Saturday I hiked what may be my favorite one ever: Pinnacle Ridge in Mount Hood’s Wilderness area. Here’s a link to a photo that very nearly captures the exquisite beauty of that place. Adam Schneider’s photos not only are fantastic but are useful in double-checking some of the many wildflowers that my hiking pal Danielle [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Nature’
They smelled the water
Record-breaking temperatures weighed down on Portland, Oregon yesterday. A small window-mounted air conditioner, bought used from a friend last year–who would believe a “designer” would allow such a blight on her house (you haven’t seen this house!)–cooled the upstairs enough to sleep. Yesterday’s high (102) was only one degree cooler than Phoenix’s (103) , where [...]
An Egg’s Angle of Repose
Last Saturday I went hiking with a friend at Cape Horn, just east of Vancouver, Washington, actually west of Camus and Washugal and east of Stevenson. It’s a new trail, only 2-years old, built by volunteers on a Columbia Land Trust acquired piece of property. My friend Danielle and me are working to hike every [...]
An Egg’s Angle of Repose
Last Saturday I went hiking with a friend at Cape Horn, just east of Vancouver, Washington, actually west of Camus and Washugal and east of Stevenson. It’s a new trail, only 2-years old, built by volunteers on a Columbia Land Trust acquired piece of property. My friend Danielle and me are working to hike every [...]
Random Words for Poetry
Vista Scene from a tinted window:Glittering glass and ragged cansTumble and dive in a ravineTalking to me in the meteredMorse code of the desertI seek signs Downwind the coyote skipsSliding straight ahead scroungyMane awry in a matted mess.My dad would have saidThat critter is poorWhen broke meant lean He’s seen better daysWhen the jackrabbitsAnd voles [...]
Counting Rivers
Counting Rivers I could count lives inthe rivers I’ve crossed.Burro Creek where Grandadtaught the cousins to catchminnow and waterdogs. We’dwatch them swim tight circles ina pail diving for unfounddepth and set themin the shade of a worncompany-house near a spigot.Grandaddy’d refresh the waterdaily adding cool splashes.I thought they needed to drinknot knowing they breathedthrough gills. [...]
Amazon, Revisited
This week’s Poetry Thursday prompt couldn’t have been more appropriate to poke and prod me into writing poetry again- after a month’s hiatus from the craziness that was National Poetry Writing Month in April. The topic is simple- Rivers. As most of you who have read our blog for awhile know, I am a river [...]
Cooper’s Hawk in a Portland Neighborhood
The sadness over the stately oak tree’s demise–the neighbor who said he’d leave a snag decided to take it to the ground this week–was nearly salved by yesterday’s visitor. My husband, Mark, made frantically imperative motioning signals from the backdoor to get me to stop pruning rosebushes (it is traditional rose-pruning time in Portland now: [...]
Cooper’s Hawk in a Portland Neighborhood
The sadness over the stately oak tree’s demise–the neighbor who said he’d leave a snag decided to take it to the ground this week–was nearly salved by yesterday’s visitor. My husband, Mark, made frantically imperative motioning signals from the backdoor to get me to stop pruning rosebushes (it is traditional rose-pruning time in Portland now: [...]
Endangered Species
Because nowadays the phrase “international headlines” usually means a major car chase through Paris, a woman in Peru who is 67 years old who lied to the invitro fertilization clinic so she could get pregannt, or a zoo in China where people entered a contest to be in a “human exhibit” (with the monkeys) for [...]
