Monday, September 29, 2008

grateful for visitors

Bailey, this adorable child, came by with her equally adorable parents, Nathan and Melissa.

Nathan is a friend of Beth's. He stayed with us in Mexico a few years back. It was good to see him again and to meet his wife Melissa. It was especially sweet to meet Bailey. They were coming though and their way to Coos Bay where they are looking for a place to settle down. Both avid surfers, they want to be near the coast instead of the bay area.




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Our other visitors were Ariel, Monaco, Angel, and Ariel's friend Tonya, who are on their way south to Mexico, they were in Port Townsend for a few months and are going home to Las Palmas. (Well Tonya is only going to San Francisco.)


Ariel is driving her grandfather's RV down! She is amazing!

Angel thought he was going to drive.....

I am always so honored when young people want to hang out with me when they don't have to!

Via con Dios!

Friday, September 26, 2008

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Autum Equinox


"Try to remember the kind of September

When life was slow and oh so mellow

Try to remember the kind of September

When grass was green and grain so yellow

Try to remember the kind of September

When you were a young and a callow fellow

Try to remember and if you remember

Then follow--follow, oh-oh." -


Lyrics by Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt

Friday, September 19, 2008

News From Alabama

This news just in:

All of the Wal-Marts across Alabama sold
out of ammunition as of yesterday. A
reliable source said that one of the
purchasers commented that while Russia
may have invaded Georgia, they sure as
hell ain’t doin’ it to Alabama.


Thanks Pearl for the Tee Hee!!

Monday, September 15, 2008

grandpa is a hero

William just got back from Port Townsend, helping Beth at the cabin. She is moving in (again). The cabin is really in Quilcene, about 25 miles south of PT. Last year we had the driveway built and cleared around the cabin. Grandpa has now taken it to another level!





Beth has a good start on the new shingles.
She built a roof over the back porch.
She set up a kitchen on the back porch while the building is being worked on.
Before insulation and dry wall.
It looks so much better already!
Lots of odd corners, which is why this building is so interesting and worth saving.
Grandpa moved the stairs to the side wall and made a nice railing for Emily's room.
A woodshed was designed and built, firewood cut and piled.
Grandpa put in the sink and made a cutting board counter, put the stove next to that and she is cooking.
They have a new "watch" puppy.
Beth's best friend Bryn and her new baby are visiting. I love how the puppy gets the comfiest chair.


Grandpa was a true hero to go up and make the cabin into a place for them to live!

Friday, September 12, 2008

camp comfort

and my favorite swimming hole. That's my friend Seiza giving it a try. She and her husband came down from Portland and we went up to Camp Comfort for a couple of days. William is in Port Townsend helping Beth work on the cabin.


From our house to Camp Comfort, we drive 10 miles on I-5, then head east 30 miles on a good 2 lane road up into the mountains, we turn off the main road and go 30 more miles to the camp on a small one lane forest service road that keeps going uphill along the South Umpqua River. We passed no one on the way in and one truck on the way out.
Remote, just how I like it.

Camp Comfort is at the headwaters of the South Umpqua River. The fork on the left is Black Rock Creek and the one on the right is Castle Rock Creek. The swimming hole is just to the right of this photo.


The swimming hole was formed by a split in a huge rock. It is hard to tell from the photo but it is about 25 to 30 ' deep.

There were all these amazing rock shelf's, it was like bench's and seats had been designed in.


The rock was an amazing structure to hang out on. Some of it was very green and Howard said it was serpentine.


Amazing rocks.




Amazing lizard - his tale was neon blue!



Howard, who is working on his masters in biology, classified aquatic insects to determine the health of the water. He added quite a few to his collection.



I did not swim much as the water was very cold. I did get all wet though and floated on the tube, Seiza lasted the longest of all of us.





The other really great thing about Camp Comfort is the huge old trees.



This is Seiza and Howard. You might recognize him, he was with the Flying Karamazov Brothers, they did amazing juggling, they were in the movie Jewel of the Nile.....he is also a hot ukulele player!





Peace.

