Walking Seattle: Garden Whimsey and Peek-a-boo Pets

 

Last year I blogged about all the garden art and gnomes I spied while walking around my northwest corner of Seattle. I'm back again, revisiting and searching for new gems. This time pets crept into my photos, lurking and lounging as I passed by.

As I mentioned last year, looking for garden art really makes my walks feel like a treasure hunt. And since I started seeing more cats (and a few dogs), it brought a whole new level of happy hunting to my walks.

Since coyotes are a real and present danger to cats in the 'hood, I thankfully saw very few wandering on their own. In the last few months, I even trapped a young stray who was then happily adopted into a good home.

So without further rambling, let's get going.

Spotting a cat (or even less commonly, a dog) is a rare treat now in north Seattle. Besides the coyotes, racoons and owls can prey on them. On an hour+ ramble one late afternoon, this black cat was one just two cats that I saw. While black cats don't get adopted as easily, I think they're gorgeous.

While gnomes are the most popular figurine in Seattle yards, frogs seem to be a close second (by my unofficial, off-the-cuff estimation).

 

A month or two ago, I passed by The Goblin Pub (above), which is quite enchanting in the care that was put into creating this neighborhood watering hole. (I assume gnomes are allowed.) I suggest you enlarge the photo of the interior below to see the incredible detail...a restroom door, a mural on the back wall, taps for the different drinks, the patrons, and more.

The likely proprietors of the pub live behind the gate below, which I think also looks like something out of a fairy tale.

The cheerful glass daisies below are a favorite from my spring wanderings this year. I know they were made by the glass artist who lives in that home (we share a mutual friend). And see that little pink gnome in the window flower box?

This super handsome orange boy (pretty sure it's a boy based on size) below matched his porch wood stain color. His owners must have planned it. :)

The lovely tabby in the window below is what started my quest to spot pets on  walks. I assumed they would mostly be in windows, but there were a few porch cats too.

And perhaps Kermit, deeply contemplating the meaning of life reminiscent of Rodin's famous The Thinker sculpture, has inspired the profusion of frog art?

Now this, my friends, is some serious yard gnomery. Or, as my friend Suezy informed me, a very large donsy of gnomes. A friend told me about the raised bed full of gnomes, so I had to check out it for myself.

Yes, there are dogs in a few windows. These pups live just down the street from me, and I often see them out walking their human dad. (This isn't the sharpest image but a smartphone snap.)

This sweet pup was very good mannered and wistfully watched me passing by. I wished I had a ball or stick to throw over the fence for it.

I can't claim the shot below, but it's so alluring I have to include (shot taken by my friend Corey somewhere near Woodland Park Zoo in NW Seattle). Look at that...dragon(?) face, what a character!

And figurine or real cat? At least floofy kitty was posing like a figurine.

I could post many more images, but I'll leave it for now. I'll continue to hunt for pets and quirky or even beautiful yard art on my walks. Maybe this will become an annual post on this blog (at my current rate, my only post per year)? Want more?

I'd love to hear about your favorite yard art/pets/what you see in your neighborhood in a comment below!

Happy trails and thanks for visiting Pacific Northwest Seasons! In between blog posts, visit Pacific NW Seasons on FaceBook, Twitter, and Instagram for more Northwest photos and outdoors news.  

A Pacific Northwest Winter's Slow Fade into Spring Flowers

 

It's Spring Equinox Eve here in the Northern Hemisphere as I write this, and winter's grip is loosening in the Pacific Northwest. 

Our weather is still chilly, damp, and snowing in the mountains. But signs of spring are bursting out all over.

In western Washington where I live, while we can have freakishly warm winter days (more common than it used to be) and infuriatingly wet and chilly summer days (my most miserable cold day ever was a July sailing trip in the San Juan Islands), we do have four distinct seasons.

Every year I say autumn is my favorite season. Then I relish winter's biting chill and sometimes snow in the lowlands. 

But when spring rolls in and flowers and green emerges all over again, it's molto bellissimo. (That's very beautiful, but with an Italianesque flair for dramatic proclamations).

Red flowering currant

This past winter has had its moments. There was that gorgeous week of snow between Christmas and New Year, with skiing around Seattle. And there were some awesome days skiing at Crystal Mountain.

View from the top of Green Valley at Crystal; Stuart Range in the distance.

But evidence of spring started in February. The first sign of spring renewal each year for me is the delicate snowdrops that grow feral in Carkeek Park near my home. Every year I feel compelled to seek them out with my camera, despite having many shots from prior years.

