Tag Archives: float

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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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Up in the air

I took this hiking Mount Townsend in May, 2017 with my daughter and a friend. Do you see the wild rhododendron in the shade?

The top of Mount Townsend is at 6260 feet, here. It is beautiful switchbacks through woods and then opens up at the top. The altitude gain is 3000+ feet.

The first time I hiked it, in 2000, it was clouded at the top. We were disappointed and ate lunch and napped. When we woke up, the clouds had dropped and we had an amazing view of the Olympic Mountains from the top of the ridge. A marmot kept us company further along the ridge as well.

The rhododendrons look like they are just floating in the woods. Airborne!

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: airborne!

Ok, this doesn’t fit the mood, but my title makes me sing it!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1J8E9dnd5g

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Float

The flowers float like gold petillant bubbles in the woods, their crackling too soft for my human ears.

I think this is a berry, but I’m not sure. It is on an old farm in Quilcene, gone wild. There is a cherry tree and four rhododendrons, an old chicken coop and an apple tree. Salmonberries and this. What is it?

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: petillant.

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pigeon guillemots

These are called sea pigeons locally.

We were trying to figure out who lives in the sand cliff holes on Marrowstone Island.

We see something fly out but weren’t quite sure who it is.

And then, aha! We see an owner.

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Pigeon_Guillemot/id

They look like ducks except the beak is not duck like. From the Cornell All About Birds Site: “Ornithologists recognize five subspecies that differ mostly in size: eureka in Oregon and California; adianta from Washington to the central Aleutians; kaiurka in the west-central Aleutians and the Commander Islands; columba from the Bering Strait to the Kamchatka Peninsula of Russia. The subspecies of Pigeon Guillemot that inhabits the Kuril Islands of Japan, snowi, has little to no white in the upperwing, unlike other subspecies.” They are in the family with auks and murres and puffins, rather than ducks. How aukward, heh, heh. I am informed that they “are not good eating”. Too fishy.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: float. They are very good at floating and diving, and make a whirring sound as they fly. They have a high piping song.

The range map is cool: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Pigeon_Guillemot/maps-range.

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trilogy

The Lady Ox trilogy

The first poem in this trilogy was written in 1984. The next two were written twenty years later. Like ouroboros, the snake eating its own tail.

The first poem popped into my head while I was thinking about flowers. The second two were both problem poems. Most of my poems are problem poems: I sit down with a problem that I am working on and start writing about it. I do not know where the poem is going to go and I am always surprised. And it often goes somewhere that I don’t expect. Often it is a map for where I aspire to go emotionally, but usually I am not there yet when I finish the poem.

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diy

The other thing that I think of with Sam is tools and do it yourself. He told me once that when he went to college, he wanted to learn everything. He had tons of both practical and esoteric knowledge. I took these pictures at Lake Matinenda… so for those of you who don’t know, what is this? Can you guess?

That summer I helped wire an outlet attached to this and helped float the raft in the correct position, which fine tuned my motor boat driving skills. I had to hold the boat in position in wind and waves, while Sam yelled over his shoulder at me and connected lines and wires and an anchor.

705matinenda&walnut 070

 

 

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Cold homes

For the Daily Prompt: float.

Float… but some of my patients are not floating. They are sinking.

It has been clear and below freezing for a few days now. I have more than one patient who is not exercising or not taking care of their blood sugar or not eating adequately…. because they don’t have heat. They are staying in bed with an electric blanket or staying in one room because they have an electric heater plugged in. My house has 1930s wiring and I am told that it is a fire hazard to plug one of those heaters in.

I went home yesterday and my house felt cold. I checked the monitor: 49 degrees. I had cleaned the heat pump filters two days before and then had forgotten to restart the heat pump. It was up to 57 degrees by this morning and will be warm tonight.

Prayers and donations for the people in all our areas who do not have adequate heat….