Last year, I was supposed to be unpacking from our big move to our new house, and instead I took a day off to take pictures of each type of flower currently blooming in our yard. You can see the 1st Annual Tour here. This year, I’m not really supposed to be unpacking (except we really still aren’t done with that a whole year later), but I am learning how to use my new SLR camera. So I headed out to the yard again, where there are flowers galore. And of all the things I’m likely to take pictures of (the cats, Preston, birds) flowers are the most patient and willing to just sit calmly looking lovely while I figure out what the heck is the difference between a picture taken at f-5.6 at 1/600 and one taken at f-6 at 1/800.

But after I got inside and uploaded the pictures I noticed something interesting. There are a LOT more flowers in our lawn this year than last year. Partly that’s because it’s three weeks later this year than it was last year when I did the photo tour. But also I like to think it has a lot to do with our having lived here for a year. We’ve been selectively mowing the lawn, going around the big stands of clover and other interesting flowers. There are some volunteer bleeding hearts and columbines coming up along the edges of the house (sorry, flowers are already past, so I didn’t catch them electronically). One of the most common flowers in our yard is some sort of weed, but I like it a lot and I’ve even weeded around it in the flowerbed to make it look like I planted it there on purpose. And of course, we’ve planted a few flowers as well. I’ve also included flowers on plants in the vegetable garden, because I figure they count as far is increasing food sources for bees and other insects. And also because a flower is a flower dude.

There were too many to put them in a blog post, so I uploaded them to a flickr set, which you can enjoy by going here. If there is no note below the picture saying what the flower is, that’s because I don’t know, and you should leave me a comment (either on the picture or here on the blog) if you know what it is.

And if you want to appreciate the fabulousness of detail that my new camera allows, you can click on the button that says “All Sizes” and that will give you a bigger version. Of course, the camera takes a much bigger picture, but it would take a long time to upload the full versions, so I just left them as large as seemed reasonable. I have definitely noticed what most reviewers have already said about the Canon XTi, which is that the stock lens isn’t great. I really feel like there should be a better level of detail in the larger versions than there is. But I’m confident that a fancy new lens will fix that

That someone offered to pay me to drive around the country for 9 months and experience what different parts of the country are like, no strings attached. The organization had already bought me a VW Bug to drive around in, so the catch was that I could only take with me what I could fit in the car. I cried and cried because I was so happy.

That someone gave me and/or Preston a couple big plastic sacks full of frozen fish. We didn’t know what to do with it. I thought we should can it, and I fired up the computer this morning thinking for a minute that I should look up the canning times for fish, thinking that we really had sacks of thawing fish stinking up the kitchen. It was big flakes of beautiful pink salmon and huge rainbow trout with the skin still on.

I did it! I totally found this great deal on a nice digital SLR and I BOUGHT ONE! I’ve wanted one since, umm, like forever (or maybe two years). It was on Craigslist, and it came with a memory stick and a camera bag, and some other accessories. Now, it’s only a matter of time before I am a world-renowned wildlife photographer. See…

(Click on this one for a bigger view)

I’ve finally been able to start riding my bike to and from work, my damaged knee finishing up the healing process. Ya, I know, I didn’t post about my damaged knee. I don’t post my whole life here people! But whatever, I partially tore my MCL in an Improv class and now it’s better enough that i can ride my bike again, and also gas prices are stupid, and also IT’S SPRING HERE FINALLY!

So last Friday, I’m biking down the bike trail across town. (Just one of the many cool things about Olympia is that there is a bike trail that roughly parallels the freeway all the way across town. And the bonus cool of it is that as a young-ish female-looking person, I can ride my bike alone on this trail after dark and the most dangerous thing that has ever happened to me on it is that I almost ran into a deer once.) There’s a good mile of the trail on the way home that is precisely the right slope for my tires, so that I don’t have to either pedal or brake and I coast along at just the right speed, observing the lush fern-y undergrowth and amazing big-leaf maple trees that surround the trail. So on Friday, I’m coasting along, and catch a little movement out of the corner of my eye, just as I’m coasting past. There is a small (maybe 1 or 2 feet wide) swath of grass that’s mown short on either side of the trail. And hunkered down in that swath, right next to the trail, is a bird. I roll past, but it sticks in my mind that that’s an odd place for a bird to be hanging out. I stop my bike and pedal back slowly to where the bird is still sitting next to the trail.

