Happy Thanksgiving & Birds of Prey

First of all, I wish a very Happy Thanksgiving to all! May your day be filled with joy and wonderful conversation as you celebrate with family and friends!

Now, last week on 11/19 I was at home for lunch and just finished up when a larger bird flew and landed on a bird feeder in the backyard. I figured it was a Blue Jay or a crow, but looked anyway and nope....it was a smaller Hawk, and after slowly moving across two windows then going to hands and knees I was able to grab a camera I keep on a table by the back picture window. Got it turned on, lens ready and leaned on some furniture without making big motions and got off about 20 shots. I have included one and sorry had to crop and manipulate a little so it doesn't take up so much room when I upload. I also had to shoot through the window which sometimes give me some extra distortion.

Anyway - First shot is a 'Sharp Shinned Hawk' part of the Accipiter family which is some of the smaller Hawks. It was in the hood as I have plenty of Junco's, Chickadee's and some lesser gold finches for it to prey upon. I have included a shot of a Cooper's Hawk so you can kind of see the differences. I used to get a Cooper's Hawk by our previous house looking for small bird or two for a meal. Enjoy!


Tim

The Rain is here making lazy dogs

Hello folks,

over the half way point for November and the rain has pretty much been a daily constant here in the Willamette valley. Somewhere there is rain falling in the valley on an almost daily basis. I haven't looked for the Salem totals to date but I think we are well ahead of last year and maybe close to normal since October first.

Kind of make days feel like lazy days and being like the dog and catching some snooze time on the couch. Yep our dog occasionally will decide that the couch is the place to be to take a nap for the day or what have you. Some how he can just lie there with no cares in the world while everyone else seems to be busy around him.

Thanksgiving is about a week away so will need to start to think about holiday decorating coming up. One thing I noticed the other day while walking in downtown Salem, is that Nordstroms has some posters saying they will get ready for Christmas holiday starting on November 27th. They said they like to celebrate one holiday at a time. It was a great change to see an anchor store in our downtown mall not having all the Christmas hype up and trying to get folks to hurry up and buy. My hat is off to them for taking their time and let the days and holidays come like they used to....what's the hurry? Nice job Nordstroms!

Not much else, thanks for reading.

Tim

Fall is holding a little warmth for us

November is here and will probably blow right past as the other ten previous months this year! I will try to embrace it and as months go this is probably my favorite month, with leaves changing, crisp air to breath and the fight of slight Indian summer trying to hang on a few more days. I really enjoy the cool temps in the morning and day and the ever changing colors. Only another week or so and most of the trees will have shed their coats of leaves.

We have had a break from the usual rain after a couple of weeks where we got rain off/on all day for about two weeks. Halloween was dry so that was great for the kids to be out and not get wet and it was relatively nice with the night temps in the low 50's during trick or treat time.

Over the last couple years, Salem bought this old railroad bridge for a $1 and have been working on its conversion to a pedestrian/bicycle bridge. This past spring they opened it and it has been a great hit, connecting the west side with east side from two separate parks. I use the bridge on my bike commutes home so always enjoy the crossing. It is even more cool in the evening with more darkness and the lights, etc. It sits a little lower then the two vehicle bridges and about a hundred yards to the North of the Marion Street bridge. All in all it is one of the better investments I have seen Salem make since we moved here in 2003.

I put in a couple of shots that kind of give you an idea of the bridge. One has my trusty steed leaning against the rail and the other is me taking a shot while riding across so it is a bit blurry but still pretty cool. Enjoy. BTW the bridge is going to close on 11/9/09 until March/April of 2010 for some more work so I will have to change my commute again.

Tim

October - The new Rain & Fog season

As we work our way through this month of October getting closer to the Halloween celebration it is a time where we start a new raining season (Oct.1). That is the official day of the new 12 month period, it is the same in Colorado where we moved from but there it starts the official "snow" season. This also marks the time of year where we have our most foggy months of October and November.

Anyway as the temperature starts to finally cool down more with highs in the low 60's the ground and water temperature are finally starting to give up the heat. With the Willamette river running right through Salem it provides some great fog in the morning! Also anywhere that there is still good day heating of the ground and the moisture in the air we get all kinds of pockets of ground fog. So far I have never seen it so thick you could barely see the front of your car, usually get a good 100 yards or better most of the time for visibility.

Well, with this all said I was commuting into work via the bicycle and always carry a little point-and-shoot camera just in case. So going across the Center street bridge I stopped to shoot a few shots of the fog on the bridge. This one included is a shot looking northerly towards the Marion street bridge which in distance is about 100 yards away! I was sitting directly over the Willamette river so the fog was even better. You can not even see the cars on the bridge going West....just the shadow of the bridge in the fog. Just thought I would share with you something many, but not all go through this time of year.

Stay safe and Happy Halloween!

Tim

What Stories they might Tell?

Back in the last week of July and into the first few days of August I took a usual pilgrimage back East to Wyoming/Colorado to hook up with brothers and friends and do some backpacking. Although I sometimes bitch about the lack of map reading skills on some folks part I still have the best time out there. You don't hear phones, TV's, Cars, worthless people taking up oxygen and the list goes on. You get to see country (hopefully) that very few will ever see because they can not or will not venture to such places, and all the better for the rest of us that do.

But what I am really getting at is while I drive on the interstate highways and the US highways and state highways I along with many others pass by buildings, structures of time gone by. Maybe they are houses, mills or stores but now they sit still as the world moves on. At one time they served a purpose as a home, or a place to buy goods and now they are the home to mice and other little critters. Who lived there? Who worked there? Are some of the things I wonder as I drive by or sit and take a picture of them. Why? when? How did this place become no longer needed by anyone? Will it continually waste away or will eventually somebody or something tear it down or destroy it?

We as a country are just over 230 years young and think about the progression and transformation of our surroundings. Just over a 100 years ago folks were going by wagon in long trains working their way out to Oregon where my family and I now live. Did any of them travel along the same lines that my vehicle takes me along when I travel? Did they think that someday all that great open land they saw would someday be split, divided, fenced and taken for personal wealth, gain or independence? The herds of animals they must have seen roaming around and facing the world and peoples unknown to them must have been a tremendous rush. There were no interchanges, or rest areas along the road. Every step was a scenic byway to them and not a posted scenic byway by the state or federal DOT.

I am starting a new gallery on my website area dedicated to these things. I have not got any photos in there yet, but keep checking it and it will grow. Think about those things as we live our day to day lives. Is there really a hurry to find the end? I think you need to veer from the road, path now and then to continue the adventure. Don't loose sight of where you are going but don't be blinded by having to get there in a hurry. In this post there is a shot of a house in far western Wyoming near the Utah border and the othe is in central Oregon somewhere between Burns and Bend.


Thanks for reading.


Tim