Adding Animals

Drake Park, Bend, Oregon ~ February 7, 2009

Canada Goose Photo by Sheryl Todd

Lee, Kevin, Amy, and I have all been working hard on the store site adding text. When I've had a chance I've been adding photos of real animals, which has been fun. I'm enjoying watching the site come alive as a place of learning and entertainment as well as a place to buy things. I've always wanted to add more of an artistic flavor, so I'm working on that this year also. Here's a smaller photo from the same day.

My Web Page: Tapirback.com

Aug 26, Astoria: A hazy heron morning on the river

Amazing. It's wonderful to be greeted first thing in the morning by a sight like this. It's rather unusual, too. Although there are quite a few herons on the river, they don't usually fly into my little bay beneath the radio tower. I think this is the second one I've seen this month, but before that it had been quite some time.

Why do they always look like they want to get back at you for something you did? I knew this heron wouldn't be staying long, so I took its photo as quickly and quietly as possible through the mud-splashed window.

I was right. I figured that this is about what I'd see when the heron caught any movement through the window.

I've tried so many times to get the brilliant yellow-gold of the wood chips, and they usually turn out gray. The light was better this time. I love the way they look in the green barges, although I always think about all the trees it took to make them.

Here's the pilot boat Arrow 2 alongside the Belle Nautica. I'll seriously miss mornings like this if I ever have to move.

March 20: Sunset from the Pier 11 Restaurant

It was a nice time of the evening to have dinner on the water, so we (Lee and I) went to the still-newish restaurant on Pier 11 - The Pier 11 Steak and Seafood Restaurant. Actually, our first choice for dinner had been the Urban Cafe tonight, but there was a wait and we were hungry. As we arrived on Pier11, this coot had also found some dinner. The image was interesting and I took its photo from the pier railing just outside the restaurant.

The rest of these photos were taken as we ordered and ate. The flat area to the left is the Washington end of the Astoria-Megler bridge.

I love the colors of this ship, the Senorita, registered in Grimstad. I couldn't find the Senorita online (and it has no tilde over the "n" on the ship), but Grimstad is a busy harbor town in Norway, so it could be the right point of registration. It's not a name I see often on the ships that go up and down the Columbia. This ship was just glowing in the sunset. It was gorgeous. My camera and I don't handle lighting like this very well, but I did try to get it. It may help to click on the photo and enlarge it.

Here three ships rest for the night on the wide, calm, Columbia River in Astoria just outside our window at the restaurant. Ducks swam, ate, dove, and caroused on the water below our window. Once we saw a sea lion break the surface of the water on its way up or down river.

As early evening faded to twilight, we watched the ships' lights come on, reflecting in the delicate ripples of the water. It was a calm night, both for the colors and for the surface of the water.

After a tasty chicken in marsala sauce and other goodies, we got up to leave the peaceful setting. You can see how close we are to the window, and how close the window is to the water. The entire restaurant is on pilings over the river.

Night settles in on the Columbia River. It's beautiful, isn't it?

Feb 22: Gray on gray, a very rainy day in Astoria

I guess many posts could be titled "Rainy Day in Astoria." Today it came down in buckets. I love the gray when it's accented with sun. Both the photos above and below are nice for that reason. It would pour cats and dogs, then the sun would come out. You can see a faint rainbow in both pix. Then it would start again, then the sun would come out, etc. You get the idea.

Meanwhile, I thought it would be good time to build the extra storage space I've been wanting. I've been here two years and I haven't taken the time to get well-organized as far as my personal stuff goes. It's usable, but not good Feng shui. I'm feeling it more right now. I've been throwing some stuff out, pitching the worthless and taking things to the thrift shops. Now it's time for an additional dresser.

This one has a lot of parts.

I like this picture of the male and female bufflehead, because it shows clearly the whiter head of the male. It shows the markings comparatively on both of them. They usually swim away from me, but this time they took flight. I didn't remember them do this before, and I snapped quickly. I was surprised when I looked at the photo to see what their tails look like when they take off. Do all ducks do this with the fan shape? I was equally surprised that I got them in focus. It's still raining. You can see dimples on the water.

I liked the plainness of the small boat against the huge orange ship. The big and the small. It's always interesting to see them.

I thought this one had an unusual name: "Global Wisdom."

Yup. Rain.

Here's one that came out like a piece of abstract art. I like it.

Gray on gray. Rain, rain, rain, rain, rain. The seagulls don't mind much. They were pecking around on the top of the roof. We got .47 inches of rain today, and since we're behind on the month-to-date and year-to-date, I guess it's good that it just keeps raining!