I stop a respectful distance away, and on the far side of the path, and try not to intimidate the bird. I look everywhere but directly at the bird, just watching it out of my periphery. It’s a robin, and eventually it turns a bit and I see the streaking on its breast that indicates a juvenile. But it has all of its flight feathers and seems full-grown, as if it should be able to fly. We hang out there, on opposite sides of the path, for several minutes. There is a Swainson’s thrush calling in the distance. Someone just asked me recently if I had ever seen a Swainson’s or only heard them. It’s unusual to see them, as they’re very shy. So I stood and listened to this one as it seemed to call from trees closer and closer to the trail. Eventually, I saw it fly from one side of the trail to the other, landing in a big-leaf maple right next to the trail and calling out its upward spiraling song. All the while, the juvenile robin stayed hunkered down in the short grass next to the trail. A couple of bicycles went by quickly and didn’t seem to notice it, although it flinched each time. Anytime someone approached, I would look the other direction to avoid calling attention to it. Eventually, a 20-something guy with his dog came walking up the trail. As he got close enough that I didn’t have to yell, but far enough away that the dog hadn’t noticed the bird yet, I let the guy know that there was this baby bird on the side of the road that he probably didn’t want his dog getting into. He shortened up the leash and walked on the other side of the trail and thanked me for the heads up. The bird stayed motionless except for the heavy breathing that I could see even from across the trail. After a few more minutes, I could see that there were a couple of adult robins keeping a close eye on the situation and I thought that maybe I was standing too close, even at the distance I was at, for them to come in to help the fledgling. And in the time that I had been watching, I had seen the bird take a few steps, enough so that I could tell it wouldn’t be easily caught even if it did need my help, and I decided that all I would be able to accomplish was to further traumatize it. Best to leave it to its parents, i figured, who are infinitely more competent to take care of a baby robin than I am.

I turned my bike back down the path, and coasted 20 or 30 feet down the path, when an adult male robin streaked past my right shoulder, close enough to startle me, and landed in the path directly in front of my bike. He landed only for a second, but close enough that if he had stayed, I wouldn’t have been able to avoid running over him. I was on my brakes when he flew up to a branch just below eye level on the side of the path. I was already on the brakes, so I stopped and looked at him. He looked directly at me. First with one eye, then with the other, and then directly at me with both eyes (which I’ve never really seen a bird do before), as if to say “Are you REALLY paying attention?” I was far enough away from the juvenile that I didn’t get any sense this was threatening behavior, or intended to chase me away. It was a communication, but not an aggressive one. I stayed still and tried to broadcast the energy of an attentive herbivore. The robin, as if it wasn’t sure that I was really for real paying attention, hopped from the branch, and flew straight towards me. Even though I knew for certain that he knew I was standing there, I couldn’t help but flinch when it seemed like he didn’t see me and was going to run into me. At the last second, he veered off, landing at the base of a small deer trail that I hadn’t noticed, heading up the side hill into the maple forest. He folded and refolded his wings twice, the way they do, glanced at me, and started searching the ground for things to eat, seemingly unconcerned. I didn’t know what that meant. I’m out of practice at my animal communications.

I took two steps towards him, and he flew directly up the trail, staying at about my eye level from the ground, over the rise until I couldn’t see him. Well, what can you do, but follow. Even with a still partially torn MCL and wearing flip flops and clambering up a steep sandy sidehill trail. So I followed. Once I headed up the trail, he flew off, maybe back to the fledgling by the trail. I followed the trail up to the top of the rise to the first crossroads. The trail seemed more well used than just some deer would account for, and this being Olympia, I figured someone’s camp was probably back here somewhere. I stood at the crossroads for a while, watching. And, well, nothing in particular happened. There was no pot of gold. No genie appeared to grant me any wishes. I watched a towhee talking to some babies in the nest. I could hear someone’s little yappy dog in the distance. The persistent sound of the freeway through the trees. A Swainson’s thrush sang in the distance, maybe the same one as before. I walked a little way down one branch of the trail, to a spot that had been someone’s camp previously. Two mismatched socks on the ground, a half-buried pair of underwear, a crumpled cigarette pack. No wolves slipped by in the cool green distance. Not even a raccoon, that I saw. I started to worry about my bike, left unattended by the well-traveled path below, out of sight. I shrugged, and headed back to the trail, and coasted the rest of the way down the hill. But maybe I missed it, whatever it was. I’ll stop again today. And maybe tomorrow too.

