Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

We took the bus over to Seattle and spent a couple of hours wandering around the UW arboretum, starting at the north end of a waterside trail (271 to Montlake Freeway Station, if locals want to try to visualize this). Nice long walk along and above Lake Washington, including some rather muddy bits that need more wood chips scattered, and then some floating footbridges, one of which was slightly below the surface for a few meters. I looked at it, decided I could deal with the wet metal surface and no handrail, and went through. (Temperature around 70F/21C, so I figured wet feet would be all right.) We saw a few ducks, some cormorants, water lily pads, but to our surprise no turtles.

Then we walked through some of the drier parts of the arboretum, with more grass and shrubs and spreading trees (and fewer ferns and moss). Some of the trees there are actually labeled, though a few of the labels felt mostly like a starting point for googling. (I thought I had a picture of the one that identified a tree as being a cross between two species I didn't recognize, at least not by Linnaean binomial, and added that this cross had been created at the Arboretum. If I can get it off my phone, I will update this point, for my reference.) There were lots of cherry and azalea and the other usual suspects; and the first we've seen in Washington of a tiny purple wildflower I don't have a name for that was always one of the first signs of spring back in Inwood. We saw some periwinkles of an unusual shade of purple, but I think that was before we got to the Arboretum. We stopped in at the visitor's center to use the bathroom, then walked out along Azalea Way and caught a 43 bus downtown and the usual 550 bus home.

It was a gorgeous clear day: we got excellent views of the nearby Cascades, the Olympics, and then Mount Rainier on the way home, the latter clear enough that cattitude pointed out that he could see two peaks, the lower one on the north side of the mountain as well as the usual fine glaciated cone that stars in all the photos.

I hadn't been to the arboretum in more than a decade, and this was Cattitude's first visit, though we've been living out here for a year. Next time we may try coming in from the other side and visiting the Japanese Garden.

Yes, almost everything is blooming early this year. ("Almost" because some things, such as Norway maples and dogwood, seem to be driven mostly by day length.)

I've spent a lot of time looking at something and saying "Lilacs?!" or "roses?" or the like. But I suspect it will all seem a bit less weird when the last of the forsythia stops blooming.

( phenology, cut because not everyone is interested in these details )

I was going to title this "gym, with some care," but while I possibly should have been careful of my hands and arms, I wasn't particularly. They seem to have come through the workout okay, though, which is reassuring after a few days in which many things that are supposed to be good for the hands seemed to be making them worse.

(On the other hand, there's some pain as I'm typing the details below the cut.)

( details cut as usual, slightly different from what I've been doing )

Also, when I got my hot chocolate afterwards, the barista commented that I was always smiling when they saw me; I said it was because I come there from the gym, so I've been doing something fun, I'm not coming directly from work. Then I thought about what I'd said.

On the way home from the subway, I got a long look at a skunk, first standing next to the water fountain, then it went into the ballfield and walked sort of parallel to me on the other side of the fence. I walked slowly, and stood and watched it for a moment, then decided it would be more prudent to go on, and not make it nervous. Not nearly as cute as the mustelids we saw yesterday, small-clawed otters at the Bronx Zoo.

When a rodent crossed my path a block and a half later, I thought "okay, just a rat," and then contemplated whether it was too large for the skunk to kill and eat; they're predators, but small.

The rain seems to be over, though it's still windy. We're high and dry here and have been all along; fretting, but no actual harm. The National Weather Service is reporting a near-record storm surge at the Battery, but I don't know whether/how much flooding that means. They're also saying a storm total rainfall at Central Park of 5.43 inches, but my quick calculations from the hourly numbers put it at 6.7: either I'm counting rain from early yesterday that they don't consider part of the storm, or they need to include rain after 6:40 this morning. Either way, this makes August 2011 the wettest month on record in New York City.

kate_nepveu's post about the storm confirms we did well to stay home, because her power is out, and she lives near the people we had been planning to visit this weekend.

ETA: We have been out for a walk, and saw no significant damage (small branches down). The water level in the bit of the Harlem River across the street looked like a very high tide; this was at about 1:00, which I think was well after the astronomical high tide (though it's a complicated harbor; high tide at 8 at the Battery can be 11 elsewhere in the city). The wrack/high tide line was far enough from the river that we missed it at first, from not looking that far (we have an idea of where to expect it after very high tides, even storm-driven ones, but I'm guessing the storm surge made the difference). The "line" is a straggling mess, clumps of mud and leaves and such.

We also saw a rather large turtle, sitting on a bit of board that we guessed she washed ashore on. I took some photos, and we worried a little that she didn't seem to be trying to escape human attention, but when we passed by 20 minutes later she was a bit closer to the water, and facing toward it, so I'm guessing she'll be all right. Some people also pointed out jellyfish that had washed up on the path, presumably either dead or dying.

cattitude and I just went for a nice long walk in Inwood Hill Park, which we hadn't done in a while. I decided the knees were probably up for it, and we really wanted to go.

We'd set out looking for black raspberries, and did find some. Very tasty, right off the bush and warm from the summer air. Nicer than the red raspberries I got at the Greenmarket yesterday (and we bought a half-pint of those and ate them in about three minutes as we looked at other stands, then went and bought more to bring home). The odd bit is that we found a couple of ripe blackberries first; it's way early for blackberries here, but the whole spring has been like that, no surprise that summer is following the same path.

