Just a Few Birds...

Sandhill Cranes migrate this direction every Spring, and there has been an annual festival near Othello, a town about 60 miles away, where people were given guided bus tours to the fields where the birds congregate.  I was planning to go this year, but it was cancelled.

BUT, last week I discovered that the birds have also been hanging out a mere ten miles away in ranch land outside West Richland -- hoorah!

So I took a little drive to see if I could spot any, while avoiding this danger:

I drove slowly up and down the road for several miles without seeing a thing, and then suddenly, this happened:

There were hundreds of Sandhill Cranes flying around in a big flock,  honking away!

It was hard to get good photos -- they were pretty high up, and moving fast, and my camera is only semi-pro, but at least you can tell what the birds are.

They swooped around for a good fifteen minutes or so, and then settled into a field, where they were way too far for photos.  Oh, well.

Truman (not shown -- hiding) and Pippin were wondering what I was doing, just standing outside the car looking up and paying no attention to them.

It was a fine time -- I've done very little birding here this Spring, and it was great to see the cranes without having to drive very far at all.

Here is a short and occasionally blurry video -- turn up the sound!  They make a lot of noise.

I never did see any cows on the road.

Hunkering Down

The Hounds and I are good at staying home for prolonged periods, and I am good at entertaining myself.  We are currently waiting for warmer weather so we can get out for walks -- look what happened over the weekend!

We had been enjoying several weeks of 50-60 degree, sunny days before this unexpected cold snap.

The Hounds were a little confused, but managed to cope.

Brrrrrrrrrr!  Little Pippin likes snow, and he had a good time running through it.

The normal 60-degree Spring days are scheduled to return tomorrow.

The snow all melted by the same afternoon.  I'm hoping to get out to a nearby spot where Sandhill Cranes have been hanging out.  Wish me luck!

Brief Check-In

I'm still here, but rarely have anything to post about these days.  I did get out to sketch with the local group last week -- not a very exciting venue -- the Country Mercantile store.  I've sketched inside it before, so this time I sat in my car and drew the outside instead. 

It's a fine place inside -- lots of gourmet foods to buy (I may have spent a little money there).

There was a good turnout of sketchers who shared their work:

And here is my effort:

The Hounds have not been neglected, either -- here are some recent pics.  Enjoy!

Pippin taking out a hedgehog

On the trail at Chamna Natural Reserve

A little doggie play time at home:

In Which I Did Not Buy a Bicycle

The last two Urban Sketcher group outings I attended were expensive -- first we went to a music store, where I bought piano sheet music.  The next week we went to a chocolate shop, where lots of goodies came home with me.

I was a little worried what might happen at the next meeting -- at a sporting goods store that specialized in bicycles.  I'd been thinking about getting a bike, you see. 

They even had a three-wheeler, which I've often admired, as I suspect I'd be less likely to fall off one.  However, this time I managed to resist the urge to spend a whole lot of money, avoiding temptation by not sketching the darn things.   Instead, I focused on their kayak collection:

Then I started thinking about how much fun it might be to have a kayak...arrgghh.

Luckily, before any damage to my pocketbook occurred, sketching time ran out and it was lunchtime and I was too hungry to hang about any longer.  Whew.

Here are a few of the other people's sketches:

Close-up of my kayak sketch:

This coming week we are meeting at an art gallery.  Please wish me luck.  Thanks.

Finally, for the dachshund-deprived among you, here are Truman and Pippin enjoying the Puppy Bowl yesterday:

Pippin was especially entranced by it all, and a little disappointed whenever I switched over to check on the Superbowl.

Have a great week!

Sketch Outings Get Expensive

The local sketch group keeps going to places where I wind up spending money -- last time we were at a music store, where I bought sheet music, and this past week they met at a chocolate shop.  A really good one where the candy is made there.

They had oodles of wonderful chocolates and I may have bought a few...or a dozen.  Or two dozen or so.

In the back was a sitting area that looked through a big window into the chocolate-making area, and we were allowed to sketch there.

Here we are sharing our work.

This is what I did:

A good time (and a yummy time) was had by all!

I'm hoping the next venue will be less damaging to my pocketbook.

For those of you missing dachshund pics, here is one of Pippin taking charge of a pillow:

Have a great week!

Sketching to Music

The local sketch group met up at a music store last Wednesday -- Ted Brown Music, a big place with tons of instruments, which were challenging to draw.  Rather than try to sketch a whole row of guitars or violins or saxophones, I opted to do bits and pieces of different views from my vantage point by the front counter.

We got to listen to music while sketching over the store's speakers -- for the first hour it was peppy, 1980s pop, which got to me after a while (not my favorite stuff), so I took a break and asked the store manager if we could have something a bit more rockin'. 

He obliged with some Led Zeppelin and I was much happier.  Not sure about the other sketchers...but nobody complained!

I finished my drawing early, and wound up looking through the piano sheet music, and the next thing I knew, I was $52 poorer...but with three new collections to play -- one of Scottish folk tunes, one of traditional Irish songs, and a big, fat book of Baroque music.  Yay!

Lastly, here is a pic of Truman on one of our recent riverfront walks -- with tumbleweeds.  Tumbleweeds were in the news here not long back, when a windstorm blew thousands of them across a  highway, completely blocking it and swallowing not only cars, but a semi truck.  Twenty feet high in places, it took ten hours for a crew with snowplows to clear the roadway.  Yikes!

The ones we encountered on our walk were quite tame by comparison!

