I need to write, but there is so much I cannot write about at the moment. Life is quite complex. I can blog about Harvey, the Wonder Setter.
Harvey has been a really wonderful dog of late. A surprising dog.
He is not our Alpha dog – that title belongs to Murphy, but every once in awhile, Harvey does something that trumps the pecking order and surprises the humans. Once, he nailed Murphy in a spat over some left-over gravy. I guess you don’t get between Harvey and gravy. He has the waist-line to prove it. (Do dogs have waist-lines?)
We have recently been spotting rats in and around the crawl space of our home. These are the common brown rats, not the big Norway rats that freak me out. We’ve lived in homes where the big Norway rats have come in. Rats are a common problem in the Portland metro area, so close to major shipping lines and major rivers. I even quit feeding the birds so as to not be also feeding the rats.
July 4th, both dogs were on high alert and it was not due to the fireworks. Murphy charged the fence line a couple of times, but there was never anything there. Harvey was always close on Murphy’s heels. We suspected they were bird-watching (there’s always a number of fledglings around and about). They calmed down and took up positions on the edge of the lawn, with a view of the greater portion of the yard, heads up, ears perked forward. Then -they both leapt up and ran toward the shed.
Murphy caught it – a rat. Harvey bulled right in and snatched the rat from Murphy’s teeth. He gave it several fatal neck-breaking tosses before dropping it onto the lawn. He stood guard over it, not permitting Murphy close. Harvey pulled the Alpha Dog card on the rat-catching debut.
Hopefully, that was the one and only rat we have to deal with.
Two nights ago, Harvey took a sudden dive through the little wire decorative fence I have around the island garden (specifically to keep dogs out). I mean: he dove. His whole fat body snaked through the widest opening in the wire (and nearly pulled it down in the process). He snaked – literally – into my big aster, under the wire cage that holds up the faded peonies, under the cage for the aster, and under the low limbs of the tree peony. I was flabbergasted. WHAT THE HECK!
Only moment earlier, a Spotted Towhee had hopped through there and a Song Sparrow had eyed the bird bath. Now, my ninety-pound English Setter was making like a Dachshund without directions. He carved a cave of dying peony branches and aster branches before coming out on the other side.
I yelled at him. My FLOWERS! Granted, they’re not blooming right now, but those asters are my entire September’s worth of bloom!
He heeled and lay down by my feet, but he remained on high alert.
I saw it then: a flash of mouse-brown fur. Rat? or Mouse? Harvey tensed, but he knew he was In Trouble. Hanta Virus tip-toed carefully out into full view, big brown eyes and soft mouse ears on the Big White Dog. Harvey trembled, but he was In Trouble. And Hanta Virus sensed it. She boldly pranced toward our deck stairs.
Harvey couldn’t stand it anymore and broke his hold, dashing in for the – miss! Hanta Virus made it to the safety of the underside of the decking.
Darn! I shouldn’t have yelled at the dog.
Good dog.
Another thing I can blog on: the weather, We’ve been having what I call “Real Summer”. That means, temps above 84 degrees Farenheit. All of Portland is sweltering and complaining (including my Dear Husband). I took my sweater off after lunch today.
It’s too hot to sit upstairs at my computer when we have lovely summer conditions in the metro area. I’d rather be sitting outside in the shade, swatting mosquitoes, than to be sitting up here. If you’re going to have summer, have it OUTSIDE. Therefore, while the rest of the city hides in air-conditioned places (or, in my husband’s case, up in the cool woods) – I am sitting outside in the sun, wishing I was ten, again, and that the Winnemucca Municipal Swim Pool was open. (We’d buy maple bars at Hooft’s Bakery after swimming, and then walk home on the 110-degree pavement. Barefoot, of course. If it got too hot, you walked in the gutters because the concrete was cooler there. You ran across the railroad tracks because the creosote heated up hotter than asphalt.)
Yet another thing I can blog about: my next few weekends are busy, busy, busy. I am going to go help my friend sell her wares at the Canterbury Renaissance Faire in Silverton this weekend (I’ll post links later, when I blog about the faire). I’ve been working on costumes for both days. I should buy a good sewing machine but that would mean I am turning into my mother and I actually like sewing).
The weekend following, is Faerieworlds. My costume this year is very simple. I just want to enjoy the venue and watch my son-in-love with my youngest (they aren’t married, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love this man who loves my girl). It is his first time to Faerieworlds and Chrystal is planning their costumes. Can’t wait!
AND – in August – we are having a yard sale. That should be an epic event. More on that later.
In the meantime – I miss blogging. Summertime is not a good time to try to write in a stuffy bungalow loft (which is really nothing more than a glorified attic). Can you say “sweaty”?
I leaned back in the deck chair, tapping my pen on my notepad. Ninety-degrees, slightly humid – the sort of day that make me feel torpid and I have so much to do. List making: things to do in the early morning when it is still cool (how to fit a whole Sunday into the relative cool of the morning?).
We don’t get many days or weeks like this here. I savor it.
I have the water running on the island. I am using one of the old yellow whirly-gig sprinklers I collected from my father’s back yard in 2011. It’s a good sprinkler and covers a good distance, even when I am also running the sprinkler hose on the border flower bed, as I am doing at this moment.
Harvey is somewhere in the back, as far away from the flying water as he can get. He has an adverse reaction to getting wet, even when he is sweltering. He’s hoping to find another rat in the yard (I am hoping he killed the only rat in the yard, back on the 4th of July).
A flutter and a flash of feathers crosses my vision, right to left. The bird swerves toward me, corrects, and gently lights on the island at the edge of the artificial rainfall.
It is a young Northern Flicker. Red-shafted Flicker in my original bird guide, but now lumped with the eastern Yellow-shafted Flicker into one species: Northern Flicker. The western version has red wing shafts.
