On the Road

We're having a solid stretch of clear nights. At this time of year, a clear night usually means the temperature is above freezing during the day, and below freezing at night. In some spots along our road, though, the trees shelter the road from the sun, and the frost doesn't burn off each day.

When that happens, I see things like this - frost that's accumulated on the leaves over more than one day. I think it's interesting that you get more ice accumulated at the edge of the leaf. Once I got to town, I spent some time pondering just why that might be.

Near the Stream

There's a seasonal stream that runs past my house. As a result, we get heavy frost on that side of the house - I guess the stream in the little valley ensures that the relative humidity in the air there is near 100%, and when it drops below freezing - bingo, heavy frost.

In the morning, the sun peeks through a gap in the trees, and it can light up all the things with frost on them, as if they've been strung with millions of little tiny lights.

This maple, for instance, looked like it was covered with glowing fuzz. It's one of the few trees for which I know the latin taxonomic name - Acer Macrophyllum, a Big Leaf Maple. Sometimes those latin names are perfectly descriptive - those are the ones I seem to remember.

Tuckered In

Bryan and Tucker came over to play today. Kodak and Tucker played near the house, and then we went down to the Tolt River to let them frolic. This was pretty exciting, especially since there were several rotting salmon carcasses along the river - just right for rolling in if you happen to be a dog.

Afterwards, Bryan and Tucker stayed for dinner. Tucker slept on the rug.

Frosty the Mouse

Kodak's current favorite for outside toys is this Mickey Mouse doll, which he gives a pretty good thrashing on most mornings, on the front porch of the studio. Mickey is pretty incorrigible, and it takes quite a bit of growling, snapping, shaking, and pummeling before Mickey is ready to toe the line for another day.

Lately, it's been getting quite cold at night. Since Mickey has taken to sleeping in the exact center of the courtyard (right where he's most at risk of getting run over by cars) he's been accumulating a pretty good coating of frost each night, and then it melts off during the day.

Evening Fog

More fog photos. Will I ever tire of them?

This is what it looks like when the ground fog rolls up the hill, just at sunset. The trucated tree on the left had its top ripped out in last years big ice storm.

Christmas

Christmas was the usual wonderful holiday.

It was sort of like this bakery case at Starbucks...

So many good things, you can't fit all the signs in and they have to overlap.

Lots of things happening

At the library, the wall in the entryway serves as a community bulletin board.

The posters are always colorful and eye catching.

There are posters for everything from the production of the Nutcracker all the way through to little events like local concerts.

I like it.

The End of the Magic Hour

Photographers talk about the 'magic hour', the short period of time just after dawn or just before dusk - when the light is just right.

At the very end of the magic hour, I was tired and not feeling good and standing in the middle of the parking lot for the grocery store.

I felt better after taking that photo, though. Just because the magic hour is ending doesn't mean the magic stops.

Goodnight, Moon

When I came home from print review, I saw this:

It's a little blurry because it was handheld and a long exposure, but it does show a bit of what it looks like at night when it's foggy.

Emily Comes Home

Em came home from school today. First we had to wait in the airport

Then we had to walk back to the car. I was glad she was home and had a little trouble holding the camera still as we walked.

It was a Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day

Today, Greg and I volunteered for the work party to fill potholes on our road. It wasn't much fun, but we did get a free lunch out of the deal. Lunch was nice until Paula called, telling us that she'd burned some chicken on the stove and the fire alarm was going off.

Fortunately, she succeeded in telling the alarm folks not to send the fire department.

Then the battery in the Prius was dead. Greg and I jumped it, and he ran down into town to both charge the battery and to get coffee. When he got back, he spilled Paula's coffee in the front seat.

I think I'm going to move to Australia.

A Hundred Words for "Fog"

The conventional wisdom is that the Inuit have hundreds of words for snow. We don't get snow here in the Snoqualmie Valley very often, so I'm content with just calling it all 'snow' and letting it go at that.

What we get here, though, is an infinite variety of fog. Ground fog. Morning fog. Fog rising off a wet field when the sun gets high enough to dry the grass. Evening ground fog. Low clouds scudding over the hilltops to the west, as the breeze comes in from over Puget Sound way. We even, like today, get the all over packed in solid "London Fog" type.

I'm becoming an expert in fog. Different fogs smell different, feel different on your skin. They sound different, or at least sound travels through them differently. Photographically, they're as different as can be in the way they capture light, alter color, change contrast.

Today was yet another lesson in fog.

Driving off to have lunch with Bryan.

Driving home from lunch with Bryan.

A while back, my neighbor did a commercial thinning of his forest. The trees are still flagged, and the forest seems extra thin until the trees bulk up. In the meantime, when the fog drifts up the hill and into his forest, it looks like this. For some reason, when it's full of fog like this, it's extra quiet. All I could hear when I took this was the ticking sound of my car engine cooling, from where the car was parked on the gravel road behind me.

The Drive Home

Greg and I went down to town for coffee this morning, before he headed off to his final exam. He headed off to school, I headed home.

On the way home, I saw this. I didn't even get out of the car, I just braced the camera on the steering wheel. Six months ago, I might not have noted this pretty arrangement. Maybe this weblog is actually working in some constructive way.

In the Dark

I think I'm falling in love with places that are brightly lit islands in a vast expanse of darkness. There's some quality there I can't quite describe.

