Faces of the Season

Finally, after a long and pleasant summer, it rained like crazy for a couple of days straight. It seemed unusual just because it hasn't happened for awhile, but soon it will be almost a daily routine. I love the rain, so no problem here. The piece of two-by-four is a harbinger of real logs to come as the rains wash the shores upstream. I took this picture on October 22, and today there was one of those interesting reed mats that cover the water just in the area of the photo. I got distracted before I took a picture of it, and soon it was gone.

You can't see their full beauty in the bright light and high contrast of the photo, but these flowers outside my front door have been my friends all summer. They found a niche, then withstood all events, including someone pulling off the bloom either because they liked it or "just because." There is a ton of foot traffic on the River Walk, so you never know. Anyway, they came back wonderfully and are still looking good today even after a couple of days of our first cold-snap. I'm sure they like the reflected heat from the building and the blacktop!

When I see a pink glowing sunrise like this one over the water . . . 

. . . it usually means there's a brilliant sunrise over the River Walk.

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Ships and Geese

The marine layer is still in, keeping the air nice and cool. It's always a pleasure to see the bright Tokyo Marine ships in the morning - this time in a ray of sun against the clouds. The ship's name is Argent Aster, and I don't recall seeing that name before.

The pilot boat coming in.

Seeing Canada geese around Astoria is nothing novel, although I always enjoy them, but what is unusual is seeing them swim past my deck. I see them most often west of here.

Swimming. . . .

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Dec 6, Astoria: Cold today

I took surprisingly few photos today - in fact, only this scene. The tides have been big: high highs, and low lows. And the river was rough, but I didn't hang around to catch white-capped waves under the radio tower, because it was already in the 30s near sundown. For here, that's pretty cold and I wasn't prepared. Wind had been shaking the building, and something underneath was thumping against the pilings in the high tide. As I write this just before bed (at 1:30 in the morning of December 7, although I'm posting it to December 6), it's only 30 degrees out. I've been working all day and all evening, and even though the heater's been on, the room is cold. Clearly, it's time to turn in!

June 6, Bend: Sunset at Anthony's

I took this sunset photo in beautiful Bend, Oregon, just outside of Anthony's fish restaurant the Deschutes River in the Old Mill District. Even in June, it was a bit cold for sitting outside tonight, although many were. I'd had a wild hare to get up and go, and I'd just finished the five-hour drive. I was pretty tired, mainly looking forward to a good dinner and a Margarita.

There was some kind of balloon event going on across the river, and hot-air balloons were being filled using gas fires. It looked pretty, and would have been inviting under other circumstances. I expect the balloons had been up during the day, and they were going to go flying again in the morning. It looks like Bend is right on the flight path between Portland and points south, which makes for something more to look at when the clouds are scarce.

May 30, Astoria: Ships, Logs, and Love on the Prairie (I revive a writing project and start a new blog)

I'm always interested in the different-looking ships that come by. This one belongs to a German company called BBC Chartering. It has nothing to do with the broadcasting company, but it is fitted with super-heavy-duty cranes for lifting super-heavy cargo that can't be broken down into smaller packets that could be lifted by lighter-duty cranes. The parts are for wind turbines assembled in Denmark. (Thanks for the info, Lee!)

A close-up. The cranes and cargo are both squeaky-clean looking. And look how flat the water is. It's been like this for a few days.

Here's anaother pic of the flat water. I enjoy the patterns the water makes as it slips over the foundation of the radio tower in different conditions.

It's lucky for us that the water HAS been flat, because the monster log is still here at the foot of the deck.

Another pic with the shadow of the catwalk.

It was 9:02 p.m. when I took this photo. I love the way the river reflects the sky so late into the evening when it's clear. I had grabbed the pike pole and once again tried to shove that sucker into the current, but it headed for the dual obstacles of the tower and a piling, and in awhile floated back to us. The current was pretty lazy anyway. I couldn't get it to grab.

I've been thinking about how to re-start my Hudson-Joy writing/history/biography project in a new direction, and I've finally figured it out - at least enough to start. I believe that what I need to do is the part that most interests me right now anyway. It makes sense from many angles. See the new blog for details!

May 14, Astoria: Some colors and shapes of Thursday

There's always something a little different passing along the river - or if it's not different, maybe I haven't looked at it hard enough before.

I thought the shapes and concavities in the stern of this ship were unusual and interesting. I have no idea what they're used for. Click on the image and you'll see them better. It still amazes me to see the scale of the humans, their ladders and doorways and such on board a ship like this.

The pilot boat was coming in fast, hitting the small chop on the river and causing great billows of spray to fly up at the bow. I missed the best ones, but by my next shot, the boat was behind the building on my left. I like the photo anyway, especially larger.

The other day I posted a picture on my Astoria, Oregon, Daily Photo blog of some green pilings I'd taken in May of 2007, and so many people remarked on the color that I had it on my mind today when the sun brought out the brilliant green again - in fact, even more brightly.

A few seconds after I took this shot, the clouds blew over us again, and the bright hue was gone.

