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Long Walk in the Rain

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I thought about going for a bike ride today, but with rain in the forecast I decided to walk instead. As I started from home it wasn’t raining and was a bit warmer than yesterday.  I headed east on North Street and picked up the Railroad Trail to Whatcom Falls Park. There were a lot of people out on the trail — walkers with dogs or kids in strollers, joggers, and a few cyclists. I took off my rain jacket before I’d gone too far and rolled it up in the hood for easy carrying. I was traveling light, with just a Clif bar in my pocket for a snack.  I counted on water fountains working in the parks.

Whatcom Falls was running full, but not at flood stage. I headed toward Woburn Street on the Water Line Trail, which has been designated as an off-leash dog area.  There were a few dogs and their owners out enjoying themselves, all well behaved. When I got to the back side of Bayview Cemetery I headed south toward the corner of Yew St. and Lakeway. From there it was a long climb up to the top of Yew Street hill.  There were three cyclists ahead of me riding up the steep hill, but even riding slowly they were much faster than my walking pace.

Somewhere along the road I saw my first flowers in bloom.  Nothing interesting, just the weedy Senecio vulgaris. It’s not too unusual to see it blooming during the winter. About the time I got to the top of the hill it started to rain and I put my raincoat back on.  It also seemed to be quite a bit colder and a little windy. I passed the new elementary school under construction near the fire hall.  I hadn’t realized the school was going to be right next to the road.  There’s no shoulder at that point and some of the cars seemed to be going a bit faster than I thought they should.  I had to watch out for them.

When I got down to Lake Padden I entered the park and followed the trail around the near side of the lake to Padden Creek gorge.  I headed down the gorge trail, enjoying the sound of the creek cascading over rocks beside me and noting the trees that had come crashing down in one of our winter windstorms. I took the loop trail, which follows closer to the creek, for the first time.  It’s not much farther, but more interesting than the main trail. The gorge trail ends at 36th Street, which I followed until I came to the street that descends the hill and passes under I-5 to become Old Fairhaven Parkway.

There’s a fairly new trail and bridge that crosses Connelly Creek and then passes by the newish Bellingham co-housing development on Donovan Ave.  I hadn’t been down that way for a while and had never seen what the co-housing group had built.  It’s attractive, with the houses clustered together and all the auto-oriented stuff around the edge of the site. I followed Donovan to 16th and headed up the hill.  There’s a trail where the hill is too steep for a street, and then the street continues.

There are a lot of nice front yard gardens on 16th Street, as well as on Garden Street which I followed next as I worked my way back north. There was a hazelnut (Corylus sp.) just starting to bloom along the sidewalk, probably not our native species since it was in someone’s garden. I stopped briefly to examine the catkins. When I came to WWU there was a sign pointing to the trail down to the Boulevard, so I took it and then followed the South Bay Trail into downtown and then home on city streets.

Overall, the route was a bit over 15 miles and I walked it in 4 hours 20 minutes, averaging about 3.5 mph. An online calorie calculator said I burned about 1100 calories along the way.  I mapped the route using my TOPO software, which reported about 1145 feet of elevation gain and loss, with the high point at the top of Yew Street hill.  There was enough water available at Whatcom Falls and Lake Padden to satisfy me, and my Clif bar was enough of a snack to hold me until I got home for a modest lunch.

Participatory Politics

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This isn’t a political blog, and isn’t slated to become one.  However, I think my experience at this afternoon’s Democratic Party caucus is worth a few comments.  I admit that I was a reluctant participant.  Casting a primary ballot is a much simpler process that requires considerably less time.  In Washington it’s particularly confusing because we received presidential preference primary ballots in the mail a few days before the caucus, but the primary only counts if you consider yourself a Republican.

Apparently the Democrats broke through the general confusion and attracted lots of people to their caucuses today. Everyone was patient with the sign-in process, which is where you indicate your initial candidate preference. Some people didn’t understand that, but had an opportunity to commit to a candidate before the first tally.  I was one of the two official vote counters for our precinct. The local party organization provided a good set of instructions for us to follow. One observer for each candidate watched what we did as we counted and did the delegate selection math.

Following the first count people could speak on behalf of their candidate and then there was a question period. Those who had marked uncommitted or to a candidate that had a very low number of votes could then change their preference and the handful of latecomers were added.  We counted again and announced the results.

The last step in the process was subcaucuses for each candidate to select delegates to the legislative district convention in early April. Those folks will select delegates to the state convention, and they in turn will select delegates to the national convention. It’s a long and involved process, but it seems pretty open.

In our precinct, the great majority of people who participated looked to be under 30.  I think that’s good news for our country, from the perspective of one who is on the high side of 50.  We had 85 people, with 15 supporting Clinton, 84 for Obama, and 1 who remained uncommitted to the end. We’ll know the feelings of the whole state later tonight.

