Surprised by Light
After a busy day of dealing with car repairs and shopping for Thanksgiving food, I didn’t want to walk the dog in our nearby park. I really didn’t. (…)
Domestic Challenges, Wild Beauty
I’m ecstatic to be back on our property in Northeastern Oregon. There’s lots to do: organizing inside the yurt to make cooking and storage more convenient, building a spring box and laying pipe to get potable water into the yurt, putting in the garden. And there are many challenges: a muddy road, cars that get [...]
Rocks I Have Loved: Two Photos for Earth Day
I’ve been going through old photos to pick out some that might be appropriate for an album (or maybe a series of blog posts), tentatively entitled, “Rocks I Have Loved.” It struck me this morning how well that metaphor suits Earth Day….
Autumn Color in Northeast Oregon
Series of photographs of trees turning color in mountains of Northeastern Oregon.
Underneath Oregon Basalt
Today is Rock Flipping Day when people around the world turn over rocks to see what’s underneath. In our far northeast corner of Oregon, we have lots of basalt piles, so the hardest part was choosing….
Hello Rattlesnake
I haven’t seen a rattlesnake all season. Then yesterday, down by our spring, I saw three. I ran back to the yurt…for the camera. I’ve been wanting to get some good rattler photos. I’ll need to keep working on it. This photo doesn’t do justice to the snake’s beauty. Even when I closed in to [...]
Bat Update
Many thanks to Chris Clarke at Coyote Crossing and the folks at Bats Northwest for helping me identify the bat I found. It’s a Townsend’s Big-Eared Bat — a species of concern in Oregon and Washington. I’ll be doing more research on them in the coming weeks and will share it in a future Species [...]
More Chipping Sparrows
Last week, I mentioned a late nest of chipping sparrows in a small tree near our parking area. Now I have some pictures. You can see how tiny the tree is in the photo below. The nest is about two-thirds of the way up the tree. Soft-hearted Jerry put up the fence to protect the [...]
Mystery Eggs Update
I’m in Central Oregon this week with a steady wi-fi connection, so I can begin to catch up on some internet work, including long overdue reports on the latest bird activities around my Northeast Oregon yurt. I’ve finally identified the species that hatched out of the eggs I discovered in a rusty tool box on [...]
