Good Morning

Here's the view as I turn down the hill on the way to the bus stop in the morning. It was cool to see the sun just crack open over Mt Hood's southern side. I like catching the sun when it first comes over the hills(or sets in west) because you can see the movement of the earth, and realize how fast we are rolling through space. I took this through my foggy windsheild--I lucked out that the camera didn't focus on the windsheild but rather on the trees. A trick I'll have to remember.

Tree Bones

One aspect of snow I really enjoy is how it show the form of the tree as an individual.

Update on the mare's tails--when I looked up mare's tails on the web, it said they "foretell" a major change in the weather(in our case going from dry and very cold to wet and cold), as well as a warm air mass moving over.  Now the weather man was saying "snow"--which is essentially a cold air event.  How does the warm air "aloft" fit into the weatherman's schedule?  The next day had freezing rain, rain that falls and freezes on contact with things in the cold air below the warmer air.  Then the next day came the snow ;0).  The mare's tails were more accurate than the weatherman who is looking at blobs on radar.  All I had to do was look up.

Mare's Tails at Sunset

I thought these were beautiful examples of some mare's tails (um, I think), caught in the sunset.  The weatherman says snow's a comin', mare's tails say a big weather change's a comin'.  Maybe the weatherman will be right this time! 

Going to Town, Coming Home

Pix taken while driving,  point and hope I get it.  A cool sign on main street. 

Going home, one of those cloud windows opened up.  My home is back up in the hills to the right under those really dark grey clouds.  I did stop to take this pic, but took a lot more aiming out the window just pushing the button as I drove.

A Walk in the Snow

It's been snowing(and melting) of and on since Christmas.  It's still magical every time it happens.  I'm the type who would go to Alaska for a vacation in winter.  

A rare peep of sun...

Deer tracks...
I love how shapes and textures are simplified and amplified by the strong contrast of black and whites...
Thought these oaks were kind of Sleepy Hollowish...
Just having fun taking pix, and comparing what I'm seeing with what the camera sees.

My Christmas Miracle!

Snow in Oregon on Christmas Day. The night before the local news gave something 3% chance of snow on Christmas in the Portland area. We are a ways out of town, and higher up, so we have a bigger chance, but it was still pretty cool.
I took a little walk and got this pic of a circluar rainbow in the mist--and there's three of them, co-centrically! Never seen that before, and I also saw it with my naked eye, so it's not a trick of the camera lens. Happy Holidays!!!!

Winter Solstice 2007

For the past handful of years I've been trying to take a picture of the sundown on the Soltice, and it seems like since I've been paying attention, the sky is clear enough to mark where the sun falls on the horizon. I couldn't "get" the warm orange in the sky, and started messing around with the photo editing buttons, exaggerating, abstracting, and I think I "got" the feelings I felt--the warm fire in the belly sort...that all is well, a new year has begun. Today is really what I think of when the new year starts. And actually the sun will set in the same spot for the next few days, the earth can't turn on a dime. Though I suppose for its size, it does!
I started looking at the reflections of the orange in the potholes in the road...and actually got to thinking my potholes are pretty, nicely rounded, smooth mirrors of the sky, still holding light as the land loses its own light. Potholes are generally cursed, but sometimes you find some mighty interesting things inside, like one day I saw a junco in every pothole on down the road, each one of them taking a bath.
Merry Christmas!!!

Almost Dark, Almost Solstice

Here's the view from my kitchen window, just before 4 o'clock, when I drive the two gravely miles down the mountain to get the kids from the bus stop. A few minutes after we get home it's dark, so they are leaving and coming home in twilight, and at the end of next week before Christmas break, it will be dark both ends. Then...the earth will stall, teeter and wobble, letting us have more light each day.

Bagging My Christmas Tree

Here I am, snapping off a Christmas tree! Saw was dull, so I just broke it off. It IS the prettiest Christmas tree ever!

Mushroom Hunt

First off, I don't know what kind of mushrooms these officially are, but I call them "Honey Mushrooms". They're popping out of oak logs and stumps, and always appear in a herd. I suppose I could call them "Butter Mushrooms" too, or Lemon Pie, Scrambled Eggs, Hollandaise and Toast, Cream of Chicken...

