Brad Sondahl's blog

Brad's Blog

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August 1
We went on a two hour drive for vacation yesterday, 90 miles away but 30 of them up a mountain range, to Roman Nose lakes...

This was a new flower for us, looking like a flowering fern, which is a conundrum... I found it in a flower book--it's called Elephant Heads, for this reason:

The book said they're found in mountains from Oregon south... Add Idaho...

We hiked to a snow field above the first of 3 pothole lakes. Here's Butters by the beargrass blooms. It looks like a few weeks ago some of the lakes would have been surrounded by these. As it was we were surrounded by green huckleberries, which in a way was good, because there weren't hoards of pickers to penetrate our solitude.

Here's the view from the snowfield toward the first "lower" lake.

Here's Birrion making some a run down the 50 yards or so of snow...

This is the view along the trail of the way we came up the mountain (the vertical lines to the right of the dead tree). It's easy to imagine the rest of the world is empty from this view.

This is the view of the lower of the two upper lakes... We were there by ourselves for about an hour...

I got to see this Pika in the rocks by the end of the lake. They're really cute, and I could hear them whistling a lot before I got to watch this one...

On the way down we stopped to view and photograph Snow Falls (this is upper)

This is a middle part, viewed from the side, with arnica flowers...

This was the zen- like lower falls...

And a final hike to Myrtle Falls near sunset. All told, we left at 8 a.m. and got home after 11 p.m. totally exhausted but recharged by nature...

August 5
After we returned to the hot flatlands smoke from many regional fires moved into our area, making an ominous backdrop to what's usually one of the most festive parts of summer...
That and persistent highs in the 90's make survival without air conditioning dependent on opening and shutting lots of windows at the right time...

Here is the view of the mill pond from our cabin, with the far side obscured by smoke.
At the same time the lake remains very pleasant to swim in. Today as we swam we watched an osprey fly by with a bass in its talons hotly pursued by a seagull that hoped it would drop it... When it circled high enough to reach a branch on a dead tree, the seagull gave up...

I finished picking cherries from our two trees yesterday, but the top part is still loaded with cherries my 12 foot picking ladder won't reach. Good luck for the birds... I heard a lot of twittering (the literal kind, not the presidential type) and grabbed my camera and saw black headed grosbeaks like this female

and western tanagers like this female:

and male...

August 14
The heat broke last Saturday, with an unmeasurably brief shower. I missed the hot days of the Bluewaters Bluegrass Festival but went on Sunday, and this link has the photos to prove it, improved by by new camera and Windows enhancing software...
Since I was home on Saturday, we attended a sauerkraut making workshop at the library, and I was impressed by the wonderful presentation and ease of production. Plus I planted way too many cabbages this year, many of which are splitting... So I made 3 quarts of kraut last night, and plan to make more today... It's rather miraculous how just by sprinkling salt on shredded cabbage it generates its own brine solution, which then suppresses bad bacteria and allows good ones to digest part of the cabbage and give it the flavor...

August 23
How August flies... Pots fly off the shelves, and I attended two bluegrass festivals. I was official photographer for the Kettle Falls Camp and Jam, so the link goes to my photos and videos from it..
We had 90 % of the sun blocked in the eclipse, and appreciated the special glasses that allowed us to view it...

A short walk from the Kettle Falls festival was Meyers Falls. Kettle Falls was named for the kettle shaped baskets native Americans set along the falls to catch salmon. It was inundated by the Grand Coulee dam's backwater reservoir, Lake Roosevelt...

Books read and other media of note

Little White Lies by Ace Atkins. Ace carries on the Spenser tradition with verve... The liar in the title reminds me a bit too much of a certain president for comfort, although I'm sure its coincidental...

Dangerous Minds by Janet Evanovich. This is a weaker romantic duo than usual in a James Bond styled plot involving saving the world from the US Park Service, in part. It reminds me of how in her later years Joan Aiken got more fanciful with her plots but less endearing...

Neptune's Brood by Charles Stross One of the most imaginative hard SF writers, even to the point of accepting the speed of light as a limit to exploration, and what interstellar investments might be like...

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