Flood watch in Clatsop County

It's been raining for a couple of days and today Clatsop County is under flood watch till this evening. It shouldn't be too bad in our location. Everything runs into the river. I took this from our Animal Store (Tapir and Friends) gift shop window. This small lake was a parking lot until yesterday. Actual flooding is more likely to occur further south in Seaside.

Evening colors on the Columbia River

These two photos were taken from the back deck of our store. Online the store is Tapir and Friends Wildlife World. We simplified the name for our brick and mortar location (or rather siding and pilings location) in Astoria, because it's the rare customer here who knows what a tapir is before they arrive, and we thought "The Animal Store" would be easier to remember. We get the occasional person looking for dog food or cat collars, and we direct them down the street to the pet store. More and more, people arrive out of curiosity or because they now know us and are looking for an unusual stuffed animal or other animal-themed gift for someone in town.

But that's a digression. I took these photos because I enjoy the changing colors. In this case, it's nearly sunset, and the river has taken on a peach-hued glow. If you click on the top picture to enlarge it, you can get a better view of the faint long line at the left just above the water. This is the Astoria-Megler bridge, crossing the four-mile span to Washington. The light sliver of color at the top of the photo is the sky, while the darker peach color which makes up most of the background is the shape of the hills across the river. The dark gray post at the left is the railing of the River Pilots' building, where the guys sleep when they're off-duty.

The pilot boat passes by several times on an average day, taking river and bar pilots to the big ships going up river or out to sea. The bar at the mouth of the Columbia is one of the most dangerous places in the world for a ship to leave or enter the ocean. It's been called "The Graveyard of the Pacific," and many wrecks lie at the bottom of the channel. The pilots have distinct jobs - there's a pilot to guide the ships across the ocean, another to guide them across the shifting bar at the mouth of the river, and yet another to guide them up the Columbia River to either Longview or Portland. It's interesting here in Astoria to watch the pilot boats take the guys out to the ships and bring them back. This is one of the changing points. Another is on the high seas, and we can't see that operation from here. The pilots climb up and down ladders on the sides of the ships, and we can see them from various points in Astoria, including here. I'll post pictures of that activity at some other time.

The second photo shows the base of the radio tower that still broadcasts signals from several stations. The transmitter room is in our building. On the right is the back end of what used to be Englund Marine, a well-known nautical supplier, now moved to the other end of town. Condos are planned for the site. I'm dreading that, to be honest, and have signed a petition to block it. I've heard that the design is very nice, but one of Astoria's best features is the river and the views. The condos will be three to four stories tall and, equally as bad or worse, they will extend much wider than the current building, blocking more of the river view east of us. Now that I'm on my soap box, let me note that in Europe, rivers become the heart of many cities, with parks and public walkways featured. In the US, probably a vestige of when our cities were built - the industrial era with its focus on productivity, not on the preservation of nature or particular consciousness of esthetics in that sense, we've backed our industries up to the rivers. When I lived in Palisade, Colorado, near Grand Junction, you could barely get to the Colorado River at any point in Grand Junction proper because of the industrial parks or buildings that owned the riverfront land and made eyesores out of it. Shortly before I left Colorado, they began to build a river-walk trail outside of town, which was very nice, but nobody yet had addressed the river as being a potential beauty mark of the town. Astoria does have an extensive river walk with an extension planned in the next few years, but here we're schizophrenic about it. We've got the walk, used by many for walking, jogging, biking, skate-boarding, and sight-seeing, which is fantastic, but then we plan projects like this condo, which will block access from the walk to the river front, and views from the hill behind and from the highway (or Marine Drive, as it's called in town). One of the things I love about this place is the view of the river and beyond as you drive into town, and in a number of locations that's already been obliterated since my arrival in 2001. So anyway - the old building is shown here in the glow of evening.

