Irving Park – Page 6

Ellie of the North(west)

Snow is not common in Portland so when we got some unexpected snow we took Ellie on an extra walk in the afternoon so she could enjoy it. It was snowing on our morning walk and continued during her annual checkup at the vet but had stopped by the time we took her on her second walk. The freezing rain had just started by the time of her evening walk, which by the next morning left everything coated in ice and Ellie refused to go on any more walks until it melted. She hates ice as much as she loves snow.

Her vet visit showed that her thyroid levels are really low, which might account for some things we had chalked up to aging like her reduced stamina. She’s taking medicine now but it’s too soon to see any improvements. I was thankful for my little Subaru while taking her to the vet, as given the rarity of snow we only have all-season tires, and the car handled the snowy streets without complaint. I left it parked the next day as our streets were solid ice, even snow tires wouldn’t have helped then. Thankfully warmer weather returned the next day and the streets cleared up, although the yards and sidewalks took a bit longer.

This picture is taken at the edge of the dog park at Irving Park, one of our stops on our walks in the neighborhood.

“How Come Nobody’s Playing Hoops?”

Hard to say, pup, it’s a real mystery.

Hope Springs Eternal

The route Ellie and I take on our walk through Irving Park is lined with old oak trees, so in the fall we are surrounded by ripened acorns that have fallen to the ground. They smell enough like food to Ellie that she wants to sniff them, but not enough like food to try to eat them. Still, she wants to sniff each acorn just to be sure, hope springs eternal when it comes to food with this dog. This morning a storm knocked a bunch of green acorns to the ground and some kids collected them and stuffed them into the largest hole the dogs had dug in the dog park. Ellie of course had to sniff them, although not for long, the green acorns didn’t hold the appeal of the ripened ones.

In the picture below, Ellie again “sniffs” the acorns. I put sniffs in quotes because this was our evening walk and the morning’s sniff had already revealed there was no food to be had, so she wasn’t interested in further inspection. I wanted a different vantage point than the morning picture however so I bribed her by placing one of her treats beside the acorns. We must have been in a vortex that swallowed sound, however, as several times she seemed not to hear me when I gave the “leave it” command and instead ate the treat as soon as I set it down.

Holes in the Earth

We finally got some much needed rain and I wanted to take a picture to celebrate it, but we also got high winds so I couldn’t take any macro pictures like last time. But when I took Ellie up to the dog park I saw this hole that had started to fill with water and it reminded me of another hole in the earth I like photographing, one from Yellowstone National Park (shown below). That one is one of the many geothermal features in the area and is filled with water from below, not above.

There are a few of these holes in the dog park, and since Ellie likes to run beside me in the park, I have to navigate around the holes so that neither one of us steps in one and twists an ankle (she watches me more than the way ahead, trusting me not to lead her astray). The parks folks fill them in occasionally but some dogs like to dig, so new holes always appear. They’ve been spreading sand at this end of the park the past few years and it’s a big help during the winter when rain is not hard to come by, as the sand drains well and it gives Ellie and I a safe area to run in. In the old days she’d still want to run out into the grass, but only one of us has a body built for running in such muddy circumstances, and these days even she isn’t quite as steady on her feet as age begins to take its toll.

I never imagined the dog park would remind me of my beloved Yellowstone so today’s visit made me smile almost as much as the goofball dog who waited patiently for me to take the picture, and of course expected a treat as her reward.

Extreme Baseball

Baseball is trying out some new rules in an effort to stay relevant to the youth of today. I’m not sure about the 5 Mound Rule, where four tall pitcher mounds have been added behind the normal one, allowing 5 batters to be pitched to at once. But I do like how the fifth mound partially blocks second base, sure to introduce some much needed somersaulting into the game.

Signs of Optimism

During the dry months, this is where Ellie and I enter Irving Park every day on our walks. The park offers a number of recreational opportunities for the neighborhood, as in addition to the dog park there are basketball courts, tennis courts, a playground, picnic tables, open fields, and baseball diamonds. As in surrounding Irvington, many old trees provide shade and character throughout the park. Sometimes the baseball diamonds are not in the best of shape and there are no fences in the outfield, but the types of teams that play here aren’t likely to be hitting any home runs.

So I had to smile when someone put up these little signs on a few of the trees at the edge of the park, indicating the distance to home plate. Nothing wrong with a little optimism.

A Summer Night in Irvington

Cars line NE Fremont Street as the sun sets behind the Door of Hope church. This is normal for a Sunday morning but this was a lovely, if hot, Friday evening and the cars belong to moviegoers in adjacent Irving Park attending Movies in the Park, a program put on by the city of Portland at various parks around the city throughout the summer. A band entertains the crowd as they await dusk and the start of the movie. I noticed the crowd beginning to gather when I took Ellie on her normal walk earlier in the evening, so I took her on a bonus walk near sunset to get these pictures. Her reward for sitting still while I took pictures was a generous helping of treats, which delighted her to no end.

Birth of an Ent

An ent is born on a foggy night with naught but the will-o’-wisps watching.

Fall in Irvington

A picture from the fall of 2011 of Ellie in Irving Park, there was a lot less gray in her face back then. The big red strip attached to her collar lit up, one of several approaches we’ve tried over the years to make her more visible at night on our walks. The dog park is at the top of the hill in the background, normally she would be on leash at this point but I took it off for the picture.

Sadly I haven’t found a good time to photograph her in the fall color in the years since.

Jitterbug

Our resident goofball enjoys a summer evening at the dog park.