Then the brown forest floor layered with last fall's downed leaves suddenly becomes green again with sweet coltsfoot, which comes up in late February.

Delicate crocus are also an early harbinger of spring, and it's like a treasure hunt spotting random patches of them around my neighborhood and nearby neighborhoods that I regularly walk.

And I can't forget the hellebores. They're a real workhorse flower to get us through the later winter and early spring. 

And especially just in the last week, suddenly it's all over - cherry blossoms, daffodils fully up and open (and up in the Skagit Valley too), violets, and much more.

I hear the cherry blossoms are close to peaking over at the University of Washington's Quad, which has become an event that draws visitors and photographers from all over. When I was a student there, it was just picturesque to walk through between classes.

Native skunk cabbage are also unfurling in our forest and woods now; I think its flower looks like something you'd more likely find in the tropics.

Since the daffodils are in bloom up in the Skagit north of Seattle, I'll head up for a look. I'm hoping tomorrow's rainy and cool weather will keep people away. 

Do you have a favorite spring flower or blossom, wherever you are? Honestly, I can't pick a favorite, or rather, it varies day to day. I'll take them all, in their season.

Happy trails and thanks for visiting Pacific Northwest Seasons! In between blog posts, visit Pacific NW Seasons on FaceBook, Twitter, and Instagram for more Northwest photos and outdoors news.  

2021: A Pacific Northwest Year in Review

So long 2021. I can't quite settle on how I feel about you. After 2020, we all had great hopes for you.

For me and most of my friends, who can no longer be called young by any stretch of any imagination, life in the time of SARS-COVID 19 is still more tamped down than the "before times." We had a brief few months of semi-euphoria in the late spring and summer after vaccination. 

And then came delta, followed by pesky little sister omicron.

But I'm not here to write about the pandemic. I'm here to share a year in photos and a few videos of my special corner of the world, which I haven't left since late 2019. Please join me!

January: Into the Woods
To be honest, most of my year was into the woods. But for January's sake, we'll start with several trips cross-country skiing the lovely forested trails at Cabin Creek, a few miles east of Snoqualmie Pass (which is southeast of Seattle in the Cascade Mountains). This gem of a trail system, tucked against the side of Amabilis Mountain (which I've skied up and down too), provides an excellent workout in as little as an hour or as long as you want to keep skating and gliding or tramping.

 

February: Across the Sea

My winter routine involved lots of walks around northwest Seattle where I live, punctuated with trips every few weeks to Port Townsend to visit my aunt and friends for Monday morning coffee. This involved leaving my house and boarding a ferry across Puget Sound before sunrise (the 7:10 a.m.), which provided opportunities to shoot the changing hues in sky reflected on the horizon. 

 

Westbound on the Edmonds to Kingston ferry.

I always stop at a quiet overlook on Port Gamble Bay and walk about 20 minutes on the bluff trail to greet the day, camera in hand.

 

 

Port Gamble Bay

  

March: Into the Sea

In March I met a group of swimmers at Golden Gardens near my north Seattle home who were actually, like, swimming in Puget Sound and not just plunging in and out like I'd been doing. My neighbors were the nexus of the group and invited me to join them. So I resolved to take a few extra strokes each week to build up my endurance and time in the water.

This began early in March on my birthday, which happened to be an unseasonably brilliant day:

...and the day was topped with one of the most gorgeous sunsets over the Salish Sea I witnessed all year.

April: Across the Mountains

Come early spring, I started embarking on my first overnight getaways from Seattle in almost a year. A friend graciously let me stay at his gorgeous cabin just outside Leavenworth, where I enjoyed brilliant views of the Enchantments and met up and did some walks/hikes with friends who live over there.

Sleeping Lady near Leavenworth, Washington.

May: Onto the Island

A top 2021 highlight was my first trip back to Orcas Island since 2016. How could it have been that long?

I hiked, swam, and paddled with friends also visiting the island (including an Orcas ex-pat "native" visiting her mother in Eastsound). Another friend who lives there showed me some of her secret special places. It was an absolutely perfect spring weekend (can you hear me exhaling slowly?) with blue sunny skies.

Kayaks and standup paddleboards do mix! Eastsound, Washington.

And because I can't adequately put into words how incredibly wonderful this hike up and down Turtleback Mountain was, here's a short video clip:

There was also a marvelous weekend east of Chinook Pass at a friend's cabin, with hiking, good food, and some morel foraging. Life is indeed good here in the Pacific Northwest.

