Cats and Trails and Garden Tales
Musings on cats, travel, gardens and life
Bumble Bees Waking Up in the Garden
Even though spring is officially here in the Pacific Northwest, the temperatures have remained icy cold, with bouts of wind, rain and hail. Perhaps that explains why I’ve done so little in the garden. Fortunately, the azalea is in full bloom with no help from me, and that has awakened the bumblebees.
I love watching them buzz from flower to flower, their chunky bodies supported by gossamer wings, their tiny feet dangling beneath them.
Larger and furrier than honeybees, bumblebees are important pollinators, the first to arrive in the spring and the last to leave before winter. Their two sets of wings beat back and forth more than 130 times per second, and according to the National Wildlife Federation ”the beating combined with their large bodies vibrates flowers until they release pollen, which is called buzz pollination. Buzz pollination helps plants produce more fruit.”
I’m hoping for sunnier days soon, to make their work in the garden – and mine – more agreeable.
Inspired by: Sunday Stills, Awakened.
~ Susanne
Share this:
A Road Trip to Wenatchee with a Peek at the Peaks and Wildlife
There were two days of promised good weather, so we took advantage and headed to Wenatchee for the night. We took our favorite route over the Cascades on Highway 2, and it wasn’t long before we got a ‘peek’ at the craggy ‘peak’ of Mt. Index ahead of us.
Always striking, it reminds me of a fictional Disney Mountain where mysterious creatures live.
like this Sasquatch.
We reached the summit at Stevens Pass where I got a ‘peek’ at some tiny skiers, reminding me it’s still winter in the mountains!
On the other side the snow disappeared and we settled into our lodging on the Columbia River. The next morning, we woke to walk the trail where all was peaceful and full of winter color turning to spring.
I stopped to visit with the ducks on the beach
before returning to the trail where something caught my eye in the trees.
Too big for a cat and the fur wasn’t right. I was puzzled, what could it be? A wolf? I doubt they climb trees, but many large branches hung low over the river bank. I learned through some googling there are gray wolves in the area. More likely it’s a coyote but I reported it just in case.
On our way home we got another ‘peek’ at a ‘peak’, Mt. Stuart, from the famous hiker’s paradise known as the Enchantments.
I got the best photos of Mt. Stuart while parked at the Pinnacles, another set of jagged ‘peaks,’ good for climbing.
Sharing with Sunday Stills Challenge.
~ Susanne
Share this:
#Wordless Wednesday – Close Up on Benji
#Wordless Wednesday.
~ Susanne
Share this:
Creative Spammers
Like you, I receive dozens of spammy comments on my blog posts daily, and most of the time WordPress classifies them so.
It’s giving this Spam a bad name! I found these at the Aloha Bowl Swap Meet in Oahu. Hawaiians love their spam, though I do not. 😉
Anyway, my job is to watch out for the other spam, comments flagged such by WordPress. I like to review the comments in case legitimate ones have been wrongly captured – it happens, though as the spammy comments grow in number, I’m starting to send them directly to trash.
But lately there’s been a new twist. I’ve had comments classified as spam, but they also generate an email, telling me there’s a new comment awaiting my approval. (I require all first-time comments are moderated. Good thing, huh?)
I had one like that today. I saw the email before I looked at my blog and the comment sounded reasonable, one I might have written myself. Turns out I did. I headed to my blog and found the same comment in my spam folder, and as the comment sounded familiar, I went to the post, and confirmed it was an exact copy of a comment I had made. Sneaky, huh?
Apparently, WordPress was conflicted, so it generated an email to me, as though it were legitimate, but also captured it as spam finding it suspicious, for other reasons.
I still don’t know what drives spammers to such lengths. Don’t they have a life? Couldn’t their technical knowhow be put to better use?
Confusing as a piece of modern art!
Like this legitimate picture from the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.
~ Susanne
Share this:
A Walk in the Woods at Nolte State Park
We took a walk through the woods last week, at Nolte State Park, not for the first time nor the last – it’s one of our favorite local hikes. An easy, mostly level, trail around Deep Lake, it’s only a mile and a quarter long, and good for walking all times of year, rain or shine.