Ketchup

Sorry to be away, my lap top has been in the shop(and didn't get fixed after all), so now I'm set up on a new desktop. Yay computers!

Every year there is one morning in November when the light shines through the firs like a big angel--there's just the right amount of mist to catch the rays. The trick is happening to look out the window to see it. Success!

My Town

Last Saturday me, my sister and dad enjoyed our county's "Art Harvest Studio Tour". Most of the artists live in the country too, or further out in the woods so it's a fun driving tour too. I was glad to see the redneck element got their art in too--one sign in a tiny town was "altered" to say "Fart Harvest Stud Tour". Woo!

So I come down off the mountain...


We have coffee at Cornerstone Coffee Roasters. I liked the brass texture on the side of the old(still used) coffee roaster, burlap bags full of coffee beans from Columbia, Sumatra, and Africa line the floor.


The old main street is still there with all the old buildings full of shops and restarants and businesses. The trees lining the streets are on fire. Here is the corner of McMenamin's Hotel Oregon. It's always been a hotel, since the beginning, now full of photos of the town and hotel from when photography was new-fangled. Great fries and an awesome Terminator Stout milkshake!

Just a crumbling corner of a building. My town is one of the first in Oregon, and still retains the original layout and old buildings in the center grid. The town seems to work to preserve the old buildings and history, rather than replacing them with modern stuff. Our first stop for the art tour was an artist/bookmaker who lives upstairs in one of these old buildings. Her home was the masonic "gentleman's club", and includes an old speakeasy(with original bulletholes), a ballroom(yet to be restored) and a basement with a Chinese laundry(also yet to be restored) just as it was left a hundred years ago. She restored the club to it's original art deco decor and woodwork.

Of course there's WalMart and Starbucks and Lowe's on the outskirts of town, but I feel lucky to live in(well, near) a town that values its unique history and seeks to preserve it.

Next I'll post some art pix!

Let The Mushrooms Begin!

Teeny tiny mushrooms everywhere. I'm hoping this will be a good mushroom year--we're supposed to get more rain, and the shrooms have been slacking off the last few years. Time for a bumper crop! I found this dime sized pair on a dead fir twig. I held the twig up to experiment with backgrounds and lighting. I'm thinking those fuzzy grey balls are also some kind of fungus, rust?

Morning Light

Just what it looked like at 7:20 this morning, to the west, out the front window.

Wood Work

September is the month to "do" the wood. Oak and ash and fir and maple, each has their own firey quality. Seasoned oak will burn all night, fir burns hot and quick so it's good for starting fires and quickly warming the house. Ash will burn despite being damp or green(or both), and maple also lights up quickly, burns longer than fir, but not as long as oak. You need to have a mix of woods to cook a great fire!

Around here, neighbors ask "Got your wood in yet?" and debate how cold winter will be. The weather experts predict a colder, snowier winter--the ocean water is colder off the coast this year. Bring it on!!! We have started up the woodstove a few weeks early this year...

A site for a litle old woodlore...
http://www.the-tree.org.uk/TreeCultivation&Uses/Firewood/firewood.htm

Beechwood fires burn bright and clear
If the logs are kept a year
Store your beech for Christmastide
With new holly laid beside
Chestnuts only good they say
If for years tis stayed away
Birch and firwood burn too fast
Blaze too bright and do not last
Flames from larch will shoot up high
Dangerously the sparks will fly
But Ashwood green and Ashwood brown
Are fit for a Queen with a golden crown

Oaken logs, if dry and old
Keep away the winters cold
Poplar gives a bitter smoke
Fills your eyes and makes you choke
Elmwood burns like churchyard mould
Even the very flames burn cold
Hawthorn bakes the sweetest bread
So it is in Ireland said
Applewood will scent the room
Pears wood smells like a flower in bloom
But Ashwood wet and Ashwood dry
A King may warm his slippers by.

People used to know this stuff....