Christmas driving

On Christmas Eve day we left the island to go over the river and through the woods to
Grandmother's house for Christmas. (you know what I mean, through the sound and drive
I-5!)

I really do love the snow but this year it just keeps on coming and I am ready for it to stop.





Here we are looking towards Shaw Island and the interisland ferry.
We celebrated Christmas with my sister Debi her husband Dale, my brother Kevin and his
son Gavin, my parents Joyce and Gene and of course myself, Audra and Jess, Steve is in Alaska
this Christmas and we miss him very much!
I forgot to take family pictures maybe my sister will send me hers?

On Christmas morning we awoke to about 3 more inches on the ground, we knew that we needed to get home to take care of the animals so by 8:15am we were on the road heading north. These two bottom pictures reflect the snowy drive. In some place you couldn't even see the road, I think this was in the Marysville area. At one point it was single lane driving @ 30-35 mph. In Arlington a car spun out in front of us, close call. By the time we got to Starbird road, about 10 miles south of Mt. Vernon the roads were bare and wet! Then it was smooth sailing to Anacortes and home!
We hope everyone had a most enjoyable and peaceful Christmas! We sure did.

Snowfall 2008

How could you not want to take pictures of the pets in the Snow!
Here is Delila, Audra's kitty chasing snow.



We lost another Plum tree in the wind, this photo is taken looking out the sliding glass door facing east.




Mickey dog belly deep in snow and loving it!



Ah a glimpse of blue sky off to the south before another snow storm dumps on us!
I still can't get my car out of the drive way and we have to chain up the Nissan just to drive to the road. When you get to the road after hiking up the drive way you have to unchain. Thank the Lord for Jesse making it home from school, he is my hero right now.

And yes Jesse did graduate and now plans to pursue a career in the golf industry, he says he will
work wherever it is warmer! Congratulations Jess! We are very proud of you.

Youngrens Hatchery

For those of you who know me, know that I have a Passion
for the plight of the Southern Resident Orca Whale
population. If you have been following in the news then
you know that this last year we lost 7 of our local whales.
The SRKW's have declined from nearly 100 down to near 80 in
the past decade. Some may say, that is the nature of things.
But this is not so, it is not only the local Orcas who are suffering,
our Salmon, Herring and Sand Lance are experiencing the same declines.
With diminishing Eel grass lands disappearing the sand lance have no
habitat, this is true for the herring as well. If herring and sand lance can't
reproduce then our salmon suffer. If we have fewer salmon then we have
little food for the whales, yes they will starve to death.
With that being said we must make greater efforts to replenish stocks of fish,
Youngren Hatchery is trying to do just that by participating in an international
effort called Long Live The Kings!


Youngren's Hatchery is located on the east shores of East Sound.
Above is a picture looking north up to the head of the sound towards
the town of Eastsound. The inlet of East Sound is about a mile long and starts west of Obstruction Pass.
As you can see it is a most beautiful and pristine area.

The above picture is of the hatchery's egg holding trays. Every year they
are releasing young salmon back into the wild with great hopes of a return.
Orcas Island lays host to a wide array of special feature groups,
Youngren's Hatchery is just one of our little treasures. In the future I will
be bringing you a few more glimpse of these gems.

More Holiday Bazzar

I wanted to share some other photos
of my friends and their wares. It was a really
fun day!

Joe C. with his wood Bowls

Kate and her Jewelery table

Marcia (pretty smelling table)

Christmas Time Bazaar

Yes I know it has been a very long time since
I have posted a blog. So now that it is the Day
after Christmas I thought I would do some
catching up! Some of these post's will be out of
order, just because that is how my life is at this
time.


The weekend after Thanksgiving is a busy time
on the Island, this is when the Holiday Bazaar's
start. I had an opportunity to sell a few of my
crafts with a group of knitters. Now I am not a real
knitter, but these ladies are! Below is a sampling of
their goods.

Thersa and Angie sitting next to our table.

Ronna and her Friend Michelle (she knits very
pretty wash cloths!)

Below is a picture of Marcia's Table, not only
did she out do herself with the display of her goods
but the table smelled lovely as lavender!

Morning After

Well it's the morning after one of the most historic day's in history. I believe that as a nation we can change. I have hope for the future not just for myself but for my children and their futures. I am thankful for living in a land that embraces Liberty and Freedom for all.

When will it end?

Well here we are near the end of October and we
are still having AWESOME WEATHER! The below
picture was taken October 19th, look at how bright
the day was. Steve and I headed down to Rosario
on one of the very last days that the resort was open.
While walking out of the mansion I caught a glimpse of
the old street light looking stark and naked against
the vibrant colors of fall!


After our visit to the resort we headed up to
the lake for a picnic. The sun was extremely
bright, so it was hard to get any good scenery
shots, I instead tried to capture a scene from
summer!

When I was swimming the lake daily in warmer
weather I would often rest on the buoy's after
my lake crossing.