June: Up and Down the Region
Family moved front and center in June and cousins were up visiting from California, so there were trips to the Portland area and Port Townsend. I booked (and my sneaky aunt called and paid my bill) an overnight at the historic and charming Palace Hotel in Port Townsend. I also joined my cousin's wife for a swim in the sea there too.

Can you say charming street front? Palace Hotel in Port Townsend, Washington.

I guess I must mention the unprecedented heat dome we experienced late in the month. The only respite was walks in a nearby forest, where the temperature dropped at least 10 degrees as soon as you entered. This says something about the value and necessity of saving our urban trees and woodlands.

July: Honoring and Revisiting
A super busy work period kept me inside a lot, but I did get down to Portland for time with family and old friends, in light of a loss. I watched a beautiful sunset on a warm summer evening with friends on Rocky Butte and was up and out before sunrise for a lovely hike in the Columbia Gorge with some other friends. The Portland area will always be as equally home to me as Seattle.

August: On the Trail
In preparation for a backpacking trip in early September, I hit the trail more in August (and work died down). Highlights were a hike up to the Tolmie Peak fire lookout in Mt. Rainier National Park with the Alpine Trails book club (on a day smoky from regional wildfires), a morning hike to Wallace Falls just outside Index, and the grind up and down McClellan Butte in the I-90 corridor east of Seattle. With poor visibility and prudence, we did not do the rock scramble to the true summit.

 

Any day on the trail is a good day.

 

And a long weekend with dear high school friends on a Puget Sound beach was the restorative balm we all needed. 💚

 

 
September: Across and into the Mountains

While my knees are still willing, I was thrilled to join some friends for an absolutely awesome backpack trip in Glacier National Park. On the eastern crest of the Rockies and at higher elevations, we passed through some starkly beautiful landscapes.

 

 
October: Back into the Woods, Water, and Mountains
Yes, this Northwesterner's life involves lots of time in the woods and mountains. There was also a sweet afternoon kayak trip on the Sammamish River and Swamp Creek in a splendid Pacific Northwest rain (video below), a wonderful hike to Lake Valhalla, and an overnight at Sleeping Lady near Leavenworth, where the fall colors were cranking up.

Lake Valhalla and Mt. Lichtenberg beyond.

November: Stalking Mushrooms
Actually I got out with a friend in September to forage for chanterelles, but in November the hunt is with cameras in hand to shoot them. They're easy to miss if you're not looking in the right places, but this downed log on a side trail near my home was wild with mushrooms. I'm still learning, so I can't name this variety, can you?

December: Snow Comes for the Holidays
This year with vaccines, boosters, and testing, it has been wonderful to gather with family and friends in person for the holidays. After another quick trip to Port Townsend, the snow arrived in full force the day after Christmas (thank you weather gods for sending the snow a day late and sparing us from snow driving that's so problematic around Seattle with our many hills).

 

It's a rare treat to be able to ski outside your front door here. Below is a short clip of a ski down into the ravine near my home:

 

 

And with that it's a wrap on the year. It was a mixed bag overall, but as I've been composing this post, I realize there were many wonderful experiences and memories made over the past year.  So 2021, not bad. Not perfect, but moments of perfection.

 

Here's to 2022, may you bring us many laughs, smiles, and good times ahead!

 

Happy trails and thanks for visiting Pacific Northwest Seasons! In between blog posts, visit Pacific NW Seasons on FaceBook, Twitter, and Instagram for more
Northwest photos and outdoors news.

 

Hiking through the Holidays in Mosslandia: Twin Falls

 

Although the days are getting longer (and colder) now that the Winter Solstice has passed, it's still what we call the "dark days" here in Washington.

Our chilly wet weather is about to turn into a possible record-breaking cold snap, with likely snow. Local moss, in its multitude of varieties and very happy from our wet autumn, will go dormant from the freeze. So, too, will some Mossbacks who live here.

But many of us will be outside reveling in winter. 

Last week on a bone-chilling rainy/snowy day, I dashed east of Seattle into the foothills near North Bend for a short but sweet hike to Twin Falls (which is actually three waterfalls). On this rainy Wednesday in the middle of the day, I only saw two other hikers on this normally super popular trail.

The Twin Falls trail skirts close to the South Fork Snoqualmie River

Besides it being a week day, another reason I had the trail mostly to myself was, of course, the steady, hovering-just-above-freezing rain. 

