Pea soup

The mornings turned gloomy and chilly, with dense fog in the lower elevations. Up above 1500 feet, just another sunny day, but closer to the water, it suddenly it feels like the season it is. We've been spoiled by weeks of beautiful weather and don't like it.

Our friend Mark came for a visit this weekend to brighten things up. We had lunch at Alki Beach, followed by a short walk at Jack Block Park on Elliot Bay.  This has become the new de rigueur for out-of-town house guests, or maybe just an excuse to have fish and chips at The Sunfish, our favorite restaurant. 

In the park, I took a picture of this stunning purple berry shrub:

The American Beauty Berry is a wonderful native shrub that has small light purple to white flower clusters in the summer and striking bright purple fall/winter berries. In the early fall, the berries begin to cluster around the stems of the shrub and create a very unique effect that mixes with the green of the leaves. These shrubs are popular among landscapers because they are native and can be used in hedges or single plantings. The American beauty berry is also a favorite of songbirds and wildlife. 

We visited the Log Cabin Museum and peeked in the door of the adjacent museum annex (i.e. storage room) where I'm working on a project, organizing a mess of neglected records from the Southwest Seattle Historical Society.