Just some random stuff

When the eagles or other birds of prey show up, the ducks hide in the lily pads. There really ARE ducks out there! 

 The road is having some work done on it for some reason. The giant grader had a passenger. I particularly liked how it says CAT under the dog.

 My very favorite truck on our road. I asked the driver if I could take photos of his truck and he agreed. Old Ford belly dump!

 Later, I went out on the lake again. I do love this place. It isn't very big and I absolutely hate getting out of the kayak (such grace and poise!), but I love how quiet it is. I was listening to birds and then the wind as it was approaching the lake in the tree tops. Beautiful.

 This pic is looking down from the key. It wasn't very late, maybe 1030 pm.

Father's Day in Alaska-the people part!

Mum and I were invited to the Gattenby's for Father's Day. 

                                              Mum and JaLeen played with the fowl.

I just sat around at my leisure. 

 Lee kept an eye on things.

Janet prepared the delicious meal of flat biscuits, taters, cornish hens, and broccoli.

 I insisted on family pictures! Cept, my photo is not as good as I thought it was! Lee created a rather clever tripod for me, while his phone/camera sat in the tree nicely without added security and took some exceptional pictures!

Father's Day-Critter Section!

We spent the afternoon of Father's Day at the Gattenby's. On the way, before the bridge over the river, Kenai, I saw my first caribou. The best part was this one (who is molting) who looked up at the person walking past our car as I took a picture!!! And yes, it seems SILLY that I grew up here, lived next to the river for a time, and am only seeing these things for the first time now.

 Their house has a lot of critters!! Many kinds of birds and two black dogs.

 The largest goose is called 'The Old Man' (I believe) and is rather tame.

 When we got back to mom's house, we watched a parent chickadee feed her baby. The baby can fly, but it appears it still needs help eating!

 I took this photo on Saturday. It is a sad picture. The baby golden eye duckling on the pallet has been alone for several days. It got separated from its parent and she won't accept him back. He doesn't have anything wrong with him--he DOES peep rather loudly on occasion--but it appears the little one is surviving. I wish someone else would adopt him, though. I was thankful the mallards ignored him instead of fighting with and/or killing him. I've been calling him 'Pippin'.

A day in June

Dad's bench at Erik Hansen's Scout Park. (you can google the park in Kenai and reach a pdf file from the city) 

It is a very pretty park with a couple of lovely flower beds and a statue of a Boy Scout. There are several benches, all with names on them, overlooking the inlet. I was particularly taken with the stunning white columbine. The bees were impressed, too!

After getting back home from our town excursion, I went back out on the lake. (we watched the Mariners win and had dinner, first!) I was going to just paddle around and got distracted. We had some terns visiting. I can't tell if they are Caspian or Arctic, I need to get a better look at their legs! I watched them slice between the air currents, dart to the surface of the lake, kiss their reflections (OK, they were catching bugs or getting a drink!), and look incredibly endearing! I also found my elusive water creature. Mum calls it a zoomer, she thinks it may be an otter. I am getting more certain it is a muskrat. Whatever it is, it is fast and definitely a mammal. As I look at this particular photo--am pretty sure this is actually a stick (shades of 'Father Goose'??). The next one I'll post is of the creature.

If you have a pretty good imagination and squint while dancing on your left foot, the brown shape is sort of life like....

This last photo was actually one of my first ones. I got to visit with Reese and Aliro and this little truck came thru the neighborhood. Playing, of all things, Music Box Dancer. It was beautiful and nostalgic, but I kinda expected something more along the lines of summer..like The Beach Boys. 

Ducks, Blooms, and Sky.

This blog post is mostly photos. I wanted to sit down by the lake and photograph the ducks, so I sprinkled cracked corn in the water. Well, it was VERY hot today and I got all sweaty waiting for them. I thought about The Bird Woman from 'Freckles' and couldn't do it. I don't have the fortitude of that fictional photographer of birds! I even went back out in the kayak before dinner, to see if they'd show up. They didn't. At least, not until dinner and the Mariners baseball game! I zoomed in on them from mum's house! 

 Eventually, the families swam off and I took a few pictures of lupine. For my friend, Chris, who calls these 'blue bonnets'. And I was surprised, they DO kinda look like little bonnets-in a funky sort of way.

 Later, the ducks came back. I must have sprinkled more cracked corn down there than I thought! There were at least two families, but

 Bottoms up!!!

 Mommy did it, so can I!!

 The clouds rolled in FAST tonight. We were expecting dry thunderstorms. It is warm and gray and breezy. Reminded me a lot of the weather in Eastern Oregon. Cept, no rain.....we can hope some falls sometime tonight. But it is already midnight and we  have pewter skies and dry warm wind. Can't even see the sun anymore!

HOT HOT HOT!

It was HOT today-in the 80's out north and I spent part of it on mum's lake. The part after 7:30 pm. 

 Reading in a kayak is more work than reading in a rowboat. There isn't much room to move, you need to protect your book thoroughly, and the winds move  you hither and yon. I kept needing to move away from the shore, the wildlife was very distracting!

 One of my better Golden-eye photos. Am pretty sure she had a passel of littles, but these guys are terrible moms and often swim off and forget their babies.

 The sewing needle (what mum calls them) dragon flies were all over (and mating!) in the grasses on the shore.

 Just a feather. I was rather impressed when I saw it on the computer screen. I'd have to rate this one a Jonathan photo!

 The bigger dragonflies were also mating and made clicking noises as they launched into the sky chasing each other. I wondered if the noise was from their wings or something else. Fun to watch.

 I took this because am not sure how many bright blue skies we'll see. The fire from Sterling has grown and with the one up in Willow, our area is gonna get smoke. We're supposed to stay in the warm breezy temps all week. It has kept the mosquitoes down, but I really don't like fires.