Tag Archives: Olympic Peninsula

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path

The Ragtag Daily Prompt is morass, which I had to look up to be precise about the meaning. Sometimes I think I know how to use a word, but there are meanings that surprise me. An area that doesn’t drain. Here are photographs of Poulsbo’s Fish Park, from February 2022. There is a lovely boardwalk through parts that are not consistently dry and could be a morass. There is a stream too.

https://www.visitpoulsbo.com/business/poulsbos-fish-park/

Awfully pretty for a morass, isn’t it?

It isn’t spring yet, but it will be soon!

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Paths

I am reinventing myself now. After my fourth pneumonia, oxygen continuously for a year and now my fifth pulmonologist since 2012. He did not have much to offer. An inhaler but “We can’t be sure that it will keep you from getting pneumonia.”

Well. So with ME-CFS, myalgic encephalopathy chronic fatigue syndrome, now what?

I am at a fork in the path. At least three forks.

  1. Try to do a micropractice, working with Long Covid people. Who either wear masks or I do not see them. I would have to convince the hospital district that it needs me.
  2. Write. I am doing that, but really focus on it and work on publishing. I have so much art from my mother. She did not really enjoy selling it though she loved having shows and would dress up.
  3. I could focus on publicizing and selling my mother’s art.
  4. There is a trunk from my grandfather. I could focus on that. He states that he wants it published. Grandfather, you were a piece of work.
  5. I could just lie around and travel and play with the cats and make music.
  6. Focus on music. I have written a number of songs. Apparently being hypoxic makes me write songs. I think they are peculiar and wonderful too. Flute, voice, guitar, piano, bass. Hmmmm.
  7. Something else. Who knows what will appear? I am doing art too, the two large sculptural pieces in my yard. A fellow doctor scolded me about one. It’s the one with a logging chain and an oxygen tank, attached to a tree. The title is “Tethered”. Now, why would a local doctor object to that? I have some small pieces too that involve found objects and especially feathers and small stemmed glassware.

Many forks! Now I just need more spoons of energy!

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For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: reinvent.

The photograph was taken in September 2021. Where is the path? I got to hear Jonathan Doyle last night, with George Radabaugh on piano. FABULOUS!

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cliffs down

I took a wonderful beach walk, 3-4 miles, yesterday.

The annoying thing was that my muscles are still grumpy. I took a nap afterwards and they STILL wanted me to go to sleep at 5 pm. I made it to 6, barely.

That was the pattern I noticed when I was finishing pulmonary rehab. On the exercise days and the day after, I would sleep for twelve hours. I would have a nap and then sleep for another 8-10 hours at night. Muscle repair and ME-CFS, but still, mine is mild. I don’t have to lie in bed 23 hours a day. I am very very happy about that.

That is a tree, dead, in the first picture. Sections of cliff collapse. I always worry that I will see feet sticking out, as in the Wizard of Oz. A friend saw a whole section come down and said if he’d been 30 yards further down the beach, he would have been under it. It is sand and clay. Here is a close up of a small chunk of clay.

Here is a big section that has fallen, trees and all.

And here is a tree only part way down. I am careful on the beach, but I think sections can fall with no warning! And I worry when I see children or adults climbing partway up the cliffs. Not me.

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Red maple

Our native maples are Big Leaf Maple and Vine Maples. There are Red Maples all over town now and they are exquisite and spectacular. Rain is supposed to start this Friday and since we still have bad air quality from the fires in Eastern Washington, I think we will all be glad for rain.

I took this yesterday at Chetzemoka Park. I went to see if the air was ok to beach walk. It was not ok.

The panoramic photograph shows the smoke obscuring the Seattle area and the hazy sun. It is worse there than here but it is not good here either.

I wonder if the trees have trouble breathing too? I am wearing a N95 mask any time I step outside. The cats don’t want to go out right now. They don’t like the smoke.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: exquisite and for Cee’s Flower of the Day.

Chetzemoka Park.

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Water reflections: fire sunrise

I took this three days ago, watching the sunrise on East Beach, Marrowstone Island. The fires in eastern Washington cause amazing colors. We could really use some rain in Washington, though not too much. The rivers are down, fishing is locked up, because the salmon are stuck in smaller pools and are too vulnerable. Some rain, please, but not those flooding atmospheric rivers?

At any rate, it is gorgeous watching the sky and water turn pink and orange.

For Jez’s Water Water Everywhere #147.

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below the surface

I swim frantic
I am trying to escape
your beak piercing
my tender flesh
my heart pulsing
blood and death

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: pierce.

Taken yesterday morning at sunrise. The sunrise is affected by the fires, so a beautiful but ominous fire sky.