His feathers are light brown, spotted. There’s a neat red “Vee” at the back of his head, perfectly shaped. His eyes are dark, round, attentive. A “moustache” of red feathers graces his head, back from his long, curved beak: only the males have a “moustache”. He keeps one eye on me and uses the other eye to hunt in the low bushes and flowers for tiny insects. Ants. He is, pardon the pun, making a killing.
He stays away from the rain, working the hazelnut mulch along the edge, not five feet from where I am sitting. I can see him breathing.
The song sparrow alights on the other side of the Hawthorne, in the rain, his tail flipped up like a wren’s tail. He hops boldly forward, notices the larger bird, and flutters up into the safety of the Hawthorne..
The Flicker stays for long minutes,. hunting ants and gnats, drinking water from up-turned hazelnut shells. I slowly move my hand to my drink and he hops into the rain. He holds for a short second and then flies off to the fence, alarmed that I had moved.
He preens and shakes off the water while he sits atop the fence. Then he spies a spider and tops off his dinner.
He is gone before I can think about retrieving my camera for photos.
The sun rises with a vengeance on the Earth, and no clouds intervene. Sun’s rays warm the pavement and the pavement radiates the heat back up into the air. The city swelters. Today was one of those days in the Portland metro area. I am not certain what the “high” of the day was, bit I do know this: the mean temperature is taken at PDX International which rarely represents the rest of the metropolitan area, except on these days when the summer, sun, and Portland collide. The mercury climbed toward the three-digit mark.
It was lovely.
I take my lunch in my car. This can be a freezing situation in the winter, with blankets piled on top of me as I work the Daily Crossword, read a few chapters in whatever book I have on hand, of simply close my eyes and try to nap. Summertime, when the mercury rises, the car heats up. I back it in to the parking spot so the prevailing sun will be on the passenger window, and I install the reflective window shield – not so much to protect the vinyl of my dashboard as to create a shady lunchtime haven. My car is my refuge from work.
We were at 86 degrees (Farenheit) at noon today. A breeze toyed with the radiant heat from the black asphalt. I rolled all the windows down while I ate and worked on the crossword. It was almost too blustery: hot, dry, wind from the east. Still, the car cooled to a liveable 78 degrees (or so – I gauge temperature with my skin, not a thermometer). I finished eating, turned my cell phone alarm on, and then leaned back in the seat with my eyes closed.
Later, someone asked me if I had taken my lunch outside. She was shocked, curious, and concerned. I assured her that I was perfectly fine eating lunch in a hot car. Better than fine, but I didn’t tell her that.
I closed my eyes and imagined myself sitting on a lounge chair under the shade of the cottonwood trees behind the big boulder on Pike Creek, above the Alvord Desert. White dirt, not this red-clay-dark loam soil of the Willamette Valley. White dirt, mixed with alkali dust, reflecting the sun with a brightness that forces the eyes to squint.
Cottonwoods, their dry leaves rattling in the hot breeze. Green towhees meowing. California quail. Chukkar up the canyon calling: chuk-chuk-chuk-chuk-chuk! The hot smell of sagebrush. The trickle of Pike Creek coming down from Steens Mountain: the creek full in the morning and slowly reducing to a trickle by eventide. Mud-daubers and dragonflies. Yellow jackets floating on the tense creek surface: did you know wasps know how to float? Ash-dark lizards peeking over the edge of the rock. Pink rocks. green rocks, Striped rocks. Boulders the size of houses, washed down from the canyon above in some ancient glacial period.
Dust-devils dancing on the playa below.
The soft lowing of cattle down on the fields of the Alvord ranch. Echo of coyotes somewhere. The hoot of pygmy owls peering into the dusky camp. Heat, radiating down, radiating up: Alvord Desert.
Milk shakes at the cafe in Fields, Oregon.
Climbing on top of the house-sized boulders at sunset to watch Fourth of July fireworks down on the playa.
The smell of burnt sagebrush, extending northward to Mann Lake, exposing the boulders: pink, green, striped. The rocks that poured out of Pike Creek are strange and colorful, metamorphic. There are thundereggs up in the narrow mouth of the canyon. Slate and shale make the pathway to the Wilderness entrance. The mine entrance hidden by willows, cottonwoods, rattlesnakes.
Bobcats. Startle Bighorn sheep. Cottontail. Black-eared Jack rabbits playing Kamikaze Jack as the evening sun dips low.
Hot.
Long-horned beetles.
The colors of hot springs: red-yellow-green. Ivory-billed ibis. Flocks of blackbirds. Song of the Western Meadowlark. Basalt rocks spilling out onto the road.
My alarm goes off. I am in Portland. Highway 26 is yards away. MAX runs every fifteen minutes between my car and Highway 26. I have to return to overrated air conditioning and work.
But for thirty minutes or so – I was in Heaven.
I wonder why other people cannot close their eyes and take themselves somewhere beautiful. I wonder why other people hate hot so much. My oldest niece once wrote that she wanted to be a lizard, basking in the sun.
I am a lizard and the sun warms me. The meditation calms me and I return to work, ready for another half day.
On a side note: the Air Conditioning unit broke down for the entire east wing of our building. The building was as warm as 74 degrees and I did not need to wear a sweater to work. It was Heaven.
It probably will be fixed tomorrow when the temps only reach into the 80’s and I will have to wear a sweater. Maybe I will imagine snow falling to make myself feel better. 😉
The reality is more like this: Today, in the garden, I decided to tackle the overgrown Oregon Grape.
I also wanted to clear the weeds away from the fence.
