A few weekend snaps

Fall foliage, morning light, downtown Twisp.

Yup.

But pretty.

Like our girls, at the chilly Saturday market.

The Halloween Sale at the Senior Center Thrift Store scored black fairy costumes.

Yes, a bizarre scene. That's Amanda and John back there, checking out at Hank's Harvest Grocery. I'm lurking behind the stuffed African lion.

Not your ordinary supermarket, but still one of our favorites.  Suffice to say, Hank is an avid hunter, with dozens of exotic trophy heads and horns peering down above the frozen food aisles.  Honestly, been there so often, we hardly even notice those watching eyes anymore.

Later in the day, mountain girls scrambling up the rocks like goats. We took a long afternoon walkabout on their new property outside of town.

The present humble mountaintop accommodations. 

And, possibly, future home-site overlooking the Methow Valley? 

Birthday bash

Fun times last night...out for more family adventure today.  Cold and crisp over here!  No mistake, winter on the way.

A fall treat weekend

I know a couple of little girls who might like these.  The weather looks good this morning, and we're working on getting an early start.  I'll check in with some pictures later. 

The little things

"Meditation on Ruin"
by Jay Hopler

It’s not the lost lover that brings us to ruin, or the barroom brawl,
         or the con game gone bad, or the beating
Taken in the alleyway. But the lost car keys,
The broken shoelace,
The overcharge at the gas pump
Which we broach without comment—these are the things that
         eat away at life, these constant vibrations
In the web of the unremarkable.
The death of a father—the death of the mother—
The sudden loss shocks the living flesh alive! But the broken
         pair of glasses,
The tear in the trousers,
These begin an ache behind the eyes.
And it’s this ache to which we will ourselves
Oblivious. We are oblivious. Then, one morning—there’s a
         crack in the water glass—we wake to find ourselves undone.


That's a good poem. How the little frustrations in life eat away at our time and energy! I just spent two weeks going back and forth on email with eBay, about an order I didn't receive.  Not a huge deal, but the niggling issue in the back of my mind all that time.  The end result?  Zero, zip, nada.  Since the package tracking showed it was delivered here, they refused to give me a refund or replacement. You have just been warned, fellow eBay shoppers.

Our mail delivery seems to be getting more haphazard in the Urban Village. The old 1960's style post office is overwhelmed by the population density. I suspect the mailman accidentally left my package at the wrong house. Someone in the neighborhood is probably enjoying my new "hand-held garden fertilizer spreader."

Well, if that's all I have to complain about today, I'm a lucky dog.  So, it's cold this morning, as in scraping ice off the windshield cold.  But the sun will be out later in a glorious way. And a nice crisp fall day tomorrow too, for our drive over the mountains.

Happy Birthday, Maya

Our darling granddaughter turned seven yesterday!  We can't wait to see them both this weekend.

So far, the weather looks OK for mountain travel. Friday at least should be sunny when we go over the North Cascades Highway. The forecast Sunday looks a bit iffy, but too soon to start fretting about the weather. (Of course, that doesn't stop me.)

Yesterday it snowed 10 inches on Stevens Pass, which is quite unusual in early October.  The snow level was down to 1500 feet, and our furnace is getting a winter workout this morning.  It's about 10 degrees colder than usual.

Sad and sobering

A new environmental report on bird decline briefly hit the news cycle last week. Did you hear about it? Three billion birds have vanished from North America since 1970, nearly 30% of the total population, including once abundant birds like sparrows, starlings and blackbirds.   

"When you lose a common species, the impact will be much more massive on the ecosystem," says Gerardo Ceballos, an ecologist and conservation biologist. "It's showing the magnitude of the problem."

I've kept a birding life list book since the 90's, and looking back is sad. What a variety we once took for granted in the backyard: flocks of pine siskins, finches, robins, wrens, sparrows, swallows, even an occasional grosbeak at the feeder.  The main culprit here is habitat loss, as suburban yards give way to development. And pesticides are another nail in the coffin.

Rachel Carson published "Silent Spring" in 1962. The book led to public outrage and eventually a ban on DDT, one of the nastiest pesticides ever created.  Species, such as the Bald Eagle, began to recover.  Our collective attention span seems so scattered these days, and the breaking news cycle so relentless, it's hard to imagine that kind of grassroots activism now.

Speaking of backyard birds, the ones we still have are suddenly visible and active, as some prepare to migrate, fueling up and waiting for favorable winds. In  the last few days I've seen Chickadees, Bewick's Wren, Oregon Juncos, White-crowned Sparrows and even a Varied Thrush.  All the more precious, when you consider what's happening right under our noses.