As I tramped onward, just happy to be out in such lush Northwest beauty, the rain turned to big fat wet snowflakes. 

I kept on thinking I'd turn around because it was so wet despite my rain pants and Gore-Tex shell, but I couldn't stop until I got to the main bridge over the waterfalls. It was too lovely out there.

By this time, snow was covering the bridge, although thankfully it wasn't slippery.

On this trip, I bypassed the lower waterfall viewpoint deck. But I did stop to admire lots of moss and the huge old growth Douglas fir along the trail.

After about 90 minutes of hiking in nonstop rain/snow/rain, at places the trail seemed like a side channel to the river.

Because there was such a healthy flow in the river and I had the trail to myself, I did a few detours down to the river's edge to shoot a few clips from my smartphone. 

By the time I got back to the car, my jeans were damp beneath my rain pants and so too was my jacket layered under a shell. But I just slipped off those outer layers and turned up the heat in my car as I drove home, thoroughly exhilarated from "forest bathing" in solitude. This is a rare treat anymore near Seattle.

Happy holidays!

Happy trails and thanks for visiting Pacific Northwest Seasons! In between blog posts, visit Pacific NW Seasons on FaceBook, Twitter, and Instagram for more Northwest photos and outdoors news.

Thanksgiving 2021: Random Gratitude

 

It's  a chilly, damp late fall evening as I'm writing this 2021 Thanksgiving post. I'm tired and worn down from the last couple months of work overload. 

To be honest, I'm worn down from the last almost 2 years of the pandemic. I'm not as resilient as I was as a young woman, and my family suffered a couple sad losses in the last year.

But, well, I'm still here, like the Salish Sea tides that rise and fall and rise again near my home. And as we get on in years, just being here is the ultimate gift, to witness life and all its messy loveliness. 

Take mushrooms. I'm increasingly intrigued and captivated by their weird and wonderful variety, their shapes and sizes, and that they spring up like a surprise each year. Did you know that their DNA is closer to human than plant? 

 I stalk them with my camera, and of course I live in good fungi territory. So here's to gratitude for mushrooms/fungi. There's so much more to learn about them.

I guess that leads me to another gratitude: curiosity. Without curiosity, human societies around the globe would be much less developed and advanced (although with the state of resource overuse and climate change, one can question the wisdom of some of our advances). But there is just so much to learn and read about in the world (and universe). Curiosity has led me to many excellent books as well, for which I'm grateful.

 

It was hard to think of a photo to match curiosity, so I grabbed the shot above of Yuki, the last cat standing of the colony of spayed/neutered feral cats I've helped manage and feed (along with my neighbors) since 2007. He has been successfully dodging coyotes, cars, racoons, crows, and perhaps an owl or two since at least 2013.

One of the bunch, Tashi, became my beloved pet who died at the end of 2020. Yuki is too feral to become totally domesticated, but he is a nice cat who talks to me and likes to be petted and scratched around the ears. I'm grateful for his feline companionship over the years, and sad he just lost his last buddy Jude. They kept each other warm at night.

I'm also grateful for ferry rides back and forth across Puget Sound/Salish Sea for visits to family in Port Townsend and Bainbridge Island, Washington. I will never, ever tire of the clarifying embrace of the stiff, cold breeze while standing on the front ferry deck as the vessel skims across the sea surface.

On my semi-regular trips to Port Townsend for Monday morning coffee/tea with the gang up there, I always stop at a park on Port Gamble Bay and walk along the bluff or down to the water's edge to take pictures.

I'm always the only one there on Monday mornings, and it's an incredibly peaceful escape from the city. As always, I'm grateful for the balm of nature.

I could continue rambling here on what is basically a stream of consciousness post. But just reflecting on these things bring even more things to mind for which I'm grateful. One can't forget friends and family to share adventures and the everyday.

 And I'm happy that it's always possible to make new friends and reconnect with old friends. They're all gold.

So what tops your list of gratitudes this year? I've barely scratched the surface. But it's a good exercise to get one thinking and appreciating all there is to be thankful for again.

Wishing you and your loved ones a happy Thanksgiving/holiday season. May you cherish just being here and remember, let's strive to look beyond what divides us to what binds us, with compassion and humanity. 

 And let's all strive to approach others with kindness.

Happy trails and thanks for visiting Pacific Northwest Seasons! In between blog posts, visit Pacific NW Seasons on FaceBook, Twitter, and Instagram for more Northwest photos and outdoors news.