Category Archives: Reflections

The last week of 2021 seems like an Arctic vacation. Snow started falling Christmas Eve. The cold that followed drove morning lows down to 7ºF, -14ºC. We haven’t seen such cold weather or so much snow in years. The pump … Continue reading →

A big surprise yesterday was finding daffodil shoots. It’s only December and they are already sprouting. One even shows a flower bud. All I can say is this was poor planning on the part of the daffodils. The forecast is … Continue reading →

The solstice this year happened at a convenient time for me, 7:59 a.m., pretty much at sunrise. It’s odd that such a momentous event happens so quietly. You can sit as still as you want, but you can’t feel the … Continue reading →

The first snow of the season fell Thursday morning. For an hour big, wet flakes drifted down. They were comforting to watch as I made tofu that morning. By early afternoon, the snow around our place was gone save for … Continue reading →

This certainly is the season of peak bleakness here. It’s dark when I get up. Dark before supper. The leaves have all fallen, leaving a forest of standing skeletons. The sun rarely breaks through the clouds these days. But what … Continue reading →

Every so often a sunset comes along that makes you stop what you are doing. This evening was such a sunset. The clouds over the Chuckanuts were on fire when I went to the Post Office this evening. I pulled … Continue reading →

The cottonwoods have turned. As colorful as they are, standing tall against the sky, they aren’t an honest depiction of what this season is like. To convey this season, I should post pictures of near total darkness. It’s dark in … Continue reading →

If you’re not satisfied with enough, you’ll never be satisfied with more. There are a number of variations of this saying by Epicurus. The insight is as meaningful now as when Epicurus said it thousands of years ago. One potato … Continue reading →

So how many pies can I make out of these pumpkins? Few garden plants are as exuberant as pumpkins. World domination is on their minds as they spread their vines and huge leaves. Seemingly out of nowhere, bright yellow, huge … Continue reading →

September is grape season here, so the chickens are grateful. One variety of grapes has small grapes with big seeds. There are other grapes with larger grapes and no seeds, so these seeded grapes are mostly for the chickens. Toss … Continue reading →

Early this morning, while the dew was still heavy, I found a bumble bee waking up on an artichoke flower, its wings wet with dew. When I find bees who’ve spent the night on a flower, I wonder if they … Continue reading →

Our smokey skies did not linger long. For three days smoke choked the skies until fresh air from the Pacific pushed it away. We are back to August blue skies and filling our lungs with sweet air. The sun is … Continue reading →

Smoke flowed over the Cascades and into our lovely valley yesterday. This morning we woke up to dreaded Martian skies. Orange skies in August and September are becoming an unwelcome pattern. The forecast is for winds from the west to … Continue reading →

On Sunday the morning clouds were magical, feathery shapes. You wonder what it would feel like if these clouds would brush against you. They appear softer than silk. Yet, they are mostly ice crystals, so the sensation may be startling. … Continue reading →

A cool, foggy morning belies what is about to come. In the 16 years we have lived here, it has never been 90ºF, 32ºC. But Sunday and Monday, the forecast is for temperatures high above that. It is just for … Continue reading →

We don’t have just a handful of flower types. We have an endless variety of flower types. The grass flower above is other worldly. Researches estimate the origin of grasses to roughly 77 million years ago. So how many million … Continue reading →

Twilight’s soft light embues a peony with grace. The pond is quiet save for the last songs the birds sing. It is the season of birdsong and bee buzz. Early mornings there are so many birds singing I wonder how … Continue reading →

May’s warmth has brought out the bees. The garden is buzzing with them. I discovered a colony of digger bees while weeding a bed of Iris. Their colonies are underground. One of them reminded me, not so gently, that this … Continue reading →

A surprise this morning when I went out to the cabin to make tofu was seeing the fruiting plum trees in full bloom. Last year the plums produced a bounty of sweet plums. Hopefully they will this year too. An … Continue reading →