Rock It

Stony sentinels from our very own North Umpqua River, at the Susan Creek campground.

Mount Baker

Skagit River

Looking east toward the North Cascades.

Winter

How about that windstorm on Saturday? It didn't affect our household, but it was a delight to listen to.

It's nice to have a week of sunshine to look forward to. I've enjoyed exploring our neighborhood during the clear days this winter. Most of the north-south blocks are split by these wonderful little alleyways that feel like country lanes--quiet gravel driveways split by the tufts of grass growing down the middle. We can amble along them without worrying about traffic, just casually walk around looking and sniffing at everything. (We make it a team effort: I look around and leave the sniffing to Chloe.)

One day as we paused at an empty cross street I noticed some shards of pottery scattered at the base of a stop sign. I bent down to check my first impression, and found that they were the broken bits of doll-sized jars. Four intact jars lay among the pieces. I was charmed and pocketed them. Who made the tiny containers? Why were they smashed? And why, when we wandered that way again a week later, were all the pieces of pottery gone, the muddy patch of grass empty again?



The menacingly blurry black shape at the left is not, in fact, a denizen of the underworld, but merely Chloe coming to find out what that funny flashing thing could be and, more importantly, whether it might be edible.