Turnbull Surprises!

Matt and I went out to Turnbull last Sunday afternoon for a relaxing drive. We stopped at what I like to call "woodpecker clearing," and turned off the car to wait a while and see if anyone showed up. It was getting fairly late in the evening, and it appeared that the birds had already started to go to bed. After a while, we decided to move on. As I started the car, I looked up at a tree on the other side of the road to see a porcupine munching away!


Neither one of us has ever seen a live porcupine in the wild! He was very cute. Matt jumped out to get a pic (we were taking the driving tour to avoid ticks), and got a pretty good picture - he was only about ten feet away! However, as soon as he got back in the car (he was only out of it for about 2 minutes), he was already picking off ticks!! YUCK! We continued the drive and really didn't see much - even the osprey nest was empty! Near the end of the drive I stopped at a place where I had recently seen a gorgeous male yellow-rumped warbler and stopped the car again. I could hear a few pygmy nuthatches in the distance, but nothing was showing up. Then Matt elbowed me, and I looked where he had his binoculars pointed - 5 feet from the car towards a six foot Ponderosa Pine on the side of the road - and there was a red-naped sapsucker! He was so close that we could see the grubs he was getting out of the tree! Talk about neat! It was a good spot by Matt, because even when I knew he was there, I still couldn't see him without binocs (due to obscuring limbs).

There were lots of wildflowers out and about. It was too dark to get good pics, but I did get some of these "grass widows." Isn't that a terrible name! They were everywhere. It was very picturesque.

Tea Party!

After our spectacular experience at La-Tea-Da in Tillamook, I decided that 1) we must get some rooibus tea, and 2) I needed to throw a tea party! I found an online source for tea out of California and ordered Sunshine Lemon, LeMarche Spice, Provence, Hawaiian Colada, and Belgian Chocolate rooibus and regular Peppermint teas. They are all really good, and seem to be of the same quality that we enjoyed in Tillamook.

I decided for my first party to invite two little girls - Nadia and Natalie - and their mothers. Natalie is the daughter of one Matt's co-workers and we have enjoyed becoming friends with their family. Nadia is the daughter of a friend that Matt's coworker introduced us to at one of their many get-togethers, and who we see frequently at their house. Both girls are under six, and have a very strong sense of style! Since I have free wrapping etc. at Macy's, I bought them each a white summer hat (big brim - lined with lace), had them wrapped, and let them open them with their invites. Their invites requested that they decorate them - and boy did they! They were decked out with flowers and feathers!

For goodies, I decided to make four different sandwiches: 1) chicken wrap [white bread flattened with rolling pin wrapped with chicken lunch meat, cream cheese with dill, diced cucumbers, and roasted red peppers and sliced into 1 inch rolls] 2) tomato wrap [flattened wheat bread with thin sliced tomatoes, sprouts, and cream cheese] 3) heart shaped cucumber sandwiches [picked cucumber slices - in vinegar/sugar mixture - rye bread with cream cheese] and 4) egg salad sandwiches [served on pumpernickel and cut in triangles]. We also had puff pastry pinwheels filled with mango/ginger Stilton (sweet cheese), lemon poundcake, thimble cookies filled with jam, salmon cream cheese on dried bread rounds (topped with crossed chives), mini chocolate sundaes (mini-muffin pie crusts filled with fudge pudding, topped with whipped cream and a half a maraschino cherry), lime bars, and cranberry lemon scones. Our palate cleanser was a peach sherbet with pineapple garnish. It was quite a spread. The girls even liked the tea!

The girls were pretty full after their appetizer, but found things that they liked. Afterwards we dressed up in costume jewelry and took pictures. Then we checked out the rats (great fascination over our "one-eyed" rat, Annie), talked to the birds, played pet store, checked out the fish tank, played little mermaid (with costume jewelry for treasure), read some books, and then took my stuffed horse (Pharlap), for a couple spins around the house! It was fun :>

























Matt got to go on a play-date during our event, but was happy to find there were still plenty of goodies. In fact, they lasted for about a week!

Gourmet Club - Thai Night

Matt and I hosted our Gourmet club last night for Thai food. The club consists of three other couples, two of which Matt knows from work, and one who is a neighbor. We get together once every three months and rotate through everyone's home. It was our turn, so we got to get to pick the cuisine and assign sides, dessert, etc. We made Tom Kha Kai (chicken, lemon grass, ginger, and coconut soup), and Mu Kratiem Phrik Thai (Pork loin cut in thin medallions and stir fried with garlic, pepper, sweet soy sauce, Thai fish sauce). For starters we have coconut shrimp. For dinner, in addition to our dishes, we had steamed mussels in a divine coconut sauce, and Thai seasoned cauliflower with peanut sauce both served with jasmine rice. For desert we had khao tom mad, which are individual packages of banana slices, coconut rice, and black beans wrapped in banana leaves, and steamed. Everything was really yummy, and we really enjoyed chatting and relaxing. I wish I had taken pictures because everything was beautiful!

