The Great Pacific Northwest

A busy week after the Thanksgiving holiday. I had a couple take-home exams from my paralegal courses. Now those are done. I have one more exam next week, plus a few assignments to complete.

Meanwhile. Look at this photo. Do you see a blue heron?

Neither do I. One's there, though. A blue heron flew across our lawn at low altitude yesterday, then went into the creek. I grabbed my camera and crept out to the creek to get a picture. He was in the creek, but as I approached, he went up the opposite bank into this tangle of branches and bushes. Even with the bare eye, I kept not seeing him until he moved, then I'd take a picture. I did it twice, and the other picture resembles the one above. Shows how wonderfully the Creator has camouflaged him, huh?

I took a picture of an evergreen later the same day. Washington is the Evergreen State. To see silhouettes of trees like this was one of the reasons I moved back here.

I spent some college vacations in Tacoma, back in the early 80s, and there the weather was more misty and foggy than here in Lynden. Somehow to see a tree like this loom out of the mist was, well, mystical.

Looking at the sky in that picture, you can see why an artist I met once said that the Pacific Northwest is the perfect place for watercolor painters.