Evolution

These daffodils were first spotted on February 18, and I took the final one, with them in bloom, yesterday, March 16. In less than a month, they went from little green sprouts into flowers. Sometimes I think if I took a picture in the morning and then again in the evening, I would be able to see a difference. Once the flowers of spring erupt, there's no stopping them.

What surprises me is how I turn my back and stop paying attention and before I know it, a bright spot of color catches my eye. I love it, and in another few weeks I'll be taking walks in the neighborhood just to capture all the flowers that will bloom and disappear in the blink of an eye. Cameras are so nice; I just wish that digital cameras had been around decades ago... but then I would be inundated with even more pictures. I realized the other day that I have almost 10,000 pictures in my iPhoto library. I have been toying with the idea of upgrading to a later version, but I am fearful that I might not be able to find my pictures without having to search around in virtual file drawers. Nothing is ever simple with computers, it seems. But with digital images, I take way more pictures than I once did.

I have actual, not virtual, drawers filled with pictures I can't bring myself to throw away, and every time I go through them, sorting, I find something that takes me back to past adventures and people long gone. The passage of my own evolution from a little girl to a senior citizen is rather interesting to contemplate. Those drawers filled with old negatives I'll never look at again, and snapshots that are a permanent record of times gone by, who can throw those things away?

Long ago, I remember my parents had amassed a huge footlocker filled with pictures taken of relatives and friends that were so old that nobody could recognize many of the people in them. I remember going through the footlocker back when my parents were alive, sorting pictures by era. I think my siblings took some of the pictures, and I myself have a few of them, old memories of days gone by.

Norma Jean and Jan 1947(?)

When I don't see somebody for a long time, they remain in my mind's eye the way they were when I last saw them, as if time only passes when I'm watching. Does everybody do that? There have been times when I've been absolutely shocked to discover that a relative who was a kid when I saw them last has become a parent! Boy, you turn your back for a minute and everything changes. Time marches on, unless someone snaps a picture that freezes a moment to be exclaimed over and appreciated sixty years later. I'm glad I became a photographer... just in time.
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British Army Trail

When I left the house this morning, wondering if I had lost my mind, the wind was blowing 25-50mph and the rain was coming down hard. Imagine my surprise to arrive at the Senior Center to find eight other Trailblazers, determined to make the best of the day. We carpooled to the trailhead and, lo and behold, the rain stopped, and we were protected from the wind by Blanchard Mountain. Lovely!

This was my first hike on this particular trail on the north side of Blanchard Mountain. It leads to some familiar friends, Lizard and Lily Lakes, which we visit several times every winter season. But we had never gone up this way before. I asked why it is called the British Army Trail and nobody knew the story right off. Thank heavens for search engines, again! I found this information on a Seattle Post-Intelligencer article written in 2000:

A trail continues around the left side of Lizard Lake, passes a large boulder to become a section of the Pacific Northwest Trail (PNT). This trail leads to the newly constructed British Army Trail, built by visiting British Army soldiers and PNT volunteers.

It is no longer "newly constructed" but is in very good condition and was a pleasure to hike. That description started from the lake and returned down to the Pacific Northwest Trail. We started the hike, however, on an old logging road that looked more like a stream.

We were ready for the rain that didn't show up, but we had plenty of mud and water to navigate on our way up to Lizard Lake. Although it didn't rain, we could hear the wind howling in the distance and had occasional misty moments.

You can see the blaze on the tree; the British Army Trail was heavily marked, and we wondered if people might use it at night, accounting for the many blazes. We finished the outbound part of our hike when we reached Lizard Lake, which had some snow on it, as well as beaver activity.

After a quick snack, we turned around and headed back to the cars. We had made arrangements for a party at the Senior Center, a potluck hosted by Amy, to celebrate the birthdays of Karen and Marjan. Amy never misses a birthday, and she's traveling soon, so this worked out great. After we had covered almost nine miles and 2,000 feet up and down, we all met back at the Center to share our goodies with one another.

