Category: Animals
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Sheep | Moses Lake, WA | August 2019 The mainstay of American values isn’t a Trump rally or Independence Day celebration. It’s the county fair. That’s where an extraordinary mix of people — farmers, housewives, entrepreneurs, artists, performers — put their passions on display. They unabashedly exclaim: Here’s the prettiest flower I’ve grown, the tastiest…
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Salmon | Wenatchee, WA | August 2019 There’s no better lesson in fulfilling one’s purpose than to stand mesmerized at a salmon observation window. The huge fish, many ragged from their journeys upriver, swim with a determination rarely seen in daily life. Every muscle propels them to
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Bull | Omak, WA | August 2019 Rodeo #3 | I recently leaped from a low ladder and rattled my bones and brain. No injuries, but during my one-second freefall I realized I had not left Earth under my own power in quite sometime. No jumps to grab a tree branch. No belly-flops into a…
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Raindrops | Omak, WA | August 2019 Rodeo #2 | Drizzle intensifies the scent of lariats, leather and livestock. As one female rodeo fan yelled, “Hoo-wee! Do I smell wet cowboy?” Bronc busters and bull riders aren’t fazed, of course, by sporadic sprinkles. When you’re straddling a 1,500-pound dynamo, rain and the resulting aromas are
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Trick Rider | Omak, WA | August 2019 Rodeo #1 | As the self-proclaimed King of Caution, I’m fascinated by those who take risks. What compels a person to skydive, rock climb, bungee jump, chain smoke or gulp that first bite of a neurotoxin-laced pufferfish? I understand about laughing in the face of death —…
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Cow Art | Ellensburg, WA | August 2019 I don’t usually feature other people’s artwork in this blog. But I like the placement of a painted fiberglass cow in the crux of brickwork. It’s a good reminder that vast areas of sameness — urban sprawl, desert landscapes, routine office tasks, reality TV shows — often…
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Horse Neck | Twisp, WA | August 2019 Bright on one side, dim on the other. In astrophysics, the line where light ends and darkness begins is called the terminator. It’s evident as orbiting planets spin into day, then night, then repeat. But we also see this curiosity in earthbound situations. A kind of terminator…
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Wire | Peshastin, WA | July 2019 Shapes in wire fences often corral my attention. The squares, rectangles and hexagons create an overlay on reality — a grid — that allows me to focus better on segments of a scene. A door knob, a bike wheel, a neighbor’s sunglasses, the comb of a clucking chicken.…
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Butterfly | East Wenatchee, WA | July 2019 At a recent family reunion, my attention was so focused on my brother-in-law’s delicious jambalaya that I didn’t notice a cousin taking photos of me shoveling it in. There I was — caught with my mouth full of rice and sausage, as if preparing for widespread famine.…
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Bug | East Wenatchee, WA | June 2019 If humans are wondrous, shouldn’t fleas, ants and other tiny bugs be even more so? In their itsy-bitsy bodies are packed brains, hearts, guts, eyeballs and, most remarkably, survival instincts. Or maybe not. One theory speculates that teensy creatures are the coalesced nerve endings of a larger…
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