Brad Sondahl's blog

Brad's Blog

Click here to zoom down to today's entry (after clicking, you can bookmark this page and it should always take you to the current date).

Nov. 7
After the 6 inches of snow we got last week, we got another 8 inches, leaving the hills around the Mill Pond looking like this:

Still it's only fall, so rain and 40's are predicted for the end of this week, probably reducing our snow load...

Nov. 12
This was the weekend of the Fall Folk Festival, 7 stages going at once for two days of regional folk talent. I took over a 1000 photos, and two other photographers took several thousand as well, which I will select from and place on a web page over the next week or so... But I'm pretty sure this is my best photo, taken in "illustration" mode:

The seriously talented young Celtic group played away while two young ladies dragged a younger gentleman around in front of them...

Nov.16
The weather has moved back towards spring, with a side of winter... We get lots of rain but it's snow on the tops of the ridges... The mill pond has mostly thawed, but there are places:

This was taken accidentally in illustration mode the other day.
We've had lots of fog as well:

A couple female buffleheads near shore as the fog lifted in the morning...

The rest of November:

Thanksgiving was memorable for a walk in the pastureland at the end of Spirit Lake, and making apple cider from our own apples while the turkey cooked. Unfortunately I forgot the giblets were boiling on the stove, resulting in a stinky smoke experience for our cabin... It's a good thing we have 3 places to live in Spirit Lake, so we've switched while airing out the cabin...
After that we went to the Puget Sound area to visit relatives. It rained most of the time we were there (to be expected of Seattle), but I got some nice photos of the mountains alongside Snoqualmie Pass:

And we stopped at Vantage on the Columbia River as well.

Shortly after that we took a small town 2 lane tour of towns like Edwall and Odessa and Harrington, and ate in a diner in Odessa that felt like the 1950's had never ended, right down to the vinyl covered stools... The road was pretty empty and it was a nice change from the freeway...

Books read and other media of note

Full Moon by P G Wodehouse. Mistaken identities and criss crossed lovers worked for Shakespeare and Wodehouse too..

Side Jobs by Jim Butcher. Good stories from the Dresden Files, interesting introductory glimpses into the writer's life...

The Hogfather by Terry Pratchett. I'd avoided reading this previously, as it seemed to be a parody of St. Nicholas, but Terry Pratchett is always more than simple parody, and it was touching, and suspenseful, and satisfying...