Cold Windblown Drizzle

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We’re in a period of what passes for miserably uncomfortable weather on the northwest coast.  It’s about 38 degrees, windy, and periods of rain. It feels a lot colder than it really is, colder even than standing around in the snow in the mid-twenties. Days like this seem made for staying inside, which wrecks havoc with any outdoor exercise plan. I did get out three times today, once in the morning for a brisk walk around Cornwall Park while my scanner was busy digitizing slides, then to the post office and an evening meeting downtown.

The weather certainly hasn’t been conducive to photography this week. Not bad enough to look dramatic and not good enough to make beautiful images. Fortunately, the winter blooming shrubs last a rather long time in the cool and damp conditions so there isn’t much that’s pressing in the garden anyway.

While it’s been raining I’ve been busy selecting images for several magazine customers to choose from for future issues. I think my transition to all-digital submissions is nearly complete. Since if one editor is looking for a subject another is sure to seek the same thing in the future, I’m scanning everything that isn’t already digital that needs to go out.  That seems easier for an editor than having to look through both slides and web previews for one story or one issue.

Importance of Deadlines

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Without deadlines would I get anything done? Probably, but deadlines sure provide a little extra motivation to move a task to the top of the priority heap.

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I committed several months ago to give a slide show based on my Bellingham Impressions book, which was published last August. The show dates are this Monday and Tuesday, so today I finally made time to select the photos and sequence them. The show will be all digital, created in Open Office Impress. I already had digital files for everything that’s in the book, as well as a number of other photos I wanted to include in the show, so that part was easy.

For me, the hard part of building a slide show is deciding how to arrange the images so it makes sense and has a nice flow. I didn’t want to mimic the book, which has a color-based design that looks good as 2-page spreads. Print and screen are two very different media. To put the show in sequence I used what seems like an anachronistic technique — I printed thumbnails of every image I might want to include and cut them apart so I had dozens of little squares of paper. Then I started playing with the order, moving pictures around until I was happy. I numbered each photo, then picked up the thumbnails and carried them to my computer so I could page through them as I entered photo file names and built my show. I made a couple of minor revisions to the order and I was done.

Finally, I previewed the entire show and thought about what I wanted to say when each slide was on the screen. I’ll run through the show again on Sunday after I transfer it to my laptop. If you’re in Bellingham Tuesday, come to the Whatcom Museum at 12:30 for the brown bag series in the Rotunda Room and see the show. I’ll have autographed books for sale, too.

Monochrome Palette

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This time of year, especially following several days of heavy snowfall, the color palette is essentially monochromatic. Bare branches exhibit varying shades of gray and muted brown. Snow is bluish-white under cloudy skies and in the shade, or hues of gold under low-angle sunshine. Even the foliage that peeks through the snow is muted in tone — deep green cold-curled Rhododendron leaves, soft brown dry grasses that haven’t yet been buried, and almost-black conifer needles.

I photographed in Coeur d’Alene today, again under gray skies and intermittent heavy snowfall. I revisited a handful of gardens that were riots of color last summer or autumn. Today, I concentrated on shapes and patterns in the structures and bare trees or shrubs. The photo is of a small Japanese Maple.

Tonight, the wind picked up so the trees may be mostly bare on Wednesday morning.  A little sun is predicted, with more snow on the way for the Spokane area.  I’m heading home if I can get across the pass, which was closed all day today due to high avalanche danger.  It’s been a productive three days of snowy photography.

Deep Snow

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The storm cell that brought deep snow to the area sat over Spokane for nearly 30 hours and dumped a couple of feet of snow. That’s more than people here can remember in many, many years. Schools, many government offices, and some businesses were closed today.

Fresh snow doesn’t look good for very long, so I headed out in the brilliant morning sunshine to visit three more gardens today. The greenhouse in the photo was just added to Sherrie & Ron Guiles’ garden last summer. The tree in the foreground is a cutleaf Japanese Maple, which maintains its characteristic shape even under the thick snow cover.

Walking around in the garden where Ron & Sherrie hadn’t used their snowblower to create paths was challenging because the snow came up to my knees. As before, I had to plan my route to keep my footprints out of future photos.

In one area of the garden the outline of a boxwood parterre was barely visible as a soft raised swirl of snow. Everywhere I looked, the contours and textures that had been so prominent and colorful during the growing season and into autumn were soft, flattened, and muted into shades of blue shadows and golden highlights.

wp9c9196.jpgThe second garden I visited today is a wildlife garden, and in the winter it is a haven for nuthatches, chickadees, pine siskins, house finches, flickers, mourning doves, and dozens of California quail. Bird feeders hang from many trees, and a large covered ground feeder gives a sheltered place to feed near thick shrubs which offer protection.

I shared lunch with Eva & Del Lusk, enjoying the view out the large windows overlooking the garden and watching the birds. Unfortunately, the birds aren’t nearly as comfortable with a photographer wandering around with a long lens and a tripod. I set up several shots and stood very still and waited for the birds to return, but mostly came up empty-handed. My feet eventually got cold and I gave up.

