It’s been a long time since we had a puppy in the family. Boy is she fast!…and fearless.
I wish I had that much energy.
Posted for Nancy Merrill’s Photo a Week Challenge: Movement.
Faster than a speeding bullet
Tag Archives: beach
Action on the beach
The great blue heron took off and flew away:
Because of the speeding bullet of a puppy running around:
The toddler was also in action:
All-in-all a lovely end to the summer. The convergence of good weather, a low-ish tide and both my sisters and I all being able to relax at the beach at the same time is relatively rare.
Puppy on the beach
For Wordless Wednesday
Every thing is just beach-y, but where did the time go?
I started on Monday to answer the questions posed by Cee in Share Your World…before I knew it Tuesday had come along (Tuesdays of Texture by de Monte y Mar) so I thought I would take a few pictures of beach-y textures and do one post for two.
I corrupted my Lightroom program so I couldn’t load pictures and get that post done until I reloaded it… Somehow it is now late on Saturday and nothing is done…although I did get the living room vacuumed.
Summer is shooting by like a meteor.
My answers, at last:
List some of your favorites types of teas. I like tea, both black tea and green tea. For regular I tend to drink Red Rose, which is not bitter like Lipton’s, and reminds me of my Grandparents, who always drank it. A good Darjeeling is truly “the champagne of teas and I splurge on it when I want something really nice.
In China, twice now, I have been to a tea tasting in a shop and brought home what is probably the best black (they call it red tea: hong cha, which makes sense since the brewed tea is red) and green teas I have ever tasted, but I don’t know how to get them except to go to a tea shop in china with the packages. I tried white tea but it really didn’t do anything for me flavor-wise. I’m not mostly jazzed by herbals or ones with fancy flavors.
If you had to describe your day as a traffic sign, what would it be? I only saw this sign once: End of Hard Margins. I couldn’t have my husband pull over for a picture because the shoulders were soft. It was in Ireland 23 years ago. On our last trip, in 2013, I did not see that sign, even thought I looked for it. The reason I relate to that sign is that I was a stress analyst in aerospace at the time, and we used “margins of safety” to describe how robust a structural element is compared to its expected loading. We were always being asked whether this or that part, which wasn’t quite to specification, might still be used. (I mentioned something like this in my Delta Analysis post). I thought it would be fun to have that sign posted by my desk.
What are a couple of things could people do for you on a really bad day that would really help you? Being nice. I still, 27 or so years later, remember stopping at the grocery store with my baby son in a carrier and wanting some oranges. The produce clerk not only pointed me in the right direction but he said “be careful, sometimes there are moldy ones” and proceeded to check every orange in the box to make sure I got a good one.
Irregardless of your physical fitness, coordination or agility: If you could be an athlete what would do do? Remember this is SYW, dreaming is always allowed.
I like to swim and ice skate. I haven’t done either in a very long time. I have poor balance and never got beyond a waltz jump, but I like the feeling of gliding along and the feel of moving water.
Last week is a blur. Next week is supposed to be hot. This week has been lovely with two days on the beach.
Great Blue
Delta Analysis
Back when I worked as stress analyst I did a lot of “delta analysis”. The basic system was in place, but things change: a part might be built of a different material, a particular mission might have higher loads than the initial predictions…The question we were answering is “is it still okay?”
There isn’t a picture to go with that…but the beach where I spend a lot of time is also a delta for a creek. Over the years the silt has built up and the landscape and animals one sees have changed. One thing I find really cool is that every year the path of the creek through the delta shifts because of winter storms…so it is an example of both fast and slow changes, and yet when the tide is in it looks the same as ever.
Delta
Yesterday’s Post-Calm After the Storm
Thanksgiving was stormy. Yesterday dawned clear and gentle and a little lazy.
A lovely pause after the storm, and the busy rushes of being present for my grandmother after her fall and feast preparations.
A walk on the beach before someone had to drag the branch off of the driveway so I could get out…what luxury it would have been to be stuck in that peaceful morning! I’ve never had Paris, but at least I had Vashon.
There is snow on the Olympics that wasn’t there before:
Winter peace to all.
Dog days of summer
I am jaded in some ways and spoiled in others. My Eyes, like yours, see what they see, but through a lens filter created by past experiences.
For some people summer is a time of great joy. I don’t like it.
Being a native Seattlite, on hot days I use a passive-aggressive anti-solar plan, as we have no air conditioning: I try to get the house as cool as possible by opening windows and doors early in the morning, then, as the sun starts to warm things up, I let it know that it is not welcome by closing doors, windows and blinds.
