Category Archives: Birds

Kenmore City Mural

This mural was just unveiled and celebrated on Labor Day in the city of Kenmore, Washington.

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It is painted on the side of the St. Vincent de Paul thrift store.

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Kenmore is located on the Top of Lake Washington in Washington State.

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You see the blue heron on the bottom left photo in this mosaic? Very close to St. Vincent de Paul at the rear area of the Kenmore Park and Ride there is a nesting area of Blue Herons. The nests high up in the trees are something extraordinary to see. You can see more on my post here. All the dark patches in the trees are Blue Heron nests on this next photo.

 

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We’ve enjoyed many of the services these local businesses offer during our years living close to and in Kenmore. Ostrom’s pharmacy, Kenmore Lanes (for birthday parties), Kenmore Camera, Tai Ho (great lunch specials) and others. All three of our kids graduated high school from Inglemoor. We’ve also found great bargains from St. Vincent de Paul thrift store over the years and donated many things there. Some of the images are historical and not current.

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It was nice to see the business and community effort that made this mural happen. I’m glad for once I have the signatures of the mural artists.

I’m linking up with Oakland Daily Photo for Monday Mural and

Mosaic Monday with Maggie from Normandy Life and

ABC Wednesday for K is for Kenmore Mural.

Snow Geese and Barns…

When my sisters and I were in Mount Vernon, Washington to see the daffodils back in March we also were treated to a large invasion of Snow Geese. I just realized I never shared these photos and since there are some barns in the background in some of the shots I’ll link up to The Barn Collective with Tom the Backroads Traveler.

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Birds of a feather flock together.

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Here’s a closer view of a barn in Mount Vernon that we drove by on a different weekend.

We are getting some fine sunny weather in the Puget Sound area of Washington state. There are predictions of it hitting 80 tomorrow. We are tempted to put up our patio covers and get the patio furniture out. I had a good week of Zumba at the gym and I’m happy to say my muscles aren’t screaming at me anymore. On Saturday we worked in the yard and I got some new shrubs planted. Later my son and I had a fun evening watching the Seattle Sounders beat Philadelphia Union 2-1. It’s always more fun to win. Quote of the night from coach Zigi: “You can’t score your second one until you get your first one … It was a big weight off his shoulder.”

Hope you all have a good week and that your tax returns are mailed or electronically submitted!

Hello June!

Can you see the sweet little bird peeking out from one of the bird houses on our son’s property? Katie took this photo during our recent trip to Chewelah.

June will bring some change-up projects around this old house. A little bit of this and a little bit of that. Now that Dear is not going into work each day I’m going to make a list of things that will be easier for us to do together when it’s raining outside. When it’s not raining he’ll be working on outdoor projects. I had the revelation that our bedroom furniture in our two guest rooms on the main floor need to be switched. The structure of the beds make better sense in the opposite rooms. The beds are both queens so we just need to move the bed frames. I have things to switch around in the living room, too. Nothing major but it just makes better visual sense. Do you get those revelations after living with something for a long time, that “aha” moment when you see the more logical arrangement?

June is the beginning of getting used to things being different daily while Dear is in between jobs. Good thing I’m in a de-fluffing time right now or I’d be tempted to suggest we go out for breakfast or for lunch or to the donut shop. The motivation to de-fluff is still with me and I plan to continue till the wedding. I’m happy to report that I’m down thirteen pounds. It feels good to have more room to breathe. June starts out with our new daily routine and ends with our son’s wedding.

What does June hold for you?

Hope I didn’t totally bore you with my little bit of this and that post. Here’s another photo before I go.

My peonies are opening up. I have one bush that has given us several blooms and the other only managed two!

Pigeons!

I’m starting off 2015 with a very random post! Sort of how our days have been between and after Christmas and New Year’s Day!

Dear and I took a little trip up to Snohomish, Washington to look at some furniture pieces we are contemplating to add to our living room. We are thinking of changing out our Billy bookcases that we’ve had for ages from Ikea and adding a large open bookcase that is more of a piece of furniture. We arrived to the furniture store before it opened so we took a little drive around the block. We passed this house that seemed to be feeding every pigeon in the county in their front yard. So glad they are not my neighbor…

How do you feel about pigeons? When I was little my father decided to build a pigeon coupe in our back yard and he acquired several pigeons. Back then there were only four of us siblings and we each chose a pigeon for our pet. My pigeon was Green Neck because it had a lovely iridescent green neck. Creative name…not so much. Well we frequently fell on hard times back in the 50’s and during an exceptionally hard time my mother and father killed some of the pigeons to make soup. Oh the trauma the four of us siblings felt when we realized our pets were the base of the soup we were suppose to eat for dinner. We rebelled and would not eat that soup! My poor parents, it must have been hard for them to be forced to submit to such drastic measures to feed us. I’m not fond of pigeons anymore. We now call them rats with wings.