It is hard to see just how unruly the Oregon Grape is. I planted this variety in error: I thought I was getting the native Oregon Grape, which grows close to the ground and scares werewolves away (my father told me that when I was ten, and so it must be true). What I got was this commercial variety that grows over six feet in height, falls over, and is generally unruly.
We’ve never had any werewolf problems, so it probably does repel were wolves as well.
The weeds and blackberries, on the other hand, serve no purpose except to irritate me and thwart the lawn mower.
We did have a Spotted Towhee attempt to start a family in the thickest and most upright Oregon Grape, but the sharp, spiny leaves were not enough to hinder the nosy bird dogs, and the Towhees left the nest shortly after laying four pretty spotted eggs in it.
No matter how I twist and turn with the camera, I can’t get the lens to focus on the eggs. It wants to focus on the nearest detritus: the rim of the nest and old leaves. One egg has exploded, or was broken into by a predator. The others sit there, the same as when we found them a nearly two months ago.
The towhees must have found a safe place to hatch eggs, as we watched them bring their brood of fledglings around the front yard.
I did not take a before photo because I didn’t set out to eliminate this last Oregon Grape. It will probably regrow. It was very spindly and the branches fell every direction, creating an unsightly mess. The remaining three have stronger bases and tend to grow up, not out.
Then I worked my way down the fence. All was good. I yanked on a good bunch of weeds and they came out, followed by a torrent of yellow jackets.
My instinct was to get up and run, but I lay back very slowly and allowed the angry wasps to fly over me. Then I slowly rolled over and stood up calmly before walking deliberately back to the house.
Unfortunately, the head of the host had made it to the corner of the house and Murphy got stung because he flips out around wasps. I ushered the dogs into the house and closed the door. Still, I managed to get two of the wasps in the house: one that got lost in the bathroom, and one that must have fixed on my garden gloves when I pulled the weeds out. I didn’t know it was there until I pulled my gloves off and it bit me (yes, bit, not stung).
Poor Murphy! He was so freaked. He wanted to eat it but he had also been stung, so his tail was tucked and he wouldn’t venture any closer to my garden gloves on the kitchen floor. The wasp didn’t associate me with the gloves and was circling them and stinging them, repeatedly.
Between my husband and myself, we managed to get both wasps trapped between the window and the screen, where we left them to die. I waited until the wasps had calmed down before I went back out to pick up my garden tools and I marked the site of their underground lair so I can spray them at dusk (on a windless night: tonight, the wind has come up).
Yes, I will spray them. I dislike chemicals and insect sprays, but yellow jackets nesting in the ground in the yard get sprayed. Murphy is allergic to them. I need to weed and tend to my flowers. They get aggressive and mean in August and September, and they argue with picnickers for bites of protein or sweets. I can live with them most of the time, but not when there is an entire nest of them.
That photo was an accident. I was trying to force my digital camera to focus on the hive hole, which is at the base of the fence post. I did not know I caught this drone hovering on his way in for a landing.
It was a lovely weekend. I had things I should have done, but I will get myself busy this week and do those things (call friends and call on friends. The weekend was a quiet, introspective, restful weekend. I needed it.
The yard needs attention. I am rather disappointed in the blooms this year, partly because we never got to any of the local nurseries during the Spring and partly because I lost a number of bushes and plants to the winter. My yard seems dull without those plants, and the lack of new additions is a tad depressing. I am ahead of the weeds in the important places, but behind in too many other places.
Last winter brought an uninvited guest to our home. We suspected we had a visitor when we discovered the birdseed bag had been ripped open in the garage. The bag was moved into the house and one bird feeder (close to the ground) was left empty through the winter. My husband told me that feeding the squirrels was probably encouraging the unwanted house guest, but I persisted – until sometime last week when I looked out the front window and saw our house guest. The gall! Broad daylight, in our front yard, where anyone driving by could see it! AUGH!
The squirrel feeder has been put up and when the hanging bird feeder is empty, it will not be refilled.
We talked about poison and traps, but… we live in town now and the dogs are far too curious. Our fear is that a poisoned rat would wander out into the back yard to die and the dogs would find it. Traps don’t really work very well (trust me, this is not the first rat I’ve had to deal with in the metro area). Eliminating the food source, however – that is a huge step. We will probably end up trapping the buggers, but first the food source is going to dry up in hopes that they move out on their own.
They won’t. Rats are tenacious. I hate rats.
My husband worked in the veggie garden area today – it has long been neglected and overgrown. I think it has been three years since he has had the time to really work on it, and the grass is thick and deep. We won’t have a garden there this year, but if he can get ahead of the neglect, we will have a garden there next year. I mention this only because of the drama that unfolded later.
I was relaxing with a good book (And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini, one of my favorite authors). Harvey was at my feet. Suddenly, he jumped up and trotted over to his outdoor kennel, and whined to get in. What the heck?? Why would he want in?
I walked over and peered into his doghouse. Nothing. Peered at the spaces around the dog house. Nothing. Harvey went into a frenzy of barking which brought Murphy out. Now Murphy wanted in to the kennel. I only wanted to know what was in the kennel that was feeding the frenzy – and I couldn’t find anything.
I opened the kennel door. Harvey had given up on me by this point and was back by the chair, sulking. Murphy, however, was intrigued. He began to pull out the bedding (gingerly).
A flash of grey by the handicap ramp and Harvey was on it. Murphy was still pulling bedding out, unaware that he had shaken a frightened field mouse out. The mouse was safe (Harvey was too slow).
But – really? Rats and mice? I console myself with this: it was a field mouse, not a house mouse. It can’t get into the house. It probably carries hanta virus. Okay, that last thought isn’t very comforting.
The rats are not inside the house, either. They seem to live under the house. That isn’t fine, but it is better than having them in the house, because I have had rats in the house. Don’t ask. I hate rats.