This works pretty well most of the time, because the Puget Sound area usually has an on-shore flow from the rather chilly Pacific Ocean, night temps are usually in the low to mid 60’s. If the house gets below 70 degrees before I shut it up it will generally be 75 or less in the evening, for free. Occasionally we get an off-shore flow and things don’t cool down much at night. That throws a spanner in the works as I can’t get the house down below 70, I do the best I can but it is still warm.
I have two choices about what to do after closing up: I can stay home in the dark and try to minimize metabolism so I don’t generate heat, or I can go somewhere else. The first choice is why I tend to get depressed in the summer time: it really is not an upper to sit in the dark trying not to exist. I can’t read or sew, I do play with the computer, although I sometimes think I shouldn’t have anything on that generates heat. I have to do something and I have a theory that the semi-hypnotic state that the computer induces burns fewer calories than even sleep does.
When I don’t have a commitment and am not feeling too down in the dumps, I usually go over to my dad’s, as it is generally 10 or so degrees cooler at the beach.
Today was an off-shore flow day and the hottest of the year so far. For many 95 isn’t big news and we shouldn’t complain: We don’t have wild fires like they do in California, we don’t have flood waters filled with nasty things (alligators, snakes, sewage) like they do right now in Louisiana. I do truly understand how good we have it, but, through the filter of life in Seattle, 95 is pretty hot.
Today I thwarted my summer induced depression by heading to dad’s. Grandma was tired and couldn’t join in, but I took the pups. We all splashed in the cool water. Ginger went deeper than usual, poor thing really feels the heat. So here is a view of the Dog Days of Summer, through my eyes:
The dogs all had fun; I kept my cool; and Ginger won the Olympic gold medal for muddiest belly. Tomorrow will be another scorcher so we are in a
if No_commitments = true
repeat Beach_fun
until On-shore_flow
loop. I wish you all such pleasant loopiness!
Sniping at sandpipers
I’ve been feeling kind of beach-y this week. Between the noise and dust from a nearby construction project starting about seven in the morning and a seasonal allergy that makes it difficult to breathe so I have trouble sleeping and am prone to sneezing fits, I am a bit crotchety. It’s not really a Crisis, but it adds an edge to every minor setback in life.
I decided to go to my dad’s (he lives at the beach) and make a project I had in mind: a planter of concrete and beach rocks to replace one that falls over when the wind blows.
Naturally I couldn’t just follow the directions in the book. I tried to add complexity to the project. I came over yesterday to create a stand with feet (I like planters to not be flush against the ground). That seemed to go fine. I came over today to finish up the project. I started working and things were not going well. Then my back started aching.
So Sam and I went for a walk on the beach, Sam fished and I breathed and sniped at sandpipers, and other birds (with my camera not a gun). Sandpipers (actually most of these are Kildeer, a similar species) are well camouflaged, nervous and pretty fast movers, and I am kind of shaky so this is a bit of a sport. The birds, and there were a lot of them, don’t seem to mind Sam.
After our walk I went back to work on the project, building up the sides of the planter like a rock wall against a trash can. There wasn’t enough wall thickness between the base I made yesterday using an old 5 gallon bucket of my dad’s and the trash can I had; I made the mortar mix too dry and it couldn’t get into the nooks and crannies of the rocks. Being stubborn I persevered until there was a mini landslide.
I washed off all of the rocks and decided that, instead of giving up entirely, I would try (gasp of horror) following the directions, and use the remainder of the 5 gallon bucket as a form.
So far the follow-the-directions one is looking okay…fingers crossed. It won’t be big enough to replace my problem pot, but if it turns out I can plant a few pansies and think of the beach.
May Day at the Beach
May Day, last Sunday we went to the Beach for the first time in a while. I had just arrived home from a trip to China, where the weather wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t truly clear, except the one day after it rained (see Kites and Umbrellas about the rainy day and Kites and Kids to see the clear day).
In the Puget Sound region we take a lot for granted, beautiful scenery and clear, clean, extremely breathable air come immediately to mind.
We picked up our friends, Ginger and Asta, and took them over to visit their friend, Sam, who lives on the beach with my dad. It was more like July than May, in town I think the temperature got over 80 deg F, but there was a nice breeze at dad’s place.
Hard to believe that one year ago little Asta was so nervous that she always got car sick and had never, to our knowledge (she was a shelter dog), been out of the desert. She hit the beach running after the two other dogs when she arrived in Seattle last May, but now she heads out on her own. Not afraid of anything: she even will chase a Great Blue Heron (more brave than wise). I have sometimes pondered whether she somehow senses that my uncle’s ashes were spread on the beach there and it somehow makes her feel at home, he was her person).
Richard went sailing, the dogs and I explored the tide flats, Dad mowed, Sam went fishing. A one day slice of paradise for all!
Mr. Mallard
My new car seat cover earned its keep:
Happy May to all.
