The Nature Issue

In March, our thoughts turn to Spring and we look for signs of it everywhere.  This month’s post is about the flora and fauna of Thornbush in March.
 

Such as Turtles

First, though, I need to document a great trip to Olympia for my niece’s baby shower.  We stopped at Nisqually Nature Reserve and saw baby great horned owls plus a lot of other wildlife.
 

And Mergansers

 

On the way home, I stopped in to wish Corbin a happy first birthday. 
 

Ethel helps Corbin unwrap--what could it be?



Spring time walk up Mt Young where Madronnas flourish.   





Madronnas on Mt Young

 

This crossbill is recovering from slamming into the window

Ahh, red flowering currant.  Can the hummingbirds be far behind?

Soopolallie - Shepherdia canadensis

Now that you've stayed until the end, I will tell you the bad news.  Fourteen chickens killed by a mink on St Patrick's Day. Mink massacres in the past have also occurred in March.  Is it because the stream is so high now that they come up from False Bay?  We still have eleven barred rock in the compost yard, but all the beautiful garden chickens are gone.  We won't be getting more chicks for awhile.

Eagle on the snag

Another vociferous sign of Spring, the eagle sitting on the snag just above her nest.  And it wouldn't be March without the Skunk Cabbage on the stream.  I think we can safely say that Spring has arrived. Next month--avalanche lillies!

Skunk Cabbage



Retreat

Sometimes you just have to get away from it all.  Do something entirely different from your usual routine.  Take time out for yourself.  This is the theme that resonated with me this month.
About a week after Corbin was born and the twins were returned to their parents, my yoga teacher held a day-long retreat here on the island, including lunch, a trip to the Sculpture garden, a lovely dinner at her restaurant, and of course, lots of yoga.  By the end of the day, I swear, it felt like I'd had five massages in a row.  The effects lasted several days. 

The very next week, a different kind of retreat--this one a basket making class held on Shaw Island for 2 and a half days.  So the nine people in our class stayed at the guest house of one of our members.  A big, three day slumber party on one of the quietest locales in the San Juan Archipelago.  The Tahitian Market Basket was difficult, but satisfying.

Anita and Monique make bling to decorate our baskets

The very next weekend, we went farther afield for our R&R.  This time to Seaside, Oregon, to join friends in a big house a stone's throw from the boardwalk.  This was the first time since August, that Roger has ventured off-island for anything other than business.  Roger got to hold his grandson for the first time.

We got to stay one night with our friends in Raymond and take in an interesting exhibit at the museum in Astoria called "Envisioning the World"  The First Printed Maps, 1472-1700.  Columbia River Maritime Museum  Check it out if you have the chance.

The Mighty Columbia



My last example of retreats from the past month is a little more obscure. Burying myself in a book for a few days is a way of retreating from my day to day cares. My new book club (that I will now refer to as the Rock Island Readers) just read the first book in the Maisie Dobbs series.  This mystery set in post World War I London dealt with shell-shocked veterans who were mysteriously disappearing from their place of refuge called "The Retreat".  The book was surprisingly relevant as we hear more and more of Afghanistan and Iraq veterans returning to their lives with their own battle scars.  

Now the retreats are in the past and its back to the hustle and bustle of Springtime in the San Juans.  I feel like I've jumped on the merry-go-round which is accelerating toward the June reunion.  I'm already looking forward to a "Spa Day" in May--and perhaps another yoga retreat.

Arcade ride at Seaside

An Existential Question

What do you do? 
I was asked this question twice this month and came up short on my answer both times.  The first was at a retirement party for a friend in Seattle.  Another Metroid (as we liked to call ourselves) in asking where I lived these days and trying to imagine me in the woods near Rosario Resort since this was his only experience with the San Juans was answered only with "Oh, I manage to keep busy".  And last week at an equinox bonfire, the same question was put to me by the daughter of a friend.  "I'm retired" is all I could manage to say.  She turned away.

As you can see from my blogs these last few years, I feel my life is full and meaningful.  Why is it I can only come up with lame replies such as "Anything I want to do" and "Everyday is Saturday"?  In part, I suppose it is hard to label such a life.  I volunteer, or I garden, or I weave baskets are all inadequate by themselves.  And I don't want to blab on and on when the casual question does not require it.

Gentle Readers, if any of you have experienced a similar self-identification situation, perhaps you could help me with a solution.  Meanwhile, here are a few of the things I have been in March:

Grandmother

Roger and I became grandparents once again early in the morning on March 13th when Corbin Olafr Ellison arrived in the world.  Met with the news of his arrival two weeks ahead of schedule, we raced to get our car out of bondage at the repair shop, make the 10:30 boat and pick up the grandtwins and return to the island with them.  We had a fun filled two days and then I brought them home to meet their new little brother.  Meanwhile their two year old sister Audrey went home with another grandma.

