Stuff! Lots of Stuff!

Good weather = busy week!

First and foremost, the riverboats are back -- huzzah!

Last year there was a shortened season -- the boats didn't start their cruises until June. I always enjoy seeing them, and this one in particular is my favorite.  It's the American Empress, the largest of the sternwheelers on the Columbia.

So that was one exciting day's walk.

Then came the Day of the Clouds.  Clouds are exciting here, because when I lived on the western side of the state (for 40 years!) the sky was clouded over so often that it became the norm, and it took an exceptionally weird cloud formation to get me to look up at all.

But here in the land of 300+ days of sunny skies, clouds are a rarity.  They're more common in winter months overall, when I don't like to go out.  So when they turn up in warmer times, I do get excited and like to get out in search of the best view.  That happened last week -- one day I got up to let the dogs out at 6:30am, and there were fantastic clouds with the sun just starting to peep out.  I dashed inside, threw on some clothes, grabbed the hounds and tossed them in the car, and away we went down to the river, arriving just in time:

What a glorious sunrise!  And the moon was still out, too!

We took a mile long walk down to the riverboat, which was still at the dock.

I'm delighted that I got down there when I did -- this was the sky upon arrival:

And this was the sky a mere twenty minutes later:

Timing is everything!

Which brings me to my next photos.  Timing is, indeed, rather key when you want to see fun things.  On another expedition last week, I decided to visit both Sacajawea State Park, where I rarely go, and then to pop over to the nearby McNary National Wildlife Refuge.  Alas, the State Park was closed for the Winter and even though it's officially Spring, the park ranger explained that seasonal Spring and the State's idea of Spring were two different things.  I was allowed to park by the barrier and walk in, but that was a ways, and I had a long walk ahead of me at McNary, so I chose to turn around and go there instead.  

As I drove down the 15mph road, this critter suddenly appeared:

Whoo!  Deer!  Whee!  In fact, seven of them crossed the road, single file.  It was fabulous.  And really good timing.  And I never did see anything very interesting at McNary. But you just never know what you're going to see when you're not expecting to see anything at all.

Okay, let's move on to some indoor activity.  Here are the two art pieces I did last week, in ink and watercolor:

Well, at least that was quick.

Now we move on to another exciting home project:  the Outbuilding Makeover!

In my backyard there is an outbuilding measuring 12' x 24'.  It was put up in 1974, and partially improved in more recent years.  It has heat and light, but the previous owner's plan to add plumbing and AC were left undone before they sold the property to me.

There are two rooms.  The one without a window is totally unfinished.  I've been using it for storage.

The second room (12' x 12')  had finished walls and electrical, but the floor was covered with a crappy, dirty carpet and I didn't use it for anything.  I decided to change that.

My wonderful "can build or repair most anything home-related guy", Sergey, tore out the old carpet and the equally bad baseboards, patched up some wall damage, and put in new wood laminate flooring and new baseboards.

BEFORE

AFTER:

The dogs have given it their official approval.  I added one of those mesh screens over the door that keep the flies out but let people and hounds come in and out easily.  

Now I just have to figure out what to use it for...AND...I get to decorate a whole new space! Whee!

Speaking of the Hounds, on Saturday we had a reunion with the Wiener Walking group.  It was finally warm enough for a meet-up, and it was great to see the old familiar dogs (and people) again.

Pippin and his girlfriend Madison had a lovely meet and greet, but then during the walk, Pippin paid more attention to newcomer Hobbes, a stunning cream piebald longhair:

And as usual, Truman did his best to avoid everyone:

Not the best photos, no, but it's nearly impossible to get a herd of active wiener dogs to pose nicely.  Oh well.  There will now be weekly walks until it gets too hot in mid-summer, so perhaps I'll manage to get better pics at some point.

Whew, that was a lot of STUFF.  Hope you enjoyed it, and have a great week out there! 

The Impatient Gardener

It's SPRING!

It's sunny and warmer and there hasn't been a temp below freezing for well over a week, and surely that means I can plant things now, right?  

Well, the gardening guides tell me to wait until all danger of frost has passed, which technically, is this area, is April 15.  Bah.  It's 40 degrees at night!  It's going to be SEVENTY this week in the day time!  I drove by a few nurseries and they were starting to put out stock -- LET ME PLANT THINGS!!!

Sigh.  I went to the nurseries.  What they were putting out was a bunch of annuals intended for flower baskets, some evergreen shrubs, and a few bare root roses.  Not what I want!  What I want is flowering perennials.  So I had to settle for this lone heather (a very hardy, winter-blooming plant):

It made me happy, as I've always wanted to grow heather ever since admiring it on the Grampian hillsides in Scotland.  But I want MORE plants, and I want them NOW, but apparently I have to be patient.  Dang.

So in the meantime, I worked on my garden decor efforts.  Here is a nifty wind spinner I found, with a solar light:

And I expanded the fence decorations with another repurposed coat rack and some metal wall art found at a garage sale.

The other issue with SPRING in this area is the wind.  When it warms up, the winds come calling, often blowing steadily at 15-20mph for days on end.  Here we see Pippin and Truman being blown sideways on a 25mph day:

This kind of puts a damper on any outdoor activities.

We had an awful lot of windy days last week, though I did get out on one less-windy day to go look at the Sandhill Cranes again.  Thus, contrary to last week's statement that there weren't likely to be many bird pics here for a while, here are two more of the cranes:

Whee!

Okay, on to the art.  We are now meeting via Zoom for our art practice sessions THREE times a week.  On Wednesdays and Fridays we choose a photo to work from and do the same one (usually).  On Mondays we work on whatever we want to, and it doesn't necessarily need to be finished in our 90-minute time frame.

