What is it?

While the kids were occupied on the playground, I wandered around the edge of the park and stumbled upon a shrub covered in these brilliant orange bursts. I can't remember seeing a plant like this in our area before and I'm curious what it is.  Any ideas?

Weekend Reflections: Fleet of Foot

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Skywatch Friday: Dusk

Little Squalicum Creek empties into the bay under a dusky sky.

Someday we'll be able to walk or ride our bikes from this spot to Mount Baker on the Bay to Baker Trail. This shot of Mount Baker from the bay shows just how ambitious the plan for the trail is.

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Skywatch Friday: Cormorants at Dusk

Some fly.

Others swim,

perch,

or stretch their wings.

Whatever their pose,

they know they look handsome

against an orange glow.

The Heron

The abandoned Squalicum pier offers a bird's eye view of the bay.

New Camera!!!

My new camera, the Fujifilm Finepix HS10, was due to arrive yesterday, so I shirked all my other duties and hovered by the door most of the day, waiting for the UPS man. I jumped at every car door slam and perceived knock, but of course it didn't arrive until 6:00 PM, when I had guests over for dinner. We ate dinner and watched a movie, and then I unceremoniously dumped the children in bed and literally ran out the door to try to catch the sunset with my new camera. EJVig, the good parent, stayed home with the girls.

So, I barely got to the water in time to catch the color in the sky, but I did get a few pictures out of it. I want to post two today, because I'm pretty impressed with the range of this camera. The first picture is zoomed out as far as it will go, which is 30x, and the second is all the way back. I thought the image quality on the first wasn't half bad, since I was zoomed all the way out in near darkness with no tripod and an unsteady hand. A very unsteady hand, given that I was jumping up and down in excitement!

Trickle

Water streams out of a rusted pipe at Little Squalicum Beach.

Gray Sunset

Decaying wooden posts
climb from the water,
beseech the unreachable sky,
strive to escape their reflections--
ghosts of what they once were.

Art Impromptu

A young man made an artful rock tower while we picnicked at Little Squalicum Beach the other day. He continued on, making towers down the shore. This one was my favorite.

Skywatch Friday: Clouds Over Little Squalicum

The eternal struggle between rock and water
Sorry, rock
Water always wins eventually

other amazing skies

The Feather

The feather drifted slowly

from the soaring gull

to land on dirty water

at the midnight toll.

Floating ever lightly

on a frothing wave

the feather was thrust on sand

and pulled back again.