Tag Archives: outdoors

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Seeing rain

I like it when you can see the rain coming, the cloud in the distance with the rain coming down in lines and strands. I can smell the ozone and everything waking up in the rain, as if all the plants are talking to each other. “Oh, here it comes and I am so thirsty!”

“Wait, that’s a bit too much!” “Eeeee, hail!”

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: rain.

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Hi ho, hi ho

This is zoomed in to the Colorado National Monument in the early morning. The light and shadows are wonderfully dramatic and change by the minute.

I won’t trudge to work today. I was mildly sick the last two days and am better today, so I am happy to go. Hoorah for feeling better.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: trudge.

And two songs from The Yes Yes Boys, 2004, here.

I do just what I please:

Make it easy:

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Morning ablutions

I took this with my Panasonic F150, zooming in, walking part of the Blue Heron loop along the Colorado River. Wow! Not truly ragged, but think if instead of combing our hair, we had to clean and arrange all of these fantastic feathers! The heron demonstrated many spectacular neck positions and can fan out the feathers in amazing ways. I tried not to disturb her too much.

Done for now.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: ragged.

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Tough cat

Sol Duc is quite a cat. The other morning I let her into the fenced back yard. I went back in to get my tea.

There is a knock at the front door. I open it and there is Sol Duc. “Meow!” which I hear as “Mom, I’m not supposed to be in front of the house without you.”

She comes in and I take my tea to the back. Oh.

Yes, I see the problem. She went into the neighbor’s yard and then around to the front. But she didn’t run off, she knocked. Apparently the storm was pretty hard on the fence.

This morning, after two days of rain, there were lots of small frogs singing to the sunrise in the man made run off space across the street. There is about a foot of water in it and the small frogs were all singing to their true loves. They continued to sing as the sun rose. Guess they better make hay while the pond is present, or something like that.

Sol Duc is a tough cat and smart. I think she still misses Elwha too, especially when I am at work, but she is careful not to run off.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: tough.

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Sky

The sky is bigger here than in Washington, at least, it seems bigger than on the Olympic Peninsula. It’s the lack of trees. Yes, there are mesas, but they are on the edges of Grand Valley and have very minimal foothills and then just go UP. I am enjoying the amazing cloud formations here. Maybe it’s also that often the clouds at home feel like they are two feet above the roof instead of way up in the sky.

Cee is getting better, so Cee, this sky is for you!

Yesterday we had an amazing thunderstorm with heavy rain and hail and water pouring under the front door of the clinic. The sidewalk must be tilted the wrong way. There were flood warnings and I waited until it calmed down a bit before driving home.

I like the sky, weather I am in Port Townsend or here. (Yes, wordplay on purpose).

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Useful

I admire this orange sculpture outside the local library and then realize that it’s useful. Bike tools and a pump, in a central location and orange too! Very nice! I like it up against the darker orange of the building.

I’ve been haunting the library about twice a week, taking out piles of books. A new friend has also lent me a kindle, to read all of Lois McMaster Bujold’s Penric and Desdemona series. And what else will I find in it? It is like exploring someone’s bookshelves!

I have managed to acquire a few books and I am now watching for Little Free Libraries to pass the ones that I have read on to someone else.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: sculpture.

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Lie low and flow

We have fight or flight for the sympathetic nervous system state, when we are ramped up, aggressive, go getters, all that stuff. We need a term for the parasympathetic nervous system state, the relaxed one. So far I’ve come up with lie low and flow. Other suggestions? I welcome them! We need more lie low and flow and glow and say no and ho, ho, ho in the world. What puts you in that state? Knitting? Stupid cat videos? Bugs Bunny? A bubblebath? Watching toddlers? What makes you laugh and yawn and relax and lets all the tension flow out and sink or float away?

In clinic I am seeing a wide age range. Most of the younger ones, say, under 60, look a bit shell shocked. I think this is still from the pandemic and wars and political nastiness. The over 60 crowd seems to not care as much. They’ve been through it, they know people die, they know bad stuff happens.

A friend and I were talking about pandemics and he pointed out that HIV and AIDS was a pandemic too. So we are on track for two pandemics per century. The younger folk do not remember the HIV and AIDS pandemic and how frightening it was. Right before that started, some doctors proclaimed that infectious disease had been conquered by medicine. Um, RONG RONG RONG! Boy did they eat THOSE words. And early in that pandemic, no one knew what to believe, what was happening, how to stay safe, and the communication from the medical establishment changed very fast. I wonder if the people who were young adults and older in the 1980s were less surprised by the Covid-19 Pandemic and all the rumors and confusion. Yep, seen it before.

I am not sure how to help the younger shell shocked looking folks. Colorado is a bit tough and manly and consequently there is not a huge amount of resources for emotional health. Yesterday I asked if we have anyone who does neuropsychiatric testing and the answer I got was “I don’t know.” I will dig around today but did not find it on the internet. I have found neuropsych testing hugely helpful for traumatic brain injuries, post brain surgery, and to sort out unusual learning and memory styles. One woman had a brain tumor removed. Her memory was affected. She could remember things that she wrote down and read, but not things that she only heard. No one had given her the report to read. They only told her, so she did not remember it. At least, that was the story. I gave her the report and said, “Read it. And tell your family. And if you are on the phone, take notes.”

Ok, now I should get ready for work, though I want to lie low and watch a silly cat video.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: yawn.