Category: nature

Crown Point, 2 Ways

On By stefrobrtsIn nature, outdoors, photographyLeave a comment

Someone in a hiking group mentioned that for a few weeks a year, in late June/early July, the sun sets far enough North to light up the walls of Crown Point with Golden Hour light. I did not research their claim, but it sounded like a good excuse to go take a picture, and I haven’t picked up my camera pretty much since the pandemic started in March. Dave and I hopped in the car and headed up to the Portland Women’s Forum Viewpoint in Oregon.

Lots of other folks were there too, setting in for an eclipse that evening. We just wanted the sunset. We had stopped by Abby’s in Gresham and got a pizza, and settled in to wait until the sun was as low as it could get hoping for better color in the sky, but this nice peachy color was as good as it was getting, since there was not a cloud in the sky.

I’d say that’s a postcard perfect pic of Crown Point and Vista house, and the Columbia River Gorge stretching off into the distance. You can see Phoca Rock out in the river, and farther upstream you can see Beacon Rock in Washington state.

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The next evening, since I was so happy with the outcome of that photo, we headed out to Washougal on the Washington side of the Columbia, and snapped another picture of Crown Point, this time with Mt Hood in the background. I liked this shot best. Even though the light was not on Crown Point as nicely as the evening before, the glow on top of the mountain was very pretty.

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So there you go, Crown Point, two ways, from two different states. Both are home to me, and I feel lucky to live in this beautiful place.

Jellyfish at the Lake

On By stefrobrtsIn fishing, kayak, Me, nature, outdoorsLeave a comment

This is worth sharing – better late than never. While fishing at Battle Ground Lake last fall, I saw a little jellyfish in the water, and got it on video!

That was a pretty fun trip. I had taken a day off from work to go fishing, and I almost didn’t go because it was raining. But I put on my waders and a raincoat and went anyway, and I was so glad I did, because it was a beautiful day, with just a short sprinkles early on. I had the lake all to myself almost. No fish, but a nice day trying.

Sprinkles! The only time I briefly used my raincoat all morning. Dave left me out about 4 hours before he came back to get me. It was just a really nice morning out.

Horseshoe Lake (Woodland)

On By stefrobrtsIn boat, dave, fishing, kayak, Me, nature, outdoors, theaterLeave a comment

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Dave and I packed some snacks, grabbed the kayak, and headed up to Horseshoe Lake in Woodland. We got going a little late, so we stopped and grabbed lunch to eat on the water. After we launched we paddled down past the fancy homes on the shore and found a peaceful shady spot to park and eat and have a little rest, watching the world go by.

Eventually we paddled over to the outside of the horseshoe bend and there were all these old tree stumps or dock pilings sticking up out of the water, so we tied the kayak to one and I enjoyed a little fishing while Dave worked on his script.

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The pilings all had these otherworldly globs of something growing on them. They were cool but freaky looking.

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I had my usual luck fishing…

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A good time was had by all.

No pictures of the following weekend, but Dave launched me at Lacamas while he went to a theater event. My phone camera doesn’t work, so no pics, but I had a lovely time fishing with the help of my new anchor trolley. This allows me to anchor the kayak and move the anchor point to the bow or stern, so when I get the hang of it I should be able to point the kayak in the direction I want and keep it there, until the wind shifts anyway.

Also on that same adventure we got to Lacamas, unpacked, and realized we had forgotten the paddles! Luckily there is a vendor there renting kayaks, and they rented me a paddle for $5, which saved the day, because there was no time for Dave to go get the paddle and still make his theater event. When I got home I decided I would rig our new kayak cart n the garage to hold the paddles so we wouldn’t forget them again (they were hanging on the wall before), then I looked at the kayak and had a realization – and just set them inside the kayak – duh! We will have to move them to load it, so that should solve the problem.

 

 

Swallows in the chimney

On By stefrobrtsIn nature1 Comment

Every year brings something new and unusual. This year we have swallows nesting in our chimney! The little purple guys who flit back and forth over the pasture every summer (and who I built a nice set of bird houses for over the garden after the old martin house they’d been using since before we moved here fell over) have set up a home in our chimney, apparently right on top of the closed flue, because we can hear them loud and clear in the living room. In fact we first noticed the occasional chirping a few weeks ago, but now the chicks have hatched, and every 20 minutes we here the raucous calls of the babies crying ‘FEED ME! FEED ME!’ when Mom and Dad come back.

Yesterday evening I sat outside watching the chimney hoping to get a picture of the parents coming back to feed the kids, and this shot of a parent leaving to hunt for more food was the best I got. I’m going to go try again tonight, because they make an amazing big loop and swoop straight down into the chimney, which is pretty cool looking.

After the chicks are out and on their own we’ll have to see about getting the chimney cleaned and replacing whatever is supposed to be on the top to keep birds out, so next year they’ll have to stay in a bird house like the rest of the birds!
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Little black kitchen ants

On By stefrobrtsIn nature3 Comments

Every spring our kitchen is invaded by little black ‘sugar ants’ – tiny little black ants that send their scouts in looking for any drops of sugary juice we may have left on the countertop. Usually these invasions are short, we wipe up the mess, keep the kitchen immaculately clean for a couple weeks, and when they can’t find any food they go away, and we can quit obsessively sweeping up crumbs. I believe in ‘live and let live’,  and the ants are really pretty harmless, so every spring I just wait them out until they move on to outdoor food sources.

But perhaps because of the long wet spring we’ve been having, the ants moved in to stay. They were here for over a month when we started to get really tired of them. They would find something to eat and lead the whole column back to devour it, or there would just be scouts crawling all over the place hoping to get lucky. We cleaned the kitchen several times, and they disappeared, only to turn up in the master bathroom – they had found an open bag of cough drops!

I got rid of the cough drops and cleaned the bathroom spic & span, and they moved back to the kitchen. There always seemed to be some little speck they would find in the sink or on the counter, and the invasion would commence once again. The final straw came when Dave brought home a milkshake and tossed the cup in the garbage, and the next morning the garbage was overrun with hundreds of them swarming all over the cup! Enough was enough!

So I looked up on the internet for ant remedies. I didn’t want to be putting poison down that the dogs might get into. I didn’t want to be spraying poison all over the place. I finally saw a remedy that looked pretty harmless – sugar and Borax. It said the ants would take it back to the hive and feed it to the queen, and that would be the end of the ant hive. Ok, I felt a little bad about that, but my kitchen was crawling with ants, and I occasionally spotted them in other parts of the house, just looking for more cough drops, and it was time to draw the line.

So I mixed 50/50 sugar and Borax in a small bowl, and sprinkled some on the ant highway behind the sink up against the backsplash, and put the rest in a tiny bowl under the cupboard by the garbage can. I never saw the ants go anywhere near either. However, the ant population in our kitchen dropped drastically and immediately. The next couple days I only saw an ant or two, and for the last week – not a single one! I would not have believed it would work so quickly or completely, and using stuff I actually had in the house. So, sorry ants, I hope it didn’t wipe out the whole bunch of them, but if they don’t come back next spring, it’s not like I’ll miss them!

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