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Category Archives: winter

Pearrygin Lake Walk

We have had quite a few days of ice fog. That combined with no new snow can make a pretty bleak picture. The little snow we have has been softened and frozen into an uneven frozen track that often makes walking difficult. I put ‘yak traks’ on my shoes just about every time I go out for a walk. One day last week there was a hint that the sun might be shining just a little higher up and the dogs and I had a few minutes before meeting our friends for agility practice. So we went up to frozen Pearrygin Lake to see if we could find the sun and to stretch our legs. There were glimpses of sunshine, sucker holes, but by the time we left, it was just gray again.

We saw some folks walking their goats through the state park
A sun spot/sucker hole on the hillside
Sky at five months and 40 pounds.
Sky and Luna playing
Sometimes she looks distinguished
Bubbles in the ice
This bubble looks like a UFO
There’s that spot of blue sky

Just for Fun

My friend said she was having trouble with her little point and shoot camera and since she is getting ready for a big trip in the spring she is concerned that maybe it’s failing and she wondered if she ought to try to replace it. I said I would give it a try for a couple of days and took it with me on a couple of walks and used it in the house with and without the flash and of course, it behaved just fine for me. It seems like I haven’t been doing too much ‘fun’ photography lately so it was a good exercise for me. The camera is a low end Nikon Coolpix, and not very new. I found it to be serviceable although I did miss having raw files. The color balance was a little skewed, especially in the snow but not terribly so. I was mostly able to adjust for it in Lightroom. Its exposure compensation allowed me to photograph my black dog in the snow and its close-up scene setting worked well for close-ups.

 

Wyatt Ann
Ken sings one of his songs
Gravity has been hard on Sam’s eyes
Luna, before her haircut
After the haircut

 

 

Blue Skies and Ice

Yesterday’s warmth melted snow and ice and created beauty everywhere I looked.

 

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A Good Day Skiing and Birding

Today I skied from Brown’s Farm to Mazama, had lunch and skied back; a distance of about 20k. For me it’s a good sk;, for others it’s just an average day. It’s a mostly flat stretch of the Community Trail along the Methow River. Along the way I was able to see quite a few interesting birds – a Belted Kingfisher, American Dippers, a large (200 plus) flock of Common Redpolls, Ravens, Mallards, Mountain and Black-capped Chickadees, Red-breasted Nuthatches, an unknown diving duck and a Northern Pygmy Owl. Soup at the Mazama store was Brazilian Black Bean served with avocado cream and salted baguette and quite satisfying. Temperatures were a little bit warmer, into the twenties today. Feels downright balmy after all the single digit days.

 

This dog is the official greeter at Brown’s Farm. I should know his name by now.

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A gray day seemed perfect for black and white

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The Methow River

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Soup and bread at the Mazama Store.

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I really, really need a longer lens for the little camera.

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Out of Town

Earlier this week I had business in Wenatchee, one hundred miles south of here. It was still cold and clear but down there it was ten degrees warmer – almost balmy since I’ve grown used to the cold temperatures. My car needed servicing and when I made the appointment the lady said it would take about an hour so I planned to wait for it. When I arrived she said two hours – there was a recall I didn’t know about. Darn. So I gathered my wits, my binoculars, my little camera (yes, I travel with a lot of stuff, luckily this time I didn’t take a dog) hat and gloves, and went for a walk. The car dealership is located near the confluence of the Wenatchee and Columbia Rivers in an area that has become fairly industrialized. It seems ironic to me because in its natural state this place would have been full of birds and other wildlife. The native Americans had celebrations and horse races in this area. In the 1900’s it became a busy area for orchards. And now it has fruit warehouses, port buildings, a mail distribution center and various businesses like the car dealerships. One good thing is that the PUD bought some of the land at the confluence as mitigation for the hydro power dams on the river and turned it into a state park named appropriately enough, Confluence State Park. That was the destination for my walk.

 

Trucks lined up and waiting to be filled with boxes of apples

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Some apples travel by rail

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Now why would someone frame their license plate with skulls?

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Smart?

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More litter

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Some places have nice trees but why plant invasive ivy at their base?

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Same birch tree looking up

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Plaid logo

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At the park, there are acres and acres of grass near the rivers. This is perfect habitat for Canada Geese.

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There’s a feeder in those trees. I saw Song Sparrows, Spotted Towhees, Black-capped Chickadees, House Finches and other small birds.

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This is a terrific pedestrian bridge across the Wenatchee River. It is an important link in the Apple Capital Loop Trail.

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Looking down the Wenatchee towards the Columbia with East Wenatchee in the distance

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The ice on the right side of this image is broken and moving with the current while the ice on the left is still.

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Lookin up the Wenatchee at the railroad bridge and then the highway bridge

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Here you can see the moving ice on the left. When I was returning to my car, the ice on the right was cracking as water behind one of the dams began to back up into the Wenatchee River. Not only could I hear the cracking, I could watch cracks form. I could have stayed there all day.

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Endless patterns

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When I got to my car I discovered that my lens cap was missing. This tiny thing was sure to be difficult to replace so I retraced my steps and spotted it where I had crossed the busy arterial. It had been run over but is still functional.

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While I was at first disappointed to learn that my car was going to take longer than expected, I had a great walk in brisk sunny weather and really felt refreshed by it. Some sights were not pretty but the beauty of the rivers more than made up for that.