2019 Books Read

Here is my annual Books Read post, just for the record.  I read 88 books in 2019:  45 nonfiction, 43 fiction.

Favorite Nonfiction reads:

WWII On the Air (M Bernstein & A Lubertozzi)
Don't Shoot, It's Only Me (Bob Hope)
Hitching Rides with Buddha (Will Ferguson)***
Rape of the Nile (Brian Fagan)
Art of Travel (Alain de Botton)
The Pipes Are Calling: Our Jaunts Through Ireland (M. Williams & C. Breen)
Don't Make Me Pull Over (Richard Ratay)
Japan: It's Not All Raw Fish (Don Maloney)
A Year in Provence (Peter Mayle)
Diary of a Bookseller (Shaun Bythell)
Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific (J. Maarten Troost)
Getting Stoned with Savages (J. Maarten Troost)
Beauty Tips from Moosejaw (Will Ferguson)
Westward, Ha! (S.J. Perelman)
Toujours Provence (Peter Mayle)

***This was my fave among the favorites, a delightful travel memoir that I didn't want to end

The rest:

The Second World War (Spencer Tucker)
Stuff Matters (Mark Miodownik)
The Library: A Catalogue of Wonders (Stuart Kells)
The Smithsonian Book of Books
Dave Barry Is Not Making This Up
20 Things You Didn't Know About Everything (Dean Christopher)
Beatrix Potter's Art (Anne Hobbs)
Gallery of Regrettable Food (James Lileks)
Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins (William and Mary Morris)
Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges Into Hollywood
Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder (Lawrence Weschler)
Expect the Unexpected (Roger von Oech)
Varieties of Scientific Experience (Carl Sagan)
How Did It Begin?  (R. & L. Brasch)
The Arts & Crafts Movement in Europe and America (Wendy Kaplan)
How to Be a Canadian (Will & Ian Ferguson)
Story of Civilization volume 7 (Will & Ariel Durant)
How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy (Jenny Odell)
Bored and Brilliant (Manoush Zamorodi)
Dave Barry Turns 50
Neither Here Nor There (Bill Bryson) (Re-read)
When Wanderers Cease to Roam (Vivian Swift) (Re-read)
Walking with Plato (Gary Hayden)
Mai Pen Rai Means Never Mind (Carol Hollinger)
84, Charing Cross Road (Helene Hanff) (Re-read)
Golden Age of Zen (John Wu)
Sketching & Painting Out of Doors (Adrian Hill)
Uncle John's Canoramic Bathroom Reader
Fated Sky: Astrology in History (Benson Bobrick)
How to Be a Victorian (Ruth Goodman)

Favorite Fiction Reads:
Code of the Woosters (P.G. Wodehouse) (Re-read)
Sci Fi (William Marshall) (Re-read)
Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit (P.G. Wodehouse) (Re-read)
Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves (P.G. Wodehouse) (Re-read)
The Moonstone (Wilkie Collins) (Re-read)

The Rest:

A Pelican at Blandings (P.G. Wodehouse)
Rest You Merry (Charlotte Macleod) (Re-read)
If I Were You (P.G. Wodehouse)
Luck Runs Out (Charlotte Macleod) (Re-read)
The Grub-and-Stakers Move a Mountain (Alisa Craig) (Re-read)
High Rising (Angela Thirkell) (Re-read)
Wrack and Rune (Charlotte Macleod) (Re-read)
The Grub-and-Stakers Quilt a Bee (Alisa Craig) (Re-read)
Golden Tresses of the Dead (Alan Bradley)
The Grub-and-Stakers Pinch a Poke (Alisa Craig) (Re-read)
Something the Cat Dragged In (Charlotte Macleod) (Re-read)
The Corpse in Oozak's Pond (Charlotte Macleod) (Re-read)
The Grub-and-Stakers Spin a Yarn) (Alisa Craig) (Re-read)
Vane Pursuit (Charlotte Macleod) (Re-read)
The Grub-and-Stakers House a Haunt (Alisa Craig) (Re-read)
The Roman Hat Mystery (Ellery Queen) (Re-read)
An Owl Too Many (Charlotte Macleod) (Re-read)
The French Powder Mystery (Ellery Queen) (Re-read)
Sherlock Holmes & the Scroll of the Dead (David Davies)
Great Mouse Detective: Basil & the Cave of Cats (Eve Titus)
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Holmes (Loren Estleman)
Summer Lightning (P.G. Wodehouse) (Re-read)
Her Royal Spyness (Rhys Bowen)
A Royal Pain (Rhys Bowen)
Royal Flush (Rhys Bowen)
Royal Blood (Rhys Bowen)
Return of Jeeves (P.G. Wodehouse)
Goody Hall (Natalie Babbitt)
The Calder Game (Blue Balliett)
A Little Yuletide Murder (Donald Bain*)
Death of a Blue Blood (Donald Bain)
Knock 'Em Dead (Donald Bain)
Rum and Razors (Donald Bain)
Murder on the QE2 (Donald Bain)
Gin and Daggers (Donald Bain)
Brandy and Bullets (Donald Bain)
The Highland Fling Murders (Donald Bain)
A Hobby of Murder (E.X. Ferrars)

*this mystery series is based on the TV show Murder, She Wrote and is listed as written by "Jessica Fletcher" but Bain is the actual author

Currently Reading:

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams) (another re-read...)
Stardust (Neil Gaiman) (ditto)

I don't seem to find much in the way of new fiction, and wind up re-reading a lot of old favorites.

On to 2020!