WW: Dogwood signs on

(Here's another icon of North Pacific Coast spring: Cornus nuttallii, or Pacific dogwood. Along with trillium, which blows before the dogwoods do, and native rhododendron, which blooms later, it forms a triumvirate of forest blossoms widely adopted as totems in this region. [In fact, all three of these were until recently protected by law in British Columbia.])

WW: Neat sailing pram

(Encountered this remarkably serviceable dinghy moored to the seawall back under the trees. Sort of boat I grew up in, before about the age of 10. The design is classic: pram-faced, with simple, clean lines, daggerboard trunk, hole-in-the-wall mast step. All in good shape.

I don't know if this boat floated in on a storm and was tied up here so the owners might see it, or belongs to whoever lives on the bluff above, but as you can see it's been pretty neglected for some time. Shame, really; she's a fine little build, with topflight materials. You don't see many hulls equipped for serious rowing these days.)

WW: Explosive find

(This is a concretion I found on the beach after a storm. It's a sort of sedimentary rock that solidifies around a piece of metal on the ocean floor; I mostly find them encasing old hardware, tin cans, fishing equipment, and other refuse.

But here the core is a 3 to 4 inch military cartridge, evidently surplused into the sea by the local US Navy base.

Concretions are fairly soft stones, easily broken by roasting in the woodstove or rapping with a hammer.

Which is why I left this one in place.)

WW: Trillium challenge

(Trillium ovatum. Jungle flower; iconic herald of North Coast spring.)

WW: Desert snapshot

(Photo taken during my outbacking trek through the Columbia Basin last summer. Mt. Rainier in the distance.

Open link in a new tab to see it to better effect.)

WW: Classic Puget Sound house

(Another in my unintended series on endangered Old Settler houses in the district where I grew up. I've loved this one since I first rowed the lake at the age of 8. Its classic Puget Sound lines – detached garage, gable roof, dormers, shed-roofed second story, barn paint and gleaming white trim – I associated with grandparents, partly because my own raised their kids and still lived in one like it.

Lacking a boat these days – embarrassing as that is – I took this shot through the back fence; bit of a shame, really, because the view from the water, while less bucolic than it was those many years ago, is much more evocative of the prewar era in this part of the world. [See photo below, taken by a school chum from his front yard in 1965.]

A popular city park was built beside it in the 70s, and I'm told the city bought this property too when the last elderly resident moved out a few years ago. That explains the nominal effort to make the boarding-up less unsightly, but sadly, almost certainly also signals the end of this fine old example of Green Side architecture.)

WW: Sunbeam chair

WW: Late winter check-in

WW: Winter afternoon

WW: Evening spectacle

(Garlands of old man's beard [Usnea longissima], catching the winter sun at this specific moment of day.)

WW: Abandoned barn

(No stronger proof of disuse in an old barn than a rotten hay hoist. Because this tackle can easily kill people if it fails, farmers tend to obsess over its health.

This classic old red barn is part of the miraculously preserved dairy farm in my old neighbourhood. It still housed the herd, hay, milking machines, and cold storage for the milk when I was a kid. Whole district, including the pastures that used to be attached to this operation, has long since gone suburban.)

WW: Sunset on the Columbia Plateau

(Another shot from my trek through Eastern Washington last summer.)

WW: King boletes

(Boletus edulis. Part of a generous outbreak that burst up not far from my house during the record rains of last month. Some of them were the size of dinner plates. Unfortunately I neglected to get a photo of one of those, but had quite a feast on the lot notwithstanding.)

WW: Neighbourhood pond

WW: Ancient testimony

(Another electrical artefact from an old shed that's figured in these pages before. This time it's a full grown tree used as a power pole at some time in the shed's early life. Note that the wire now erupts directly from the centre of the tree's rather large trunk.)

WW: Rain owl

(Stryx varia.)

WW: Power outage season

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

WW: Autumn leaves

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

WW: Comrade spirit

(A point I've made before.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

WW: Old farmhouse

(This old house, near my childhood home, was once the residence of a family who owned and operated a dairy farm on the premises. The farm has long since become a housing estate, and the house effectively abandoned, for about 50 years now.

It's painful to see it slowly crumble, though slightly miraculous that it's still here at all, and entirely unchanged. It's like historical preservation, except the preservation has largely been inadvertant.

Any road, this is pretty much exactly the sort of house I've always wanted. [A more elaborate meditation on old farmhouses can be found here.])


Appearing also on My Corner of the World.