Teri J Pieper

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Early Spring at Blackpine Lake

April 11, 2015 – 7:02 am
Posted in Blackpine Lake, Uncategorized
Tagged blackpine lake, dogs, fishing, pines, spring
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Last year we visited Blackpine Lake on April 23rd and it was still mostly ice-covered and there was enough snow that we parked a ways away from the campground. You can see a blog post from last year here. We went this week on April 8th and drove all the way to the lake and found much less ice. It is such an early spring.

MA managed to catch three fish this time. Sky was completely obsessed with her fishing pole and was no help at all. She could not stand the thought that her good friend was standing on a dock with a stick in her hand and flailing it about and yet not throwing it in the water. I finally had to leash her and DRAG her away from the dock. And then she was cold and wet. We sat down on a bench and Sky scooted right in close to me, shivering. Have you ever hugged a wet dog? She soon quit shivering but still wanted, more than anything to return to MA.

All the dogs enjoyed some time in the water, even young Quincy. He looks like he’ll be a good swimmer too.

Ponderosa pines

Very early for paintbrush (Castilleja sp) to be blooming

And where are those two off to?

Reflections

Ice

An attempt to get all the dogs in one photo. Here’s two.

Threre. Where’s Quincy?

There he is!

I really needed an assistant standing behind me with a toy or treat.

Milling around on the dock

What do you see Quincy?

The fishing pole!

I don’t think he planned to jump off the dock.

Redwoods

A trip through Northern California is not complete without a visit to the Redwoods. We stopped in one of the many Redwood State Parks and also the National Park. Lighting for tree photography was nearly as bad as it could be with high bright sunshine so I didn’t spend much time making images of the massive trees. It was good enough just to stand among them. I also enjoyed the other things growing in the old forests. Of particular interest to me was a large Trillium with reddish flowers. It was new to me. I found this article about it on the California Native Plant Society blog. One visitors’ center had slabs of wood from redwood trees showing their really wide annual growth rings. Here at home on the east slope of Washington’s Cascades, tree rings are close together, nearly impossible to see and showing very slow growth.

Trillium?

Buttercup. Much larger than the ones at home.

Another Day, Another Beach

April 6, 2015 – 12:18 pm
Posted in beach
Tagged anemone, beach, California, dogs, mussels
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Maybe it’s because we live in the mountains that we are drawn to beaches. We looked around for dog-friendly beaches on the trip and were pleased to find lots of places for them to run. This one at McKerricher State Park in California had a long open section in between two closed sections – one because the seals and sea lions hauled out on the rocks and at the other end was a nesting area for an endangered plover. We were there at an exceptionally low tide and saw a fellow out harvesting mussels. Yumm!

Anemones exposed by the low tide

Lots of mussels

Lots of tidepools to explore

Mussels and gooseneck barnacles

Gooseneck barnacles

Sea anemone

Golden beach

Black Oystercatcher

Mussels

Luna went right up to the sign before being called back.

Views from the Road

We spent three days in the Big Sur area and wished we had time for more. It was lovely and the weather was over the top nice. Even the views of and from the highway were superb. We saw migrating whales at most every overlook. We stopped at one place each time we went by in hopes of seeing a California Condor and sure enough, as we were headed north, Ken finally found one and we each had brief glimpses of it. The water of the Pacific looks different along the California coast compared to the Washington coast. Maybe because there are so many more rivers emptying into the ocean up here.