May 12, Astoria: It might as well be Winter (almost)

It was another Spring day, but one on which I was missing the down jacket I accidentally left in Lee's car the other day. As the tide goes out, the ducks like to feed on the cement platform that holds up the radio tower. The tide will get lower, but for now the amount of water is just right for the ducks to pick up food that washes across the tower's base. As you can see, it's raining.

And it's been raining off and on for a couple of days. It muddies the water and brings sticks and logs down the river. In this case the branch is spindly and will float away on the tide. It's about 6 or 8 feet long, though - probably bigger than it looks here.

The clouds are always fun to watch. They hover, sink onto the river as fog, then lift again, sometimes changing the scene dramatically every few minutes.

Log update: It's still here and doesn't seem like it's going anywhere soon.

I noticed this gorgeous salmon-colored azalea bush on Harrison Ave this morning and took a photo for my Ruby Tuesday post below. See the red tulip? Nice!

I had to get some closer shots of the salmon flowers. The color is just amazing. I don't remember seeing any like this before. If you click to enlarge it, you can see a common Northwest feature - the branches have large chunks of moss growing on them. A moment later I got into my car, just in time to avoid being pelted by very wet hail.

Later in the day this barge passed my office. The sunlight was already fading by the time I got my camera and got outside. There's still a ray of sun on the yellowish wood chips, but a moment earlier they had been brilliant. I love the texture in the clouds.

April 14, Warrenton and Astoria: Beautiful sunset sky, beautiful light

I took this photo just outside the Columbia Fitness Center in Warrenton, just across the Youngs Bay Bridge from Astoria. It's a swampy area alongside the river, so there's a lot of plant life there.

I took this picture from the same location. It's less dramatic, but I like the image and the colors. The clouds were beautiful this evening, and the light was really nice. It was just after 7:30 p.m., so it's clear that the days are getting longer. During winter, it's dark by 5 pm, and in summer, you can still see light in the sky at 10:00. I enjoy the changes we get this far north.

I took this pic just before 7:00 p.m. as I was getting ready to go to the gym. The light had that special quality that told me there could be a really good sunset. You never know what form it will take, but a certain mellow quality in the light and certain moisture in the air usually give interesting results. It's better for ship photos, too, because there's less contrast. Too often, the white "castle" on the ship burns out, and I'm not good enough with the camera controls yet to get it right. When I exposed for the castle in some experiments the other day, the rest of the photo went dark. Anyway, I love this lighting.

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?

March 19: The Global Sentinel passes Astoria

We had a notable visitor on the river today, the Global Sentinel, a trans-oceanic layer of fiber-opitic cable.

The ship was moving upriver at quite a clip, and actually making quite a lot of noise for a ship of that size. I didn't get a good photo, but I wanted to get something before she disappeared behind the sheds to the east of our place.

Lately I've taken an interest in the way each type of ship arranges the opening and ladder where the pilots enter and leave. This is almost like a regular doorway with a ladder in it.

It was just plain cold and wet and dreary on the water today. This bufflehead female floats on still water with raindrops pattering down. The hard rain seems to have stopped for awhile, but it drizzled much of the day. I was indoors working on the computer as usual.

Nice patterns and reflections in the still water of the Columbia.

Here's the radio tower, reflected.

By early evening, there was a steamy-looking fog over the river. It wasn't actually steamy because there was no heat. It's just the way the clouds were looking later in the day. It's kind of different from the usual - whatever that is - but the fog and clouds don't usually take this formation on the water. I don't mind days like this, but it IS why we get so excited when the sun comes out.

March 14: A new duck

I almost titled this post "Another rainy day in Astoria," and then I began to wonder how many posts I already have by that name and how many I'll have in few years if I keep that up. Probably lots! After seveal days of beautiful weather, that is what we had today, another rainy one. It started last night. Above, you can see the big log that's been stuck under the neighboring building the past few days. The mass on the left side is a big growth of root on one side of the tree, but I couldn't get a good photo of it.

This is just rain patterns on the river with sticks floating around in it. We get a lot of big broken grass stalks this time of year, too.

Someday I'm going to get an SLR with a nice long lens. I wonder if this is a male northern pintail duck (Anas acuta), as they winter in this part of Oregon, but it doesn't have the white throat. Would that make it a youngster, or could it be a hybrid duck? I was just looking at some duck hybrids online and it does seem to confuse the issue. I haven't taken a picture of a duck like this one before, and I wanted to see what it was. I haven't particularly noticed them before. We do have a lot of bufflehead ducks and some mallards on the water now.

This seagull was strutting around on the end of the catwalk for awhile in the downpour.

I especially liked the color contrast between the protective flange at the base of the tower and the chipping red paint higher up.

I slept until about noon. I knew I was tired, but didn't realize I was that tired. And I've been working online the rest of the day wtih blogs and albums, and spending some time on Facebook. We had more orders in the gift shop today than we had last Saturday and early Sunday. I wonder if it's all this online activity or if people are feeling better about economic news.