I do like dragonflies. I really like dragonflies.
This is what I did when I wasn’t worrying about mice and rats:
I recreated an entire rhododendron out of the limbs I cut down from the living rhododendrons in front of my house.
It may take weeks to get rid of the brush pile.
I hope we can be rid of the rats before we are rid of the brush.
Four wonderful days spent with my son-in-law, my oldest daughter, and their four children = one tired grandmother.
A stroke of the keyboard and I missed the six-day adventure I had planned, but I got the four days at a “discounted” price. Yeah. Whatever. It was still a lot of fun, even with the missing carry-on (“Grandma, why did you lose your suitcase?”)
We drove out onto the Homer Spit the first day, but it was too cold and wet to spend any time there. This is the leeward side of the spit. My daughter pointed out the camps along the spit: motorhomes on the leeward side and tents on the windy side. “That’s where people with no money camp,” she said.
“That’s where the Presleys would camp,” I replied.
We laughed: we both spent many an hour holding up the sides of a wind-blown tent on a cold, blustery, “Summer” day somewhere in the Oregon, Idaho, or Nevada wilds. We’ll take a motorhome now.
Saturday was punctuated with sun breaks and a 5th Birthday Party for the second born.
He wanted Mr. Incredible’s face for a cake.
There were lots of presents, but this one was the favorite. Grandma’s note to self: which Legos™ kits to purchase the boys for the next birthday and Christmas. (Also: Rescue Bots™)
Javan is into insects as well, but the insect-related gifts were not the big hit. He *likes* bugs, but he doesn’t really want to touch them or hold them. He only wants to look at them.
Four little children. The youngest doesn’t talk, but babbles along in her own mystery language, content to be adorable and cute.
<melt>
My daughter seems calm, but the truth is: she’s simply too exhausted to be anything else after playing referee, mentor, cook, house-cleaner, and laundress all day.
The boys unload the dishwasher for her. They think this is great fun, not a chore. I’d like to know how she brain-washed them.
Of course, they can only unload “their” dishes, but that’s most of the work!
She also employs them as short-order kitchen help. Javan made sandwiches for his siblings. It’s a job with perks: he gets to lick the spoon in between dips into the jelly jar.
I did not eat a jelly sandwich the entire time I was there.
Zephaniah is learning how to mow the lawn. That’s a pretty cool job to learn how to do!
Zephan is also in charge of this little monster. Summer is just two months old, part Corgi and Golden Retriever and something else. She’s all sharp puppy teeth and a Holy Terror to toes.
It takes a lot to wear her down. Zephaniah feeds and waters her, and takes her in/out when she needs to go. She’s almost house-trained. She’s one smart little imp.
So is this guy. Those dimples slay me. He’s nearly four years old and has a vocabulary of a six-year old. I guess he makes up for the fact that his little sister refuses to learn to talk. She doesn’t have to. He’s too curious not to.
We went to a church picnic and baptism on Sunday. Alaskans would be surprised to know that it wasn’t much different from a million other church picnics and baptisms that I have been to in Oregon: cold, rainy, no warmer than 55-degrees, and the water in the river a mere step above snow-melt stage. One young woman wore a wet suit to get baptized in. Smart girl.
Eli just cracks me up. He wouldn’t hold my hand when we went places and refused to hug me “good-bye”, but he doesn’t remember me from his toddler days. I was a curious adult to him, one that (gasp) wouldn’t let him pull the puppy’s leg any more than his mom would.
He sat on the arm of the chair. I told him he was not supposed to do that.
“No, I can’t sit on the arm of the couch.”
“No, I’m pretty sure your mom said the chair, too.”
Grin. Darn: Grandma is figuring out the rules!
Homer is a beautiful spot near the tip of the Kenai Peninsula, situated on Kachemak Bay. There is a community across the bay, but it is not accessible by road. 224 miles from Anchorage, it is a five+ hour drive. This is because you have to drive around Turnagain Bay on the north end of Cook Inlet. Kachemak Bay opens into the southern end of Cook Inlet and the Pacific Ocean.
The Homer Spit is a narrow strip of land possibly formed by glacial moraine. It is home to crab boats, charter fishing boats, commercial fishing boats, and the “Deadliest Catch’s” own Time Bandit. The Time Bandit was not in dock either time we were out on the spit. There are camp sites and a long strip of tourist shops, small cafes, and charter boat headquarters. Our second trip out onto the spit involved walking along the board walks and playing ‘tourist’.
Someone’s charter had just docked and the the little boys were thrilled to watch this man clean the halibut and salmon catch.
“Are the fishes still alive?” (No one tell these homeschooled kids that they can’t ask a million questions. They learned more about fishing than the quieter kids who also happened upon the scene. The dock worker didn’t mind answering questions.)
“Want to touch my bloody hand?” he teased.
Um. No.
But we will pick up the middle part of a dead crab’s body and put it in our pocket with the small barnacle mom found in the seaweed for us.
And we will pick up a branch that washed ashore, tangled in rotting seaweed, and wave it around at everyone.
The practical child just lobs rocks into the sea.
I thought this was funny.
We also did a little walking near Beluga Lake, a small man-made lake at the end of Homer Airport. Beluga Lake serves as an extension of the airport and the floating docks are for float planes, not boats. A person can charter a float plane for a “bear sight-seeing trip.” One can hope to see a “brown” bear or a “black” bear. No one calls brown bears by the name we use in the Lower 48: Grizzly.
Noone had to explain the difference to me, either. I figured out that tid-bit all by myself. I have no desire to see an Alaskan Brown Bear. I had my own Grizzly Bear experience when I was ten years old and we were visiting Yellowstone National Park. It was enough for a life time.