Last weekend, Hobostripper stayed with me. I’m not sure what else needs to be said about that. How often does one get a Hobostripper and her well-trained dog hanging out for a few days? I don’t know about you all, but this doesn’t happen to me all that often. We played in the woods, went to visit Rusty Cock Ridge, talked a lot. She wants to start some sort of wilderness education program herself, so we talked a lot about the things I’ve learned in the last few years. She made a fabulous beef curry stew that we ate for every meal for about three days straight. After that was gone, we resorted to eating amazing salads mostly from the garden in the backyard (just add cheese and hearts of palm…mmmmm).

The day she left, Preston got back from driving across the country. According to Mapquest, it should take 45 hours to drive from South Carolina to here, with no stops. Preston did it in 70 hours, including a 12-hour stop in Boise to hook up with some old friends, in addition to all the gas stops, construction slowdowns, and the occasional rest area nap. We have a conception in our culture that if you love someone, you should love them without reference to their actions. I’ve heard this called unconditional love, though it’s rarely actually without condition. Anyway, I love Preston for lots of reasons, and I would still probably love him if he didn’t have mad driving skillz, but it’s definitely one of the reasons I Like him a lot. And it’s not just about the driving, but about the capacity to take care of oneself (and beyond that, to act graciously and gracefully) in unfamiliar and uncomfortable situations. He’s pretty cool and I’m glad he lives with me.

And then, two days after that, several pounds of alpaca fiber showed up in my mailbox!

Altogether, that’s 4 pounds of alpaca fiber. You can’t really appreciate the color of the grey/silver in the background, but it’s quite lush. My mom totally hooked me up. There was an ad in her local newspaper from a local alpaca ranch. They were looking for folks to spin up their fleeces. They will send me all the fiber I want, I’ll spin it all up and send them back half. I can do whatever I want with my half, including sell it. Wow! I was thinking that if I could spin a pound of it in 6 hours, then I could make somewhere around minimum wage for selling my half of the spun yarn. I tried it out last night. Haha! I spun less than an ounce in 1 hour. (For those of you who don’t live with an engineer who knows these conversions off the top of his head, there are 16 ounces in a pound.) So maybe I’ll have to go back to looking at it as just a great way to get fiber for personal use. But the alpaca is really nice to work with, so soft and really seems to want to spin thin. My first spindle is coming out to be a two-ply light sportweight, about 15-16 wraps per inch. This is definitely thinner than I usually spin without some effort. Here’s a close-up of the four colors, although you still don’t get a good sense of the grey fibers.

So far I’ve just been spinning the white fibers. They are really clean and un-matted. I haven’t had to wash it or card it, just pick out the occasional bit of hay as I spin, so I’m basically spinning right from the animal. He also sent me a half pound of suri alpaca to play with. I haven’t ever worked with it before (see my previous post about alpacapalooza for pictures of the two different kinds of alpaca). Their hair is longer and straighter and seems to matte more, so I will have to wash that stuff.  I’m also going to try washing some of the regular huacaya fibers, even though they don’t seem to need it, just to see what difference it makes.

And just to top it all off, Preston’s economic stimulus check showed up this week, so we are feeling even a little richer than usual. He’ll be putting his into surfboard shaping supplies (…”maybe a router,” he’s been musing…). I’m waiting impatiently for mine, with which I plan to buy a digital SLR, probably the Canon Digital Rebel XTi. And speaking of cameras, I’m motivated again to put some more effort into making something happen with selling photos. I feel like my current job has given me a lot of tools for online marketing and sales that I didn’t have the first time around. So I’ll be working on updating the main Whoa! Photos website and posting a new series of pictures that I’ve taken of a beautiful pin-up girl type. Lots of beautiful nature shots for all you pagans out there