Author: Joe

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We could have fresh venison for dinner

This morning I was busy reloading ammo when Barb came back from a walk and sent me a text message before coming inside:

Two deer on the front yard.

I grabbed my camera bag and headed for the door. Barb opened it just before I got to it. My disappointed face must have been an easy read for her because she said, “They aren’t going anywhere, but I wish they would.” I carefully stepped out on the front steps and took some pictures:

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I came back inside and Barb asked if they were still there. “Yes”, I replied, “Do you want me to make them go away?”

“Yes please. I don’t want them eating my plants.”

“We could have fresh venison for dinner if you wanted.”, I joked.

“No. Just get them out of the yard.”

We went out into the yard and tried shooing them away from 15 or 20 feet away. They weren’t really interested. I had to make some aggressive moves and sounds before they finally moved onto the edge of the street. Two cars drove by and the deer came back onto the edge of the yard.

I clicked my tongue (really loud, I used to find my kids in malls and stores this way because they could hear it some distance away and knew I was looking for them). This was enough incentive for the deer to run down the street a few feet and then walk through the bushes into the neighbors yard.

I came back in the house and reported my results to Barb. “Excellent!”, she exclaimed, “I was afraid they would run at me if I tried to get them to leave.”

While it’s not all that unusual to see a deer or two when we go for a walk near the park, I don’t recall seeing any deer on our street before. It’s not like we live in some rural area. This is a normal suburban neighborhood with houses all around:

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Oh well, I thought it was nice to have the visitors even if I don’t think Barb wasn’t quite as pleased about it as I was.

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Quote of the day—Barb

I like these kind of trails the least. These are the kind where you fall to your death.

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Barb L.
July 4, 2017
While on a hike near Tolmie Peak Lookout
[While I admit she had a point, I didn’t feel the impending disaster she did. But then, she was convinced I was “channeling my inner mountain goat”.

The picture below was taken by Barb at nearly the same time as I took the picture of her above:

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It was a great hike with epic views. And you don’t need to traverse the areas shown above to get the epic views like this:

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Highly recommended day hike.—Joe]

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Wallace Falls revisited

Yesterday Barb and I hiked to Wallace Falls again. The trees are still extremely mossy, the falls are still beautiful (they had more water going over them this time), and I’m pretty sure the last quarter mile or so of the trail has some stairs where there were slippery rocks before. Also last time I said it took about two hours each way. But we were in and out in a little less than three hours this time. And although I was a little bit stiff for a while when we got back I was fine by the evening and today. Last time I was hurting bad enough to take ibuprofen for a few days.

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Boomershoot is over

Boomershoot 2017 is complete. It was all wrapped up earlier than ever before due to a number of issues. I’ll get into them in a later post but the bottom line is it went well even though it was extremely muddy.

One of the last things Barb and I did before heading down the hill to the motel was to take down the webcam at the road pointing at the shooting area. When we parked Barb suggested we scrape some of the mud off the trailer with the rakes we use for cleaning up target debris. We giggled as we did this after Barb pointed out it was rather amusing to be scraping mud off with a rake. I then wanted to get a last webcam photo with us in a Norman Rockwell pose, as she pretending to do in the first web came image.

We got it:

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Daffodils and tulips

Barb and I drove north for the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival today. I had been there once before which was probably 30 or 35 years ago. Barb had never been there.

We saw huge lines for the early exits and took the advice of the website:

Consider taking Exit 230 off I-5, near Burlington and north of Mount Vernon (there’s little traffic north of Exit 226).  Head west, toward Anacortes and at Pulver Road, turn left and stop in Skagit’s Own Fish Market for maps and directions.  Or, stay on Hwy 20 to BEST Rd, turn left, and continue to the roundabout…go east and you’re in the heart of tulip country, with Tulip Town a left hand turn in about a mile and RoozenGaarde a right hand turn a little farther down McLean.

I’ll bet we saved at least an hour of sitting in stop and go traffic. Those lines extended for miles.

We parked on the side a road next to a field of daffodils and walked a couple hundred yards to a field of tulips. There we walked the dirt roads next to the acres and acres of flowers.

The rest of our visit can be best described with pictures.

IMG_7940AdjustedThe daffodils were tall! They came up midway on my thigh.

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Snowmageddon

A week ago on Sunday afternoon (the 5th) it started snowing in the Seattle area. The higher elevations (300 – 500 feet) in particular usually get a dusting of snow one or more times each winter. But it only rarely accumulates more than an inch or two and only lasts a few hours or maybe a couple of days.

It turns out I had just started testing the webcam I plan to install at the Boomershoot shooting line and I captured some of the snow accumulation and melting. Click on the images to see a higher resolution version with the timestamp visible in the upper right hand corner:

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Monday morning the higher elevation Bellevue residents (where I live) had more than a dusting. Barb measured 9.5” of the white stuff:

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The skylight in my library was covered in snow and the lighting was really different:

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I checked my work email to see what the status was. Among other things:

Unless employees have an appropriate automobile, recommendation is not to come in.

…

If you will need to work from home please let your managers know the situation.

The road in front of my house had not been plowed. I’m pretty sure I could have gotten in to work, but why risk it? I worked from home.

About 10:00 AM:

landlord is on site clearing roads, 2 trees fell which they are cleaning up prior to getting back to clearing the snow

This was the scene outside the house about 10:00 AM:

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Work email at about 1:45 PM:

Power has returned. However, due to the overall instability of power in the Bellevue area we are asking all employees to leave now.

Security personnel, with support of Emergency Response Team members, are going to conduct floor sweeps to make sure people are leaving. Employees will be asked to leave by 3:00 pm on order for everyone to get home during daylight

At lunch time, even though it was still snowing, I shoveled the sidewalk in front of the house:

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Some of the trees and shrubs in the backyard were showing significant stress from all the snow so Barb and I knocked some snow off.

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My hat collected a significant amount of snow:

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It mostly melted off by Wednesday (the 8th) but I saw a small pile in the deep shade of tree on a neighbor on the way to work this morning.

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Mushroom time

Each year about this time Barb and I go hunting for chanterelle mushrooms. Today we came home with the biggest haul yet:

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It wasn’t without some minor obstacles. There were weather warnings about high winds and heavy rains and as of yesterday we had mostly talked ourselves out of going today. But Barb looked out the window after getting up and said she wanted to go. There wasn’t much wind or rain at the time so we were on the road by 8:50. We had our rain gear and although the trees and branches we had to step on and over were slick we made it in and out of the woods by 10:30 with no injuries and only minor cold and dampness.

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Hike to Annette Lake

Last June Barb had originally wanted to hike to Annette Lake for her birthday. But there was too much snow so she opted for her second choice, Cedar Butte.

Instead of 3.8 miles and 900 feet of elevation gain Annette Lake is 7.5 miles and 1400 feet of elevation gain. So they say. We discovered there was about 1600 feet of elevation gain and we reached an altitude of over 3700 feet. I’m not sure about the distance but 7.5 miles sounds about right.

It was easy trail to find and follow. Just follow the signs:

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