One of my favorites is this one, which I see pretty often - it's the gas station down in town. I don't know what's so captivating - it might be the color, it might be that in the fog, the lights cast a different glow, it might be the perpetual activity.

Maybe if I make a lot of photographs of it, I'll figure it out.

Road Survey

The road that leads to our home is a mess. There are lots of potholes (some of them big enough to swallow a Toyota Tercel), places where the road is worn down to the sub-base, drainage problems. I've just spent a depressing amount of time photographing all this so that we can track where the maintenance problems are from year to year. Doing it all involved walking the entire road, twice.

This was the last photo of the some 560 photos I made. What a relief to be done!

The calm before the rain

The edge of the storm front that came through, dumping loads of rain, which flooded the valley and closed roads. Greg will have to go to school via a different route; the road he usually takes to cross the valley (as well as two of the three backups) are now all under 3 feet of water.

Woodstoves

Lots of folks in the valley heat their homes with woodstoves. The smoke from the fires smells different depending on what they're burning. Some of them have substantial woodpiles. I drive past this most every day.

Moving on

This fern is behind the studio. I noticed it when I walked back to the mechanical room to glare at the radio equipment and router for our internet connection, which is still down.

More Frustration

Internet connection still down. Frustration mounts. I've invented several new, very evocative words. I've used them creatively. The problem with swearing is that in the end, it's not nearly as satisfying as getting what you want.

Here's the electronics for the connection. It's worked flawlessly for six months straight, without a glitch. Until now.

Frustration

This is the dish antenna that is part of my microwave high speed internet connection. At 8:33 this morning, our connection died.

By the end of the day, I was starting to run out of things that I didn't need an internet connection to do. It's very frustrating.

Shopping for Christmas Tree

We bought a Christmas tree over the weekend. Naturally, we wanted a big one. Big, in this context, means that the Christmas tree guys need to use their frontloader to lift it onto the roof of the car. While they assembled the Humongous Christmas Tree Stand To End All Christmas Tree Stands, which will actually hold this huge tree upright, I wandered about a bit and took this self portrait.

Yet Another Foggy Day

It seems there are as many days where it's foggy outside as there are where I'm foggy inside.

We pick up our mail at the post office, so I get to see it in all sorts of weather.

Likewise this tree, on the way from Starbucks to the PO.

Tire Tracks

It was cold, and damp. When we came home, the tires left these tracks on the gravel - subtle, but there.

I liked the parallel curves.

Tasks overlapping

Last summer, I chipped up a lot of brushy debris from last winters big ice storm. The chipper blew the chips onto the ground, and I raked them out a bit so they'd break down faster.

Then we cleaned out the garage, and I took apart the old workbench. Greg wanted the old plywood for his paintball field. Fine, I set it on top of the chips.

The rains came, and the road got muddy, and I got out the hose to get the worst of the mud off the cars. The hose got left out - it's still muddy, why put it away?

The three layers made an interesting pattern.

Rain/Paying attention

It's rainy this morning. We went down to Starbucks and got coffee. The Boy Scouts were decorating the Starbucks windows, and I paid attention and found one decent photograph, and I felt proud that I was paying attention.

We moved on to the library to pick up books. At the library, all of the shrubs were wet, in that really wet way things are when all the dirt has washed off. I was very proud I noticed how the soft light from overcast sky looked on the waxy leaves of the shrubs, and I paid attention and I made several photographs there, and I felt good that I'd paid attention and noticed this stuff.

And then I got home, and I looked at the photos of the shrubs, and there's this leaf in the corner, throwing the balance off, and there's another leaf hiding in the back just being obnoxious, and I wonder, "What the heck was I paying attention to?.

It sure wasn't what was in the image I was making.

It's embarassing, is what it is. Not only do I need to learn to pay attention, I need to learn to pay attention while I'm paying attention.

Wachet auf! ruft uns die Stimme

Oh, oh. I just slept poorly. Very poorly. All morning, I've been trying to wake up. So I sat down on the sofa and listened to the stereo, which was playing a playlist of every Christmas album we have.

And the next track started - with a soft trumpet carrying the melody over a pipe organ carrying the emerging bass line - the familar music of J. S. Bach's Cantata #140

And in that curious memory flash thing I get sometimes, I was catapulted back to college days, when my roommate and I got in the habit of sleeping with the stereo on, tuned to WFLN, the Philadephia classical music station. In the wee hours of the morning, WFLN had a program of softer music which opened with that particular piece. I haven't thought about that in more than twenty years. It's funny how the rush of day to day life seems to sweep us past pleasant things like waking up at 3am to hear Bach playing, until something almost insignificant triggers a flood of memories so clear and sharp it's like reliving the experience.

Part of the struggle to wake up today has been several cups of tea. Here's one in the process. You can't see it, but the kettle is making friendly rushing/boiling noises, getting ready for the happy little 'click' as it decides the water is hot and announces the event by turning itself off.

Sleepers, awake! The voice calls us!

Let's table that!

We went to the woodworker's today, to settle some final decisions on a table. I took some photos, just as visual notes.

This one is nice.

Evening Fog

Driving home this evening, the temperature was dropping so swiftly you could stand and watch the evening ground fog form, sort of like those time lapse photos of clouds swirling overhead.

Twilight in the valley is pretty nice.