Category Archives: what the hell are we seeing?

Birds and a bad cat…

Pauline and I went for a short walk yesterday. We was only gone about 2 hours and walked 2.15 miles which isn’t much at all.

We also got a new cat harness. MetPet Walking Jacket I think is what it is called. Pauline will have to chat about that.

He did really good. He was tense, but enjoying the grass and sun and even ate a few small flowers. He purred some, but would stop suddenly and look over the big wide world. He also made sure I was nearby at all times. He took a few steps away, but not too many. We would have stayed out longer, but a 5 or 6 cars suddenly went by all at once and I didn’t want to get him too stressed.

The next step is to resize it for Sakura and find out of we need a Med or Large for her, but it will be purple.

The Weather has been amazing!

Spring time in the Northwest…

Is Amazing!

The weather is so much nicer. We have had less rain and more sun with more fog then more sun and then more fog with some sun.

Today I saw my first Anna’s Hummingbird! It was bright red like I am use to and not that deep dark red we saw in Arizona. I only got about 1 second look at it, but that was all that was needed to make me happy. We have not put our feeders out yet, but will be soon. We are just concerned about the winds we still get every so often.

We also saw our first Golden Eagle today! And even better, we had time to go back to get the camera! While it was still foggy when we started taking the pictures it cleared up about 45 minutes later we was able to take more pictures with the sun out as he was still in the same tree we left him in. Lazy bird. Not the best pics as I was “just off” regarding focus, but they count.

We also saw the USNS Carl Brashear (T-AKE-7) going out to sea from Indian Island. She had been dockside since we arrived in November. The first time I saw her I thought she was a building. (Crap weather prevented a good look from so far) but I was able to make out the life boats on the side to confirm she was a ship. She had the usual 2 USCG ships waiting to escort her out to the open sea.

One of the Rangers told us we will soon be seeing more and more wildlife showing up soon and the Bald Eagles will soon be tearing branches off the trees to make their nest which is something we have never seen, so I think we will be bringing our camera with us more when we do rounds in the morning.

I am still running 3 miles a day. I took 2 days off due to the whole “blind in one eye” thing when it was just too sunny for me to see properly and without excessive pain but other then that, I have done pretty well. I know my course well enough to know how to pace the hills. The only thing that slows me down now is soggy trails, harsh winds and drivers not paying attention where they are driving.

Yesterday, I was almost hit by 2 ladies who was paying more attention to whatever they saw outside the passenger window then what was in front of them, I saw them from a distance away and was going to run on the side of the road as I normally do. (I run against traffic since I do NOT trust drivers) but she started to drive like they was going to park on the side of the road where I was running toward, so I went right, then she veered right directly towards me, and as I got closer I realized they still have not seen me, and they never did see me, even when I ran past the drivers window about 2′ away.

I was so close to slapping the drivers window.

Honestly, I was looking directly at the driver and she never, ever saw me. It’s not like I am 6’2″ and 225 lbs and wearing bright red or anything.

*sigh.

Anyway, today I ran my best time ever, beating yesterday (which was my record, which was also a new best time record) by 15 seconds. 3 miles on trials, hills, and road in 32 mins and 45 seconds.

Bright sunny days, with brilliant views of Mt Baker, the Cascade Mountains and the crown jewel, Mount Rainier.

I Love the Northwest!

Once again I failed to remember I have pictures on my phone waiting to be downloaded, so some of these pictures are from a month ago, but most of them are from today.

Enjoy!

If you ever wanted to walk to Asgard, I know the way…

Let’s see how many of you get that.

Today was a wild one. It started off very windy and rainy, then it got very, very windy and rainy and then it just turned epic in a blink of the eye.

We was picking up branches around 11am while there was a strong gale force wind hitting from the South, it was the strongest winds we have felt from the South, and we was only about 50 yards from the Southern cliffs so we had very few tree’s between us and the sheer force of the wind.

We had a 1 ton flatbed truck full of yard debris such as tree branches, vines, brush etc. We we filled the truck bed. (Which is measured by how high Pauline has to jump to get more debris into the truck.)  And while on the way to the dumping area, we decided to drive down to the boat launch area to turn around and to see the water.