How deceiving these pictures can be, this is not a
summer day it is a 50 degree afternoon in October.
Awe, the temptation of it all, just to jump in and
cool off. Or FREEZE!

Fabulous Fall Colors!

The other day while looking at Garden Girls Blog
I became inspired by a one of her post scene's of
fantastic fall colors! So I waited for the perfect
day to capture Autumn.

The sun had been shinning all day so during lunch
I grabbed my camera and took the above shot with
the sun reflecting on the maple leaves. I was running
late to class so I locked up my camera in the car
and went on my merry way.

That's when I ran into this lovely brightly colored
ornamental. But I hadn't the time to run back to the
car, so I decided to wait until after school and return
to the scene, surely the sun should still be out and
bright. NOT!

When you look up into the sky you can see the
cloudy white color, it almost looks as though the
white offsets the bright reds and greens.

This is my favorite!
Happy Fall to All!

Awesome Day!

This last Saturday was one of the most beautiful
days of the month so far. My Bgf and I took
a drive to Camp Orkila to visit the gals at the Scrap
booking retreat. On our way back towards town
beautiful and glorious Mt. Baker appeared before
us larger than life. So what did we do next? Stopped
the car. checked to see if we had our cameras with
us (duh!), turned around and drove to the crest of
the hill on Mt. Baker road. We then proceeded to
walk down the road in search of the very best picture
taking spot. Whala! so this is my result of the splender
that God bestowed upon us. Nothing like clear blue
skies and snow covered mountains in October.

Yippe Whale Movies!

Ok I fixed my movie issues so here are some
shots of our local southern resident Orca Killer
Whales!

Whale Watching

My Whale movies are not working right now so please be patient, I will figure this out.
Thank you

Whale Watch with Deer Harbor Charters

September 25, 2008. Deer Harbor Washington
Captain Tom waiting to board the Pelagic for
OHS Marine Science class whale tour


It was a stormy day in our little corner of the
world today, so stormy we thought our field
trip was to be canceled. When lunch rolled around
the sun came out and at the very last minute
we hopped into the cars and off to Deer Harbor
we went.
Our hopes today are to see the local Orcas, they
are called the Southern Resident Killer Whales.
The SRKW's are classified as endangered species
and therefore are federally protected. The pods
consist of 3 sub family groups, J,K,L. Our SRKW's
are the most studied species on the planet!

To our surprise the local Southern Resident Orcas
were coming down from the north!. We met up
with the pods at East Point.
You can find Orcas in every ocean of the world,
some are called transients, offshore and resident's,
SRKW's are residents and eat salmon, transients are
mammal eaters.


Their Behavior was very playful, lots of breach's
from the little one. I think I counted six in a row!
I have never seen that before. If you look closely
you can see one of the breaches.
All in all I would say that was a pretty fantastic
trip, we even made it back before the rain came.
I LOVE THE WHALES!
Thank You Captain Tom!

The Big Five Oh!

What a gorgeous day to turn 50!
My sister and brother came to visit for a few
hours and here they are with Audra at West
Beach Resort.

Kevin, Audra & Debi

While walking on the dock I spotted this Great
Blue Heron in the tree tops.

Then it was off to Orcas Island Pottery, not only
to view the pottery but their new exhibit of bronze
sculptures. Here is a girl holding a sea shell with
water flowing from the shell.

After my siblings left I went whale watching
with Deer Harbor Charters where we met up with
four transient whales in Obstruction Pass and followed
them all the way to Crane Island, Thank You Mr. Tom
Averna for inviting the whales to my birthday party!
Afterwards I had a quick visit from a dear friend who
brought me Whoppers for a Whopper of a Birthday! Then
it was off to the New Leaf Cafe for a scrumptious dinner served
to me by my lovely daughter. Pleasantly full I came home to
blog my day and say good night, but my BGF surprised me
with another birthday treasure! I am so blessed, thank you
all for making this day this the best birthday I could have asked for.
A perfect end to a perfect day.

Yum Yum

Stephine is getting ready to start her new diet, yummy raw shark eggs for an afternoon snack before she goes off to soccer.

Dogfish Dissect

September 11, 2008 OHS Marine Science Class
As Teacher Laflin was driving to school along
Crescent Beach she noticed a strange object on
the side of the road, she was almost certain that
she saw a shark! After Laflin arrived at school
she sent an email off to our most awesome marine
science teacher Marta Branch to let her know what
she thought she saw. Well that was all Marta needed,
off she drove during her lunch hour to check it out!
Lo and behold it was a Shark, Marta collected and
brought it back to school so that she could dissect
this great and unusual find in the Marine Science
lab room.

Teacher Marta Branch Cuttin' up the shark

Once we opened the creature up we were trying
to determine what gender it might be. Can you
guess by these pictures? Yes it was a female
carrying 12 babies.

There were 2 long egg sac's on each side of the
inerds, each sac contained 6 eggs. If you look
closely in the above shot you can see the shark
to the right of its yolk. So Very Cool!

Spiny Dog Fish all cut up.
What a wonderful island we live on.