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Author Archives: Teri J Pieper

Dogs Just Want To Have Fun

The girl gang – Molly, Luna, Sky, Mary and me – went for a hike yesterday and I have lots of pretty pictures of flowers and trees and mountains. And I’ll post those later. But for now, here are three happy dogs celebrating snow in July!

What’s really remarkable about this is that just ten days earlier, Molly was bitten by a rattlesnake! It was a dangerous and scary situation. She went to the vet pretty quick and got the right antidote and other meds and before they knew it, she was back on her feet. This was her first big outing. She didn’t seem to be slowed down one bit. Amazing!

Sky perfected the one-legged catch.
Molly does the downhill roll
Luna just wants to chill in the snow
Shake
Molly – look, I’ve got a stick
Who needs a stick when I can fly!
Shake
Catch
Catch

Labradors Don’t Shed

Maybe you’ve seen that saying – Labradors don’t shed; they emit magical fibers of love and joy and I think this image proves it.

From a recent wedding I photographed in the hills above Winthrop. Soon to appear in the blog at my website.

Loons

These photos are from our recent camping trip. I love to watch and photograph birds from my kayak. Some birds, like Common Loons, will approach a boat if it is quiet and this family did just that. If I was close to the birds, I’d sit quietly in the boat and hope that they would come closer. They didn’t always. Early mornings and evenings were best. It was busier around the lake during the day and the birds tried to keep to themselves. The first day we saw the baby loons, they were not yet diving but by the time we left, they were diving and preening and acting like their parents. The youngsters have big feet, like a lab puppy and I imagine someone asking the parents, ‘do you think they will ever grow into those feet?’ Well, people still ask me that about Sky and she’s almost six years old, so no.

At another lake, I was able to look down at the loons and see them swimming underwater. They strictly used their feet for propulsion. I also observed this from my boat but they were too close for photos!

I know, this is a lot of photos but the birds are so beautiful.

Dog Friends

Little Bear
Finn
Finn and Sky
Luna
Finn, Sky, Little Bear, Luna

Bonaparte Lookout Hike

This is a steep, really steep hike, in my opinion. We started at the trailhead on the north side of Bonaparte Mountain with a trail a little less than three miles long with at least 2000′ of elevation gain. It starts out really steep for the first half mile or so and then is not quite so steep. There were no views til we reached the top as the trail is mostly in dense lodgepole pine forest. It does change to subalpine fir and white bark pine near the top. At the top, storm clouds and fog were rolling in so initially we had no views from the lookout either! But as we visited with the lookout himself, the fog and clouds moved around giving us views here and there til most of the 360 degree view was laid out in front of us. There’s a lot to see. From Tonasket to Oroville and Lake Osoyoos, Havillah and Chesaw and around towards the Wauconda summit and the Kettle Crest range of mountains and Sherman Pass. All well-known locations in Okanogan and Ferry Counties, some of the lowest populated areas of Washington.

As we relaxed more storms were coming in with thunder and lightning so we made a quick descent back to the truck.

This is after the first really, really steep part.
Break for snacks
The perfect Christmas tree
Native rhododendron
Bonaparte Lake is down there beyond that round mountain
Oroville and Osoyoos Lake in the distance
Havillah
Chesaw and Buckhorn Mountain
The lookout uses this fire finder to pinpoint lightning strikes and new fires.
It was his third day on the job.
The small building next to the lookout is the old lookout, dating back to 1914 and now used for storage.

You need to turn up your sound to hear the places I identified on this video