We dug in and visited with each other for awhile, then cleaned up and headed home. It's now almost 4:00pm and I'm tired and satisfied from another day well spent, in the company of dear friends. Somebody is watching out for us: a day that showed every indication to be a true "washout" turned out to be a successful, beautiful day!
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Vernal equinox 2012

When I was coming out of the Pickford theater on Saturday, I saw these crocuses and sunshine greeting me. I immediately dropped everything and pulled out my camera. At first I wondered about the concentric circles on the walkway, but then I realized they must be stylized raindrops! Perfect for the Pacific Northwest. When I went into the theater, it was blowing hard with horizontal stinging raindrops... I much prefer these.

Now that Daylight Saving Time is behind us, I was wondering when we will actually have the vernal equinox and went on line (of course) to find out. What did I do before search engines? I truly cannot remember, it's now such a part of my life. On the Old Farmer's Almanac website, I found some interesting information.

On the first day of spring -- the vernal equinox -- day and night are each approximately 12 hours long (with the actual time of equal day and night, in the Northern Hemisphere, occurring a few days before the vernal equinox). The sun crosses the celestial equator going northward; it rises exactly due east and sets exactly due west.

This year Spring officially begins on March 20 at 1:14am EDT. Since I am on Pacific Daylight Time, it will occur here three hours earlier, making it (let's see) March 19 at 10:14pm. And if what the Almanac says is true, I expect I can start celebrating Spring any minute now! However, I woke up this morning in the dark and saw more light outside than I expected. It was from snow that fell overnight. We are in a particularly stormy period, with wind, cold, and occasional snowfall. Tonight it might even get below freezing again. I snapped this picture at the bus stop.

These pretty pink flowers (heather?) don't seem to mind the white decoration, which is probably all gone now, several hours later. When I got to my class today, I noticed the numbers were down, probably because of snow on the roads, although it doesn't usually take much for some people to decide not to exercise. Afterwards, though, I know they probably didn't feel as good as I did. I know I'm rubbing it in, but they can take it, since they don't read my blog.

The bus was late again this morning, so I had to really hustle to get to class on time. I passed several other ladies on their way into class, but they drove and didn't need to change, so I charged on past them on my way to the locker room. Made it to class right on time and was already warmed up to boot.

It's funny: it never occurs to me to stay home, since I take the bus and don't have to drive, and it gives me something to look forward to. My sister Norma Jean and I were talking yesterday about the comfort of routine. I love my daily schedule and know that it suits me. She has hers in much the same fashion. Could it be genetic? I know that other people chafe against schedules, but for me it defines my day, and my sister is exactly the same. She told me that several people cannot believe that she prefers to get up and head out the door to go swimming at 6:15am. After all, we're retired now and there's no need to get up at the crack of dawn. I'm happiest when I am able to begin my day with exercise. Yep, it must be genetic!
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Safety Day 2012

Me and Christy, picture by Linny

I know some of my blogging buddies wonder how I can jump out of perfectly good airplanes on a regular basis. Well, I don't do it nearly as often as I once did, so now it's kind of important for me to attend Safety Day at my local Drop Zone. In the old days, I made more than 200 jumps every year, sometimes as many as 400. These days, I'm lucky to get fifty in, so Safety Day is made for jumpers like me: getting ready to get back into the swing of things, but feeling pretty rusty after not having made a skydive since October.

I am not alone in my desire to get current and ready for the upcoming season. Today was USPA (United States Parachute Association) Safety Day at Drop Zones around the country. Skydive Snohomish provides seminars and free food for the entire day to encourage people to attend. Here you can see that the attendance was pretty darn good: around 120 people showed up on a rainy, dreary Pacific Northwest kind of day to attend seminars and get refreshers about how to be safe.

If a person attended all six sessions and got signed off by the instructor, you were then eligible to enter a raffle that gave over $9,000 in prizes. If your name was called. I've attended this before, and although I didn't win anything, I enjoyed myself tremendously and if your name was drawn (mine wasn't), you got to choose your prize. I learned way more than I expected. My favorite session was with Dieter, who is a rocket scientist five days a week and flies the Cessna 182 for the Drop Zone on weekends. I was fascinated by him when he told us what he does during the week:

Here is Dieter explaining about a Mars lander that he helped to design, describing how the Phoenix lander used a parachute to slow its descent, much the same as skydivers do, except with the thin atmosphere of Mars, it was going a LOT faster than we are going when we deploy our parachutes. It was very interesting to see the parallels. (If you enlarge the picture you can read the text.)