Lenora & Iliana meet Corbin



Nature Lover

March has been interesting weather-wise to say the least.  We've had snow and wind and rain and yesterday, a gorgeous gardening day.  The daffodils are blooming but we are cognizant of the possibility of another frost or two before the season is over.  Roger and I have been chipping up a year's worth of prunings and limbings and fellings.  But yesterday we switched gears and chose between building better fences in the chicken yard and the courtyard and harvesting willow for that project and the "crow's nest" (see last month), and weeding the raspberry patch and a bunch of other tasks equally important. 

early March snowfall

Committee Member
Last week alone and in part due to grandmothering from the week before, I squeezed in a nominating committee meeting and regular lunch meeing of SIFri, two membership meetings, a board meeting, and a monthly gathering of the Textile Guild,  plus my bi-weekly shift at the Food Coop.  Oh, and I took a day off for a yoga retreat as well. 

Social Butterfly
This month (so far) I've been to two birthday, one going away, one retirement (in Seattle) parties, an equinox celebration,  two neighborhood gatherings for games, a fund-raising dinner, and a play.  Still have a week to go.  When do I have time for anything else?

Creating Collages on Peggy Sue's birthday

Blogger
Next month I will show you the pictures from a three day workshop on Shaw for Tahitian Market Baskets that I will be attending this week.

The Silk Road, Road Trip, and other things

So much to catch up on.  The Textile Guild met for our quarterly on Shaw one month ago on February 20th.  We saw some beautiful tapestries and textiles from a trip member Joan Christoferson made to China, Tashkent, Samurkan etc on a Silk Road Tour.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road

The following week, my father had an operation to remove part of his colon.  My brother Jeff and I stayed with him during his hospital stay.  And when he got out of the hospital my sister Rosalie brought him up to the island to recuperate. Here's a picture of him haggling with a local farmer at the Saturday Farmers Market.  He stayed in our little cottage for ten days and then we took him back to West Seattle on our way South on the road trip we have been planning for quite some time to see Roger's brother Guy's new home near Sacramento.  Before dropping Dad off, we stopped by Bjorn's so Dad could see little Audrey for the first time. 

After leaving Dad, we drove to Raymond to see our friends' new home.  (I know, not the most direct way to Sac but we don't get off the rock very often.)  Brent and Kathy bought an old dairy farm right on the Willapa River.  The house is over 100 years old and needs a lot of work, but its got good bones.  And everyone needs a project, right?

Pouring down rain from Raymond to Sacramento--only it was snow when we were near Mt Shasta.  But once we got to Brenda and Guy's, everything was good.  We took in the California State Train Museum.  http://www.csrmf.org/ which may have been the real reason for the trip.  Then Guy and Brenda showed us the town of Folsom, closest town to their home in El Dorado Hills. 

After a great visit with Guy and Brenda, we drove west toward Alameda, where my niece Bina and her family reside.  But first we stopped at Village Homes, an ecovillage prototype near U of C at Davis.  70 acres of permaculture!  http://villagehomesdavis.org/

We got to Alameda and the historic home that Bina, Joe, and Ovid call home.  Spent the next couple days walking everywhere (Alameda is VERY FLAT).  It was good to spend time with Bina and Ovid and see where Joe is working in a factory that is working with kites that propel boats up to 30 mph!

I had planned all the trip down to Alameda, but none of the trip back.  It was all ad hoc and turned out to be fabulous.  First we stopped in Petaluma, to see college buddy Nancy's new venture, a pizzeria start-up with her son-in-law, Raphael.  Hence, Rafy's!http://www.yelp.com/biz/rafys-pizzeria-petaluma

We found ourselves in Sonoma County and went to a winery that Brenda and Guy recommended based  on "biodynamics".  The winery was in Glen Ellen and is called Benziger.http://www.benziger.com/winegrowing/overview 

But the real find was that Benziger winery was surrounded by 180 acres once owned by Jack London and turned into a state historical park.  We visited the "Wolf House", a huge rock mansion ruin in the woods that burned down before London ever moved in.  And the farm where he experimented with radical farming techniques that seem very organic today.  http://www.parks.sonoma.net/JLPark.html

By this time we were running so late we decided to add an extra day on to our trip.  We stayed the night in Ukiah, Ca then drove through the "Avenue of Giants" redwood forest and got to drive through a Redwood tree, just like my family did back in the 60's on my last road trip to California.

 We also stopped in Arcata in Humboldt County
http://www3.humboldt.edu/engineering/sites/www3.humboldt.edu.engineering/marsh/index.htm
where an old lumber mill was turned into a wastewater treatment marsh and wildlife sanctuary.

At this point we were undecided as to which way to head up North.  We could head back to Yrika from Eureka and attempt the Siskiyous sans snow this time (we hoped)  But that highway was closed due to slides.  We could go through the Redwoods from Crescent City to Grants Pass like we did 18 months ago and then head to Crater Lake and Bend.  But then we decided to skip the whole mountain pass thing and hit the beach at Brookings, Oregon. 

The next day we drove up through Myrtle Point and stopped in Remote at a covered bridge to eat lunch.  Then we drove on to connect with I-5 at Roseburg.  Five grueling hours later, we were at my sister Jeannette's in Olympia.  She was good enough to put us up for the night AND cook dinner for us.  We easily made the 2 pm ferry the next day and arrived home safe and sound.

No time to do anything but regroup and repack.  I'm on to a Basket Weaving Retreat in Port Orchard in three days.  http://www.nwbasketweavers.org/retreat2010/index.html