Category Archives: beach

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medicine

I was thinking of old medicine bottles for today’s prompt, but I think hiking is one of the most medicinal things I do. Healing. Freeing. Feeling the changes in the air, seeing the forests and the water here, being very present. Peaceful.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: medicinal.

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beach finds

On my journey in March, I bought a small light box. I thought it would be wonderful for lighting up the clear chalcedony that we search for on the beaches here, and it is! I found nearly all of these, except for the very round very large one on the left. A friend gave me that one. It reminds me of the “Venus figurines”, carved between 25,000 and 15,000 BC.

Here is one of beaches where we search:

Just a few rocks on the beach.

Here is a find (taken by my friend):

Chalcedony pebble lit among other pebbles.

They light up when the sun is out!

Venus figurines: https://www.dkfindout.com/us/history/stone-age/stone-age-carvings/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_figurine

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: chalcedony.

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of the air and water

Great blue herons never look like they are of the earth to me. They look like they are of the air and of the water. Unearthly. I keep wondering if they are angels.

Eagles do not look earthly either. They do land on the beach occasionally but I see them in the air or in the trees most of the time.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: unearthly.

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hot weather flower

Yesterday the downtown bank recorded a temperature of 87! And this is after six months of seeing the sun about once every two weeks, and temperatures mostly in the 40s and 50s.

The beaches have been EMPTY. The delightful Salish Sea gets to a high of 55 degrees, so anyone who swims is brave. But yesterday the beaches were FULL again! Tourists and locals, summer is here! The water temperature yesterday was 9 degrees C, which is 48 F. Cold for swimming.

For Cee’s Flower of the Day.

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sand pattern

I took this photograph yesterday on East Beach in glorious sun.

I left the house to hike at 5:30 am. I didn’t hear about Roe v Wade being overturned until later in the day. I am grieving and will fight for women’s right to determine their own health. Each sperm is alive and each egg too. Don’t tell me they should all be saved, because then we would all starve. Life doesn’t start at conception. I think that some men wanting to control women starts with conception. They certainly don’t want their sperm controlled.

In the photograph are great blue heron tracks. I saw at least three great blue herons. At least four eagles, sitting in the tops of trees along the cliffs enjoying the sun.

The beach changes daily. We go to North Beach and one day it is long stretches of sand and the next it is covered with rocks of all sizes. We have been hiking so regularly that it is really clear that the beach changes as much as human moods! Every tide is different.

Here are chalcedony nodules found yesterday. We still call them agates, but since we are getting fussier and want the clear ones, they are more correctly called chalcedony nodules.

The beach changes like US politics. The water rushes in like a new administration, removes small and large boulders and rushes out again. A new Supreme Court Judge, a new person in this appointed position or that, change, change, change, a new pattern. I am grieving about Roe v Wade, but contributing to the fight for women’s rights and for women’s health. I wish that as a country we were less dramatic and nicer and did not need to have an enemy to shout at all the time.

Maybe that change is coming, but slowly. We might learn from social media and from all sorts of lessons. I have some hope.

Meanwhile I’d rather be with the great blue herons and the eagles.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: patterns.

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half light

We had sun yesterday! But mostly, we have had rain rain rain and clouds on the Olympic Peninsula this spring.

With record breaking temperatures across the US, I can’t complain much about rain. I took today’s photograph a few days ago, in the early morning. We walk hoping the sun will peek through. It is peeking through but not on us. It is peeking far over the water in the distance.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: half light.