This is “the jungle” near Beluga Lake. No, I don’t get it, either. Everywhere, the land is covered with horsetail, cow parsley, sedges, wild lupins – and this bare spot of forest on a rock has been dubbed “the jungle” by my grandsons.
“Come on, Grandma! There’s mushrooms up here! And stairs!” (tree roots that create the illusion of a stairway)
There’s an interpretive center inside that takes you through a brief history of the peninsula and the occupation of the Japanese during WW2. The Japanese held the island of Kiska in the Aleutians during the Great War. The damage to the ecosystem and subsequent conservation work is chronicled throughout the center.
Javan loved the interactive nest displays, particularly this one of the Puffins. “There’s eggs in there.”
We walked a little bit, but my daughter wasn’t very eager to wander off onto the little side trails. A cow moose with twin calves had been sighted on the refuge and near the Center. I wasn’t very keen on the idea of meeting a mama moose with twin babies, either. Also, we had been watching a moose out on the delta and it had moved in the general direction of the refuge. A moose from a distance is great.
We settled for Sandhill cranes. If you click on the photo, you will notice what we did not see with our bare eyes: Sandhill Crane chicks.
Back to the center (Why can’t we walk to the beach, Mommy?” and “How do you know there’s a mommy moose with twins out here?”).
Mountain climbers.
The lupins were everywhere, but this was the first place I noted the dark blue wild irises.
Poisonous cow parsnip was everywhere as well. Pungent, tall, and wicked-looking.
The locals (and my daughter) call it “pootschki” (push-key), but I have always known it as cow parsnip. There’s an abundance of nettles as well, and Devil’s Club.
I found this large checkered lily as well. The blossoms were about an inch long and the stem was around two feet tall.
Bike racks make for climb-able art.
My flights in and out of Homer ended in Kenai. It is simply too expensive to fly into Homer, even though it is a mere 90 miles south of Kenai. The family combined it into a trip to Wal-Mart, the nearest of which is in Kenai.
Something I liked about the trip was the public restrooms. You have to know where they are as many of them are inside local businesses, but they are out there. There are no rest stops with public restrooms, only these odd sites in places like Ninilchik. Arwen took Eli in to a restaurant to use one while we stopped at a little grocery to purchase a drink for Sam. The power was out on the peninsula, but the grocery had a generator (or the next-door liquor store did).
I think Eli ended up peeing in some bushes, but he did get to touch the stuffed brown bear inside the restaurant.
The day before, he told us how he saw dead tigers. “Tigers don’t live in Alaska,” retorted older brother, Zephan.
“Which is why they were dead tigers,” Grandma said.
Z. smiled. He’s starting to catch on to the family humor.
Last stop was the Kenai airport. I had less than half an hour to spare, but it wasn’t like I would have to go through security or fight for a seat. I checked my luggage so I could pick it up on the regular carousel when I arrived in Anchorage. This flight was on a larger plane (it even had a stewardess).
I had no problem securing a window seat and no one offered to sit next to me, which was fine. I stared out the window and wondered at the amount of water in Alaska. The parts that I flew over were pocked with old rivers snaking in and out of horseshoe loops, ponds, lakes, and mud puddles. I’ve flown over Minnesota (Land of a Thousand Lakes) but Alaska has more small waterways than Minnesota.
Sunset was just beginning when we landed at 10:00PM.
Anchorage was socked in by clouds, but not so socked in that you couldn’t see the mountains. I miss snow-capped mountains.
The flight from Anchorage to Fairbanks (much further north) was uneventful and still racing ahead of the sunset.
My only other complaint lay in Fairbanks: my boarding pass said Gate 1. It was obvious to me that Gate 1 was not awaiting an immediate departure and I asked the Ticket Agent. “Oh, no. That would be Gate 4.” As if missing my flight due to bad information was the least of her concerns.
Sunset caught up to us as we awaited take-off from Fairbanks. It was after midnight.
Side note: my hostess in Homer provided me with an eye mask for sleeping in the day light. I didn’t need it. I have no problem sleeping in the day. I just cannot sleep on an airplane or in a car.
I will plan my next trip to Homer better. July sounds good. A supply of OFF! sounds really good. Hiking boots and checked luggage also sounds good. A bigger and better camera lens also sounds good. And a parka. (Just kidding on the last!)
In the end: a lot of moose. 4-5 caribou. A lot of bald eagles (Alaska’s equivalent of Oregon’s Turkey Vultures. I love vultures). Half a dozen Sandhill cranes and at least two babies. Sea Otters. Six or seven air-plane sized mosquitoes, most of which were inside the restroom at Wal-Mart in Kenai. Forty-million cousins, aunts, uncles, and a life time of family history in Homer for my son-in-law and his children (and, by proxy, my daughter).
They are so happy there. I am so happy for them. Homer suits them well.
I flew to Alaska to see one set of grandchildren (and their parents, of course). It seemed simple enough: the shuttle to Seattle, a bigger airplane to Anchorage, and shuttle to Kenai where my son-in-law would meet me. I was only going to be gone four days, so I packed a carry-on and carried my purse/camera case. No checked luggage = no lost luggage.
My extra blanket, my reading material, my meds, my extra camera lens – everything fit in the carry-on bag with the fancy Snap-on™ logo. It’s a duffle-bag with a hard back, two wheels, and a long handle. I’ve used it before and it’s pretty darn handy, and just the right size for those smaller storage compartments.
It didn’t fit in the compartment on the shuttle plane to Seattle, so I let the stewardess put it on the a la cart as a non-checked bag. They unload these bags on the tarmac and you just grab your bag upon landing before moving to the next flight.
