Awakening

Despite the year-plus of silence, things have been rather lively. Anybody still here???

Coupla health issus turned me too lazy to blog (fine now) and life kept on rollin' by.

Grass seed harvest time, and the traffic has been thick. Some various images of the amazing machines involved:

Bananas

Quite possibly my favorite mollusk, the Pacific banana slug is a simultaneous hermaphrodite with a penchant for staring down photographers. For a creature approaching ten inches in length, they can travel a half of a foot in sixty seconds flat. Add to that a weird single lung (with pneumostome), and you've got yourself one of nature's more fantastic designs. Oregon should really consider a push to replace the flag's beaver with one of these.

Southbound

Some highlights of a recent southern migratory push. Too short, at times too rainy, but all together incredible.

Spoon River and the Chicken Walkabout

Wow, it's been a while. All creative output has, however, been placed upon the above. Those of you local, go forth and watch. It's been a labor of love, and the end product couldn't bring more joy and satisfaction to this composer. The cast is nothing short of amazing, and - I may be biased - the direction is top notch. Regarding that - the directorial fellows have spent many a night huddled in this coast range hollow, listening to my esoteric ideas and steering me back into relevant reality. Many thanks to them. And to the better half of Oak and Quail; her efforts and patience were undying.

In other news, a beloved hen was, seemingly, snatched by a coyote. Beatrice, who's comb had been shredded by her sister, Rue, came up missing. The fencing was bent, and neighbors reported numerous missing birds. The feral dogs were sighted in the adjoining wildlife preserve. A few nights had passed, and as I sipped my morning coffee, I caught glimpse of Rue outside of her double walled enclosure. Damn filthy dogs dug under, created a hole, abandoned the job, and left poor Rue to escape?

I opened the door and the chicken ran, as only obese birds can, toward her human pa. I scooped her up and immediately noticed a chewed up comb. I gazed again toward the coop and caught sight of another Rue. The bird in my arms was grubby, wide-eyed, and giving a gaze that made me believe that she had seen some shit. Beatrice? Yep. Turns out that there was no coyote - only a simple walkabout conducted by a chicken set out for adventuring. Where did she go? Two nights in the wild? A wild rife with dogs, hogs, and birds of prey? Again, yep. And she found her way home? With that tiny walnut-sized brain. Huh.

State of the fall

 A mummy, some old school, and a nod to local team and league champs, The Hops. Not a bad rendition of mascot, Barley, if I do say so. Freehand, as well!

Working out back and looked up to see this. No wonder there was a lack of traffic noise. Nevertheless, this can't be good.

Yep, there's yer problem! Didn't even hear it fall, but this tree rendered our road useless. The trip to town...more than quadrupled. The joy of riding the single speed bike sans traffic...also increased. Took the crew three days to remove it. Apparently other, more traveled roads were blocked.

Downtime due to giant prone trees? Build a diddley bow! As simple as it gets but oh so much hobo goodness! Those curious: grab a single guitar string or heavy wire, nail it down, insert an Allen wrench or glass bottle (careful!) for tension, and rip it up on the slide. Find an old pickup and plug 'er into 60W of tube! A bit of distortion makes it sing. Delay and phaser, and, son, you've had too many pints of Natian Imperial Stout.

Also checked off the fall to-do list - one last run down the local bassin' river. Caught a few, saw some fog, and watched elusive salmon jump and dance about. State laws say that fishin' has halted until May. The water will soon rise, though, and perhaps get angry. Stoked for a one way squirrely ride on the SUP.

Illustrative

It's been a while. Sorry about that. Western Oregon has been wet, and that wetness has put the projects on hold. Sun is on the foreseeable horizon, though. Maybe that'll bring out the blog posts.

In other news, I've been playing with logo ideas. I kind of like it. It's not "there" yet...

The Eco Challenge, part 1

Employer has thrown down a challenge - engage in a simple act of eco-friendliness and post some progress. Compete against other teams. Win prizes. Ok, then. Due in part to me needing a little motivation on a long-procrastinated task, I chose to outfit the ranger station with some rain collection barrels.  Or barrel.  Or equivalent do-dad. There's still some research to be done. I would like to make an effort to get off of the rather expensive "city" water. The garden and container plants are quite thirsty. If done right, a rain collection system could be beneficial for planet and wallet alike. First step, though: clean the gutters and see what kind of options I have.

Full and getting fuller. Gonna have to do this again - and soon - but it's high time to remove some leaves.  Three sides of the ranger station are lined with gutters.  All were full with putrid decaying foliage. Once clean, though, it became apparent that this system may have some problems with flow. A good deal of standing water remained; it seems it has a hard time traversing the rather level trough. Looks like some modifications are needed. Lots of surface area on that roof, though; once the gutter issues get worked out, rain volume should be rather high. Gonna need a big barrel.

Didn't take an after picture of the area, but this is where one of two down spouts connects. The previous owner didn't install mesh, so the down spout is rather full of leaves, as well. A project for a different day. Not a bad pic for balancing on a wobbly ladder whilst holding a bucket of rancid leaves.  The S5 does a bang up job with the camera capabilities. Off to scour the barrel options at the feed store.