We also saw a thrush on the way up, and heard a pileated woodpecker and a flicker, along with the more usual birds (blue jays, grackles, lots of robins).

On our way back, Cattitude spotted a tiny movement under some leaves. A shrew, probably a northern short-tailed shrew (Blarina brevicauda), but other possibilities include the southern short-tailed shrew and the least shrew. One small, very dark mammal (it looked black, but might have been a dark gray), with a short tail.

Whichever species it is, I think this is the first shrew I've seen in the wild. It seemed remarkably unconcerned about our prsence: just kept foraging in the leaf litter as we stood there, and moved a little to get out of the sunlight and slightly closer to it. It didn't even react to the woman walking past with a dog (leashed) and a child.

I may have pushed things a little, physically: the knees are better than they were, but I'm out of practice with hills and such. But it was well worth it, for the berries, the shrew, and the time in the woods together.

callunav posted yesterday about a trip to a nature preserve, and seeing red-winged blackbirds. She said she's not used to seeing them on this coast. I don't think of them as unusual: seasonal, yes, but I'm used to finding them in Inwood Hill Park and the Bronx Zoo in the spring and summer.

On Friday afternoon, cattitude heard one, but didn't see it. This afternoon, he suggested we go out in the park and look for red-winged blackbirds. Sure, why not, just a brief walk (we were both treating today as a rest day). We heard the call before we even got to the bit of wall that overlooks a reedy bit of marsh that they like, and I spotted him almost immediately. So we stood a few minutes and watched and listened, one red-winged blackbird, possibly the first of the spring, or maybe the second (if Cattitude heard a different bird on Friday).

There've been lots of robins around lately, and an unusual number of mourning doves. The usual mallards and Canada geese.

I remember when Canada geese were rare and noteworthy, and almost entirely migratory. Now, they're about as surprising as pigeons, and in some quarters less popular. I still like them.

It was warm by recent local standards (the weather service web site said 48F (9C) but it didn't feel much over 40; still, 40/5 under a bright blue sky is good for New York in January), so cattitude and I wandered out into the park, in a low-key sort of way. A short way into the woods, we saw a man with a bird eating out of his hand.

First assumption was chickadee, because they can be lured to do that. But it didn't quite have the chickadee shape.

Our neighbor has befriended a woodpecker. He was taking pictures while it ate from his hand, and was happy to tell us that he has known the bird since 2007, and that he comes to feed her every day from November until May, and then she migrates to Canada for the summer.

The bird comes when he whistles, and eats from his hand, and I am quite prepared to believe that it's the same bird: this is not standard woodpecker behavior. He asked if I had a gmail account, so he could send pictures, and this evening, there they were, 19 still photos, some of them very good, and just under a minute of video. (21 MB, which presumably is why he specifically asked about gmail.)

He seemed nice, a bit older than us I think, not a native English speaker, but he had the English for what he wanted to say here; his name is Young, and I have no idea if we'll run into him again.

After that, we walked a bit more, then came home, and I tried to nap a little. Didn't actually sleep, but it's been a good, restful weekend.

I didn't manage a nap on Friday—one of these days I may remember to turn the phone ringer and answering machine speaker off when I'm home sick—but I did convince onyxlynx to come up and visit me for a couple of hours. Tea, chocolate, conversation. including but not limited to catching up on stuff. She's not in New York very often these days, but she used to live in Washington Heights, and had no trouble finding my apartment. This may be the first time I've spent with just her: usually, it's been a group (not usually a large one) of people, because I got to know her gradually through fannish stuff, and then she moved west, and when she is here she is trying to get together with lots of people in a short time.

So, I've been doing somewhat domestic things the rest of the weekend, for values of "domestic" that include shopping (Greenmarket and grocery store), walking in the park, and dealing with paperwork and bills. A bit of reading, a bit of email. The leaves are just beginning to turn, but there are still some morning glories, and I think we saw more dragonflies an hour ago than we had at any time this summer. Still not a lot, compared to some years: it was a cool, damp summer by local standards. When we walked past the salt marsh, a turtle was basking on the very top of a tire in the water: the tire is standing on end, with just a little bit exposed at high tide, and moving gently back and forth when waves pass it. cattitude took some photos; I didn't have my camera this time.

I'm still not feeling 100% well: not seriously ill, but enough that while walking is good, weight-lifting may have to wait a bit longer. I am glad I stayed home Friday, even if rest didn't equal sleep. (It often doesn't, for me.)

There's a fine black locust sapling in the park across the street. It's regrowing from surviving roots, after a big old tree came down in a storm last year, and the parks department removed the visible stump.

This photo is from late July, on a rare sunny day. Three weeks earlier, this tree was about up to my waist. Right now, on rainy days, it's not quite as tall as I am.

cattitude and I have just been out in the park watching fireflies.

He'd seen one or two earlier in the week, while he was outside in the evening. These are my first of the summer. Not one or two, but lots: dozens, I'd say. I caught one, let it crawl on me a moment, and then let go: not for any special reason, just that it's a thing I do in the summertime. And then went back to the park bench and watched the pale lights flicker above the lawn.