Class Assignment

For one of my education classes we have to do an assignment called "five minutes of fame." We are supposed to describe our "passion" and then relate to the class how it will influence our teaching philosophy and practices. For my "passion" I chose to birding. For the presentation, I plan to first show the video I created, and then briefly answer the posed question.

For the video I used footage mom shot at Ankeny Hill National Wildlife Refuge a few years ago, and then some additional footage Matt and I took during out last visit to the coast during spring break of this year.

You can view the movie on You Tube by clicking here. Or you can cut and paste the following address: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1t8L5SY-0w.

Glorious Morning at Turnbull National Refuge and TWO NEW LIFEBIRDS!

This morning I decided to take off and checkout Turnbull National Refuge for the first time while the "bug guy" was spraying the house for ants (nasty little Velvety Tree Ants). It was a good decision!

The refuge itself has multiple lakes and miles of hiking trails. It also has a five mile driving tour over part of the refuge, which is what I chose to do today. The refuge has wooded areas (pine), grasslands, and riparian habitats, and the driving tour takes you through some of each.

As soon as I entered the refuge I saw my first life bird of the day - a WESTERN BLUEBIRD. (Picture from google).


I had seen eastern bluebirds in Texas, but never any here. I also noted in the bird list that there is a mountain bluebird which is relatively common here, and, therefore, a life-bird I will make some time to pursue on another day. About 1/4 mile down the road I decided to stop the car, turn off the engine and just scan the trees for a while. I find that after about a half an hour, birds tend to accept anything in their environment that isn't moving (or a recognized predator), and start to move around in usual patterns. It was early in the morning and the day was clear and bright. I could hear some type of woodpecker hammering in addition to several "tweety birds" or passerines, to be more correct, singing. Eventually several pairs of downy woodpeckers started flying around, and then I spotted a larger bird that appeared to be a woodpecker at a distance. It took me about 20 minutes of looking before he flew into view, but suddenly a gorgeous red and black woodpecker parked himself on the tree right in front of me - and over the head of a "small" female moose that I had neglected to notice! The markings were very distinct and it was easy to determine that he was a RED-NAPED SAPSUCKER. (Picture from google).


After I realized I was staring into moose eyes from a relatively close distance, I decided it would be wise to move on.

I stopped at a couple of other locations and saw several pygmy nuthatches in a group (one of my more recent lifebirds), in addition to white breasted nuthatches. After turning a corner and coming up to one lake, I noticed a very prominent nest at the top of a snag that had an osprey in sitting in it, calling. I stopped the car and rolled down the window to be able to hear better and get a better look. She kept repeating a relatively "un-hawklike" tweet that really didn't seem like it should be coming from her. She didn't stop either, and continued for almost five minutes. While I was trying to figure out why, a male osprey swooped in and mated with her! Yikes! Neat thing to see, really. Around the next corner I saw two elk heading out of my way, a ground squirrel, and chipmunks. It was quite the day for mammals!

After about an hour, I decided I had better head back to the house to let Tillie out (she was locked in her crate indoors while they sprayed). Because my original intention was to look for a crossbill, I spent all my time looking in the trees and only noted water birds when they happened to cross my path. Even so, during the time I was there I amassed the following list!

(Stars indicate life-birds):
1. Canada Goose
2. American Widgeon
3. Ring-necked Duck
4. Bufflehead
5. Osprey
6. Red-Tailed Hawk
7. California Quail
8. Mourning Dove
9. *Red-Naped Sapsucker
10. Downy Woodpecker
11. Northern Flicker
12. Black-billed Magpie
13. American Crow
14. White-breasted Nuthatch
15. Pygmy Nuthatch
16. *Western Bluebird
17. American Robin
18. European Starling
19 Chipping Sparrow
Unidentified sparrow
20. Dark-eyed Junco
21. Red-winged Blackbird
22. Brewer's Blackbird

This puts me at 233 on my life-list!

I am really looking forward to taking Matt out there tonight, and, because it is only about 10 miles from school, I plan to make lots of trips during my three hour breaks between classes throughout this quarter!

Coast Trip and Another Life Bird!

[Pics have now been added!]

I had hoped to import my pictures from our coast trip last night, but after classes from 9am to 7:30pm with a total break consisting of an hour (aside from passing time) - half of which was consumed by travel to another campus - I was too tired! I hate my Tuesday schedule. So, I will post this now, and then tonight add pictures.

On the up side, we returned home from our trip to happy, healthy (although FAT) cats, swimming fish, chirping birds, and only another 4 inches of snow. Sabrina (the new cat) adjusted well returning home from boarding, and Tillie is doing pretty well, although after picking her up from the kennel we had to take her to the vet which diagnosed her as having stress-induced colitis. She is still feeling kinda under the weather, and we hope that there isn't anything more sinister going on.