Now I am safe at home, but I'll be losing an hour of sleep tonight as we change our clocks over to Daylight Saving Time here in the Pacific, but tomorrow, I am pleased to note that the sun will set after 7:00pm. More time for skydives once the rain disappears. Isn't it funny what a simple change of clock time can do for a person's disposition?
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Hoypus Hill

Eleven Senior Trailblazers carpooled south to Deception Pass State Park to hike around in the Hoypus Hill area. We have been having cool and unsettled weather in our part of the world, but today we expected it to be nice, and it was. Although not as warm as we hoped, we saw no other hikers all day long on the many trails in this section of the park. We visited this place last year in late April. I wrote about it here.

Most of the trails are marked, and as you may have guessed, that first picture was taken in Fern Gully. As you might be able to see behind Peggy, some of the trails were a bit boggy, but nothing like last year's experience. Anyway, as we trekked along, we were getting warmed up and shed our jackets, and I was so pleased and surprised to see lots of signs that spring is indeed coming to my part of the world. Here is a picture of an Indian Plum in full bloom.

After walking on the trails for a while, Al decided he'd like to make it over to see Ala Spit, a peninsula near Hoypus Hill that would give us a place to settle in for lunch. We walked on a paved road past private residences until we reached the parking area for the spit. There was only one car there, so we walked along the peninsula and found a nice place for lunch.

Here you see Peggy, Linda and Ward all settled down out of the breeze to enjoy their lunch in the sunshine at Ala Spit. I did ask them to please stop munching down their sandwiches for a minute, which they were happy to do (I have caught everyone in various unflattering poses with food in their mouths and posted the pictures anyway). Seagulls were out during the low tide catching up mussels and/or clams and dropping them onto the rocks to open them. I wandered around and snapped pictures but they were way too fast for me.

As we donned our gear and readied ourselves for the return trip back to the cars, I got this shot of some of our hikers on the beach, showing that we are actually casting shadows onto the ground. Nobody was really tremendously warm, but the sunshine was a lovely addition to our day. It didn't take long after we began the return trip before many of the jackets came off.

I got down in the leaves on the return trail to get this picture of some stinging nettles that are coming up, too. A sure sign of spring. If you enlarge this picture you can see those little hairs coming out of the leaves, and if I were to inadvertently brush up against one, I would be itching still, but I was careful to avoid them. By the time we returned to our cars, we had hiked more than nine miles and covered around 1,000 feet up and down. Not one of our difficult hikes, but it was a very satisfying day spent with good friends.

On the way home, while sitting in the back seat of Al's car, I happened to see an amazing sight out the window. I couldn't understand what I was seeing, at first, because it looked like something tumbling rapidly out of the sky, turning and whirling, until suddenly two bald eagles separated. I realized that I was seeing an eagle mating display. These were either two rivals for a female, or a pair trying to decide if they want to get hitched for a lifetime. After I pointed out the eagles to the others, we watched them until they were out of sight. They hitched up one more time before they disappeared in the trees. I found this information online about what I saw. It was truly amazing. Yes, spring is here; mating has begun, and the air is filled with anticipation of the delights of springtime.
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Spring is coming fast now

Yesterday it rained all day long, from the time I walked out to catch the bus (still loving my eVent raincoat from REI) until late in the afternoon. I saw these pretty little guys peeking up from the small garden behind the YMCA, and in the process of snapping this picture my camera was getting splattered, so I stopped after taking this one.

As I sat in front of my computer in the afternoon, alternately cursing and praising Pixelmator, I saw a few sun breaks. (BTW, the new header is my latest Pixelmator creation.) The weather said it would clear up on today, Tuesday. So you can imagine my surprise when I woke to... snow!

