Special sections
- Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge visit, March 2001

Rob's books
- Insiders' Guide to the Olympic Peninsula

Nature writing sites
- Nature Close to Home
- Creeping with Utah Nature Study Society
- The Nature Web
- Nature.net
- Nature writing references
- Nature writing

Environment news
- Tidepool

Resources
- eNature.com
- Olympic Park Institute
- North Cascades Institute
- Orion Society
- Open Spaces
- Second Nature
- The World as Home
- Association for the Study of Literature and Environment

Rob's other Weblogs
- Mac Net Journal

Natalie's Weblog
- Naturescapes

Other stuff
- Rob's Resume
- Natalie's Resume
- Rob's Portal
- Picture Album

Old Blogger archives

Saturday, September 15, 2001

On this day we brought some of our friends together to meet and greet each other and talk about our reactions to this week's happenings. It was a great chance to catch up with friends, to hear how each of us reacted to and heard about the attack on New York and Washington, D.C.

I wandered outside for my photo today after I spent a few minutes weeding and taking down the pea trellis in the garden. Digging my hands in the soil, I was literally finally grounding and letting some of the chaos and energy that has built up this week run out of me and back to the core. It felt good to dig, to get dirt under my nails. And while it is always a bit sad to put the garden to bed for the winter, that sadness seems trivial in comparison to the sadness pervading everything this week. My photo on this day is a white rose bloom along the south side of the house.

Friday, September 14, 2001

Planes are back in the air, and nearly every time one passes overhead I find myself craning to see...is it military? Civilian?

We made an effort to move on today, to slowly ease into a new world where we have to look over our shoulders, where planes and not just planes, where the former sense of security we once took for granted here in the U.S. is compromised. As part of getting back to life, we attended an Audubon Society meeting tonight, to listen to a birding expert talk about the variety of birds that can be found in the Sequim area. It was nice to think of nature for a while and not be glued to the latest news. Things are far from normal on this national day of mourning...but this was a start.

Thursday, September 13, 2001

Wednesday, September 12, 2001

Things feel different today. What once seemed commonplace in this part of North Tacoma where the sounds of civilian and military jets flying overhead is normally a nearly constant drone is now alarming. I notice every jet that roars overhead, looking up when just a day or two ago it wouldn't have even crossed my mind. Meanwhile, Navy ships patrol the waters of Puget Sound on the lookout for the first time in decades for any signs of hostility.

Closer to home, I am reading Weblogs and newspaper reports, wary of what will happen next. A column from the Atlanta Journal Constitution newspaper by Nadirah Z. Zabir titled: For American Muslims, a familiar disquiet strikes my heart, leaving me to hope that we are not about to do a wide-scale repeat of the discrimination that fell upon Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor. And meanwhile in my work on the Internet, my attempts to calm those who angrily call for violence against all Arab people are resulting in anger against me. I even found myself removing the address information from my online resume today in a feeble effort to keep any personal attacks against my work from landing on my doorstep.

While I am still looking at the changing seasons outside, hearing the birds even more now for the lack of airplane noise, and at times yesterday in the dead silence hearing the wind rustling through the trees, my mind is elsewhere...

Tuesday, September 11, 2001

The day-after coverage is beginning in the New York Times Web site:

"This unfathomable tragedy reminds me of the original reason the Internet was invented in 1969 Ñ to serve as a decentralized network that couldn't be brought down by a military attack," said Rogers Cadenhead, who said he set up the WTCattack list because most of the Web sites reporting news had ground to a halt. "Amateur news reporters on weblogs are functioning as their own decentralized media today, and it's one of the only heartening things about this stomach-turning day."

I think there is something to be said for the way the Internet has been so useful in the grieving process for so many people, and how it has done as a news medium during this horrible day that is still nearly four hours from ending on the Pacific Coast...

Dave Winer, a writer and software developer from California, is hosting a great collection of writings on today's attacks and their impact on people. His Weblog is at Scripting.com.

For those who read my Weblog, I just want to send all my prayers and hopes for the recovery of those who are suffering from the attacks on the U.S. today. Since rising from bed around 8 a.m. PDT, I have been glued to the news and horrible images of buildings collapsing. This is a horrible day, a feeling of hopelessness that I cannot even imagine America felt even at the beginning of the Second World War.