Our coast trip was beautiful, relaxing, and short. We managed to leave our house by 7:30am and arrived in Bay city around 4:00pm. We only made a single one hour stop in Tri-cities to get the oil changed, but traffic wasn't ideal in Portland. We really enjoyed driving the new car (much better gas mileage than the truck), and it was fun driving during the day for a change.

The weather very was schizophrenic and varied significantly along our route. We started out at our house with about three inches of snow that had accumulated during the night with big, sticky flakes still coming down. After we de-iced the car and got packed, it took us about 30 minutes to drive out of the storm. As we approached Tri-cities we could see the signs of Spring progressively increasing. Many of the trees in Kennewick were in full bloom. Along the Gorge we had hail, wind, bright blue sky, and rumbling dark storm clouds. Each weather pattern seemed to stop and start very abruptly, and it was wild to see what was coming next on the horizon.

We were very excited to see Gram and enjoyed a really nice home cooked meal followed by some Cribbage games (all of which I won, I might add :>). The next day we woke up to snow!


After a yummy breakfast, we did our usual coastal tour of our favorite places, and added some new ones. We starting with the Tillamook bar where we enjoyed the waves and the begging gulls.


We then headed to the Grange Hall (where we hold the family reunion) to see if there were any fruiting bodies on the Pacific Yew tree because I wanted a start. We were very dismayed to find that it had been cut down! Such a shame. We followed the grange with a quick stop at the Manzanita bead shop, and then headed back to Wheeler to check out an "antique" store that we had never been in before. Unlike many coastal "antique" stores, this store did actually have some antiques mixed in with the myriad of collectibles. We enjoyed looking at shelves and shelves of glass balls, antique marbles, tons of glassware, old gadgets and furniture. I purchased an inexpensive serving bowl with six matching individual bowls that is the same aqua/green color as the sea on a windy, cool day when the sun peaks out from the clouds and illuminates the tops of the waves. We had lunch at the oyster factory in Bay City (after waiting 45 minutes for service!), and then headed up to Bay Ocean and Cape Mears. Along the road leading to the Bay Ocean spit I spotted a flock of very small shore birds. At first I dismissed them as Dunlin, but decided to get out the scope and take a closer look. I am glad I did because they were least sandpipers! Another lifebird!!!!

This picture is from google - the flock was too far away to get a good close-up).

We also saw an egret, heron, kingfisher, lots of pintails, killdeer, and cormorants. The birds didn't seem to be out in large numbers due to the regular deluges that hit us periodically during the day.

Our next stop was the new trail at the head of the Cape Mears Lighthouse road which leads to the newest spruce tree to be considered the largest in the pacific northwest. The trail was only about a quarter mile, and it was very nicely graveled.


(Raindrops on hemlock bough).

(Old cedar stump.)

We saw lots of destruction caused the most recent windstorm. Instead of removing trees, all fallen trees were left in place, and only sections blocking the path (or in precarious positions over the path) were cut.


Many of the fallen trees were hemlock, and the root balls were very wide, but not very deep. Some early spring flowers were blooming including yellow violets and trillium.

(Sour grass.)

(Licorice fern.)

The big spruce itself was enormous.

(Top of large spruce tree.)

Its base is probably about 9-10 feet in diameter, and, because only pictures with people in them provide perspective, I had Matt crawl through the brush in order to take this picture.


We made a quick stop at oceanside to check out the waves and then we headed back to Tillamook.


We got ice cream and cheese curds at the cheese factory, and then headed back to grams. Mom and Dad arrived for dinner and then we played some more crib.

The next morning Mom, Dad, Matt and I went back to the spruce trail so that they could see it.



Afterwards, we had a late lunch at La-Tea-Dah - an authentic English tea house. The tea was really good (I had a roibus (a South African herbal, caffiene free, tea) that was really good. For goodies, each of us had our own two tiered serving plates with scones, puff pastry pinwheels, tarts, sandwiches, and cookies - YUM!!! Afterwards we returned to Grams to help prepare dinner for extended family, and then enjoyed the company of Chris, Bev, Terry, and Dianne for dinner. After dinner Matt got out his Apple computer and showed everyone how to play with photobooth. All I can say is that my aunts and uncles are HAMS!! Mom got hilarious pics - go to her blog (which is linked to this site) to take a look.

Mom and Dad left that evening. The next day we went to sacrament with Gram, and then came back to her house and packed up. After eating lunch and visiting, we said good bye and then headed out to Jim's (my Dad's brother) to say "hi". We really enjoyed seeing him, and loved the yummy jerky he fed us. We are thinking of him and keeping him in our prayers as he goes through the courts to determine his resident status.

Our trip home was relatively uneventful. We got home before midnight (a first!), put everything away, fed the critters, and went to bed! I am still trying to catch up in sleep, but think today that I just might manage it....