Fidalgo Island Crossings

Back in 2011, I wrote a post for Wild Fidalgo about Baby Pictures .  Blogger used to put a "Next Blog" link at the top of their pages for exploring other Blogger sites.  Every time I tried it, I always found myself mired in other people's baby pictures.  Not to be outdone, I wrote that post about Northern Flicker baby pictures.  I guess that's what Facebook is for now, and Blogger has removed the link.  I now have another opportunity to post my own "baby pictures" of sorts. Meet Buddy Buddy became my best friend last July through the services of the Washington German Shepherd Rescue group.  I haven't had a dull moment since.  He is estimated to be 2 years old, although some of us think he may be younger.  He acts like a big kid.  All we know of his history is that he was a stray.  All I know is that he is the most charming stray dog anyone could imagine. Taking the photo above was an interesting challenge.  I am sitting w...

I have been in the new house a little over three weeks.  I am now living inside the town of Anacortes, Washington.  This past weekend, I got the weather station installed after a month offline.  I got it up just in time for an expected heat wave coming this week.  Up north here we are looking at temperatures in the upper 80's F, around 31° C.  Seattle is expecting 99° F, 37° C, while the Portland/Vancouver area is looking at 105° F, 40 C.  These are temperatures that belong in Arizona, not the Pacific Northwest. The station setup is not ideal, but few of us actually have that luxury.  At the previous house on South Fidalgo Island, I had separated the anemometer mast from the other sensors, putting it more out in the open.  Even though everything is together in one place now, I elected to keep the two separate power supplies and transmissions.  This seemed prudent to preserve battery power.  During the day, the batteries are charged...

You may have noticed I haven't been around here for a while.  I bought a house in Anacortes.  For those unfamiliar with the geography, I currently live on the south shore of Fidalgo Island , on Skagit Bay.  Anacortes occupies the northern end of the island.  It's about five miles away as the crow flies. With retirement approaching, I have had this move in the back of my mind for a while.  Occupying three floors, my current house is large, much larger than I need.  The yard is very large.  I have enjoyed the 30 years I've lived here, but the advantages of a smaller place have become obvious.  Primarily, the new house will be easier to take care of and easier to clean.  There will be more time for hiking, picture taking, and just watching the goings-on in the garden. I will be moving in the next couple of weeks.  Most of my clothes, pots, pans, dishes, patio furniture, tools, and these frogs are already there.  I spent this mor...

The old blog has a new look, thanks to some up-to-date templates just made available by Blogger.  Admittedly, the old theme I was using had gotten pretty stale.  A freshening up was overdue. Blogger's new themes are designed to work on any platform, PC, tablet or phone.  So far, the only failure I found in this regard was my antique iPod Touch.  Under iOS 5.5 (we're at 10.2 now), that was probably asking too much.  I don't use it anymore anyway.  It works great on the iPad Mini. I still have some work to do.  Some of the formatting didn't come across correctly, so I will be cleaning up and redesigning some of the pages.  Block quotes are handled very differently now.  I also removed some pages that had become stale, and probably were not serving any useful purpose. After some trial and error, I determined that a 3:1 aspect ratio worked best for the background image.  I chose one to reflect the season with a plan to update them ...

Back in March of 2015, I found these beautifully constructed cairns on the beach at Lighthouse Point in Deception Pass State Park .  Lighthouse and Lotte Points are the grassy stone outcrops that can be seen from the Deception Pass Bridge looking west.  The Lighthouse Point Trail runs from Bowman Bay to the shore of Deception Pass.  As I always say, when you go hiking, you never know what you might find. Humans have been piling stones for various reasons since prehistory.  The Vikings built stone altars called Hörgar.  The word cairn comes from Scots Gaelic càrn (plural càirn ).  The ancient Celts built cairns to mark important places or events or to commemorate the graves of loved ones and important people.  The Arabic word rujm ( رجم)  appears in place names and refers to piles of stones.  In the Sinai Desert, stone piles or altars are thought by some to mark the path of the ancient Israelites in their exodus from Egypt. In...

There's going to be a quiz, so don't whine that you weren't ready for that when it happens.   ;-) For me, hiking is only 50% getting outdoors and exercising.  The other half is discovering what's out there, trying to learn something about it, then sharing what I learned through blogging.  This started when I was about 7 years old.  I spent many hours exploring the woods and ponds in the neighborhood where I grew up.  I never lost this fascination for nature. Identifying the trees in a forest is one of the things I like to do.  The usual ID method is by  looking at the leaves or needles .  In a mature forest, however, they may be up so high, they can't be seen well enough to distinguish.  Sometimes, the tree tops are totally hidden in the canopy.  The trunks and their bark might be all that is visible.  This makes it necessary to learn to identify trees using only their bark. The following six photos show the bark of trees c...

Image:   energy.gov My first experience with LED (light emitting diode) lighting didn't go well.  I have a small desk in the living room where the laptop lives.  A 25 watt incandescent bulb in the desk lamp was just right.  It was enough light for working at the desk and it was pleasant in the evenings.  A couple of years ago it burned out.  I thought this would be a good time to try an LED.  By then I had already converted all of the other table and portable lamps to CFL's , but LED's had become the best lights to use for energy conservation. I found a "25 watt equivalent" LED bulb at the hardware store, brought it home and installed it.  I felt good about it until I turned it on.  It was atrocious.  First, it was irritatingly bright, much brighter than the 25 watt incandescent it replaced.  And the light it produced was blue.  I mean really blue.  It was so unpleasant it didn't last ten minutes.  I replaced i...

Sometimes writing about a bad experience and disappointment is helpful. In 1977 I saw the first Star Wars movie A New Hope at the Lindale Plaza shopping center in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.  (I went to graduate school in Iowa and ended up living there for nine years.)  That movie was magical.  When I came out of the theater, the world had changed.  I have not experienced anything quite like that feeling with another movie since. I enjoy good movies and try to watch as many as I can.  I am especially fond of science fiction.  I subscribe to all the movie packages on cable and I have an Amazon Fire TV box.  They give me access to everything I want.  The last movie I saw in a theater was  Forrest Gump  more than 20 years ago.  I enjoyed it immensely. In January, I had to take my car into the dealership for servicing.  They said they would need it for about four hours.  I was dreading the thought of sitting in a waiting r...

I hate wet feet.  Whatever I am doing, wet feet ruin the experience.  There are a couple of places I don't hike right now because I know I will end up with wet feet.  These include Telegraph Slough near Anacortes and the West 90/Samish Flats site near Samish Island.  The latter is one of the best birding sites in the area. I have been shopping for waterproof hiking boots, but I am having trouble finding what I want.  I am looking for something comfortable, not exorbitantly priced and that will fit my weird feet.  I have high insteps and they are not the same length.  I like sneakers because they quickly adapt to my feet.  They work great on dry ground, but if there's any wetness around, I end up miserable.  I have also had trouble finding shoes that didn't end up hurting. I have learned a lot reading the review sites for hiking boots.  As is often the case, however, they seem to be all over the place with recommendations.  ...