From my front porch, I saw the rays of the sun as it came up over the horizon, and indeed the sky had cleared. But during the night we received a couple of inches of snow, as well as temperatures below freezing. Even now (1:00pm), after the sun has been shining all day, it is still barely 40 degrees F. Where the sun hasn't reached the sidewalks and streets, it's still slippery and rather treacherous.

I was the first person to navigate the stairs this morning. You can see the first rays of the sun hitting the middle of the stairs, but they were pretty slick when I needed to go down them, so I held on tight to the railing. In the previous picture, notice where the cars are parked. After I got to the bottom of the stairs, I saw some interesting tracks in the snow.

Those are raccoon tracks in between the cars and the shrubs, aren't they? Since they look like little hands, and all of them heading in one direction, I figured it might be mom and her family out looking for an early morning snack. However, I think raccoons are nocturnal, so perhaps these were made at night. Anybody know much about their habits? I've seen skunks and deer emerge from the blackberry brambles, but I am now convinced that raccoons live in there, too. I've never seen any.

Spring! It's coming fast now. Sunday is the beginning of 2012 Daylight Saving Time. This means I'll lose an hour of sleep Sunday night, heading to the bus at what was 6:30am the day before, but on Monday morning will be 7:30am. Spring ahead, fall back: that's how I remember it. In the fall I get to sleep an extra hour, and this coming Sunday night it will be taken back. Sort of.

The sun will set after 7:00pm on Sunday, though, which makes me feel pretty good. Those lovely purple flowers will be coming into bloom soon, and I'll try to get a picture of them. Many of my blogging buddies have been posting pictures of their flowers, and soon the Pacific Northwest springtime bounty will grace my blog, too.
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March haircut

In my last post I mentioned that I could tell from the picture Ward took of me on Thursday that I really needed a haircut. So yesterday I got myself down to the local salon and got 'er done. She cut it pretty short in the back, which I appreciate, because in two months it begins to look a lot like, well, the "before" picture. Although someone else might not think it looks too long, it's obvious to me. Smart Guy took this picture for me so I could illustrate how I think my hair should always stay. But you know, it never does. No matter what I want it to do, it continues to grow! Fortunately for me, I have finally found a hairdresser who is (a) not expensive, and (b) gives me what I ask for. She left the bangs a little long, but I asked for them. My new eyeglasses are also a plus. Since they have transition lenses, you can tell we didn't have much sunlight in that first outdoor picture to darken them. I love not having to think about sunglasses; they are just there, or not.

As long as I'm on the subject of hair, I thought of this picture I took on our Thursday hike of Al's curls. My grandmother used to use something to create Marcel waves in her hair and after looking it up (hence the link), I found it was a style that was all the rage during the 1920s. I think I saw it in the recent movie "The Artist" as well. The natural waves that Al has (he's letting his hair grow a bit) would have made many a young flapper envious!

I am really going to miss Picnik, which I used to create the collage of the first two photos. Although it's going away in mid-April, it's still available for use until then. I know I should be trying to duplicate what I did using Pixelmator, but it's not so easy. I have to learn HOW and now that I've let the program languish on my desktop for a month or so, I need to begin all over again. In Picnik, I just uploaded the two pictures and was even able to use the airbrush on my neck. At first I tried to remove the wrinkles, but it looked very weird, so I opted instead to use a nice little softening technique with the airbrush. These same tools are also available in Pixelmator, but not as an editing tool called "airbrush." So, as long as I have it available to me, I'll continue to use Picnik.

Today I went for a six-mile walk with the Fairhaven walking group. Although it rained all day long yesterday, we had a beautiful DRY walk this morning. I learned that during February, Bellingham received more than four inches of rain. We had only a week or so of dry days; all the rest (20, to be exact) had some rain. Ah, but it's March, finally! Although our winter has been on the mild side, I am looking forward to the beautiful sunny dry weekends ahead. I will also hopefully get a chance to make my first skydive of 2012 sometime in the near future. Have a great weekend, and I'll be "seeing" you soon!
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