Hint of a Mountain

It was actually mostly clear and sunny much of the day, but a storm rolled in around 5:00 bringing dark clouds, hail and rain. I love it when the mountain peeks through the clouds, as if to say, "you can't hide me forever!"

Enjoying the Sun

At least the mud is a little drier, and the grass is beginning to grow.

Bliss

Helping fill the trough

And looking much more elegant after a bit of a brushing

Evening Changes

The day was supposed to be sunny - and it was, occasionally. It also rained, hailed, rained some more, and was cloudy most of the day. In the evening it put on a beautiful, changing display.

At 5:30 a light mist muted colors and blended hills and sky

A dark cloud billowed across the sky

Six o'clock, and the Cottonwoods brightened as if lit by an internal energy source

While rain pulled clouds down from the sky

By 7:00 the setting sun ran fingers of gold across the valley, highlighting everything in it's path. 

Life Lessons

You are never too old to play with squeaky toys.

Hillside swamp?

This is a nearby property on my ridge. The skunk cabbage grows most of the way up the hill - further indication of our rainforest status - or Why We Live In Mud. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about it:

Western Skunk Cabbage (Lysichiton americanus), also called Yellow Skunk Cabbage or Swamp Lantern, is a plant found in swamps and wet woods, along streams and in other wet areas of the Pacific Northwest, where it is one of the few native species in the arum family. 

Moon Glow

The moon is still huge.

I felt it's presence through the trees, a bright gold light in a sky newly cleared of clouds.

It hovers, gloriously reflecting a far away sun.

Enjoying the Sun

Spring?

With cool temps, low clouds and nearly continuous heavy rain, it's easy to forget that the year is marching on and it really is Spring. A walk in the (damp) woods this morning showed that the plants have not forgotten. 

Bleeding Heart

Dicentra formosa

Oregon Grape

Berberis nerposa

Western Skunk Cabbage

Lysichiton americanus

Trillium

Trillium ovatum

Red Flowering Current (a volunteer next to my house)

Ribes sanguineum

Sunrise, Mist and Mountains

Beautiful sunrises don't always come in color.

Mt. Rainier

Mt. St. Helens

Getting to Know You

A Hole In The Sky

A hole opened in the dark gray sky

And the Sun shone brightly through

Highlighting the proud display of new leaves by the Cottonwoods

And turning raindrops into Diamonds

Reminding me how grateful I am for this beautiful World

Be Careful What You Wish For

The hay I get weighs 120 - 140 lbs/bale. I usually feed it out of the van, so I don't have to move whole bales. Once in a while I have to unload it, when I need the van for other purposes.

This is a very temporary stack of bales that proved too heavy even to get to the pallets (where the carport used to be). I knew I'd use this within 2 days, so not a problem.

Each year my peafowl go into the woods outside of the fences, looking for good nesting sites. This always makes me nervous, as they are unprotected out there. I've gone hunting for nests, and never found them. I have wished they would lay somewhere safer, somewhere I could keep track of the nests and help protect newly hatched chicks.

I seem to have gotten my wish. I pulled the tarp back to use the hay and found an egg. I'm pretty sure this is a peahen egg. It's not hidden in the woods, it's in the middle of my parking area. I guess that bale of hay is now dedicated to the peahens.

Another side effect of this is that I've learned peafowl are pretty protective of their nesting sites. I now have peafowl in the middle of my lane all the time, attempting to keep everyone else away from the hay bale while protected it's anonymity. My cars and I seem to be exempt from this behavior, but the Alpacas I was trying to herd up the road to get them in an upper field were not. A peahen chased them back down the road.

Patterns

I see you

i SEE you

i see YOU

On a Sunny Day...

Mountains Unveiled

Curious Goose

Beautiful patterns 

and Lovely flowers

It's a glorious day when the sun shines in Spring

Tiny Mushrooms in the Woods

Rainforest

I pass this little stretch of woods on the way to the library. It displays some of the results of all our rain. I particularly love the thick moss and the ferns growing in the trees.

Rain may bring mud, but it also bring beauty.

Zander!

Shelter

It's been raining fairly constantly here for ages. Birds gotta eat, so they still roam the property, but can be found under any available shelter. There's usually at least one peafowl or goose under the larger vehicles.

The Odd Couple

One of the things I love about having "natural" chickens is that the roosters often pick hens to pair up with and protect. This is the strangest pairing I've had - One of my tiny Sebright bantam hens and a big standard 'roo.

They've been hanging out together for at least a month. I see them all over the property. He's always on alert, protecting his hen.

This isn't furthering my goal of getting purebred Sebrights.

Trilliums!

Trillium ovatum, or Western Trillium, are blooming in my woods! I love having these beautiful plants growing on my property.

April Showers

Or in this case, March showers. What plants most enjoy the rain? Why, mushrooms and moss, of course. I have an old horse trough that I intend to use as a planter, but the rains came before I got it set up last year. These 'shrooms don't care, they think it's perfect.

Who cares about mushrooms? We all should - read about how fungi can save the world here.

From the article in Cascadia Connections:  "Paul Stamets believes mycelium are information sharing membranes in their environments. He says they are aware, react to change, have the long term health of their host environment in mind, and devise diverse enzymatic and chemical responses to challenges. He cites research to back up these ideas. In other words, he is telling us fungi are intelligent, sentient organisms. Because they regulate the flow of nutrients through the food chain, we can use them to bioengineer ecosystems."