Monday, September 10, 2001

The sun is shining and this is another brilliant September day here in Tacoma, in the heart of Puget Sound country. It is days like this that remind me why I like fall so much. Foggy mornings, sunny days and some of the most beautiful sunsets and dusky hours of the year invite me to stop, look and listen. And temperatures are much cooler and more comfortable on most days. There are no two ways about it...I love fall...

Sunday, September 9, 2001

Natalie and I returned to our tourism in the natural world today, venturing south to the McLane Creek Nature Trail near the Capitol Forest and Olympia. I have been wanting to visit this place of my childhood years ever since I read Wintergreen by Robert Michael Pyle earlier this summer. He wrote about a visit he made to the nature trail and watching wildlife in the marsh there in the 1980s, and it struck me that even though one summer I worked cleaning up the bathrooms and picnic areas at McClane Creek, until today I had never actually walked the 1.1-mile trail around the wetlands and through the large, second-growth forest. It is a pretty cool site, and one that Natalie and I definitely need to include if we end up writing a book about places to go bird watching in Washington.

Saturday, September 8, 2001

We did another work party at Puget Creek this morning, with a small group of folks including M and her family helping us pull morning glory while the misty, dew filled early hours gave way to a sunny late summer afternoon. I snapped my photo today of the tiny dew droplets on a leaf near the creek...

Friday, September 7, 2001

The pumpkins and squash in the front garden plot alongside the street are in full bloom. I have my doubts that we will actually end up with any pumpkins...I think that the bees are not plentiful enough here in the heart of the town to work over the blooms and lead to a winning pumpkin. But the blooms are a sight to see, mingled in with the stickery green folliage. We do have a couple of small acorn squash on the vine nearby, and those are likely to be edible before too long!

Thursday, September 6, 2001

Just like yesterday, my photo today was taken while on the trip downtown to pick up Natalie from work. As we drove back toward home we saw a rowing scull at the mouth of the Thea Foss Waterway, so I pulled off the road near the railroad tracks and the grainery and snapped shots of the rowers as they trained. This must be a Puyallup Indian Tribe crew, because they were rowing to the beat of a drum at the head of the boat, with the industrial buildings of the Tacoma Tideflats in the background.

Wednesday, September 5, 2001

I took a short walk at Puget Gulch today while on my way to pick up Natalie from her temp work downtown, and along the way spied the apple in today's photo nestled in the leaves of a tree in the lower part of the park. There were no butterflies or other subjects to snap today, so I took this shot and then wandered over near the lower pond to eat a handful of blueberries from the bushes along the creek before departing to pick up Natalie.

Tuesday, September 4, 2001

I took a morning walk in Tacoma's newest park, Dickman Mill Park along Ruston Way, on the way home from taking Natalie to her work in downtown Tacoma today. And I was able to get fairly close to a great blue heron as it perched on a piling above the remains of the old mill, as seen in the photo above. This new park is pretty impressive. I want to visit when we have a really high tide, when the water will rise in the lagoon and alongside the native plants placed along the edges of the park. It should be interesting to see how this park fairs over time...

Monday, September 3, 2001

After a weekend of running all around the southwestern portions of Washington, we settled down at home today and just played home bodies. I did some gardening, taming the tam juniper that has been encroaching on our property from the neighbor's place along the front sidewalk, but otherwise I didn't spend much time outside exploring nature today. This was a chance to take a deep breath, to soak up the early fall and recharge.

Sunday, September 2, 2001

We made our second trip this year to the Quinault Rain Forest today, setting out for the forest rather than making a trip to Mt. St. Helens because the weather was more certain heading to the coast than for the mountains. Natalie and Katrina and I drove to the Polson Museum in Hoquiam first, to take a look at the history unveiled there, a history of logging and of the Grays Harbor area. Natalie and I first visited there last winter while researching our book, and Natalie had an urge to return.

