Scratcher of heads, rubber of bellies
Even in the late fall, with a minimum of moss as the rainy season is just getting under way, Wahkeena Falls is a beautiful place to be. The trail winds right in front of the falls so the spray of the water blows right over you, particularly refreshing after a day of hiking. Also a nice mental image at the moment, as even though it is only early July, Portland is in the midst of an unusual, and extended, heat wave.
The Door of Hope is a neighborhood church at the edge of Irving Park that Ellie and I sometimes pass on our walks (we used to go by it every time but our aging pup isn’t usually up for that long of a walk these days, especially in the heat of summer). I had taken my mirrorless camera with me that morning just to grab some snapshots on our walk, but with no image stabilization and an eager dog on the end of the leash, some of the pictures came out rather blurred. I could train Ellie to sit still while I’m taking pictures, but I don’t think I’ll ever try for serious pictures while we’re on our walks as I very much enjoy being in the moment with her.
This church wasn’t being used when we moved to the neighborhood over a decade ago and was slowly decaying until another church purchased it and renovated it and brought it back to life. When I took the picture I realized the original cornerstone was in between the two welcoming doors, reading something like Deutsche Congregationale Zion Kirche, which in English is Zion German Congregational Church (there’s a great picture of the original church there, with the congregation gathered outside for the photo, with a few people looking out from the windows and unfortunately a few people who were spread too far out and got cut out at the edges of the photo).
The church was founded in 1914 by the Volga Germans and has had a long history as the congregation, and the neighborhood around it, has changed. Prior to the church being built our little section of the neighborhood was a horse race track, a fact pointed out to me by a co-worker when I mentioned that when digging in the yard I kept finding these really old square nails, which he recognized as the nails used in horseshoes.
I first learned of salvia from Ciscoe Morris, host of my favorite gardening show, and I quickly came to love them almost as much as our local hummingbirds. As Ciscoe would say, oh la la! We have several varieties now, this one is known as “Hot Lips” and has lovely red-and-white flowers from spring until late fall.
The receding tide left these sea stars high and dry above the tide pool, arm in arm, their forbidden love exposed.
We don’t get a large variety of birds to our urban backyard and to make matters worse I can’t easily put a chair by the window in my office that looks into the backyard. So I typically miss out on many seasonal visitors but on this rainy winter day I moved the cat tree out of the way and stuck my telephoto lens out of the window to see what was visiting our feeders. I was quite surprised when this Townsend’s warbler flitted into the dogwood, didn’t have much time to get the picture (it’s a bit out of focus and not well composed) but what a lovely little creature he was.
A female bushtit looks like a little ball with her feathers puffed out against the cold on a rainy winter afternoon.
A very similar picture to another female flicker photo (that one with wet feathers), taken a couple of weeks later. There was a family of flickers that used to visit our suet feeder but I haven’t noticed them as much lately. Maybe I’ve just missed them, I lost my early warning system when our birdwatcher-in-residence died early this year.
We used to get a lot of starlings coming to our suet feeder, and especially in the spring when they were raising young, they could go through the suet rather quickly. Sometimes I’d still put the suet out regardless as Emma loved watching them and listening to the racket they made. Not sure why but I rarely see starlings at our feeder these days.
The wildlife refuges near me are converted farmland and to my eye this is most evident at the William L. Finley National Wildlife Refuge in Corvallis, Oregon. There are several barns around the property, such as this one near the old fruit orchard, and the headquarters is in the old pioneer house. Or at least it was, I can’t say for sure if it still is today. We used to live near Salem and driving to Finley was reasonable, but since we moved to Portland over a decade ago it would now be a two hour drive (four hours round trip). So I haven’t been in many years, but perhaps I should make the pilgrimage one day to get reacquainted.
Winters in Oregon’s Willamette Valley are generally cool, not cold, and more wet from rain than white from snow. This allows many plants to stay green throughout the winter, with my favorite green that of moss which almost glows in the soft overcast light. This picture from 2002 is from the forested section of Baskett Butte, where moss covered the branches that had fallen to the forest floor.
Boolie 