Morning Mist Crow

The Breakfast Bunch polished up the dog kibble I'd spread on the Crow Board, then dispersed into the fog to take up various positions in Clyde's yard, hopeful for a presentation of the dessert menu. Some perched on treetops or branches, some patrolled the ground. Some wiser folk selected fenceposts where they could keep a watchful eye on both feeding stations in case I happened to bring out seconds as I sometimes do. Thin dawn light gave a blush to the mist, rendering the canvas of an August morning into a natural monochrome, and this Crow's Eye was drawn to one young sentinel who profiled himself against the pasture. "Caw!" he said as I closed the door, and when I turned around, he'd flown off to join the growing gathering of his kindred somewhere out of my line of sight. Clyde must have put out something tasty.

And with this image, Monochrome 52 concludes. I hope you have enjoyed this brief foray into a world seen through the Crow's Eye. Thank you for visiting!

Summer's End

The Mountain is weary of summer. The glorious mantle of snow has fallen from the shoulders in an unseemly manner, exposing grimy ice and wrinkled rock. It is an elderly Mountain we see at the end of summer, an old woman in a tattered night-dress; we intrude upon the privacy which her age and dignity should allow her. We are not meant to see her thus. A week or two, a second of geologic time, and she will wreathe herself in frosted lace and satin, again elegant and presentable before her guests.

Down On The Farm

Riding along on the Foothills Trail from Orting to South Prairie, you will see traces of an older lifestyle, evidence that this rich river valley was once farming country before the upscale condominiums and outsized homes began their encroachment toward Mount Rainier. I remember those years when you had to slow down for cattle crossing the two-lane road; I remember the "Dairy of Merit" and the roadside stands where cucumbers, fresh corn, bunches of beets and piles of squash were sold for fifty cents or a quarter. Today, only a few of those farms are in operation, and that at a much reduced level. Little haying is done now, and the fields of corn are turned into mazes at Hallowe'en, more profit in charging $5 a head to play a game than in selling sweet, sun-warmed ears five for a buck. The stands selling blueberries and blackberries import them from other areas; "locally grown" means somewhere in Washington, not in the Puyallup and Carbon River valleys. The equipment which once raised clouds of dust as sod was turned and fields were tilled now sits forgotten behind tumbledown barns and outbuildings, balers and disks, tractors, plows and trucks now gone to rust. The grass grows high with no cattle to graze it, and only a few of us recall the sound of their mooing, gently sounding in the August morning fog.

Suver's

Well, this is as "downtown" as you get in Ashford. A true "general store," Suver's offers groceries, plumbing parts, camping gear, live bait, nails and bolts and screws, ice and beer, stovepipe, t-shirts and logger suspenders, and just about anything else a rural household might need. You won't find fancy shoes, expensive clothes, cell phones, electronics or dust-catchers here. For those, you'll have to drive an hour or more to the city. Suver's! Serving the Nisqually Valley since 1905! Can't miss it...unless you blink.

Veined And Mottled

As I was walking into the pasture this morning to take my customary cloud shot, I noticed the first signs of seasonal change caught in the tall grass. Seen in color, this leaf would be primarily red, blotched with gold and green; lovely in its own right, but I think not as lovely as it appears in the black-and-white rendition. Shot using the in-camera b/w mode, I used a torchiere lamp to illuminate the leaf from behind, bringing the veins into sharp relief.

The Veteran

Downtown Puyallup hosts quite a lot of nice sculpture for a fairly small city, including this life-sized representation of a war veteran who could be from almost any era. He strikes me as a farm boy, perhaps because the Puyallup Valley was largely farmland at one time, but he could be any man or Everyman. His sculpted expression leaves much room for interpretation, a shining example demonstrating that the purpose of Art is to raise questions in the minds of viewers. In full view, he is half-kneeling, one arm stretched downward as if to a fallen comrade, but today, it was a small cloth American flag almost at his fingertips, left there by some city worker or a passerby.

Chip And Crow

When you live out in the Back of Beyond, the term "yard work" takes on a whole 'nother meaning. A month or two back, I bought myself a small electric chainsaw to take care of some of my "yard work," but there still remained a limbing task which was not possible for me to do safely because of my size. I can always count on Clyde to come through for me in matters like this, so I enlisted his services with a pole saw having an 11-foot reach. He brought down the hazard branches on my big Doug fir a few days ago. Then bad weather moved in, and when it cleared, I had a photo assignment which took priority over cleanup. Today, I had both time and energy for the job, so I dragged Chip (the chainsaw) out of the garage and proceeded to make two similar "haystacks" containing manageable lengths. By the time we're allowed to burn yard debris again in the fall, the wood should be nice and dry.