Crazy for Snow

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I’ve been waiting all winter for the conditions to be right to visit several eastern Washington gardens when there’s lots of fresh snow. Today (January 27) I hit the jackpot as Spokane received near-record snowfall of up to 12 inches while I was out photographing. It would have been better if the temperature had been a few degrees colder and snow a little drier, but it was still a fantastic day.

The garden shed shown here is in Cathi and Dave Lamoreux’s back yard on the far south edge of Spokane. The snow in their yard was over a foot deep and getting deeper seemingly by the minute.

Photographing in the snow presents some challenges that don’t exist in warmer conditions. First, I had to keep my camera covered to keep it dry. I used a cheap plastic rain cover that cinches down around the lens and allows me to see the LCD on the back through the plastic. There’s a little hole for the viewfinder, and I operate the controls through the plastic. It’s a bit awkward, but workable.

The biggest challenge is one of planning. With no snow on the ground it doesn’t matter much where the photographer walks, as no evidence remains. But when there is snow, every footstep has to be planned so they don’t show up in some future shot. I find myself spending extra time thinking ahead to what other angles I’m going to want to capture before I start walking around.

When the weather is as warm as it was in Spokane today — right around freezing, staying warm while working really wasn’t much of an issue. Long underwear, rain pants, and a waterproof parka did the trick to stay warm and dry. Basically it’s just like dressing for any other winter outdoor activity in snow country.

I plan to spend another couple of days photographing Spokane gardens before heading back across the mountains. It’s predicted to get colder and maybe a little more snow, so conditions should remain favorable. But the only way to know for sure is to look out the window in the morning.

Garden Cleanup

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Some of us on the mild side of the Northwest joke that spring begins on New Year’s Day.  That’s really only a slight stretch, as we have several winter-blooming plants.  Our Viburnum bodnantense is in full fragrant bloom and I’ve seen a few blossoms on winter jasmine, Jasminum nudiflorum, in other gardens.

Today was mild, so after sitting at my computer and captioning photos much of the day I took time to do a bit of much-needed garden cleanup. I’d left last season’s lavender seedheads for a bit of winter interest, but they were getting ratty looking. With a fresh haircut they’re now ready for growth in two or three months. I also pulled off the remains of the hardy geranium foliage, clipped off the asters, pulled out the annual alyssum, and generally did a quick tidying of the two beds in front of the house.  They look much better now.

There’s more work to be done, particularly getting a head start on the winter annual weeds like creeping buttercup, Ranunculus repens. That’s a real nasty plant that grows and spreads all winter long. I’ll get to it on another day soon.

1001 Bicycling Miles

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I set a rough goal to bicycle 1000 miles since I started logging my distance in mid-August and this afternoon I made it! It’s definitely harder to find nice days to ride during the winter months than during the warm and sunny days of August and September, but I’ve managed to get out. This afternoon’s ride was one of my regular routes, about 17 miles with a sustained 5 miles of uphill cranking. There was slushy snow at the side of the road at higher elevations around North Lake Samish and on the hill heading toward Lake Padden, but the main road surface was merely wet.

For the statistically inclined:

Since I can’t predict how much I’ll be home in 2008 I’m not ready to set a cycling goal for next year, but I should definitely be able to do more than this year since I won’t wait until August to get started.

Cycling on Ice

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It was sunny again today, and I needed another break from scanning and processing files through Photoshop. So even though it was only 32°F outside and I thought there might be some frost in the shade I went out for a 25-mile bike ride.  I picked the hilly route out by Lake Padden, down and around Lake Samish, and back along Old Samish Road to Fairhaven and then home.

City streets were bare and dry for the most part, but the shoulder on Samish Way was frosty and a bit of snow in places so I rode in the traffic lane. The downhill from Galbraith Road had even more snow and frost so I rode carefully and more slowly than usual. I was surprised that the grade down the Lake Samish was clear, as was most of the loop around the lake.  I thought I was home free.

Then I hit Old Samish Way, which apparently never saw the sun nor much traffic today. The road was almost completely covered in packed snow and ice. For once, I was happy to have the rough surface of chip seal as I eased myself down the first long hill. Not long after I started down another cyclist on the way up stopped and flagged me down. I gently squeezed my brake levers, but the road was too slick and my tires lost traction and I ended up sliding 10 or 15 feet on my side.

I picked myself up and determined that I was OK and so was my bike but my strava smartwatch got a small blemish on the side where I must of used it to break my fall. The other cyclist simply wanted to know if the road I had just traveled was as snowy as the one he had just come up.  I was a bit annoyed at crashing to be friendly and answer a question that could easily be answered by observation.  Oh, well.  He apologized for flagging me down and instigating my spill.  He also decided to turn around and go back down the way he had come, which I think was slicker than the way I had come.

I followed the other fellow a bit and then rode around him and continued on my way, still cautious but not as timid as the other rider.  After my spill and stopping to chat I was cold. Riding downhill in freezing temperatures in the shade did nothing to help me warm up and by the time I got home my fingers and toes were really cold. Thank goodness for hot showers and hot tea. I ended up with a little bit of road rash on my elbow and hip.