On this particular day, we found the sun lighting the path, and occasionally peeking through the tree canopy.
We found many downed trees along the trail, both new and old,
this one apparently happy with its recent fate.
Those fallen long ago have already transformed into their new selves,
strange and mysterious.
Those decaying but still standing, give fertile ground to other life forms.
We passed a stagnant section of the lake, cutoff from the source, the kind of place you might find a gator if this were the south; thankfully it’s not.
Instead, we saw this little turtle sunning himself.
And further on the trail, a fisherman doing the same.
~ Susanne
Share this:
Saturday Caturday – Benji and the Hot Tub
I didn’t use the hot tub much during the covid era, I don’t know why. But with things finally back to normal and the weather improving, it was time to refill it. Benji was there to help.
“Not like that Benji! Don’t drink the water. It’s not for kitties.”
“Aw, Sue! Why not? You’re always spoiling my fun!”
“Sorry, Benji, but your job is to supervise. And guard the hot tub from other critters.”
“Got it, Sue! You can count on me.”
Happy Caturday from Susanne and Benji.
Share this:
I’d Rather Be in Arizona!
Earlier this week I was loving springtime in the Pacific Northwest. I went for a walk at Coulon Park and enjoyed brilliant blues skies, happy birds, and a joyful turtle!
And I thought to myself, ‘there’s nowhere else I’d rather be than here, right now, in the Great Northwest.’
Until today.
When I woke to rain and wind and gray and said to myself, ‘take me someplace where it’s hot and dry!”
Call me fickle, but today I’d rather be in …
Arizona!
As that’s as close as I’ll get for now.
Sharing with Sunday Stills, I’d Rather Be.
~ Susanne
Share this:
New PC and MS One Drive – Yay or Nay?
I got a new Desktop PC last week and I like it. It’s All-in-One so takes up little space, has all the extra storage I hoped for and it’s fast, really fast.
But one thing irks me, and it’s Microsoft’s pushiness with OneDrive. It comes loaded as the default for storage; documents and photos no longer save to the hard drive; they save automatically to OneDrive.
I already have a system in place for my photos and I back them up to an external drive. I have no desire to have them in cyberspace, as secure as they claim that to be, nor to be pestered continually about syncing them up across devices.
I checked with the boys as many of the pictures are of them.
“You mean my pictures would be floating in a cloud?” asked Tiger.
“I understand your concerns perfectly, Sue,” said Benji. “It’s a control issue.”
Maybe I’m old fashioned, but that’s it, indeed.
I need to make a decision before I’m too far down the OneDrive path. There’s plenty of information on the web about undoing this default, so others must also be unhappy with it.
How about you?
Do you use OneDrive?
How do you manage your photos?
~ Susanne
Share this:
Happy Spring in the Garden and the Finches are Courting!
Spring has finally arrived in the Great Northwest after a cold and rainy winter. We got a head start over the weekend when we hit 60 degrees for the first time since last November. It was worth waiting for.
There’s much to be done in the garden but fortunately nature takes care of much of it. My Indian Plum is blooming with no help from me. I’d been admiring this native in the woods for years, not realizing I had one growing wild in a forgotten corner of my yard. I transplanted it to the back where I could enjoy it, and it’s thriving.
I did manage to plant something new last week, Lenten Rose, another early bloomer. Tiger found it soon afterwards during one of his daily sojourns, and appreciated how it collected water for him.
As the garden is waking up, the birds are courting! I especially love to watch the house finches. The little lady perches, waiting for the male to appear.
He does – dressed in bright red-orange – and begins singing.
Okay, I’ll leave them alone.
~ Susanne
Share this:
Junco in the Spring Garden
I love all the birds who call my garden home, including this year-round resident, the Dark-Eyed Junco, looking quite dapper surrounded by green.
~ Susanne
Cats and Trails and Garden Tales 