With the advent of Facebook, the impulse to post is somewhat satisfied, but the photos appear and then disappear and the story doesn't develop. Items posted to an album remain a little while at least. While the impulse lasts, here are a few photos I took recently. I put up a hummingbird feeder, and almost immediately, hummers showed up, first a female Anna's, then later the male.
Don't know how they survive, can't be many flowers producing nectar but Google says they stay in the Willamette Valley all year.
Days were clear and sunny. In the garden, a snake showed up day after day to warm in the sun.
Garter snakes are mildly poisonous, it turns out, if you let them chew on you. Who knew? Nights were balmy too. I couldn't resist the sulky in moonlight.
Then the morning of Friday the 13th, snow started falling.
Notice the sulky is headed north. A friend posted "Turn back, turn back!"
By noon, we had 8 1/2 inches between the house and barn. and from time to time flurries continued.
Because of the timing, roads weren't plowed or sanded. After several trucks slid into ditches and one postal service woman broke her wrist in a fall, the post office called in the entire fleet. So much for "Neither snow nor rain...nor gloom of night..." We didn't get any mail that night, hilly areas in town didn't get deliveries for a week. Then the temperature started falling.
By morning, it was cold. Fog settled in and froze on everything but the geese.
Seven days later the sun returned,
snow started melting,
broken pipes started flowing, flooding basements and apartments here and there around town, and several spots in our garden. Fortunately, I have turn-offs in critical places. The streets cleared and the Gazette-Times declared that it had been a once in 20-year event. The Anna's returned.
And it was still Fall.