The shuttle flight was quick – and irritating. The couple in the row behind me conversed entirely about accounting. I kind of wanted to turn around and shout, “I’M ON VACATION HERE – CAN WE PUT WORK TO REST??” But I didn’t. My seat-mate was an engaging teenager on her way home, and she made up for the clueless working couple behind me. (I wasn’t really that irritated, it was just humorously annoying. Really? Do we have to talk about my line of work o0n my first day of vacation? I just want to not think about work at all.)
Seattle. Tarmac. Cart full of carry-ons. No Snap-On™ bag. I circled the cart several times. The baggage clerk asked a few questions and re-checked the belly of the plane. Nope. He walked me to Customer Service and said I could fill out a claim there as someone had obviously grabbed my bag instead of theirs. This was way at the end of the concourse we landed at.
This is only one complaint about Alaska Air. I have one more, but the rest of the time, I found Alaska Air personnel (and their associates) went way over the call of duty to help me out. Just not the Customer Service people in Seattle. There were two clerks, one customer. Time was ticking and I had another flight to catch. They ignored me. One minute, two. I’m not much more patient than that, but I think I waited about three minutes before I said, “I have a plane to catch!”.
OH. There’s an irritated customer there. (Can I just slap them now?) A few punches of the keyboard later and the result was: I’d have to fly on to Anchorage and make my claim there. Happens all the time: some airhead grabs the wrong bag and you hope they are honest enough to realize their mistake before they catch their next flight. The bag will catch up with you. Oh, and my flight that was board in two minutes? Catch the train (it comes by every two minutes and the station is at the end of the concourse, that way). Ride it to the N concourse and your gate is at the very end of that. All said matter-of-fact.
My jaw dropped. Are you kidding me?
Of course, I made it – after my seat had already boarded but while confused late boarders were still milling around. I cut in line ahead of the confusion with another veteran flyer, only to find that my assigned seat had been commandeered by a rude young couple flying with their toddler. What the heck. I didn’t want to sit next to a squirmy kid anyway (and she was adorable), so I took the aisle seat and hoped to sleep. I didn’t.
We landed in the dark at Anchorage and as we disembarked, an announcement was made for me to contact the Ticket Agent, except they used either my husband’s first name or my middle name, neither of which are on the tag on the carry-on. The Ticket Agent, however, had no idea what I was talking about and sent me to the Baggage Agent down at Baggage Claim. I had to go that direction to get to my next gate, anyway, and I had a lot of time to spare.
The Alaska Air Baggage Clerk found all my information and told me where my bag was coming from: Canada. CANADA? It would be in Seattle on the next flight, then to Anchorage where I could get it. NO – I’m flying to Kenai with a final destination of Homer, 90 miles south of there. Couldn’t they just route it to Homer? She keyed all that in and said, “Hopefully, we’ll catch it here and send it to Homer. Otherwise, here’s the number to Kenai and you can call them and ask them to ship it on down. If they give you any trouble, here’s our number and we’ll call them and tell them to…”
I had a few hours to sit at the gate on the tarmac in Anchorage, but no extra blanket and no book to read. <sigh> I tried to sleep. The sky lightened.
WHOA! This is the smallest plane I have ever flown on. I’ve always wanted to fly in a small plane, but there’s a certain amount of fear associated with flying, especially at take-off and landing. I’ve only flown in planes with stewardesses, no matter how small the actual plane. This can’t possibly have a steward or stewardess, so that woman & man in uniform have to be the pilot and co-pilot. <GULP>
It’s a Beechcraft1900 Airliner Turboprop. There’s one row of seats on either side, so everyone gets a window seat. I chose one just behind the propeller on the right. I hoped we wouldn’t fly in the clouds, but would stay low enough to watch the ground pass by.
One of the cool features of this plane is this: the cockpit is not sealed off and you can watch the pilot. Because of the weather, the flight was bumpy, and this was the best I could do for a photo.
It was the must fun flight of my short life. I loved the small plane! Once the prop was engaged (LOUD), I could see “through” it. We stayed below the clouds the entire 20 minute flight, and the scenery was great: tracts of waterways, small ponds, lakes, islands of trees, and always, the inlet to the west. Take off and landing were quick and event-less, and a lot less scary than on some of the larger flights I have been on. When I thanked the pilot, I meant it.
Homer. My son-in-law picked me up in the cold and rain. “Where’s your bag?”
“In Canada. Or Seattle, now, hopefully.”
We caw caribou, moose, and bald eagles. I have never seen a wild reindeer before. No photos, sorry.
My bag did not arrive in Kenai by the specified time. The Ravn Alaska (formerly ERA Aviation) clerks bent over backwards to make notes in the computer about the missing bag with the very visible logo. I was advised that *if* the bag was not intercepted in Anchorage and routed directly to Homer… well…
Meanwhile, we went to the local pharmacy/hardware store to purchase a toothbrush for Grandma. My daughter’s cell phone rang as we entered the store.
It arrived in Kenai. Kenai has no direct flights to Homer. It had to return north to Anchorage to be routed directly to Homer. It would arrive in Homer after 10:00PM.
I woke up late on Saturday morning. This was in front of my door. Everything was intact, except the shampoo bottle in the ziploc™ baggie. Oh, and both wheels were broken off.
From Portland to Seattle to points unknown in Canada, back to Seattle, on to Anchorage, to Kenai, and back to Anchorage. Final destination (and I mean FINAL): Homer.
I borrowed a carry-on with wheels to return home with. The duffel-bag that went to Canada will end its days in Homer, Alaska.
What I really want to know is: how could you grab this bag from the cart and *not* know it was the wrong bag? That logo should have been a dead giveaway. I wonder how embarrassed the other traveler was (and if they got their real bag as quickly, or quicker than, I got my bag back). Male or female? Where in Canada did it fly to?
The moral of this story is: even carry-on bags are not safe on air planes.
