Category Archives: outdoors

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Ice climb

Friday afternoon I drive to Ouray, Colorado, to meet a friend from high school. She has been ice climbing for years! I plan to watch, because ice climbing sounds terrifying. But I do take my harness, just in case. My friend talks me into trying it. The picture is NOT me. That is a competitor and she is amazing!

My climb was at the beginner ice wall. There are volunteers with loaner gear from gear companies. Boots, crampons, two ice axes and a helmet. My friend and a friend of hers give me instructions and I watch my friend climb first. She will be climbing all week!

I am wearing 1980s snow pants. Puffy and unstylish, but very very warm! I got all the way up and acquitted myself decently! Kicking each foot into the ice and then trusting that it will hold me, that is the interesting bit. Heel down, so that the crampon, boot and foot become a lever. And all the time in the climbing gym helped me to trust the harness, trust the ice axes, trust my feet.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: lever.

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Solo vessel

A duck is a sort of a vessel, isn’t it? Can you nap while floating in the water? I can’t. I hiked part of the Connected Lakes Trail and spoke to a member of the local Audubon Society yesterday. I did not have binoculars but he shared. I used my Panasonic DMC-FZ150, zoomed all the way in. It is still a bit difficult to identify this bird.

Now the pair are both awake. I think they are a female and a male ruddy duck, but it is a touch blurry and abstract. I like the photograph anyhow. The water and ducks and grasses and reflections were so beautiful.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: vessel.

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So far

I made it to Brigham City last night. That was a long driving day, 503 miles. I tried to stop in Snowville, but the motel would not take cats.

The only weather resembling a deluge so far was from Seattle until I crossed Snoqualmie Pass. It rained and rained, sometimes heavily. Once over the pass, the rain disappeared and we lost the ocean smell again. Dry and more trees and desert and wheat. I counted mountain passes, six so far that listed the top altitude. Some had smaller passes between, three more. The first one yesterday had ice patches so I stayed in the right lane with the trucks. Less ice.

One more day, I hope.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: deluge.

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Every four years

Out come the spooks
Gobbledegooks
While I escape on a walk

They yell and they lie
They try and they try
On the beach I elude all their squawks

I escaped the electioneering gobbledegook for a beach walk on Marrowstone Island, finding a large and lovely agate when the sun caught the edge of it. It glowed even though it was half buried.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: gobbledegook.

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Studt’s again

Rake, huh? I thought, well, I am not sure if I have a picture of a rake.

But look! There it is! Along with the kids shooting corn bazookas at plywood farm figures. They must rake up the husks at night, ready for the next day of Studt’s Pumpkin Farm and Corn Maze, joyful, seasonal mayhem.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: rake.

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10 rounds

Got sick in clinic yesterday, about 20 minutes after eating lunch. Abdominal cramping and lost lunch and lay down until I could drive home. Went to sleep for another four hours. I got up to hydrate slowly, some water with a little sugar, every 15 minutes. Taking it slowly is gentler on the stomach. I went back to sleep.

I got up at 11 pm and had a few crackers. This morning I am tolerating tea, but my body feels rather like it’s been beaten up. No clinic today, but I think tomorrow would be ok. We shall see.

I am not sure of the cause. I was given some gluten free donuts and wonder if one had gluten. Food poisoning is not very common in the places I have lived. We are seeing some people with Covid who have abdominal symptoms rather than upper respiratory, so I am debating whether I should home test.

It’s been a strenuous twenty four hours!

The photograph is from the Fruita Fair a few weekends ago. I really wanted to do this with the kids. Today even looking at the picture makes me slightly nauseated! Whew! They were in climbing harnesses and then attached to giant rubber bands and bouncing. Some were able to do flips, too. Not me, not today!

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: strenuous.

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Wee timorous cowering beastie

No, not a mouse. But the lizards are timid too. They do not want to engage and they leave very quickly. These one is fairly large, a foot long, so she posed for a photograph. Let’s crop it.

The next one is going for camouflage and is really quite brilliant at it. I like the tiny blue dots.

I also catch sight of small things scurrying out of my path hiking. Also lizards, 3 or 4 cm long, and very fast.

Today I go back to the first clinic I worked at here. I am feeling mildly timid myself. Stage fright? I can’t sing a song that I know, because I don’t choose the patients. They show up.

I took these photographs on the Palisade loop trial, in July. The lizards like it.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: timid.

I left out sleeket.