San Juan Island Views

Ferry Dock Piling

The mention of the San Juan Islands elicits sighs from anyone who has visited them.  I only was on them for four and a half days, but I couldn’t get enough of them.  Art and I squeezed in hiking  woods along waterfalls, kayaking around islands, beach walking, ferry riding, hot tubbing, eating lots of crab and sitting.  I tried making these sliver views for you.  (Maybe you will go visit the islands after seeing these photos.)

Top Photo with Mt. Baker and the Bottom One Is the Sundown from the Deck

Tide Coming in Rapidly into Crescent Beach

Ferry Engine Wake

The sundown played well from any view.  At an Airbnb called “Sweet Retreat Near Eastsound” the hostess, Vicki, made us feel welcome and where we sat for hours on her deck.  You can see us there smiling.

View from the Deck.  

Post Dinner with Binoculars and Smiles

Yes, It Was That Good!

 There was a constant flitting of birds and a call identified by Vicki as an olive-sided flycatcher.  We even saw this pileated woodpecker.  I apologize for the photo, but his head was hammering so fast that it came out as a blur.

Huge Pileated Woodpecker 

I just want to say that kayaking was on the list of “unlikely in my lifetime”.  With Art in charge of the rudder on our double person kayak, we circled a number of islands including “McConnell Island”!  We rowed about five miles and stopped to examine jellyfish, starfish, watched a light brown raccoon forage and was regaled by island owner stories from our guide, Michelle.  I’d easily go again, so “kayaking’ is on a new list along with “return to the islands”. 

Say, What?

Starfish Number One

An Oddly Colored Raccoon.  It's the Diet.

Five Miles Later

Bye, Islands...

Island Warp

I’m on holiday tamping down fast time on an island.  On the ferry over Art and I stood first outside listening to the engine rumble, watching the bow cut the waves and the cormorants slide back and forth with fish and nesting material in their mouths.  Wandering back inside to the relatively empty lounge, the slower island time began to reset my clock.  Sitting awhile, I noticed the windows with their reflection of people seemingly in the water, silhouettes with island sun hats. 

And disrupting the usual arrangement of rows of chairs, someone unhinged to the norm and instead operating on island vision arranged chairs in a less formal snake formation. 

Here anything will begin to rust.  A ferry.  You.  Sit long enough and your intentions rust.  You will begin to forget that time is important.  Art and I sat on the deck at our island lodging the first evening.  An hour.  Two.  Three.  Then at around 9 in the evening the sun went down.

The sun even broke the rules, here on the island, making a square reflection of its round bottom.  Impossible?  Not under island rules.

Bathroom doors sprout faces entertaining you while you sit.  Or if the door slides open the bay view will entertain you.  Sit awhile.

What it you were to get lost?  An island would be a great place to become disoriented.  Any direction that you might go would eventually lead you back to the beaches.  And this island, should you mistakenly climb up the tallest mountain, you would find a compass to reset you. 

And there are mysterious messages carved on tower windows for you to contemplate.  Sit awhile. 

Dogs greet you on the beaches, detour you from you plans and ask you to throw sticks for them.  You pause and you do here on island warp time.  Here on Orcas.

     

More on Joyful Boys

“Want to see the bunnies?” asked Otto, as Zephyr and him led me out the back door.  I was visiting the boys, whom I earlier described in a blog as the “joyful boys”.  Otto grabbed a carry container and began extracting bunnies from the back door of the cage with one big momma rabbit.  The other cages held other rabbits of various ages and sizes.  We were in a wooded backyard of a Seattle suburban home.

 Zephyr, in the meantime, showed me fruit trees and explained that one was dying.  He was very matter-of-fact.  Being bunny ranchers at an early age had brought the boys the perspective that living things die and sometimes even for a good purpose.  They both loved eating rabbit.  Particularly the dish simmered for hours, making most tender rabbit dish.       

The rabbits all had names.  There appeared to be a choice of four names.  All the bunnies that were white were named “Whitey”, the brown ones “Peter Rabbit”, etc.  No single rabbit had a special name all to its own.  Good strategy when they began disappearing onto dinner plates.

The rabbits were obviously loved and much handled.  Zephyr lay in the grass laughing.  Otto let his rabbits roam.  Both kids called to each to catch any rabbit venturing off.  We played with the bunnies for about a half an hour.  The kids encouraged me occasionally to hold yet another one.

Just as with an earlier visit to their home these two kids spent the majority of the time having fun with each other in the most casual and engaging way.  I took this photo on the last visit, when they got into a newly delivered rabbit cage and asked that I hook the door.  The cage was like a little house.  These are lucky kids.

There is a children’s book called “Everything Has It’s Lifetime”.  From leaves to butterflies to grandparents the book quietly explains dying.  These children had read this lesson in “rabbit”.  

Their older brother, August, arrived home from school.  He came out in the yard and cheerfully said “Hello”.  He would later play the piano for me as he does on each visit.  Becoming more proficient with each few months period.  All of these children share their interests with an adult, whom they really rarely see.  I appreciate their respectful attention.  Their confidence in adults is obvious, even in matters of discussion about dying.   

Sitting on a counter, sharing one set of earphones, the two boys sang a familiar rock song on my last visit.  All of this: rabbits, music, books (we always read books) and dying.  All of it is wrapped-up in just another normal day for joyful boys.  Would that all children know so much about living…

Photos from the Yard: Flowers, Heron and Berries

Oriental Poppy

Sweet Williams, California Poppies and Zinnias

Great Blue Heron standing in the Stream

Rain on a Peony

Tut, Sleeping on a Garden Bench

Plaque by a Local Hispanic Artist

Hens and Chicks and a Well Pulley

Garden Path with Yellow Rainbow Flowers

Raspberries Coming On

Thornless Blackberries

Pup, Keeping an Eye on Me

Often I walk out to the garden and return to get the camera.  The light, a heron flying over my shoulder or something new like the raspberries or blackberries getting larger will beg to be remembered in photo.  I find cats sleeping everywhere among the flowers and pup always, always following me around.  

Bless You, Catastrophe of Stones

I suppose that there should be a blessing for stones, those broken piles of marble, granite and slate one finds in old cemeteries.

“Bless you stones, your broken piles, your tenacity to mark bones.  Bless you, catastrophe of stones.”

Bless whomever you guard, even if the only decipherable words say, “He, guy…”

Bless the nameless babes in a wall of “INFANTS”.  Fraziers these, an old name in Milton Freewater.

 High on hill this pioneer cemetery gathers the dust from the fields about and sprouts blooms for the dead, stands of lupine, stripes of purple.  While across the valley the newer cemetery is filled with vases of flowers and flags for veterans, this one is graced with only lupine and the stones and three trees.  And grass so tall that the waving heads cast shadows mirrored on the upright stones.

Bless the stones and those whom they guard.