I’m not here.

Lots of yard work today: ferns to prune, blackberries and weeds to pull, naps under the midday sun. I recall making blackberry pies in Illinois and paying $15 for the primary ingredient — here the blackberry is an invasive weed.

Our rhododendrons are in spectacular form with brilliant colors and buzzing with bees.

On the way to my yard waste pile I noticed out of the corner of my eye a slight movement. At first I thought it was a plastic bottle somehow stuck in the tree — instead it was a barred owl. I was pretty excited about it because I thought I had been hearing one in the mornings but hadn’t seen one.

I went back to the house, grabbed my camera and in the fading day light managed to get a couple of shots.

I love living here.

I open the window shade, lean over to my daughter and ask if she can see the mountain, “I can Daddy!” It’s the first flight she might remember and it’s just fantastic to see her enthusiasm for “flying taller than Daddy.”

I don’t actually enjoy flying, I’d rather take a train, but since I need to fly on occasion I’m making the best of it. Virgin America’s engines are an awesome red — really striking against the blues and whites in the sky.

The Olympics, Space Needle, Bainbridge … almost home! Some day I might do a post on the post-processing required for shooting out of plane windows. This photo is in my top ten for what-it-looks-now-compared-to-where-we-started.

I couldn’t get the exposure on this photo to work out as well as I’d like but it’s pretty neat nonetheless with the cityscape, Elliott Bay and Rainier all framed by the wing.

Back home in more comfortable surroundings, photographing mushrooms. One of my favorite snag trees on our property fell in the wind storm a couple of weeks ago and landed right between two cedars. I borrowed a chain-saw to clear it and noticed these little mushrooms — after dropping the snag I went back for the camera.

We had some concerns about the health of some of the rhododendron in the yard after this winter’s heavy snows. Fear not, color have we!

I’ve been busy, extremely busy, of late so I’m seriously behind in posting some photos. Let’s play catch-up.

So what have we been up to?

My daughter and I went to the beach, she played with sticks in the surf, I chased after her, we built a fort and shot photos.

It’s been snowing a lot here! We’re kinda tired of it. In a desperate move to get some fresh greens started we decided to give row covering a shot. It’s richly rewarding to see the row covered bed in the orchard and we’re particularly proud that all the material (PVC pipe and plastic) is recycled!

So while seeing the bed is cool, peeking inside and seeing baby greens is even better.

The poor crocus can’t decide what the hell to do with this spring’s bizarre weather. They open, it snows, they stay closed, it rains.

Speaking of bizarre weather, while watching Cliff Mass give a presentation about his book, The Weather of the Pacific Northwest, at the local bookstore, the audience was treated to rain literally moving horizontally down Winslow Way!

Later, on the way to pick up dinner (we lost power twice, two hours each time), I saw a Douglas-fir limb hanging from a power line smoldering. I decided I’d take the photo on the way back — by the time I got back we’d lost power again and the limb, perhaps the cause, had stopped smoking. I’m apparently not much of a photojournalist.

When I woke up this morning I took a double-take, “Is that snow?” Indeed it had snowed again — our flowers and budding bushes and trees endured another bout of Mother Nature’s confusing spring.

The poor crocus, so exciting days ago, buried in snow.

The recently transplanted blueberries bore the snow well — already the sunnier surroundings appear to be paying dividends.

The witch hazel, even covered in snow, has the coolest new growth leaves.

By evening, we were snow free — what will tomorrow bring?