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Category Archives: Autumn

Around the Ranch

Betty and I and Dixie and Sky had a nice walk around the ranch. It was good to see that everything was intact after 2015’s fires and this spring’s flooding. Like so many of my closest friends, Betty and her husband and animals had to evacuate their home in the face of the dangerous fires. I think all of us carry around some PTSD because of it.

They grow hay on the ranch and have been working hard to rehabilitate some of their fields. In the past horses were used to run the equipment but now they rely on a tractor. Two of the old horses are still there living out their retirement. Sky gave them a wide berth. Horses are big scary animals for her.

You can see where the fire burned on the cliffs above the house
A simple piece of wood? It has been chewed by beavers and it is charred from the fire. It is in the pasture that flooded last spring. It was washed down from the mountains in the flood and landed high and dry in a new place.
Dixie can’t catch Sky.
Peregrine Falcons and Canyon Wrens nest in these cliffs
Retirement
A nest box for a Canada Goose
Ranch art
Dixie
One lone apple

October Scenes

November 1. How did that happen? October has been very colorful and also very wet. I’ve heard rumours that we have broken records for the amount of rainfall. In the mountains where we hiked earlier in the month, the trails are covered with a foot or more of snow. I’m glad we got out when we did. Here in the valley we should be able to hike in the hills for another month or more.

Patterson Lake
It was hunting season so the dogs wore colorful vests and stayed close.
The view from our house.
Balsamroot leaf
yarrow
bunchgrass
Mosses and lichens enjoy the wet weather
I told this two point buck that he’d better learn to not stand like that in front of a person. Next year he will be a legal deer.
The Sawtooth Mountains separate our valley from Lake Chelan
After rain, we often have a foggy morning
That view
Erosion above Campbell Lake
Lots of elderberries remain on some bushes. These bushes burned to the ground two years ago so this is a remarkable comeback
Douglas sunflowers normally bloom in June.

Walking the Dogs

The power company had a scheduled power outage yesterday. It was a good excuse to go for a long walk in the woods with the dogs.

A Day in the Mountains

Is better than any day spent at the computer.

My life revolves too much around a computer, that’s for sure. Any opportunity I have, I try to get away from it and yesterday was a good day for it. The weather was sunny and pretty warm for September. The fall colors are well underway. The girls and I went to Harts Pass where we enjoyed a good hike in the fresh air and changing colors of the sub-alpine larch trees and small, ground-hugging plants of the high country. We were watched over by numerous migrating raptors. We also walked through the silver forest that burned in 2003. Few of the snags have fallen to the ground and there are even few new trees to take their places. Most of the growth is in grasses and forbs and small willows.

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It was a good day.

There was a group of friendly pack horses and mules
We hiked here
Anemone seed heads linger from early summer
Prairie Falcon
Stunning colors
I’m almost certain this is a Red-tailed Hawk
Sky found a wildlife camera and may have made some selfies!
See the attractant on the tree in the middle?
These little brushes should capture hair from the target animal. Not a labrador, that’s for sure.
A short ways to the ridge
Nice looking dog
Awwww! Snow!
Look! I found a stick!
American Pipit
There was a flock of these American Pipits foraging on the snow
This tiny succulent plant was growing right at the edge of the snow field
Looking towards the Methow Valley
Looking north up the Pasayten river valley towards Canada
Looking west, Snowfield Mountain on the left and Mount Baker 2nd from the right
The Pacific Crest Trail
Buckwheat
Colors in the silver forest

Trees by the River

Yesterday I went to Wenatchee for a variety of errands and one of them took me to Hydro/Billingsly Park on the Columbia River. It is a place where my mom and her dog Kelly, walked every single day, rain or shine. My mom’s been gone now for more than six years now and her dog, Kelly who went to live with Ken before we all moved up here together, died in February. I needed to spread a few of Kelly’s ashes near the shore where she used to run with great abandon along the edge of the big river. I like to think of her and my mom together again – healthy and enjoying the crisp air of fall.

 

The park is a combination of manicured lawns and ball fields coupled with a sometimes tangled shoreline of the river.

Lots of beautiful fall colors among the non-native trees.

Why is one branch bright red while others are yellow?

Mom loved seeing the birds and learned many of them during the years she frequented the park. I saw this fairly tame group of Mallards and a Common Loon in winter plumage.

I was pretty obsessed with this leaf.

This photo of it, from my cell phone was my favorite

 

Leaves, like tears fallen from the trees