a gift

We all received a gift yesterday, a reprieve from the rain. A big wind blew in and took the clouds away. While I was waiting for the dust to clear over at Em's apartment(will explain later!), Emma and I took off to Chase River Estuary for one of our final looks at the running salmon. We had come the day before but had to leave the camera at home due to rains. There were eagles everywhere...everywhere. I must have seen 30 eagles, there for the salmon. They were roosting in old snarled tree limbs trying in vain to dry their feathers. It was most fantastic and I was beside myself for a camera. Yesterday, all I found was this one flying directly overhead. The river is fast and high from all the rains. The salmon that remain here at the estuary probably will not make it to the spawning grounds. They are weak and sick and near the end, and the new-found rush of water is too much for them. I tried to photograph some, but though I can see into the water, it seems my camera cannot.
Found this old Datsun pickup dumped here...the same colour as the sky. I would savour an old Datsun myself. 1972 B510, to be exact, just like my first and favourite car, but an old Datsun pickup would be pretty sweet, too.
Here is our path...a little muddy, to be sure, but passable again.
Another view of Nanaimo...
We walk here at least three times a week, sometimes more. I have passed this tree two hundred times if I have passed it once. Look what I found after all the rain and wind...now that I know there is a nest here, I will keep a watch out this spring and summer to see what happens. Exciting, isn't it?
One very late Wooley Bear Caterpillar...I doubt he'll make it this year, but you just never know, do you? At first I nearly deleted this photo since you can barely see the caterpillar, but after I saw all the sun spots and sunbeams, I realized that it might actually become one of my favourites. What do you think?



And one last note: I received a very last minute invitation...I don't know how in the hell they found me or why they thought I would respond.

Capital High School, class of 1986 reunion, Nov. 10, Pellegrino's Tyee Convention Center, Tumwater. Contact Reunions Unlimited at 360-866-8842, e-mail reunions@reunionsunlimited.com or go to www.reunionsunlimited.com.


HA HA HA HA HA oh, to be a fly on the wall... I did consider putting on dark sunglasses, carrying a white cane, a giant hearing aid and shuffling in just so I could gawk(behind my very dark glasses) ...is that very wrong of me? I couldn't possibly talk to anyone there...but I wonder what CM looks like now.....still dreamy?!?