A nearby parcel

There is a parcel of land up the road from me. I noticed over the last couple months that it is blocked off so people cannot see in. But now I have been there: Studt’s Corn Maze and Pumpkin Farm.

Our Olympic Peninsula Corn Maze does not have a mechanical bull to ride, or Redneck Bazooka. There was also a kid game called jelly balls that had masks and guns, but I don’t think the guns actually fired at all. They just made noises.

There is a large hay slide, a large pumpkin patch and a very large corn maze. I found all the story sections but didn’t finish the mystery puzzle. There is an air filled bouncing place.

And a rather attractive petting zoo. Hurrah for the watchful goats!

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: parcel.

Distant mesas

I have been in Grand Junction since the end of April. The Grand Valley really has amazing visual distances from one end of the valley to another, and even though it is a valley, it is at 4600 feet above sea level. It is surrounded by higher mesas and mountains in all directions.

Soon I drive back to Washington for a few weeks. That is a distance, too, 1200 miles with Sol Duc cat. She doesn’t really enjoy the car. I wonder if she will enjoy going home. Will she like the cloud settling over us, as if the bottom of it is grazing the roof tops? I did not like those clouds when I first moved to Washington but now they feel as if they enfold us and comfort us, an intimacy with the sky.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: distant.

We learned this song as kids:

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.

A gas

I don’t think the bird is aghast. Me either, walking on the beach. There is so much to see.

What is this cloud bank behind the ship? And the ships are so big close up and so small on the water. Gast and ghast are both words, but don’t mean the opposite of aghast. The opposite is unfrightened, unfazed, relaxed.

The water is never what I would call warm, yet surfers and divers and swimmers are out there, with their extra skins.

There is always something to see.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: aghast.

In Rainshadow Chorale we are learning the Rachmaninoff Vespers, All-Night Vigil. It is gorgeous. This makes me think of angels.

One fell out

This is not as static as it looks in the still photograph. Not at all! This is a happening rock!

There were ten in the bed and the little one said “Roll over! Roll over!”
So they all rolled over and one fell out

There were eight in the bed and the little one said, “Roll over, roll over!”
So they all rolled over and some fell out,

There were three on the rock and the big one said, “Roll over, roll over!”
So they all rolled over and one fell out.

There were two on the rock and the big one said, “The tide is coming in, and we are going to swim.”

These were taken in May of 2023 from Marrowstone Island and the order is reversed. As the tide goes out the island appears and the seals start hopping out to rest, digest and enjoy the sun.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: argument.