Here’s a photo of my dapper pop that my niece took last week. He’ll be 92 in May. He’s been through a lot and been blessed a lot in his 92 years.

For this very random post I’ll add this photo collage, too.

This is a photo of Dear’s only brother and him taken at my mom’s funeral split with a photo of Dear’s parents. Dear’s father passed away in 1985 and his mom in 1997. I was struck with how each of the brother’s resemble one of their parents more than the other.

So hope the New Year is starting out well in your neck of the woods. We are going slow here. I’ll be putting away Christmas decor in the next few days. I’m really looking forward to starting up my exercise classes with the Seniors on Monday again after six weeks off because of my broken toe. Maybe I’ll lose a few pounds in January…

Flitting

…move swiftly and lightly

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A Minor Bird
(Robert Frost)
I have wished a bird would fly away,
And not sing by my house all day;
Have clapped my hands at him from the door
When it seemed as if I could bear no more.
The fault must partly have been in me.
The bird was not to blame for his key.
And of course there must be something wrong
In wanting to silence any song.

I have to say that the only birds I’ve clapped my hands at have been crows or woodpeckers.

Today was quite the bird event at our house. So many little, medium and big birds flying in and out. They would peck at the ground, at the bird feeders, in the planters.

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birds 004A first for us was seeing a small hawk/falcon like bird and woodpecker having a life and death struggle. They both slammed into our French doors and landed on the deck and then when the senses were regained from the hard hit into the door, the falcon/hawk flew off with the woodpecker in it’s claws. Very strange event to see…

After some beautiful days we are back in a rainy pattern. Of course that is normal and we all need the rain along with the sunshine. California would love to have some of our rain drops…

Confession of the week: I went to Costco on Tuesday and bought season 4 of Downton Abbey so very soon Katie and I will have a marathon viewing of the rest of the episodes we haven’t seen yet. Costco had the DVD for $25.99 with a one time $4.00 rebate at the register.

Hows your week progressing?

Chirp, Chirp…

Some of you might be tired of seeing food photos so I’m chirping in to say we are busy here with some out of towners. My camera cord for my computer is in their bedroom and they are sleeping so I can’t show you a few photos from our gallivanting. We might be going to an island today and not the sunny tropical variety.

Hope your weekend is going smoothly. I’m thinking of our bloggy friends in the path of the latest greatest storm and hoping all is well with you!

It’s probably time to refill the bird feeder! Blessings!

For the Birds?

Today is one of 3 days to participate in the Great Backyard Bird Count. I heard about this last year.

I filled this old bird feeder back up along with my two others. Time will tell what I see and count in a 15 minute period. This photo is from May of 2011 and I doubt I’ll see this Evening Grosbeak.

Yesterday afternoon we had some glorious sunshine but today we are cloudy and misting again. This is a long President’s weekend for some of us in the U.S.A. Dear gets Monday off but he is on call so there’s a possibility he’ll have to do some work on Monday but only from home so that will be nice.

Have a great weekend.

Sun and Eagle Chasing…

Our trip on Sunday up highway 530 in Northwest Washington was one of trying to find the sunshine and spotting some eagles along the Skagit River.

We found both and enjoyed the sunshine and the eagles we spotted. Some of our Mennonite girls get eagles right on their own properties and others don’t have to travel far to enjoy viewing them. Maybe next year I’ll just go squat on their properties to see many eagles all together.

The Skagit River area between Concrete and Marblemount off of highway 20 in Washington is a good spot to see eagles in January. We were a little late to see a good number this year.

The Skagit river was flowing nicely with some interesting swirling that we enjoyed watching.

Tomorrow I’ll be picking up our daughter from the airport for her 1 month stay with us while our Son in law is doing some training off the base. We’re happy to have her here with us instead of on base by herself for the month. We are looking forward to some fun events together. She’ll bring a different kind of sunshine to our home.

Taking Flight…

This is another regular resident at my friend Beth’s house. I was happy to have my camera in hand when it took flight.

Speaking of taking flight…my mom is being kicked out of the nest at the rehab center and headed home on Saturday. Her doctor wants her to do more moving around and to exercise her right leg more. I think my dad will be relieved to have her home again even though it means more work for him. My siblings, siblings in law, and nieces are setting up some food deliveries for my mom and dad. My mom has not been pleased with the food at the rehab center so things will start looking up come Saturday in that regard.  Thanks for all your kind concern for my mom. I’m looking forward to seeing both my mom and dad in September.