Portland – Page 12

Two Good Pups

With the cooler weather of fall, Ellie doesn’t tire so easily and has been up for longer walks. Anti-inflammatory medicine and pain pills help with her advancing arthritis too. Since I’ve been home most mornings after getting laid off a few weeks ago, I’ve been able to take her on lots of long walks, a real treat since who knows how many more we’ll get together. She still enjoys going to see if her buddy Steve is out on his porch, as he gives her treats, but he’s only been out once. He mentioned that he was the caretaker of a man who just died and they weren’t sure if they were going to move someone else in for him to look after, or move him somewhere else and do some renovations on the house. Fortunately Ellie can’t hear well and thus is unaware her buddy might be moving.

Not far from Steve’s house is this mural on the side of a dialysis center that I frequently walked past on the way home from the train, so I was pleased to be able to get a picture of Ellie next to the perpetually smiling Pepper. I wasn’t sure if I’d get the picture even though she wanted to come down this way on multiple days (mostly I think to double back to give him Steve a second chance to be on his porch), as the blinds in the window above Pepper were open and I didn’t want the people inside getting treatment to worry about why someone outside was taking pictures. On this day though the blinds were drawn and I got my picture of the two good pups.

Water, Fall

Canada in Fall

A pair of Canada geese rest on a fallen tree on a fall morning in Portland, Oregon.

Colors

A wood duck drake in all his colorful glory swims near the trees at Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden in Portland, Oregon.

This Old House

Normally we don’t get such reddish light filtering into my office as the sun is blocked from view when it is low in the western sky, but smoke from a massive forest fire in the Gorge colored the light before the sun sank behind the trees, softly illuminating the door to my closet.

Dragon Sitting

Long known as a dragon-friend, Ellie helps out by looking after one of the babies while the mother was away.

Stained Glass Earth

Fall Colors

Red, yellow, brown, orange, these are the colors of fall. I’ll include the picture below as well, a sidewalk paved with gold, in case you prefer your fall colors a little less silly.

Train in the Rain

While waiting for the Blue Line on my way to work on a rainy day in the middle of October, I took some pictures of a Red Line train that pulled into the station. Two weeks later my entire team got laid off, and even if I can find a job in the Portland area it’s most likely I’ll have to drive to get there. It took me a while to edit these pictures as it made me sad to look at them, knowing my time on the MAX is likely over. I rode the trains the majority of the fifteen years we’ve lived in Portland, and while it wasn’t always a happy relationship during stretches when the service wasn’t reliable, in general it took a lot of stress out of my daily commute.

Gray and Green

Templeton in 2006 exploring the backyard. I used to give the cats supervised time in the fenced backyard but don’t do it anymore, it was easier then with just the two of them and the yard more closed off. Everything in this picture has changed. Templeton died a year later. I dug up the mint and raspberries years later (but they keep coming back). There’s a wildflower garden there now.