And Alaska Air will do everything to get you your bag. Thank you, Alaska Air & your associates, Ravn Alaska.
This summer may turn out to be a bust in the garden. I had beg plans, but I never made it to the necessary nurseries in the Spring, and I am barely keeping ahead of the weeding. That’s all right: I have other plans.
I can share these plans online because this year I am traveling solo. Yes, my husband will be staying home with the dogs, so if you think this is an invitation to burglarize my home while I’m off gallivanting, forget it. I don’t have anything worth stealing, anyway.
Don and I have been married 34 years and we have never taken separate vacations. We have always managed a way to go together, dogs and small children in tow. Last year, Don went on multiple camping trips and I managed to spend the entire summer at home. This summer, he will make multiple camping trips (and I might even get in on one or two), but I am definitely taking a couple long distance trips to make up for last year’s deficit. It’s all good. It’s a first, but it is still all good.
Trip number 1: Father’s Day weekend. I am flying to Alaska! It cost me half of my settlement from Allstate, but I am going! Two exclamation points in one paragraph.
I will only be there for four days. My second grandson will turn five years old during my visit (he is “super excited” that I will be there). My daughter lives in a small town amongst forty-million of her in-laws. My son-in-law has 12 siblings and at least half of them live in this small town in Alaska. Those siblings have multiple children. There are cousins and aunts, as well. I figure four days of intense crowd, visiting, meeting people, and little kid noise will pretty much do me in. I will love every single moment of it, but I have reserved a day off between my return flight and going back to work. I will probably sleep that entire day.
Weekend number 1: Renaissance Faire with a good friend who will be marketing her wares. I am going to help her out for a day so she can also enjoy the Faire. Her intent is for me to get a feel for marketing my own wares and I appreciate that. She also needs the help. It’s a win/win. I already have the skirt & I found a blouse this weekend at a yard sale. I need to order a snood for my hair (or do an elaborate French Braid to keep it up off of my shoulders). Nope, snood. My hair is too thin nowadays for the French Braid. It will be a good time.
Weekend number 2: Faerieworlds. My youngest and her beau will be accompanying me. I am working on a simple High Elf costume where I can be a hunter. It will involve comfortable shoes.
Other weekends include: our own yard sale, the annual McLoughlin N’Hood sale, and the annual Oregon City Antique Fair (my sister-in-law hopes to hit that with me).
Trip number 2: North Carolina. I just booked this trip. I saved $70 by booking it today (which I consider late). I am really jazzed for this trip. I will get to meet some very special people who have been big influences in my son’s life, plus I will get to spend time with my son’s three kids. Also, I may get to meet some cyber friends in the process, women who have held my hand throughout the homeschooling process. And let’s not mention the history in and around that part of the country. Oh.My.
My husband’s sister and her husband came over to visit us this past weekend. Their 35th wedding anniversary was Sunday (our 34th is coming up on Saturday). I was not there for their wedding, but they were most certainly there for our wedding: for three weeks preceding our nuptials, my future brother-in-law warned me that having an outdoor wedding in June, in Oregon, was asking for it to rain.
I assured him that God would *not* do that to me. I made no alternative plans. It rained buckets every single day from the 18th of May (when Mt. St. Helens erupted) until The Day. It even rained in the morning of The Day. Then the clouds parted, the sun came out, and I had a beautiful outdoor wedding that was only slightly interrupted by 1)an unmuffled car arriving during the service, 2) a dog fight, 3) my niece (and flower girl) announcing (loudly) during the prayer: “Mommy, why you sleeping?”
Believe me when I tell you that my brother-in-law has never forgotten that it did *not* rain on my outdoor wedding. A lot of other things happened, but it did not rain.
They arrived in time for the Stinkin’ Flower blooms. My husband promised his sister a bulb of the Dragon Lily for Christmas. She promised to return it to us C.O.D.
We wanted to take them out to our favorite place to eat: The Highland Stillhouse Pub. It sits right above Willamette Falls, has good service, and there was live music by Beltaine, one of our favorite local Celtic bands. They play a lot of sing alongs.
Yeah, sure. They’re really singing along to “Steppin’ Out, Mary.”
My husband and his older sister.
We invited some Comic Relief to join us. Brian and Chrystal delivered, as always. Brian is the straight man to Chrystal’s one liners. They’re sort of like inviting Harvey Korman and Carol Burnett to dinner. I had to cut Kilt Man out of the photo.
Kilt Man wore his tidee whitees under his kilt, but someone neglected to tell him how he should sit in a kilt. <ahem> Don’t men have to learn “sitting in a skirt 101” like women do???
The Skeptic brother-in-law is still not smiling, 34 years later. Ha! This guy is such a huge softie. I don’t know how he manages the poker face.
One of the benefits of sitting in a pub right above Willamette Falls in the summertime is the turkey vultures. They are just catching the thermals and trying to rise to the height of the bluffs on either side of the river. Kind of ominous, if you’re eating dinner.
After dinner, we crossed Hwy 99E to the Falls overlook. My husband (the able-bodied hiker) decided we should walk down to the cat walk and cross the highway to the promenade, and then back to the car. I’m not sure he was thinking about his sister’s disability, but she powered on and humored him.
I have never walked this far from the main overlook & did not know that Hwy 99E had a name.
The old Blue Heron Paper Mill sits on the site right now. The City of Oregon City is debating what to do with the site. I’d love to go down there and take photographs before they start dismantling things.
Everyone was well ahead of me when I started up the stairs to the catwalk. This beauty was taped to one of the risers.
The catwalk and the narrow passage of highway traffic.
View of the falls from the catwalk.
The Oregon City tunnel. It is right on a corner, so if you are side-by-side with a Semi, you need to back off and allow the semi to take both lanes through the tunnel. This is part of my daily commute.