Back to the project. I don't remember the name of these bolts. They're the kind you put in and twist around another piece of hardware, and they're supposed to lock neatly into place. That's rare. This dresser was largely made of actual wood (it gets points for that), but the pre-drilled holes were uneven, and nearly a third or a half of the bolts didn't work the way they were supposed to. I hate pressboard, but the bolts work more of the time because the drilled holes are more regular. I'd still rather have the wood, and there were enough other screws and parts that it was sturdy when I finished.

Progress . . .

. . . and it's done. I'd put the top on backwards, so I had to take it off (many screws) and put it back on. Finally it worked out just fine. The big tapir on the dresser came from Bocas del Toro, Panama, and the lying lowland tapir above the iPod is my favorite of the ones Sergio made for TPF's gift shop.

Freezing snow, cold birds: Bend, Oregon

It snowed again last night - not a lot, but it was more than last night, and it was really cold, about 9 degrees or so when we left the house.

While Lee ordered coffee at Starbucks, I walked carefully across the parking lot to get a photo of the long icicle on top of the Safeway building.

Here's the front of Safeway in morning shadow.

This is the tree outside the kitchen window - just beautiful with snow clinging to it. It's too cold to melt.

We had house finches at the bird feeder. This is the male, with red on it. There was a female with him, but my pictures of the pair didn't turn out. Maybe tomorrow.

Here's the male again peering down from the metal bar of the feeder. Cold feet??? You can click on it. He's in focus, and I'm very pleased about that.

We drove around Pilot Butte en route to the shopping center to look for a desk chair that will be kind to my back. The chairs we have now came from a garage sale several years ago, and they are killers when you spend as much time online as I do. Believe it or not, most of what I do online is for business.

We had errands at Costco before going over to Office Max to look at chairs. On the way across the parking lot from Costco to Office Max, I saw this tree with ice still on it at about 1:00 in the afternoon. It was only about 25 degrees out and the ice wasn't melted despite the brightness of the day.

Near the pine tree above was this lovely sight. Actually, it was this tree that drew me across the snowy parking lot in the first place.

What kind of bird is this?

The bird on the left is the one in question. I don't know. It looks a lot like a cormorant, but the cormorants we normally see are black like the one on the right. In the bent position of the black one it's hard to tell for sure, but the black one clearly appeared smaller and the beak is narrower. There were two of the gray birds on the old railroad ties, and both were bigger than the normal-looking cormorants. The wing feathers have a pretty design in them, and in my bird book the cormorant (which looks like the black one) also had similar designs, a little lighter than the black wings. So, I don't know. There was nothing in the Birds of Oregon book that looked like the gray bird. Any ideas? I took the photo from Pier 39 in Astoria, Oregon.

Astoria, Oregon, weather report . . . and birds

After a number of bright, sunny days all in a row, the weather report is 51 degrees at nearly 9 in the morning, and heavy overcast. I guess it's more the way Astoria is "supposed" to look. The sun was nice, but it actually got a bit warm here. Most buildings have no air conditioning, and something strange (?) that I noticed the year I arrived - most businesses also have no cross-draft - i.e., no two windows you can open anywhere in the building that let the breeze air the place out and disperse the muggy heat that tends to build up indoors on nice days. (After a couple of warm days, you might as well be in Florida.) In many cases, this is because there is no air space between buildings. They have common walls on the sides and the back, so there's no opportunity for windows even if they had been considered. In our building here on the water, there are plenty of windows - most of them simply don't open, or if they do open, they don't create a cross draft with any other windows. This was partially remedied this past month when all of the windows were replaced, but there are still areas where there's no draft. A couple of us here are heat-sensitive (which is actually why I moved to the North Coast). Our air conditioner was also removed during re-modelling, and has no place in the new facade. This next summer, we're going to have to get creative with fans. Referring back to the photo, I've always loved the coloring on this ship. It's fun to see the variety that come through here.

Part of the building-wide renovations included a new deck. The coloration is not a mistake - the materials are supposed to fade to matching colors with a little time. It's nice to see it without clutter. I'll probably bring the potted herbs back from the front, but since we now have a covering over the whole deck, I'll have to remember to water them.

This morning I saw small birds feeding on the pilings. I don't remember these birds, and I'd like to find out what they are. Below is an enlargement - a poor photo, but you get the idea - a brown bird with white spots. It's always fun to see animals I haven't noticed before. (UPDATE: The birds are starlings - thank you, Tom Means! I see on Google that many of the photos show starlings with spots. I somehow grew up thinking they were only black with yellow eyes, and then gave it no more thought. Tom says that the winter color and also the coloring of females and juveniles is spotted. I'll be on the lookout for them now!)