Oh, the Indignity of It All.

I think one of the tenets of Buddhism is loving animals... and this squirrel loves Buddha back. As a perch, anyway!

This is one of the black squirrels I referenced in this post last year. The black squirrels seem to have proliferated even since the fall when I wrote that post, and now I see more black squirrels than gray ones... and red squirrels only rarely.

Lone Tree

When the tree was young he used to lean

toward the distant cluster of woods,

toward the islands, toward the sea.

For years now he's grown straight.

Happy on his own,

making a home

between the railroad tracks and the cliff.

Canada Goose

This Canada Goose (or Canadian Honker, as ejvig calls it) is not a silly goose at all, but a rather regal goose. And after that goose-saturated sentence, I wonder if this post will pop up first in a goose google search?

The Mighty Slug

In the great Pacific Northwest we like to talk about the things that make our area unique. Some say it the great evergreen forests or the San Juan Islands sparkling on Puget Sound. Others may talk about the rain and our over reliance on coffee. A certain generation might feel that the Seattle grunge scene was what defined the region.

But what few will mention and many of us secretly suspect is the lowly slug is the true king of our region. They are the subject of countless hours of garden warfare, furious hand-scrubbing to get rid of their slime, and cruel child-hood dares. Hot dog anyone? Sorry Nathan.

The Boathouse

Dusk left the park empty except for a few hardy fishermen and a boathouse.

Skywatch Friday: Cotton Clouds

Goodnight Sun.

For more Skywatch Friday images click HERE

Hazelnut Catkins

Hazelnut Catkins-- sounds like one of T.S. Eliot's Practical Cats.

Hazelnut Catkins was a selfless cat;
She gave all the cheese to three mice and a rat.
When they were done, she gave them her bed.
Oh, what a selfless life Hazelnut led!

You get the idea.

Anyway, hazelnut catkins are actually the long, caterpillar-like things that hang down from hazelnut tree. It actually carries the pollen, while the blossoms and leaves are further back on the branch.

I stumbled across quite the heated debate when trying to decide whether to call this "hazelnut" or "filbert"-- I grew up calling it the first; my husband, the second. According to my studiously extensive internet research for the last five minutes, it's still up in the air whether they are in fact interchangeable terms. Some say they're the same thing, and the name was more recently changed from filbert to hazelnut for marketing reasons. Others say that "filbert" is derived from the french word for it, and "hazelnut" is the english term. Others say that filbert is a sub-species of the hazelnut, and only refers to the elongated, not round, shape. This article from The Nut Factory seems to have the best information to my amateur eye, although in the same article it says both that filberts and hazelnuts are THE SAME NUT, and also that the filbert is a COUSIN TO the hazelnut. Oh, I also read that filbert is a European term, and hazelnut is an American term.

I think we can choose whatever we want at this point.

More hazelnut fun facts:

The Pacific Northwest is the only place on earth where hazelnuts are grown commercially.

The Romans burned hazelnut branches at weddings as tokens of fertility.

Forked hazelnut branches are historically the best divining rods for finding water, and Moses' rod was supposedly made of hazelnut wood when he tapped the rocks for water.

Magicians' wands are traditionally made of hazelnut wood.

The ancient Chinese called the hazelnut one of the "five sacred nourishments bestowed on mankind by the gods."

Hazelnut Catkins is a Practical Cat.

The Eagle

It's thanks to MaryBeth of Stanwood DP that I got this shot of a bald eagle surveying his territory. This post of hers prompted a conversation between us that resulted in her invitation to show me where the good eagle spots are. Voila! Thanks again, MaryBeth!

Although he's in a tree, whenever I see a bald eagle I'm reminded of the poem "The Eagle" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson:

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.

Shine a Little Light On Me

A gracefully curved streetlight
brightens the darkly dampened path.

Quasimodo?

Sorry we haven't posted all weekend-- EJVig and I took our daughters down to Great Wolf Lodge in Grand Mound, Washington, for a weekend of waterslides and other kid fun.

Anyway, on the way back home we stopped in the University District of Seattle for a bite to eat (just the place when you're craving cheap teriyaki) and saw an apartment building decorated with these faces. I assume it's Quasimodo, the hunchback of Notre Dame, although there was no bell tower so I'm not sure what the significance is. Either way, the faces make for an unusual facade!