That turned out not to be such a good idea, as in the wide open the wind was hammering the truck and blowing some branches off.  The winds had to be 50+ mph. We had to return after we dumped the load to pick up what we had lost site seeing. I love picking up the same branches twice.

When we returned about 20 minutes later the winds had dropped to about 25mph. While it was still windy, it was not as windy. That is a win!

We came back home and ate lunch around noon and worked to about 2:30 while it rained, and rained more, oh it rained so much more, we could not see Whidbey Island. It was just nasty out. But also incredibly beautiful. I love being here in the Northwest! I am not sure I will leave anytime soon, but back on what I was saying…

Suddenly, it just stopped raining and boom. Bright Sun! That is when we noticed one of the must vibrant rainbows we have ever seen. It looked like it was in 3D. I took some pictures of it, but honestly, without seeing it for yourself, nothing could do it justice.

Still, the pics are pretty cool! I so love being in the Northwest!

Yesterday I got on a tractor to move some timber that was blocking a boat ramp. I was planning to wrap a chain around it and drag it out of the way, like I have in the past, and ever grabbed some chains to do this. When I got to the boat ramp I reassessed the situation and thought maybe if the gravel beach was solid, I could just push the timber out of the way and be done faster and maybe in a more time saving way?

So I walked on the gravel, jumped up and down, kicked it around some and was convinced it would hold the tractor and then I started to push the timber off the ramp and onto the rocks on the side of the ramp. I had it almost completely off the ramp when the left front tire sunk, which caused the left rear tire to sink, which brought the right rear tire in the air…

*sigh…

Once again I over thought what I was going to do. I played around trying to get myself out of the gravel, both using the bucket as a push off and turning the tractor in different directions, using larger rocks to put under the wheels and anything I could think of…

Nope. I can’t fix this on my own. I had to get help. I had to have a Ranger come pull me out.

If I did what I planned to do originally, I would have been done in 10 minutes tops. This took 45 minutes. Fun.

I have been running once more. For the most part it has been November 2012 when we stopped going to the gym Monday to Friday of running at least 3 miles a day.

Last Monday was just my second run while here, I had run around the roads of the parade ground on Super Bowl Sunday, but I really struggled on the long incline and about died just trying to get a 1.5 mile before the game.

So on last Monday I ran on some trails taking my chances on those hills and got just under 2 miles only walking for 300 yards or so. It was a struggle, but not as harsh of a one.

I took my GPS so I could get the distance and figure what I am trying to do route wise and effort wise. The next day I adjusted to a different route on another trial and walked about 50 yards and ran 1.82 miles.

The next day I hit gold! I once again changed my route and find a route exactly 2 miles and ran that 2 days in a row and both were non stop and I finished only my second 5 day running week in the last 14 months.

I have been breathing really well and I’ve learned how to control my own pace which is not easy to do when you are use to a tread mill setting the pace. A tread mill that has no hills. I have been paying more attention to my running style and realized I was blowing myself up running up hills since I changed my stride into a faster pace.

Once I realized that, I started running up hills in what I consider “stutter stepping” and I am no where near as winded as I had been. Once I figured out the ups and downs of the hills I also learned where I could “rest” and where I had to really work it.

Yesterday, I got to the second left where I had been turning and realized I was feeling really good, so I ran to the third left which got me exactly 2.5 miles.

Today, I once again changed my route and I got exactly 3 miles and had a controlled breathing rate and recovered as fast as I use to recover on my cool down walk on the treadmill. It felt good.

Of course right now I have sore feet, sore ankles and and a sore lower back and for some odd reason, I also have sore neck and shoulders. Maybe Im holding my arms too tense as I run? I’ll figure this out over the next few runs.

It was so nice during my run, I had so much Sun on me, I almost had to take off my hoodie. It was still sprinkling, I saw another rainbow, and I heard tree frogs croaking behind me and I heard another tree frog respond in front of me.

Tree frogs. Once they start talking, there is no shutting them up.

Here is another iPhone photo dump. I still can not seem to remember I take pictures with this thing.

Night.

Long time no see!

It feel’s like we have been on the go since we arrived here. Some of it feels routine but too much still feels like we have had no time to take a breath which is why we have not been updating like we once was. It feels like it was just a week since it was New Year’s Day and now it is almost February.

