Month: August 2014

At the end of today’s blog post, I pondered what events today might bring. As it turns out, the terror theme seems to continue. We awoke to discover damage from the prior evening’s thunderstorm had taken its toll on the RV Park, explaining the loud “bang” we’d heard about 7:30 as we ate dinner. Not fifty feet away from our trailer, one of La Pine’s pine trees was decapitated either by the high winds or by a bolt of lightening. The heavy limb crashed through the roof of the mobile home of one of the park’s permanent residents. When he saw me with my camera he asked if I would take photos for his insurance claim. A stroll around the area revealed another large pine decapitated over the park’s entrance. The tree service is coming later today. I didn’t have to wait too long today to discover today’s scary event.

After my terrifying landing Sunday afternoon, my brother decided I hadn’t had enough terror for one week so he decided to drive me into the caldera of a seismically active volcano. My sister-in-law chose to bypass the opportunity to put her life in jeopardy due mostly to her abject fear of heights and precipices so Arthur and I ventured out alone. Our adventure started with a drive up to Paulina (pronounced “pawl-eye-na”) Peak, at 7984 feet, the highest point in Newberry Crater. The summit area is within a 17 square mile caldera at the summit of a 500 square mile volcano. Newberry is both seismically and geothermally active.

I managed to survive the drive up to the peak despite its sharp, curvy roads and sheer one-sided drop-offs. I’m pretty sure the imprints of my fingers will forever remain in the dashboard of my brother’s truck, though. Despite the haze from wildfires in the area—or could it have been steam escaping the caldera?— we enjoyed the spectacular views of Paulina Lake and East Lake and, in the distance, Mount Bachelor and the Three Sisters, all volcanos in the Cascades Range. From Paulina Peak, we ventured to the Big Obsidian Flow nearby where the landscape was more like a moonscape and Lost Lake looked more like a swamp where the Creature from the Black Lagoon might emerge. Our sightseeing journey ended at spectacular Paulina Falls where we watched as a couple of dare devils climbed up to and through the cascading waters.

Of course I was attacked by mosquitos and my brother didn’t get a bite. I brought DEET with me but of course neglected to spray it on. As I write, I’m itching all over and am covered with welts. I wonder what tomorrow will bring?

I landed at the Redmond/Bend Oregon Airport Sunday afternoon . . . twice! Our first approach seemed a bit too fast——even though I know absolutely nothing about aerodynamics I could tell it wasn’t quite right—— and when the airplane’s wheels made their first contact, slamming onto the runway and jarring the plane, all of the passengers on Alaska Air 2325 gasped and grabbed the seat backs in front of them. As we looked around the plane at each others’ reactions to the less than perfect landing, laughing nervously, we were astonished to sense that we were climbing again. We ascended and banked and circled for more than five minutes and I decided to find the nearest exit in this unfamiliar airplane (a Bombardier Q400). I was over the wing and this airplane has only front and rear exits so I resigned myself to being the last one off the airplane in a crash. The pilot made no announcement about what had just happened or what was about to happen and we all speculated about what would happen next. As we made our second, and mercifully our final, approach, we landed with another jarring bounce but this time, we began to taxi. As the passengers looked around and at each other, we simultaneously broke into applause, mostly out of relief. As we disembarked, the Flight Attendant announced that instead of landing early at Bend, as a result of having to land twice, we actually had arrived right on time. Thank heaven for small miracles! When I met my sister-in-law at baggage claim, I told her I was glad to be on solid ground and that I needed a drink. When we got my bag and met up with my brother who was waiting at the car with Mady, I learned he had witnessed the plane’s first landing and thought it was odd that they were practicing touch and go’s at the busy airport.

On the way to La Pine, we stopped for lunch at Anthony’s in Bend where I enjoyed a black Ten Barrel stout and a plate of fresh mussels for lunch. Once safe in La Pine, I enjoyed a much needed Black Butte Porter and at this writing, am well into my first glass of “3 Blind Moose” merlot. Despite its precarious start though, I think I’m going to enjoy my visit to La Pine, Oregon.

I took these shots while enjoying mussels on the patio at Anthony’s. The flowers surrounded the patio.

