Brad Sondahl's blog

Brad's Blog

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Jan. 2, 2021

We went over to Farragut Park today, knowing there were likely to be eagles. Happy to also see this little guy:

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It was rainy and dark, so it's blurry, but, Chesnut-backed Chickadee...

And eagle (over a dozen total)

Jan. 7

The days continue rainy and slushy, with some nights not freezing. The world continues to be a scary place to be in. But...

Water drops make firs and pines glow with little lenses that catch what's behind them upside down.

A few hardy common goldeneyes (1 male) and mallards still frequent the bridge hole at the mill pond.

one of two female goldeneyes...

Jan. 10
It's icicle weather, although the runoff streams are starting early with above freezing temperatures...

The most interesting feature of this for me was the ice stalagmites formed from drips above in the central upper left area.

The other day I saw these geese flying north. It was probably just a local thing, but...

Jan. 15
In Through the Looking Glass, one scene has Alice running as fast as she can to stay in the same place. It felt like that yesterday when the 50 or more mph winds blew all day... It reminded everyone of a slightly larger storm 5 years ago. Then I went down to the lake when the wind was wailing and could hear trees snapping on the ridge. This time there were downed trees within a block of our pottery and house, but none in our yard. The power was out for 22 hours, so missed the drama of the second impeachment vote.
This storm also felt like the latest in a series of plagues with no hope of a flight out of Egypt. Off hand, those include corrupt government, climate change with denial, Covid, forest fires, isolation, windstorm, and power outage....

This was the view a half mile from the main part of the lake, where the whitecaps were breaking up the thin ice that has formed this year (usually thick enough for ice fishing) The cat walk drifted off from a dock or moorage, and for the sake of the owner, I hope it floats.

The winds pushed what ice there was up onto the beach. Butters is there for size comparison...

5 years ago the biggest old growth pine along the shore went down in the windstorm. This time 30 feet to the north of it a large fir went in also. Today I went over to Farragut and saw lots of trees that had been left from a logging operation toppled when their shelter in numbers was reduced...

Jan. 16.
I took some of my videos to make an illustrated song which I wrote back around 1972... Winter Winds
My wife edited this video for her family which I sang along on --Happy wanderer.

Jan. 25
Yesterday I went up to Breakfast Creek to take photos of running water below freezing (which it has been for the last week, enough to refreeze the lake in the photos above to walkableness, and even icefishingness...

I took videos of these as well, and put them to a version of Sondahl and Hawkins See See Rider, which might be worth viewing for either the music or the photography...

books read

Dragon and Thief by Timothy Zahn. A boy and his dragon. Fairly common theme quite a bit like Pip and Flinx . Still I liked them when they came out, and still like them upon rereading.

Night Train to Rigel (and Quadtrain book 4) by Timothy Zahn. I enjoy his diverse approaches to SF, this series almost steam punk, or spy mystery. It was a reread from the distant past.

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