Be Thankful

Happy Thanksgiving

from Bellingham Daily Photo!

Whether you celebrate a traditional American Thanksgiving or not, it's valuable to have a day set aside to be thankful for the blessings in your life. This year, we did a Thanksgiving tree. Family members write what they're thankful for on a paper leaf and attach it to the tree, and when you're done you not only have a pretty centerpiece for the table, but a physical reminder of how much you have to be thankful for. Among our blessings: friends and family, consciousness, food, water, and shelter... oh yes, and the family dog. What are you thankful for?

Quack Quack! We're Back!

Back online, that is. After four torturous internet-free days (in which I inexplicably had lots more free time on my hands) the Comcast guy came out and replaced our busted modem. Now I can get back to life as usual-- perusing headlines about celebrities I don't care about, cackling at tacky forwarded e-mails, checking Facebook every five minutes to see if anything's changed... wait a minute. Where did all that free time go?

A Fleeting Friend

Our house guest for the last several days should be leaving the day after Thanksgiving. It's been fun but I'm ready for him to go.

Medlar Tree

We have all of two fruits on the Medlar tree we planted this spring. The fruit isn't eaten until after the first killing frost and it has had a chance to go through the "bletting" process - basically rotting. Thia snow is our first killing frost so we should get our first taste of Medlar soon!

Keep Your Friends Close and your Anenomes Closer

The interwebs are down at our house so we're relying on the magic of cell phone photos for posts until we're back online. This was at the Seattle Aquarium during the summer.

First Snow

Our first real sign of winter blew through last night. Perhaps we'll have a white Thanksgiving this year!

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.

For more Skywatch Friday images click the banner:

Lake Padden Cormorant

"Cormorant," according to Wikipedia, is a contraction of "corvus marinus," or "sea raven." Despite its name, this cormorant apparently likes fresh water just fine.

A little game of "Find the Gate"

No one comes this way anymore.

Harris Avenue

Road workers fix up Harris Avenue

Harris Avenue is the main street running east/west in Fairhaven. I'm pretty sure it's the oldest paved street in Fairhaven, and possibly Bellingham, but I couldn't corroborate that. It's a picturesque avenue, with brick going down the center and textured concrete on either side, ridged so the horses' hooves of days gone by could get a good grip on the hilly slopes. Hopefully whatever work these guys are doing will leave Harris Avenue unblemished.

Harris Avenue has a rich history, and it's fun to wander down the street and read the informational plaques embedded along the way. Among them are "Chinese Deadline - No Chinese allowed beyond this point 1898-1908" and "Unknown dead man displayed here 1901". It allows you to see past the charm and quaintness of modern-day Fairhaven and picture it as the rough-and-tumble wild west town it really was. For a complete listing of the plaques and the history behind them, see this article in Klipsun, the magazine from Western Washington University. The picture below is one of the plaques, obviously off the beaten path on one of the offshoots of the Interurban trail.