I’m going away for a week so I needed to eliminate the possibility that something scary growing in my fridge might pull the door shut when I tried to open it on my return home, a sure sign that the fridge needs cleaning out. I poked around in the refrigerator to see what had to go. I found half a golden honeydew melon, a few strawberries from Granny May’s strawberry farm nearby, and some withering blueberries. There were also some rather alarming inedibles buried in the crisper drawers that may have predated my trip to Arizona. Their appearance was more of a science project gone very wrong than a food that might grace a dinner plate and I suspected that unless I discarded them immediately, they might indeed grow into one of those refrigerator monsters. However, since the fruit was still edible, I thought it would make a delicious breakfast. And, when I put it on the plate, I loved how the contrasting shapes and colors looked together in the morning window light so I delayed eating while I practiced some food photography.

Today I’m returning my blog to Prescott, AZ to showcase two of the façades that I photographed while I was there: a church and the county courthouse.

I could blame it on the drought but, sadly, it was my utter neglect that allowed my beautiful and intoxicatingly fragrant David Austin rose, Abraham Darby to succumb in its pot to lack of water. To be fair to me, it has been scraggly and unhealthy in recent years and had produced only two or three blooms in a season. Although it would probably have limped along for another few years if I had bothered to water it occasionally, it has not been beautiful for quite a long time and was more annoying to me than a thing of beauty to enjoy, as are most of my roses. I love David Austin roses with their heady fragrances and old rose look, blossoms crowded with petals. I plan to redo my yard and when I do, I’ll give Abraham Darby another chance. In the meantime, I took this shot in late afternoon backlight that I found quite appealing, despite the death that it silhouetted.

Wednesday afternoon I realized I hadn’t taken any blog-worthy photos yet and the only subject idea that came to mind was photographing some of the strawberries I brought home the day before. However, my macro shots were uninspired and so I played a little with black and white in Perfect Effects. Black and white can really transform a subject and this strawberry almost appears to be a macro shot of an insect’s compound eye or maybe a cactus with a flower or some kind of alien life form. Use your imagination. It hardly resembles a strawberry anymore.

These adorable bushtits noisily invaded the fountain for a bath Tuesday evening as I was outside lighting the grill. I had to run back inside to grab my camera and by the time I focused, there weren’t quite as many, but this chaotic group of males (identifiable because their eyes are dark), seemed to thoroughly enjoy a bedtime bath.

I took advantage of the sudden temperature drop (more than 30 degrees) Monday and sat out on the patio mid afternoon, enjoying the 75° temperatures, the complete overcast skies, and even a few drops of rain spitting here and there. The squirrel pranced along the top of the lattice, froze for a few seconds when he realized I was sitting only a few feet away, then skittered into the shrubs out of sight, but not before I captured him trying to decide when to make a break for it. The background is the sky and no amount of adjustments in Lightroom would give it any color at all.

My chives are about to bloom. The rest of my herb garden has already gone to seed. The stems of basil flowers provide the background bokeh in this shot.

There is Lewis Carroll’s version. There is Walt Disney’s version. There is Jefferson Airplane’s version. And, there is my version.

Today is my birthday and yesterday I treated myself to a massage and indulged in a box of utterly delicious chocolates from Raffiné in Newcastle. Raffiné’s mission is “to create the ultimate instrument of chocolate pleasure” and I think Mona, the owner and chocolatier, has done just that. These locally made artisan chocolates, crafted in the tradition of the finest European chocolatiers, are rich and creamy with ingredients like gold leaf and cabernet——what a surprise for me to indulge in a wine infused chocolate. No wonder the villagers in the movie “Chocolat” abandoned themselves to happiness when they tasted Vianne’s mouth watering chocolates…or was it just Johnny Depp that made all those female villagers so happy? For now, I’ll have to make do with Raffiné’s delectable chocolate creations.

Thursday morning I found a cluster of water drops clinging to a web near the potted herbs and fountain in my garden. I used my macro lens to get this shot, cropped it, and added a vignette. It reminds me of an old fashioned brooch, a tiger’s eye or maybe an agate, mounted in a platinum setting.