Whitaker Ponds

The Whitaker Ponds Nature Park is located in NE Portland and connects to the Columbia Slough. It looks to be an excellent area to explore for birds, native plants, wildlife amidst the black cottonwoods and ponds.

T-Ball Attention Span

Today, we attended our grandson’s T-Ball game. I was struck by several things during the mercifully short game. The coaches/assistants were profoundly patient and deserving of much praise….the kids had attention spans that flitted about toward everything save the game…my Grandson was a pretty good little athlete when he wasn’t exploring the dirt or a distant game or the clouds in the sky. Again, praise to the parents, coaches and assistants for herding cats through a T-Ball game.

My grandson, in the middle, was happy with several hits and runs scored. The young man at the pitcher’s mound (L) found a pile of dirt to play in and kept his back to the batters. He didn’t notice the balls rolling by. While the young fellow with the Teddy Bear (R) decided he’d had enough and marched off the field with his Teddy.

hazy day (Siberian Fire’s Smoke)

It seemed most of the days we traveled about the Joshua Tree/Salton Sea areas, there was a haze in the air. The crisp blue skies were sometimes missing. I then learned that the smoke from massive fires in Siberia was reportedly being carried across the Pacific Ocean into the Western U.S. A bit sobering considering Fukushima Daiichi? 

Below is the smoke filtering into the East Lake (Oregon) caldera from a nearby forest fire in 2006. It is not unusual during the Summer forest fire season in Oregon to have smoke drift into areas from the fires to the South/East.

closed in the desert….

closed for business

hard times in a lonely place

even the door’s gone

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