After spending some time in Hoquiam we drove straight up to and past Lake Quinault and along North Shore Road to the ranger station. No sooner did I get out of the car then the pine white butterfly in the photo below fluttered to a stop on the grass nearby. It turned out to be a perfect fall day for exploring the Quinault Rain Forest. The three of us walked a 1.3 mile trail through the marsh and wetlands areas, snapping photos like the one above, with the sky and trees reflecting in the waters of a small pool created by a beaver dam. In fact, I took so many photos that I like from our walk that I could create a computer screen saver set from the images.

Among the images were those that make the quintessential rain forest shots - moss draping down from the maple trees, green upon green, biomass upon biomass. Although the Quinault Rain Forest is not quite as lush and definitely not as famous as the Hoh Rain Forest, a couple of ridges to the north, it is still an impressive sight. And since it is viewed by most as the lesser of the temporate rain forests on the Olympic Peninsula, it is also much less crowded...even on Labor Day Weekend.

After spending an hour or so wandering through the forest, the three of us drove the rest of the way up North Shore Road until it turned into a narrow gravel road, crossed a couple of rickety wood bridges and then met up with South Shore Road to complete the long loop around Lake Quinault and back to Highway 101. Natalie and I want to return in a couple of months, when the wetness that defines the character of this land is draped upon the mountains and valleys.

Saturday, September 1, 2001

We spent today on the road, driving 120 miles south to visit with Natalie's parents and then back to get ready for a nature road trip tomorrow to the southwestern edge of the Olympic Peninsula.

Friday, August 31, 2001

Natalie actually took today's photo from the window of the office in downtown Tacoma where she has been doing temp work all week. I wished that I had the camera again today. As I drove home after taking Natalie to work this morning I saw workers for Tacoma Metro Parks taking the fencing down around the new Dickman Mill Park on Ruston Way. The park was supposed to be finished months ago, but it has finally opened.

Thursday, August 30, 2001

I didn't spend a lot of time outside today. Instead, I was indoors working to convert the first issue of the Tacoma Weekly newspaper to its new online home at tacomaweekly.com. Hopefully tomorrow will offer more outdoor time...

Wednesday, August 29, 2001

The Puget Creek Restoration Society had another cleanup event down at the creek today, with Scott and me working with a dozen or so adult mentally disabled folks - pulling morning glory and blackberries near the entrance to the park. We really only worked for an hour and a half or so, but even that small amount made a visible dent in the morning glory that is peaking in its growth at this time of year.

Once the event finished, I wandered up along the lower pond inside the park and saw a new butterfly. I think it was a great spangled fritilary, but I am not sure. And since Natalie had the digital camera, I didn't have a chance to get a photo. I snapped a couple of photos with the Polaroid, but they just didn't turn out well at all...

Tuesday, August 28, 2001

I spent time outside today weeding in the garden and thinking that I should get fall crops of lettuce and beets and radish and chard planted while the timing is right. After looking like a weed patch most of the summer, our gardens are starting to shape up now. I finished weeding the lower garden along the parking strip in front of the house, where potatoes are resting under the soil and pumpkins and squash vine above the soil. And now I am putting down layers of newspaper with a few inches of compost on top to put the beds in the terrace to rest for the winter. We may throw a few more bulbs in that area before the fall passes, or we could wait until spring and start planting perennials. The upper terrace will hold lavender plants, but I am not going to put compost on that soil since lavender prefers poor, well-drained soil.

Fall is a busy time in the yard and garden, and definitely my favorite. The lawn is turning green after being dormant in the absence of water over the last couple of months. Everything is springing back to life after the hot season (of course, hot is relative here in the Pacific Northwest). Meanwhile, birds are flocking and moving along on their migratory paths, and all around the squirrels scurry from one place to another, gathering seeds for the winter to come and all the while trying to avoid the car tires and prove themselves one of the lucky few to make it to another year.

Monday, August 27, 2001

Natalie and I returned to Puget Creek this afternoon, to see how the creek looks after last week's rains and take a mental inventory of the area as it slides from summer into fall. Other than some additional silt and some sticks and logs being moved around on the creek bed, there is little evidence of the small wall of muddy water that swept down the creek in the thunderstorm last week. The biggest impact of the rain is that things are even more green down there than they were a week ago...

Copyright © 2001 White Rabbit Publishing.

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