Playing in the Northwest

We got sunshine finally and some are convinced summer has unofficially started. Having lived in the Northwest my whole life, I'd be lying to say I'm convinced, but regardless I've been keeping my feet on as many trails as possible, sucking up the warmth and enjoying the views. The leaves are almost all open now and it's fun to watch the flowers starting to come out in the higher elevations. Here's a few shots from around our neck of the woods.

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This was a first! I've never seen any wildlife on Rattlesnake Ledge Trail. I was sure that the other "wildlife" in the human form would have chased all these guys deep into hiding, but my early morning trek up the trail before work led me to this welcome encounter. Please excuse the huffing and puffing...

Here's the view from ledge 3 looking down at ledge 1 with the Cedar River Watershed in the distance.

A peekaboo of Mt. Si and the town from higher up on the ridge.

Recently I trekked up Mt. Tenerife to check out Kamikaze Falls. It was cranking and put on such a great show!

Water everywhere up there!

And a few more random shots for fun...
Pearls? Nope.. wet spider web in our new landscaping. Even though I have a phobia of the 8 legged ones, I find their web a stunning work of art.

Finding a secret spot

Several times I've heard of ______ Landing. For the life of me, I can't remember the first part of that name, but it was always referred to as a secret spot. It was a picnic spot for years for locals in the area, but then someone bought the land nearby and the access was cut off. Recently, a friend told me that you can still find it, but that you had to go "the back way". Pup and I decided to see if we could find it today. It was sort of by accident, because honestly, I was more interested in getting outside and getting some exercise. Sure enough- we found it- rundown picnic table and all! And the best part...not one person. Pup was in off-leash heaven.

A shadow on the road to prove we had sunshine! What a gift to have today off (have to work Sat. instead).
You can't really tell... but it has a nice view of the valley below.

The sun came out today!

Up the creek without a paddle

The creek that flows under our neighborhood bridge has been a bit of a mystery. Several years ago a landslide came washing down and took out our road. A year ago in January, the water was intense again and logs and debris came flowing down... where was it coming from? Our neighborhood "family" wanted to check out the creek to see what was above the part you could see from the road. An expedition was mounted! As it turned out, only Rich and I were able to attend... the original Lewis and Clark team. It was a fun day of exploring. We hope to continue to do more in the summer months when we can head up the mini canyon that challenged us today.

How we all feel lately....
But we did get out on the lake for a bit after work last night... big fish for R-snake!
And had to share our new neighbors. They hatched on the garden hose- YIKES. My worst nightmare and this is only a few of them- there were thousands.

Wet! Wet! Wet!

The Northwest is beautiful. We have high alpine areas, fields of mountain wild flowers, beautiful subalpine mountain lakes teaming with small brook trout, lots and lots of green and no shortage of wildlife.

Sometimes though....what makes those areas green and lush can also be hard to tolerate. I for one need to go to my happy place and dream of summer. We've reverted back to January around here and no one bothered to ask my opinion on the subject :). Hey... Al Gore... about that global warming....

From today:

We've had 12 May days where the temperature didn't reach 60 degrees. We have not had a "sunny" day (70% or more sunshine) since May 14. Overall, the average temperature in May was 2.7 degrees cooler than normal, making it the coolest May since 2002. Rainfall, as you would expect, was above normal; Seattle had 36% more rain than average this past month.

Little Darlin'

This morning my neighbor Suzanne called about a newborn fawn that she found in the road! She was worried because it was just laying there- alive and fine, but hours old and in the road. I called our local biologist and was told that we could move it, if needed, but that Mama was likely nearby. As I was talking to the biologist, the wobbly little spotted one, got up and moved to the safety of a tree stump. It's hard to tell the size from these photos, but he/she was only about 1 ft. long. I was able to snap a few shots before mama came looking for her calf. An hour later, they were both gone- mama and baby reunited- happy endings are simply the best! Isn't the baby precious?