Later, we all posed for a big family photo (I did not post it here as my sister-in-law didn’t like the photo. If she decides she’d like it posted for the world, I’ll edit this and post it. But out of respect – no family photo)
This was Take Two. Everyone stood around Murphy and I set the timer. I hurried over to my place, kneeled, and Murphy (who was just too excited to be included), turned and gave me a huge, sloppy, doggy kiss. And then the camera flashed.
Sunday, we drove down to the Aurora Colony and traipsed through a few expensive antique shops. I do not usually go antique shopping there because the prices are so… <ahem> over-priced. They are probably reasonable, but I am a cheapskate. It was nice to find that we own a fortune in antique marbles – if you could actually sell them for the prices given!
We stopped at the Canby wine-and-art festival on our way back north. It was so-so this year, but there was a winery from Eugene outside that was selling a nice syrah-grenache-cabernet blend (I wasn’t buying wine, but I tasted it). I mentioned Faerieworlds to him and he said they had a booth there last year. He also said he’d had another person come through this weekend who also mentioned the faire and who offered to make him a costume for it. Gee, I wonder if that was my good friend, Queen Mary?
We drove back to Oregon City and I said: “One more stop.” Don (my brother-in-law) did not know we have a working elevator named Elevator Street.
I took them all to Elevator Street and insisted they ride up to the top of the bluff. The elevator operator was great, and repeated everything I’d just told my in-laws about our wonderful vertical street. I want his job.
While we were at the top of the elevator, this train passed by. It was a long train, and every car had military vehicles on it: Hummers, 6-paks, mortars, tanks. Hmmm…
I lied. I admitted. There was one more stop: the overlook. Please click on the photo. It was smoggy, so you couldn’t see further than downtown Portland: on a clear day, you can see Mt. Rainier and Mt. St. Helens.
I always – ALWAYS – want to do the obligatory holiday post to show I have not forgotten what day it is. I no longer live in rural America and Memorial Day parades are a little hard to come by where I live. I have no relations buried nearby, and certainly no veterans buried nearby. Memorial Day is different than Veteran’s (Armistice) Day. I put out the flag and get to the business of barbecuing.
Do not misunderstand me: there are veterans in my life. This just isn’t the day to remember them (for me), and the one who is living prefers that we keep it low-key, anyway. Therefore, the two patriotic things I did today were: put out the flag and watch a fly-by. Six fixed-wing WW2 vintage aircraft flew overhead in perfect formation. It was a little different that the usual noisy F-18 fly-by, but a whole lot prettier, in my mind.
I spent the day rearranging art in the garden and pursuing photos of the insect pollinators in my yard. I even put my Xerces membership sign up in the front yard:
I also put up my very first No Solicitors sign:
I’m hoping that will work to keep me supplied in cheap gift wrap, magazine subscriptions, Boy Scout popcorn, and Girl Scout cookies. I want my Thin Mints.
Wire sculpture is so difficult to photograph! I moved the salmon sculptures to the handicap ramp. I am happier with this positioning of the above sculpture than I have been with any of the previous locations.
WHY did I never think of this before? Oh, I remember: I tried using the sculptures as a sort of support for the gladiolas. The art faded into the back ground. But here – on the ramp – the art is the feature. The photo doesn’t begin to do it justice: I have a current and river flow going (I know, my youngest came over for barbecue and that was the first thing she said about the new location: “It looks like a river.”
Two salmon, making their way upriver to spawn.
I like my fish.
The bees were not cooperating. I stalked them in the foxglove, the honeysuckle, the poached-egg flowers, the lavender, and the columbine.
I tried stalking them in the front yard, but I only managed to come eye-to-eye with this band-tailed pigeon that wanted to feed in the bird feeder. I was surprised it didn’t fly off as I delicately tip-toed past and then turned with the camera to snap it’s photo. It flew off.
One photos of a bumblebee. There were plenty on the lavender, but this was the only one I could get to stay still long enough. I wish I had a bumble bee identifier. It’s a little one, with a rusty abdomen. Very common.
You must click on the photo to see it. I was concentrating on the one tiny black bee that was on the yellow sedum. When I uploaded the photo, I discovered a second bee had joined the first – and a third (over in the left corner of the photo) was zeroing in on the sedums as well. Accidental score.
ONE honeybee. I know we will have plenty more where the oregano blooms – the honeybees love the oregano – but it is disappointing that I do not have a lot of them in my yard just yet.
Then. again, we saw our first tree swallow today. It is nearly June, and the tree swallows have not yet returned. Something seems wrong.
My husband barbecued steak and brats, and we all lounged in chairs around the table, alternately sweating in the direct sun and freezing when a cloud passed over. It is Portland, and it wasn’t raining – a first for Memorial Day, I think.
Suddenly, in my peripheral vision, I saw a bee do several slow somersaults. It landed on the edge of the barbecue. My youngest said, “Hey! Did you see that?”
The men had not: one had his back turned and the other just missed it. But both Chrystal and I saw it. It was a slow-motion somersault out of the air. The bee landed on the barbecue and seemed dazed, slow, and subdued. It stayed there several minutes, cleaning itself from top to bottom.
It was a little clumsy and very groggy-acting.
I could have petted it, it was so mellow.
It stayed there for about fifteen minutes, disoriented and mellow. We wondered aloud if neonicotinoids were to blame. I know I have neighbors who spray without conscience. The local big box hardware stores continue to sell those particular products as well as the small hardware stores. People purchase them, thinking they are just going to prevent wasps or ants or worms in their apples – but they are killing the bees.
Eventually, the bee seemed to recover, and it flew off on it’s own. I hope it was OK.
Jaci Dawn 