Time flies…

We saw a coyote once again, but no camera. We see multiple Bald Eagles daily and it never gets old. I love watching them just soar over the cliffs. I also had a great view of some seals playing just under the surface of the water.

The past 2 weeks we have been on a long, time consuming mission of taking “inventory” of sorts, of the entire park, as well as Mystery Bay SP and Anderson Lake SP.

The state of Washington has decided to copy some of the things the State of Oregon is doing with their State Parks and that means counting every trash can and sign and a million other things.

The State also wants more details regarding the size of the area’s that is considered “litter pickup” or what is considered to be “mowed” areas which means I have been walking the parameter of large areas with the GPS as well as driving a 4 Wheel Drive Gator over the larger open areas.

Not too hard of a job, but we had less then 9 days to do it all.

Pauline and I finished our task yesterday in the rain. It took a few days just to figure out what the State was asking, and how to best accomplish this. The Ranger’s have been more then helpful as always, but this was all new to them as well, so we have had a few hours worth of meetings on and off going over what the State is asking for, and talking how we can accomplish it in the time the State has given us to accomplish this.

This week alone Pauline and I have worked 41 hours (combined) so we only did a hour today and tomorrow with the weekend off.

Wednesday I was asked to help with traffic as we had some tree’s to cut down near the roads. Then I got involved with the cleanup part which ended up lasting all day long. I got home around 4:30pm. It was a very long and hard day and I am still feeling it in my arms. The chipper had a tow line for the larger pieces, but I still had to muscle the pieces into the chipper in a way for it to be grabbed, that was hard enough.

We went to Vancouver 2 weeks ago to visit the boys. They are getting so big. Jon is 14 and  Dylan is soon to be 10. It seems like yesterday they was learning to walk and now both are very good basketball players.

Dylan had a game so we went to watch that, they was playing a much inferior team so the coach asked them to not play as hard and it showed. Dylan was doing his best to be a good sportsman but at the cost of not playing anywhere near his own ability.

Jon is getting offer’s to play on more advanced teams and has the potential of going much farther so we have been talking about doing things the right way and how to be ready both for playing the game as well of what to expect as a player of the game.

Sunday is the Super Bowl… I love Peyton Manning, but he is no longer a Colt and while both teams have a starting D player from Purdue…

Go SeaHawks!

But I won’t be sad either way.

I will try and keep up with updating more in the future.

Everything you hear, could be something else…

This blog entry was written on June 27, 2013 ~ For the safety of the Mountain Lions we post dated this entry until now.

I was going to write about this a few days ago, but without any real evidence, I didn’t want to really discuss it since we just wasn’t sure what we really heard. Not that I have concrete evidence now, I just think we didn’t hear what we thought we heard.

Sunday night June 23, 2013 Pauline and I was outside enjoying the cooling temps, the Sun had just set, it was early dusk, we had a deer about 50 yards away from us, we had numerous birds around us, singing, eating the seeds we leave them, we had a good stiff drink in our hand and it was just NICE to be doing what we was doing.

Then we heard “cries” from a distance away. At first we wasn’t sure we heard it due to the wind, but the dogs across the road started barking, so we knew we did hear something.

A few minutes later we heard it, this time, much louder and for much longer and much more consistent. For about 2 minutes, we heard a cry about every 5-10 seconds.

Our first thought, a Mountain Lion was killing another Mountain Lion, or Bobcat and doing so SLOOOOOOOWLY….

It was not pleasant at all to listen to. But since it was dusk, and we had been drinking, we decided it would have to wait until Monday before we go looking.

Monday afternoon I spent about 90 minutes in the hot sun in rugged bush trying to find a carcass, or signs of a kill, such as vultures, blood, fur etc. I found nothing. I walked about 2 miles up and down hills, into thick thorny areas and all I got for it was a sprained left thigh, cuts, bruises, sun burned and tired.

We have been on the look out for vultures ever since but still nothing.

Today, Matt and I went on a loop of the preserve and on the way we swapped out the motion camera’s card. He just emailed me this video.

I am now convinced we did not hear a Mountain Lion kill… But two Mountain Lions mating.

All I know is, Mountain Lions must be really into kinky stuff.

For the safety of the Mountain Lions we post dated this entry.