Masks | East Wenatchee, WA | May 2020
Be alert. Stay safe.
[This blog’s extended run ends today, more than two years after its launch in March 2018 and two months after a relaunch as (more…)
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High Meadow | Entiat, WA | May 2020
A beam of sunshine on a lofty ridge highlights its wonders: A boulder pile shaped like a face, a perfect oval of forest, a field of flowers glowing yellow. Later in a taqueria, a young woman’s eyes brighten with (more…)
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Midrib | East Wenatchee, WA | May 2020
Patterns of big to little and little to big fulfill a natural order. Leaves: Branch, stem, midrib, veins. Traffic: Freeways, state routes, county roads, driveways. Water: Springs, creeks, rivers, seas. They’re sorting maps we follow subconsciously — glacier > waterfall > stream — through most of our lives. I ate a salad yesterday by first picking out the biggest pieces (lettuce, tomato), then the smaller additions (olives, croutons), then the tiniest nibbles (sunflower seeds, cheese bits) at the bottom of the bowl. When I feel uneasy about a problem or decision, it’s often because I (more…)
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Architecture | Wenatchee, WA | May 2020
Buildings tell lies, particularly when it comes to grandiose false fronts designed to boost a structure’s “presence.” Of course, cowboy towns in the 1800s proudly strutted their flat, fake fronts. And architects in the 1990s reincarnated the practice for malls and quick-build commercial strips. This photo shows a more honest use of a (more…)
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Street Turkey | East Wenatchee, WA | May 2020
Our new friend ignores fences, taunts dogs, gobbles gardens and struts the streets with gangsta swagger. It notes our presence with an upnod — “Yo, homie” — but otherwise keeps its beak to the ground. One neighbor says it’s a wild turkey sent to bedevil cats. Another claims it’s a domestic bird we should fatten for Thanksgiving. Mostly, I’ve admired its (more…)
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Turquoise Truck | Methow, WA | May 2020
Truck parked too long, weeds ‘round the wheels, crank up the motor, see how she feels / Air in the tires, gas gauge on (more…)
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Rock Piles | Mansfield, WA | May 2020
I survey the wind-downed pine cones littering our lawn and shake my head at the drudgery of raking. Just imagine tackling the removal of thousands of sofa-sized boulders from 200 acres of potential wheat field. “We’re gonna need a bigger wagon,” homesteaders must have said. Clearing a field meant weeks of work and still does, even with a front-end loader. The resulting rock piles stand as tilted temples to the (more…)
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Rapeseed | Mansfield, WA | May 2020
I’m no farmer (barely even a backyard gardener) but I’d like to heartily endorse rapeseed as an alternative crop for wheat on the Waterville Plateau. My enthusiasm has little to do with the crop’s usual byproducts — biofuel, cooking oil, livestock feed, soil enhancement — and more to do with visual aspect: It’s pretty. Fields of rapeseed flowers add daubs of yellow to the landscape’s usual greens and browns. The blooms are particularly brilliant in contrast to house-sized erratics deposited millennia ago by glaciers. And the blossoms’ yellow-greenish hues fully complement the trademark colors of (more…)
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