Saturday, September 6, 2008

Palin - "Killa from Wasilla"

(Unknown phot0)

By DINA CAPPIELLO, WASHINGTON (AP) — "At the National Governors Association conference where she first met John McCain, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin had other business: making her case to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne against classifying the polar bear as a threatened species. Months later she sued Kempthorne, arguing that the Bush administration didn't use the best science in concluding that without further protection, the polar bear faces eventual extinction because of disappearing sea ice as the result of global warming. Palin, McCain's vice presidential running mate, has had frequent run- ins with environmentalists. In her 20 months as governor, Palin has questioned the conclusions of federal marine scientists who say the Cook Inlet beluga whale needs protection under the federal Endangered Species Act. She has defended Alaska's right to shoot down wolves from the air to boost caribou and moose herds for hunters, and — contrary to a view held by McCain — is not convinced that global warming is the result of human activity. Environmentalists have nicknamed Palin the "killa from Wasilla," a reference to the small town where she formerly was mayor. "Her philosophy from our perspective is cut, kill, dig and drill," said John Toppenberg, director of the Alaska Wildlife Alliance, maintaining she is "in the Stone Age of wildlife management and is very opposed to utilizing accepted science. "While acknowledging the climate is changing, Palin expresses doubt as to whether emissions from human activities are causing it. McCain, on the other hand, supports legislation to reduce heat-trapping pollutants, primarily from the burning of oil and coal. "John McCain was all about global warming and the integrity of the science. The selection of Sarah Palin is a complete reversal from that position," said Rep. Brad Miller, D-N.C., who traveled to the South Pole with McCain in 2006 to visit with scientists studying climate change. "She is disturbingly part of the pattern of the Bush administration in their approach to science generally and the science of the environment in particular. "The McCain campaign Wednesday characterized Palin as a leader on climate change, noting she set up a sub-cabinet office to map out state response strategies and sought $1.1 million in federal funds to help communities threatened by coastal erosion and other effects. Palin's administration relied in part on research from scientists funded by the oil industry to fight against the polar bear's listing, arguing that the impact of global warming on the bear 20 years from now can't be predicted. But e-mails obtained by a University of Alaska professor show that the state's marine mammal experts supported the federal government's conclusions on the bear. On Thursday, the federal government announced that there was enough scientific evidence to consider listing three ice seal species that inhabit the waters of Alaska as threatened and endangered species because of melting sea ice. The seals use the ice to give birth and raise their pups. Doug Vincent-Lang, Alaska's endangered species coordinator, said the state had not yet taken a position on the ice seals' status. But he stressed that while there were differences in opinion about the science, the state has supported the protection of other endangered species and its position on the polar bear "was not a decision to protect resource development in the state."Supporters say Palin, a self-described hockey mom who knows how to handle a gun and dress a moose and once worked as a commercial fisherman, is simply a reflection of her home state, where the extraction of oil, natural gas, gold, zinc, fish and other natural resources is the primary source of state income and jobs. The polar bear isn't the only wildlife issue where Palin's administration is at odds with environmentalists and at times with the Bush administration and members of Congress. For example: Her administration disputes conclusions by the federal National Marine Fisheries Service and its science advisers that the beluga whale population is in critical danger. The state argues that 2007 data shows the whale rebounding. Palin opposed a state ballot initiative to increase protection of salmon streams from mining operations. It was defeated. She also opposed a ballot initiative barring the shooting of wolves and bears from aircraft except in biological emergencies. It was also defeated.Under Palin, the state Board of Game authorized for the first time in 20 years the shooting of wolves by state wildlife officials from helicopters. The order resulted in the controversial shooting this summer of 14 one-month-old wolf pups taken from dens on a remote peninsula 800 miles southwest of Anchorage — an act that environmentalists claim was illegal. State officials characterized the killings as humanitarian, saying the pups would have suffered and eventually died without the care of their parents. Environmentalists argued they were killed to boost caribou populations to the benefit of hunters. Like many other Alaska officials, Palin argues her critics don't understand the North Country Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., who has complained Alaska is killing more wolves than necessary and has pushed a bill that would put additional restrictions on the aerial killing of predators, has been among Palin's targets. Miller "doesn't understand rural Alaska, doesn't comprehend wildlife management in the North, and doesn't appreciate the Tenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution that gives states the right to manage their own affairs," Palin said in a press release a year ago."