I wish I could get a photo of moon shadows - the moon has not only been full or near it lately but it rises about the time I go out with Karl before bed and is still high enough to light the driveway when we get up in the morning so he and I take a very early - 5 a.m. little walk … “by the light of the silvery moon.”

Winter, with snow on the ground will be the time to try for a photo.  Usually, I so enjoy the moonlight that I don’t want to fuss with camera, tripod, settings - but this might be the year.

Things in my life have taken such a wonderful turn lately - not that they were “bad” - but WOW,  the stars and planets seem to have aligned themselves in a new way and everything seems brighter, more in focus, more fun - absolutely full of life. 

Not moon shadows but after the moon set and the sun started up behind the mountains, I got these:

Ok, I’ve opened up comments and also added a link to my email so feel free to sound off, say hello or ask a question.

You should know that

1. the comments come to me for review and approval before they appear on the site
2. my mother reads this blog…

Happy Thursday!

I don’t know what kind of woodpecker Woody the Woodpecker actually was - and if I’ve lost some readers here, Woody the Woodpecker was a cartoon on when I was a child.  Woody was a troublemaker character and I feel the same about the real thing.  We have 3 fairly common woodpeckers here and although there are plenty of trees, the nice, relatively soft wood of house siding is sometimes more attractive to them.  It’s head rattling to hear and then the holes in the siding… update to this post 8/31…Yes, the guy to the left is a pileated Woodpecker - I actually thought I wrote this but got lost in the writing and not until I rechecked after an email from my mother did I realize that I didn’t positively identify this guy - yes a male - telltale sign is the red “mustache” which the females do not have.

 My cat, Gus, who was all of 8 pounds bagged 2 of the large, gray, Northern Flicker - 2 that I know of.  And actually, it was interesting to handle them - they were apparently not good eating - they were left intact in the laundry room so I had to dispose of the bodies.  They were so light!  I read a science fantasy book at one time that had to do with hybrid bird-humans that had wings and part of the process was hollow bones to minimize weight - and that is actually true of birds, they have hollow bones.  It is still always a surprise to me to hold a bird (granted, they are always dead) and feel how light they are.  I’ve picked up hawks who did themselves in on some window and that large, hunter - capable of killing cats and rabbits - like nothing in my hands.

I am not a bird watcher by any means, but with the cats, I’ve had the “opportunity” to see a variety of them “up close and personal”.  I do enjoy seeing the bald eagles - growing up in Ohio - the bald eagle, symbol of the U.S. - seemed a mystical, magical bird.  And they do look very dignified whether flying or sitting on some high perch.  Ravens, aka Montana Black Eagles … have some mystic surrounding them according to Native American lore - I don’t know any of it, but I do know that when they fly overhead - and they often fly below the treetops along my drive - I can hear the swish of wings and they sound much bigger than they are.  I recognize the sound now and can stop and just listen without feeling like something intends to carry me away.  The sound of their wings is one of those sounds - like wind in the pines, or blowing snow - that evoke some deep, peaceful feeling - the closeness of God, the miracle of nature, my good fortune in being able to stop, be silent and listen…

The garden…I have a kind of love-hate relationship with the garden.  On one hand, when I bought this house last fall and it had the large garden with raised beds, 2 patches of strawberries, some rhubarb, asparagus, fruit trees and other stuff I couldn’t identify - I thought, what fun!  I hadn’t really grown stuff I could eat since my Ohio days - a lifetime ago!  And my last house had a beautifully established herb garden - perennials - all I had to do was weed, water and enjoy…and I planted annuals around and in pots for color.  But here was a REAL garden.  Turned out that it was/is a lot more fun in theory - at least for me.

I spent several weekends in the spring cleaning up the raised beds - the strawberry patches were particulary awful as they should have been cut back in the fall so I had to cut dead runners, pull weeds and try not to kill the new growth in the process.  By the time I left for Colorado, the entire garden looked wonderful - I had been able to enjoy the rhubarb and the strawberries were in bloom with little green berries starting, and some Iris planted along a border had bloomed.  Iris are a particular favorite of mine, but ironically, I am not a huge fan of strawberries - I like a few now and then. I spoke to my neighbors about keeping an eye on the house, yard and garden while I was gone - making sure my “irrigation system” did not run amok, etc. and said they were welcome to all of the strawberries - which they were thrilled about.

On my return, the neighbors had had their fill of strawberries … the irrigation system did fine and everything thrived, including a LOT of weeds…  I found out that I wasn’t really into gardening on the scale of the BIG garden.  I have decided - I think - to take it out.  A little more grass would be easier and I have another smaller spot by the garage that would make a garden area - veg garden - plenty large enough…and in fact I think I’ll just do container stuff - a pot of tomatoes, peppers, etc. - and easy to rig up a drip system and cover them with some sort of mesh to keep the deer out - so that is the plan.

And in the meantime, I have the plants that I brought back from Colorado - Egyptian Walking Onions, Pimiento and a Pepper started by my step-Dad, Bill.  The pimiento was eaten to the quick by a deer but Bill says it will recover and I should be able to winter it in the house - ditto the pepper and he says the onions “are not mortal” and I definitely cannot kill them!  These onions are wonderful - something on the order of sweet scallions - and you can see below - they make “babies” on the tops - cut the “babies” off and put them back in the dirt - more onions - it is like magic!  Well, it’s fun.

Above right - the photo makes the garden look much better than reality at the moment…I have a bumper crop of thistles, quack grass and other weeds I don’t know what they are called.  It is green, though….

It was a beautiful day and I was ready fairly early so took the motorhome for propane and then a rinse off at the local car wash which conviently has a motorhome/truck bay.  It is a sort of “Keystone Cop” drill of back and forth and up and down - rinse, suds, brush, rinse - move the motorhome forward a bit, repeat - twice…  But gets the worst of the road dirt off and the water/mess goes down the drain.

A bit of fine tuning at home and she’s fairly clean.  I don’t make myself crazy over getting every bit of stuff and water spot off but nice to have a wash every now and again.  And it was just one of those days that made me feel like being outside doing something. 

The wind came up which might not be good for the fires but the sound of the wind in the pines and the light which is getting that fall angle - nice…