Category Archives: what hell kind of animals are we seeing?

I was part of a “Officer Involved Shooting”…

Unfortunately.

About 2 days ago a visitor reported to us that they had seen a deer on the trail that had a badly broken leg and that was looking “bad”. I called the Ranger on duty and he went looking for the deer but did not find it.

Around 5pm today, I went on a round to see if we had any campers, and on my first path, I saw a deer standing near a camp site but did not think much of it as I drove away, but something about it made me rethink what I saw, so I did a loop around and spotted the deer once again and waited…

Yep. I found the deer.

The leg was useless. She did not look like she was in pain, but she did look bad. I called the Ranger on duty and told him I would keep an eye on her until they arrived in 20 minutes or so. I also called Pauline to tell her to put dinner on hold. I was going to be a while.

About 5 minutes after that, the deer started to walk away, slowly, I was no threat… I thought I should go on the other side of the loop to keep her “contained” but of course, I lost contact with her and spent the next 20 minutes looking all over the loop of the campground as well as about a 200 yard radius with a bagillion places to hide.

The Ranger showed up with a guy from the DNR (I think) as well as a Washington State Trooper which was a good thing, as he has a 12 gauge and not just his side arm.

The 4 of us started to search for the deer when I recalled what Tom Selleck said in the “Jessie Stone” made for TV movies that Pauline and I just finished re-watching a few days ago…

“Always go back to the beginning.”

So once again, I started where I last saw the deer, but this time, I fallowed the exact path I saw her take and about a minute later, I spotted her. Not 20 yards from where I lost her. She was really blending into the bush.

I called the Ranger and the Trooper did what he had to do.

There is a county road that goes though the park, its a straight away, so there are always speeders. I lost count how many cars I have seen pass others at a high rate right of speed in front of the park entrance, so there is a high chance she was hit by a car which injured her badly enough that something had to be done.

blah…

 

 

Holy Crap! It’s a Sea Otter!!!

Holy Crap! It’s a Sea River Otter!!!

I was just finishing the last blog posting when Pauline saw this Sea River Otter running across the camp towards the water. I was able to snap off a few decent pictures as the Sea River Otter ran across the road onto the parade ground and over a ledge just as a Bald Eagle was swooping down.

That was cool!

Oh, and a pic of Drew… yawn.

*Edited April 21, 2014 @ 2:27pm

A Park Ranger said this was a River Otter as Sea Otters never leave the water…

STILL TOTALLY COOL!!!!

It’s gotta be 4:20 somewhere…

Hello!

It is just after 4pm on Sunday April 20, 2014. I have my AC/DC playlist jamming away while I have my window open so I can not only get some fresh air, but I can also hear the Rufous Hummingbirds come and go from our feeders.

While not in the great number or varity of hummingbirds we was so lucky to have while in Patagonia, we still get a kick out of these few 5-6 Rufous’s. With a Anna’s being seen every so often.

Our friends Daphna and Allen visited us this weekend and as usual, we did nothing but laugh… Ok, we ate and drank more, but you know, a good time was had by all. They even brought Maude so Drew could day “Hi!” to her. Sakura of course is above them all and stayed in the bedroom pretty much the entire weekend.

But she made her presence known…

When Daphna and Allen got Maude, we got them a dog toy. One of those “squeak” toys that we thought nothing of. We saw it, squeaked it once, threw it in the cart and later sent it off in the mail forgetting all about it.

Until we visited a few weeks later to be informed, that not only is there 1 squeak in this toy, but 18 of them. And Maude LOVED this toy above all others. To the point that when they took the toy away, Maude would cry. Both Daphna and Allen work from home. They voiced their appreciation in many tones and ways and very colorfully.

So of course we felt bad and decided on our next visit to make this up to them but getting them more squeak toys and putting them in odd places around their house, while leaving a doggie treat next to it. What made this even funnier was at this time of this, Daphna and Allen had many sleepless nights prior to this night, so when we left at 8pm they went to bed…

Only to call us at 11pm letting us know they went to bed when we left but had to get up a hour later to search their house for a full hour for any more squeak toys so they could, at long last, go to bed and SLEEP!