This past Monday I chose to do a freehand sketch from a photo of Crowley from Good Omens, to practice my people-drawing skills.  I used a very cheap #2 pencil that was just lying around, on some old paper that I wanted to use up.

On Wednesday we chose a lovely photo of a French castle, which I rendered using ink and watercolor.  I quite like how this turned out.

For Friday's session, due to a technical issue, we wound up each choosing our own photo from a group of landscape pics.  I opted for this derelict boat, done in watercolor (no ink). 

This coming week I am hoping to get out and about more if I don't get blown away.  There are some home improvement projects happening here, and it might be noisy, so getting out a lot will be a good idea.  I shall talk more about those projects next Monday!

Have a great week out there!

Been There, Seen That

There are no bird photos this time!  

Why is that? you might wonder, Did you not see any birds this past week?

Well, of course I did.  On my many walks with the Hounds hither and yon, I saw oodles of birds:  coots, wigeons, mallards, geese, robins, sparrows, finches, flickers, gulls, crows, starlings, juncos, blackbirds...well, I could go on (trust me, you don't want that).  The thing is, I didn't take photos of a single one.  There are a gazillion bird photos in my files.  At this point, it takes something pretty special to get me to haul out the camera, like those Sandhill Cranes from a previous post.  Even then, I have better photos of Sandhill Cranes than the ones I recently shared.  I only took out the camera in the faint hope of getting something really cool, which didn't happen.  Oh, well.  So it goes.

I'll tell you what would be a cool, special bird to see:  a King Eider.  The only eider I've ever seen is the less loftily named Common Eider, off the coast of Alaska.  While the Common Eider is certainly a fine looking bird, it's got nothing on its more regal cousin.  Check out this pic of a King Eider:

That's one nifty head.  Why do I bring this odd bird up, you ask?  Because this was the picture our art group chose to draw last Wednesday.  So you get to see a bird in this post after all, just not one I've taken a photo of myself, alas.

Here is my watercolor painting:

Our Friday session pic was this odd rock formation:

I used ink and watercolor:

That's the sum total of photos from my exciting week.  Nothing else to see here, unless you want to see adorable dachshunds yet again.

What's that?  You do want to see adorable dachshunds again?  Hah.  I knew that was the real reason people looked at this blog!

Okay, here is Truman doing his impression of a downward dog yoga pose as he slides off the back of the sofa:

And here is Pippin channeling his inner cat as he perfects an awkward pose on the armchair:

Anyway, my point is, unless I go on a trip to somewhere I've never birded before, say, Arizona, there probably won't be lots more bird pics on this blog.  Unless it's pelicans.  I will always snap photos of pelicans.

Have a lovely week out there, everyone!

Gee, Guess What -- YET MORE BIRDS

It must be Spring.

The weather is fine, the birds on the their migrations, I keep going outside, and gee, there are birds about.  Yay!

Though first, a non-bird walk:   the Hounds and I found a new trail along the Yakima River, quite by happenstance.  I was driving over a bridge and noticed a dog walker coming up a trail from below which I'd not noticed before.  Upon further investigation, I found the start of the trail and a parking lot.  We had a nice long walk there, although Truman wasn't happy because the stroller could not be used on the narrow path.

It was a quiet, out-of-the-way spot.

We saw just two other dog walkers there.  We did see waterfowl on the river, but nothing out of the ordinary.

This was out of the ordinary, at least for me -- even though this is desert country, I almost never see cactus anywhere.

Pippin had a good time!

Okay, on to the birds -- all one kind of bird this week.  Sandhill Cranes!

Every year, Sandhill Cranes migrate north in the Spring to their breeding grounds, and every year they stop for a little R & R at the same place in West Richland -- a cattle ranch.

They like the fields there.  

And so every Spring, I (and lots of other birders) drive out on the public road that traverses the ranch to look for the cranes, and find them pretty easily.

It's fun to watch them coming in for landings with those ungainly legs.  Unfortunately, this year there chose a different part of the ranch from last year, when they were in a field much closer to the roadway.  My photos from last year were better, but oh, well.  I'll take what I can get!

That was it for good bird sightings last week.  

Here is a Truman sighting:  he went to the groomers for his regular wash and trim, and the groomer always snaps a pic afterwards.  And he always looks the same:  sort of woebegone, as if he's saying, "Why did you do this to me?"  

He looks and smells fabulous -- even if he doesn't think so.

Lastly, the art for the week.  I didn't like one of our two Zoom session pieces, so am sharing just one of those -- this lovely lantern, rendered with ink, watercolor, and gouache on toned paper:

This is a new thing I've been trying out lately -- using toned (tan) paper, and gouache paint is also something I've not tried much before, and I am loving the results.  I did do another such drawing last week, separate from our 90-minute Zoom sessions, and was thus able to spend a good deal more time on it.  This is Crowley (Good Omens) in Aziraphale's bookshop, refilling his wine glass:

I really liked how this worked out.  Leaving some of it "unfinished", more or less, was in my plan from the start.  My sense was that the focal point would be lost if everything was painted in, and I'm quite pleased with that choice.

That's all for this post.  Next week, our Zoom art group starts meeting THREE times a week instead of two.  Aieee!  While we normally select a photo to all work from and then share whatever we've done after 90 minutes or so, for our third session we're going to each work on individual projects that can take as long as we like over as many weeks as we wish.  I've no idea what to work on but will have to come up with something soon, as the first session starts later today.  

AIEEEE!!

Have a lovely week out there, everyone!