Melting Snow

My walking route today - 2.7 mi.

The weather was actually pretty warm and most of the snow from earlier in the week had melted.

I decided to take a short walk to the drugstore, and then go south through the parks. I finally discovered the trail that connects Brookhaven Park to Lowami-Hart Woods. I knew there must be one, but it wasn't marked on any maps anywhere.

Icy Grass in our front yard.

Sami noticed a patch of icy grass and realized that our garden hose had busted during the freezing weather. Hopefully our water bill isn't too high next month.

Icicles

The water from the hose made icicles on our Camellia and Rhododendron bushes.

Pine Cones on SW Daphne St.

Quince - Cydonia oblonga - SW Daphne St.

Sami actually planted a small Japanese Flowering Quince in our front yard this spring. Ours is still very small and will probably take a few years before it starts bearing fruit.

Sweetgum - Liquidambar styraciflua - SW Nehalem Ln

Frog Sculpture - SW Nehalem Ln, entrance to Brookhaven Park

Great Blue Heron - Ardea herodias

Finches in the Weedy Garden

Lesser Goldfinch - Carduelis psaltria

I felt bad about not weeding our backyard lately... until I saw that the birds were loving it. It's sooo much easier and more fun to sit in front of the french doors in the kitchen and watch birds than it is to go out there and weed the yard. I've decided to just let it go for this winter.

Actually we have a finch feeder that's very popular. It seems like the birds take turns hanging out and sitting on the weeds and eating weed seeds while they wait for their turn at the feeder.

Another Goldfinch

Goldfinch 3

Goldfinch 4

Goldfinch 5

Lunch with Liesl at Ava Roasteria

Liesl in front of Ava Roasteria

Liesl is one of the girls I met on the pregnancy forum. She actually lives in my neighborhood and we've been out walking together a couple times.

Anyway, I was working from home today and my schedule was flexible so we decided to go for lunch this afternoon and enjoy the sunshine before fall comes.

Goldfinches bathing in the waterfall near our table.

We were sitting outside since it was such a beautiful day and I was able to take this photo right from my seat.

Pretty orange flower in front of the waterfall.

Me in front of the waterfall.

Ducks at Bethany Pond

Female Mallard - Anas platyryhnchos

Here's another photo of her with her wings down.

Halfway through my drive to work today, I realized I was an entire hour early. I decided to stop at the Bethany Pond powerline park and go for a walk.

Although summer is not typically a good time to see ducks, I did find a few. I also picked about a pound of blackberries.

Female wood ducks?

Still working on IDing these.

They were kind of shy and didn't come too close.

Pied-Billed Grebe - Podilymbus podiceps

I see these little ducks frequently, but they are hard to get a picture of.

Here you can see my other posts about the pied-billed grebe.

A Bit Tropical

Zinnia sp.

Quick Trip to Commonwealth Park

Sami and I spent most of Sunday indoors, reading and resting and doing things like that.

Late in the afternoon we decided to take a quick trip to Commonwealth Park to enjoy the beautiful weather. It's been a while since we last visited the ducks.

Baby Mallard

Most of the wild ducks were gone for the summer. (We see a lot more species in the winter.) But there were still a bunch of female mallards and a few late-season ducklings.

Sami finds a cat.

Sami claims that he is not a cat person, but I have proof!

He was very worried about this cat and thought we should call the number on the tag. I said I was sure this was a neighborhood cat just having fun chasing the ducks.

Mama duck is concerned by the approaching cat.

She called another female duck over to help her protect the babies.

Sami, the duck whisperer.

Sami's very good at getting close to the ducks without scaring them off. Sometimes he doesn't even have to try - they just come to him.

The family rests peacefully.

There weren't any male mallards left on the lake. Sami felt bad for all the single mamas.

Duckling close-up

We leave the cat to continue its stalking

Nutria

Finally More Fotos & Finials too

Shadows on the Wall

Between starting my new job and taking the SBA exam, this past week has been incredibly busy.

I was so happy to finally get a chance to get out and take some pictures that I couldn't even wait until I'd gotten out of the shopping center parking lot.

Morning Dew on Maple Leaf

(ok, actually it's from the automatic sprinkler, but that just doesn't so so poetic.)

Red Gladiola

This is from the same yard where I took the pictures of the Pink Gladiola. It's the only red one in the bunch.

Pink Cosmos - Cosmos bipinnatus

Bee on a Sunflower

Across the street from the library where I work there is a big field. Close to the road there is a "Learning Garden" tended to by the students on campus. Most of the food from the garden goes to the local food bank.

The sunflowers are growing along the fence between the garden and the road.

Sun Catching Sunflower

I'd been looking at these sunflowers for a week... but today the light was just right!

These next sculptures were made by Jim Johnstone's ceramics class. Jim actually works in the library, but he makes some amazing pottery and teaches a class or two.

Anyway, he came up with the idea of having his class make finials for the fence in front of the learning garden. There are some really fun and creative ones. Unfortunately there aren't any tags to indicate the names of the sculptures or the artists.

Jim's Pea

I was showing these photos to Jim in the library and said this pea was my favorite. He said it's his! Impressive.