They used many colorful words and gave us an example of what they hear over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over… Xs 1,000.

I tell you this so you can better appreciate this…

When we met up at Daphna and Allen’s hotel room for lunch, one of the first things we saw sitting on the bed, was Sakura’s squeaky mouse. Which is battery operated and very sensitive so any minor vibration will set it off.

My first thought was Maude stole Sakura’s toy, but then I realized I told Drew to watch Maude carefully so she won’t steal anything, so it must have been Sakura coming out of the bedroom when we was site seeing the park, and putting her squeaky mouse in Daphna’s bag just so she can also torture these poor, squeaked to death people.

Cat’s. They are evil.

Our visit even started off on a bang. Daphna told us she planned to leave at 1pm so she should be here by 3pm. We knew there was a zero percent chance this would happen, but we love her for trying. Around 4pm she texted that they just got off the ferry. Around 6pm Daphna text’s me “they are on “whatever road” so will be here in moments”

I heard of this road, but for the life of me, where is it??? Um… Wait a minute… I call Daphna.

After a few questions and a round of debate, Daphna and I concluded that yes, Pauline and I really are at Fort Flagler State Park and no, that we are not, nor have we ever been, at Fort Worden State Park, which is across the bay from Fort Flagler and about a 40 minute drive.

And honestly, this explained so much about prior conversations like “why did you get a room in Squim?” (hour away) and why it took them so long to get here but after hearing about their travel and recent events, it just adds more lore to our dysfunctional, untrustworthy, immoral lives that we all share with each other as we have for the last 14+ years at least.

I made some chili, this time I really went for it, and it turned out really good with a strong kick. Now I know how to get there!

We then took Maude and walked around the park, showing them a small section of Fort Flagler as we talked long into the night and watched the stars from a battery. The weather was as good as we could have had, it could have been 10 degrees warmer, but other then that, it was great.

They left around 12am and we met up at there room in Port Ludlow, WA (20 minutes away) They stayed at the Inn of Port Ludlow which was really nice, nice room, very nice staff, and good food at the restaurant where no one under 21 is admitted which is another reason to LOVE it!

After a really good lunch, we walked around the beach some to let Maude off the leash and she quickly took to the water and even swam with a large branch in her mouth. Apparently this is the first time this dog went swimming willingly.

After this we came back to the park, we walked where we walked last night due to a missing water bottle, we found that and returned home to get our Jeep as we showed them the rest of the park. They left around 6pm and Pauline and I still trying to recover. It has been rare where we have been on the go at this rate for 2 days.

The extra bonus is, we will be just 1 ferry and 1 hour from Daphna and Allen all summer.

This will be a good summer!

 

Wile E. Coyote

Today As we was driving to the camp grounds in the 1ton flat bed, I noticed a head sticking out of some fern’s. I stopped and franticly searched for my iPhone which was deep in my pocket being blocked by other stuff and my seat belt, but I was able to snap off 55 pictures with these 6 being worthy enough to post.

Once again, I am not iMpressed with the iPhone camera…

Today! Just 5 days later…

I really had planned to post these pictures the day we took them, but… you know… Stuff happens…

Pauline and I went to South Whidbey Island State Park to meet with a local volunteer, we got to look over our soon to be home a little better, we have 42′ of space and Ackbar is 35′ long.

Sweet!

Pauline and I are trying to get into the habit of taking a camera out when we do our park work, the iPhone just is not a good enough camera.

I’ll discuss this more in another post…

We came across 2 large Immature Bald Eagles on the beach on April 9, I got fairly close to them before one took off, and was able to get a few more pictures using Pauline’s “hiking camera” (Pentax point and shoot) I thought I had it zoomed in all the way, but when I realized I didn’t, the last of the birds flew off, hence the blurry pics…

Dinner time, more later…