In anticipation of Headbangers' theme this week.

I gave the theme myself--"What's in the clouds." I think I am going to have to look further than Sunday's hike for clouds enough to fulfill it.

B

I went looking for butterflies for the letter B.

I knew I had actually caught some butterflies on the wing once, and was trying to find those pictures in my files. You can see one in flight if you look carefully in this picture below.

 

On the way to finding the butterflies I happened upon the bridges.



This one was being built to replace the one below it when we made this hike. It crosses the Ohanapecosh River in Mt. Rainier National Park.


Near the Grove of the Patriarchs the suspension bridge also crosses the Ohanapecosh.

Then I happened upon the bridge over Box Canyon.

And I thought, oh, yes! B is for Box Canyon.

 

 

ABC Wednesday--B

ABC Wednesday is starting a new round.

I have taken a couple of rounds off from ABC Wednesday, and I am not even sure which round the meme is in. But I am back.

So, A is for acorn.

As we hiked up to the meadow I remembered that I was going to look for acorns, and here they are fresh on the tree.

 But they're green, protested grandson.

 But he found some older ones that were the expected brown.

Further along we found where some even older had started their growth...

. ...to become a mighty oak.

 

You will find ABC Wednesday's linkies here. Go see what A words others have found for this week.

Shadows

Lew gave us the theme of Shadows for this week's header challenge. I remembered a header I used some time ago with the wildflower shadows. The image is actually rotated 90º--the shadows were of the flowers along the trail ahead of us.

Ant shadows would be fun to work with.

We recently did shadows at Stonehenge. No, we haven't been to the UK again. This is Stonehenge overlooking the Columbia River in Washington state.

 

(My granddaughter learned in her Washington State History class that they did not name the state Columbia so that it would not be confused with the District of Columbia.   Hmm. Like that worked.)

 

This shadow of a frog picture was taken at Shadow Lake (pictured below.)

 

Cloud shadows show up when you look down on the Valley...



 

...or up at the mountain.



But I determined that the best shadow picture for today would be a picture of Shadow and his shadow.

You've heard of a churchmouse? Well, Shadow is a churchcat. He first showed up at the door of the classrooms at church about four years ago. Trying to get kids in the door and  cats not in the door, I shooed him away.

 

Next day he got smart. He found his way around the other side of the church to the rectory, where he was adopted by Fr. Jaime and his secretary Terri. Shadow is now a pampered fixture around the parish. If he had cooperated with me and posed, I would have even shown you his little Roman Collar. Somewhere in his ancestry is undoubtedly a tuxedo cat, but all he has is a little white marking under his chin.

 

The rest of the Headbangers will be along by Wednesday afternoon--well, except for Mac who is cruising again. You can find their entries by clicking their links in my sidebar.

Fruits

Notwithstanding that I live in the Fruit Basket of the nation and could go out wandering the Valley to take pictures of any number of luscious examples of fruits, workers in the fruit, trees full of fruit, fruit stands, and other fruity examples, I didn't.

My gas tank stands near empty and I would have to fill it. Which I am not adverse to do but just lazy at the moment, though I will undoubtedly get gas before the day is over.

The thing is, all I had to do was go out to my patio and take a picture of MY fruit.

Some would argue that the tomato is a vegetable, but for the purposes here it is the fruit of the tomato plant and it is growing RIGHT HERE IN A POT ON MY PATIO. We haven't had much in the way of a vegetable garden for several years, what with spending much of the summer either traveling, volunteering at the National Park, or more recently, visiting doctors on a sometimes more than weekly basis.

I counted three, but see that there are several more which will be appearing. The other plant has bunches. These are Better Bush, a big enough tomato for a sandwich or salad. The others are cherry.

And I could still count this header for last week's theme of Green, right?

My mouth is watering already.

What fruits did my headbanger friends find to head their blogs? Check them out from the links in my sidebar.

 

Headbangers--GREEN

Craver may not have been thinking when he set the theme of GREEN that I live in the EverGREEN state. If I can't manage a Green header, then I doubt that anyone can.

These are just a few green shots I took in the month of June.


at Maryhill State Park

Leavenworth reflection 1

goosey loosey--in Leavenworth

Leavenworth reflection 2

catching the drops at Liberty Lake

crossing the stream at Liberty Lake Park

the view opens out at Liberty Lake Park

hiking through the green

You can see what the others have found that is green through their links in my sidebar.

Liberty Lake Sunset

Stormy skies most of our camping trip gave way to this beautiful sunset (and sunshine and blue the day we went home.)

Skywatch is here.

What's the Buzz?

Tom gave us the theme of "What's the Buzz? for this week's Headbangers competition. As I will be camping with the grandchildren this week, I am preparing this post to arrive on Wednesday--Headbanger Day. I doubt I will get a new header up by Wednesday, but it would be among these buzzing bees and other bugs.

I don't know if these guys buzz, but here's looking at you!

There in the bloom on the left.

Hmmmm! Maybe the buzz has stopped.

There's gotta be some buzzing going on here.

Bumble Buzz



zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Check the other headbangers through the links in my sidebar.

Almost summer

It is almost summer. (We thought it WAS summer, but thunderstorms, hail and the lake in our driveway in the last couple of days made us wonder.) So I chose the beginning of summer as the headbangers theme for my turn this week.

Alternately "Summer Solstice".

I admit I had something in mind when I chose the theme as we had just been on our first camping trip of the season, a brief overnight to check out our equipment, a good thing to do before a longer trip as we found that our air mattress had an eight inch gash.

So it's not quite solstice.

But that's okay because my pictures are not quite Stonehenge.

Columbia River view

wind farms on the hills on both sides of the Columbia

 The Stonehenge Memorial in Klikitat County overlooking the Columbia was built by Sam Hill as a memorial to the young men who of the county who lost their lives in the First World War.

 

On another trip a few years ago the predominant view to frame with the stones was Mt. Hood. Hood was hidden on this trip.

 

What have the other headbangers chosen for the beginning of summer or summer solstice images? Their links are in my sidebar.