out he has a fear of heights. So that would hardly be an enjoyable birthday experience. Instead we will take off for Victoria, B.C. on his motorcycle, weather permitting, and spend some time tooling about the island.

My dear friend, Jenna, is engaged to one of the handlers and photographers of the event, so that was how I learned about it. As the sun was setting, I drove over to the airport in Sequim, finding about 25 people there.

I particularly liked that I caught the four crew members with the moon
behind them as they were starting to fire up and lift off....

There was a lovely scent of new-mown hay from the cutting that was just finished along with the lively energy of lots of children who had been brought down to see the balloon... kids and balloons seems so perfectly logical, doesn't it?

Lighting up the balloon for all the viewers and the
photographers who were there to capture the moment.

I meant to get my Canon charged up for this evening, but I fell asleep after dinner and so I ended up using a monopod with my Sony and my Samsung phone... all these photos are with the Sony, but I actually got a rather sharp one with the phone, too.

The temperature was dropping with the sun so it seemed the captain was having to get more heat in the balloon to keep it up. I was close enough to hear her commands and hear the strain on the ropes that were keeping them from disappearing into the night sky.

As the sun went one way and the moon the other, the bats came out to play, too. Probably some tasty tidbits stirred up by the mower...

Don't know if the bats got caught in this shot, but they were zooming
about as I was taking it.

Dry days, hot ones, and fortunately the nights do not carry the heat most of the time. As I am writing this, it's down to 60 degrees F. outside and I will sleep well.

The blooming balloon and the blue moon... fun after dark in Sequim, WA.

Spring into Summer

Bright yellows and blues carry the burden of color for now.

All my lovely bright spring colors have passed by and now come the flowers of summer, but in the meantime, my garden looks a little transient.

The tulip leaves drag things down with their wilting, fading color, but I can't move them without affecting their performance next spring.

And I'll be away next weekend for a week, so I'll probably miss some of the transforming that is in progress. Sigh.

Peony about noontime, before the heavy rain.

Peony several hours later, after the rain…. slightly more
open, definitely on the way to full display.

Although it's been raining hard all day with thunder and lightening and it's cooler, it has been interesting to note the hourly movement of the peony from a tight bud into a beginning blossom.

Every day when I'm away for work or other activities, when I come back, it's all a surprise to me as to what has been going on.

I feel as if I'm living in time-lapse mode… it's all too fast.

Flying to Denver and walking around

I had a beautiful flight to Denver with no major hiccups, and the little baby in the seat ahead of me only cried as we were landing.

It was after 9 p.m. as we were arriving and this was the last shot of the sunset I could get before we touched down.... quite lovely.

We had been warned by the captain that the temperature in Denver was over 90 degrees, but still it was a shock after all the cool days and nights in the NW. I wanted to take off my sweater, but I already had enough baggage to deal with, so I left it on, and panted heavily from both the altitude exertion and the heat.

The Mile High City gets its nickname from being over a mile high in altitude, 5700 feet more or less, I guess. It is always hard for me to sleep - even though I do drink plenty of water ahead of time and once I arrive - because I feel so out-of-breath.

But after a few days I acclimate and can manage to walk several miles without as much breathlessness. So we gathered up all the children and headed off to a local eatery and this was the view on the residential streets as we ambled along.

Summer Memories

A blogger caregiver for someone with MM sent me a picture of the Wellfleet sand dunes on Cape Cod after I commented on her blog about having spent a childhood summer there. Seeing the photo (above), I was reminded of many images of that summer.

As I recall, I was about 9 or 10 years old. So I would have been under five feet in height, which probably explains why the dunes seem so immense in my memory. Looking at this shot, possibly taken near where the rental house we stayed in was located, I can see that the 60 or so feet is still big. According to the photo supplier, however, they are eroding and changing causing houses to fall down. So perhaps the house seen at the top is now the one we were in, now considerably closer to the edge than it was 50 years ago.

50! Years! Omigosh!

I cannot quite realize that I can talk in terms of multiple decades of living now. A half-century of life, sometimes well-lived. Oh, I digress from that summer... let's say it was 1954 or so. My father and mother were still married, although the storm clouds of divorce were on the horizon and there was evidence of my mother's infidelity with us that summer, though I didn't recognize the cute little girl everyone called "your sister" as that proof then.

With the lifting of the morning fog off the Atlantic and the warming of the sand, my older brother, my younger brother and I would all slide down the dunes (against parental advice, of course) not appreciating our contribution to the erosion in those halcyon days. We would then run from one end of the beach to another, building forts, tormenting each other and our new-made friends until lunchtime when my mother might appear with a picnic. Otherwise it was necessary to climb the steps.

Days ran into each other, and on the weekend, my father appeared from his work to endure two days with his brood and his less-than-welcoming wife. Some years ago I had occasion to ask my mother her impressions about that summer. She proclaimed it a torture to be stuck at the end of the Cape in a rental house with three children under 12 and a teen-aged boy. I did not discuss with her my theories of why she might have felt that way. What is odd is that I know she was there physically, but my memories do not re-create her well for that time period. Instead I see myself attending to the toddler, making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for us all, and recalling one minor disaster.

It was on the weekend as I recall, because my rescuer was my father. We were having a cookout outside the rental house and marshmallows followed for dessert. I was curious if a lit marshmallow could illuminate a dark closet, so I took it on a stick inside and went into the broom closet. Yes... a lit marshmallow can illuminate a dark broom closet - and the broom - and a bunch of other things, including my hair and eyebrows. I was lucky not to be severely burned and to not have illuminated all of the tip of Cape Cod with the rental house! My father heard my screams, came running, and doused me, the broom, the closet and then comforted me when I wailed that I was a miserable child for being so unthinking after being accused of being a 'firebug.'

Probably it was our last weekend there as I don't have much of a memory for further forays on the dunes. I thank Ann for sending me the photo and for stirring up the time machine pot.