Snow in Astoria, Oregon - March 26, 2008

You never know what the weather will be around here at any season, but "unseasonable" is hardly the word for today's event. Lee, who has lived in Astoria for 35 years, says he doesn't remember seeing snow here after February. I took the top photo from our front porch at the Tapir and Friends (Tapir Preservation Fund) office. You can click on any picture to get a better view of the snowflakes - a rarity here, so we want to see them up close. They are quite large, by the way, and not sticking on the ground, although they were plenty stuck to the mailman's truck. He'd just come down from the top of the Astoria hill.

This one is from the back porch of the office, looking onto the Columbia River. Lee says it's snowing in Bend today, too, but that's in the high desert - not so unusual.

Back to the front porch again. It's snowing harder, around 1:45 pm.

This is Lee's office, across the street from us on Marine Drive.

From our front porch looking at 15th Street and Marine Drive. It's a little soggy for bike riding!

It snowed (sometimes hard) for several hours, finally starting to stick and accumulate, then it turned slushy, and just before 5 pm it stopped.

How's the weather in Astoria today?

In a word, rainy. In two words, rain and wind. Not so much wind, actually, but more than enough rain to make up for it. It started raining last October, and it hasn't stopped. My new bike, which I love riding along the River Walk, has spent most of the winter propped against the bookshelf, unmoving. I like rain. It's one of the reasons I moved here. I appreciate sun more than ever, but I guess one has to like the rain to stay. In a typical year, we get about 70 inches. This year is supposed to rival 1996 (when I wasn't here) and Astoria got about 110 inches. I took the photo this morning along the trolley tracks that run along the river walk between Marine Drive and the Columbia River. The seed pods and grass look like Spring, and it's a soggy one, to be sure. The residents have mostly had their fill of water.

More Spring colors, also along the trolly tracks, looking across Marine Drive to the back of several businesses, including The Bent Needle, which does embroidery on clothing, caps, etc. To the right are apartments, newly refurbished, I'm told, and downstairs a pet store (which may have recently closed, I'll have to check, because people come into our shop [aka The Animal Store] where we sell stuffed animals, plastic animals, animal gifts, etc., asking for dog food and cat collars; we've been directing them down one block, so I'd better see if they're still open).

One of the stuffed (plush toy) vultures in Tapir and Friends looks a little sad in the dim light. He seems to enjoy his perch overall, where he can keep an eye on the River Walk. The trolley tracks run just beyond, and in fact you can see the small shelter on the left, which is one of the trolley stops. For one dollar you can ride the trolley the length of the River Walk and back. What a deal. The trolley is old and tarted up, the conductors are volunteers who explain the fascinating history of Astoria and its waterfront. Some even direct people to come into our store. The River Walk itself is beyond the chain fence. The big expanse of pavement is the parking lot for the River Pilot building. Not much is happening on the river today since it's Sunday, and Easter to boot. So the lot is empty. I'll have to show the scene again on a sunny day. It's a different world.

It's in the mail :)

Kate, your shirt - or shirts (four of them) - went out in the mail today along with the usual mailbags of orders. That's your box in the front with the Priority label on it :) I took pictures of the shirts before sending them. It makes me so happy to know they are going to you! I spilled something on the front of one of my very favorites, but maybe you can wear it to paint in. Or spill more food (not that that would happen). The designs are a surprise until you get them or I post them. One of them was my gift to myself at the end of an absolutely stunning eight mile hike. I want to post pictures of the hike. As usual, it will be hard to pare the pix down to one or two (or three, it really was spectacular). More soon. Thanks. "Free to good home." Like kittens.

Bright lizard, dark day

OMG! Remember the collection of toy animals I received yesterday for my first big foray into non-tapir retailing? Here's an early attempt to photograph one of the items, a big hollow plastic jungle runner lizard. It came out horribly here, very over-exposed, but I did get a better photo of it later for the gift shop.

Here's another marker of the day - Mount Garfield enshrouded in low clouds. I still believe you can blink your eyes and it's never the same twice.