Sometimes I find myself looking out my kitchen window and just staring. I know how tall the evergreens are, but they still astonish me.
There aren't many bridges between the Olympic Peninsula and the greater Seattle-Tacoma area. We take the ferry a lot. We carry around the ferry schedule, make lunch plans with Caitlin or DON'T make lunch plans based on whether we can make the ferry schedule work around doctor's appointments, kids' naps, and everything else that goes into a normal day. It took me only about two weeks to hate the ferry.
It took only a little longer to start falling in love with the peninsula. When I want to see Caitlin, I hate the ferry. but I love the distance that the ferries put between this wild place and civilization.
I've never gotten so close to birds and squirrels before. They seem to think I'm just another animal that belongs here. Mike tried to chase away a young deer standing about ten feet away, and it finally sauntered away, with the insolence of a teenager being ordered out of the mall. People talk about black bears, cougars, and coyotes, but I haven't seen any. I haven't even seen a raccoon.
Downtown Seattle is a little over an hour away, but here it is wild.
Saturday, August 25, 2012
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Gray Sunday
It rained this morning. A faithful walker went by, wearing a rain poncho, with her two Golden Retrievers, who were NOT wearing ponchos. After the rain, the bay was the color of obsidian, under a fluffy gray sky. That may sound like a silly description, but there is a texture to the cloud cover I don't remember seeing in Missouri.
We went to Sequim Bible Church for the third time. We went two weeks ago, but missed last week because we were with Chris and Caitlin at Caitlin's church in Edmonds. Chris and LaChanda have returned safely to Luang Prabang, Laos.
Sequim Bible Church has a traditional service at 9:15 and contemporary service at 10:30--same preaching, but they sing a few hymns in the earlier one, using guitars. We tried both; the music didn't seem that different between the two, but in the first service we were the youngest people, and in the second we are among the oldest. We also met a number of new people in that group. We'll stick to the contemporary service. I love the old hymns, but I like to hear them accompanied by a pipe organ, or at least a piano.
An insert in the bulletin talked about the church around the world. There was a report on Christians in southern Laos. In the village of Khamnonsung, a church of some 700 believers was shut down on Good Friday of this year. They were told they could no longer meet in the church building that had been erected in 1963. I've never been worried for Chris and Chanda before, but now I'm wondering if I should be. Some Christians that they work with were arrested this summer while trekking in a rural area, and detained until they signed a false statement that they were traveling without their passports.
I'm still surrounded by piles still needing to be sorted and put away, but it's starting to feel like home.
We went to Sequim Bible Church for the third time. We went two weeks ago, but missed last week because we were with Chris and Caitlin at Caitlin's church in Edmonds. Chris and LaChanda have returned safely to Luang Prabang, Laos.
Sequim Bible Church has a traditional service at 9:15 and contemporary service at 10:30--same preaching, but they sing a few hymns in the earlier one, using guitars. We tried both; the music didn't seem that different between the two, but in the first service we were the youngest people, and in the second we are among the oldest. We also met a number of new people in that group. We'll stick to the contemporary service. I love the old hymns, but I like to hear them accompanied by a pipe organ, or at least a piano.
An insert in the bulletin talked about the church around the world. There was a report on Christians in southern Laos. In the village of Khamnonsung, a church of some 700 believers was shut down on Good Friday of this year. They were told they could no longer meet in the church building that had been erected in 1963. I've never been worried for Chris and Chanda before, but now I'm wondering if I should be. Some Christians that they work with were arrested this summer while trekking in a rural area, and detained until they signed a false statement that they were traveling without their passports.
I'm still surrounded by piles still needing to be sorted and put away, but it's starting to feel like home.
Saturday, August 18, 2012
Settling in with the Wildlife
Our first month wasn't much different from Missouri: living with company, among unpacked boxes, but a wonderful time with loved ones. Now we start living here.
There is a wildness on the peninsula that has caught me by surprise. Animals don't seem threatened by the presence of humans; we're just a curiosity to them. The humans here are a curiosity to me, too...
The first day we were here we saw mule deer, a mother with spotted twin fawns. They looked at us with mild surprise, and then danced off into the clearing across the highway, floating through the air as I had never seen except in Disney cartoons. Since we have been here, the twins have lost their spots. One is getting bigger than the other; it must be a male.
Brazen little red squirrels found my bird feeder. When I went out on the kitchen porch this morning, the birds scattered, but the squirrels continued to eat. I don't mind, as long as they stay on the ground and don't tear up my feeder.
The first bird to find the feeder, the same day I put it up, was a goldfinch. He was eating thistle seeds on the hill just beyond it. By the end of the day, a whole flock of them had come. Goldfinches are abundant here in the summer, an online guide says, but they migrate south in the winter. We'll see if an abundant source of sunflower seeds will entice them to stay.
My bird book has yet to appear in any of the unpacked book boxes, so I'm winging it on the western birds new to me. I know the finches, sparrows and nuthatches; Steller's jay and tanagers were easy to identify. No cardinals! I miss them.
There is a wildness on the peninsula that has caught me by surprise. Animals don't seem threatened by the presence of humans; we're just a curiosity to them. The humans here are a curiosity to me, too...
The first day we were here we saw mule deer, a mother with spotted twin fawns. They looked at us with mild surprise, and then danced off into the clearing across the highway, floating through the air as I had never seen except in Disney cartoons. Since we have been here, the twins have lost their spots. One is getting bigger than the other; it must be a male.
Brazen little red squirrels found my bird feeder. When I went out on the kitchen porch this morning, the birds scattered, but the squirrels continued to eat. I don't mind, as long as they stay on the ground and don't tear up my feeder.
The first bird to find the feeder, the same day I put it up, was a goldfinch. He was eating thistle seeds on the hill just beyond it. By the end of the day, a whole flock of them had come. Goldfinches are abundant here in the summer, an online guide says, but they migrate south in the winter. We'll see if an abundant source of sunflower seeds will entice them to stay.
My bird book has yet to appear in any of the unpacked book boxes, so I'm winging it on the western birds new to me. I know the finches, sparrows and nuthatches; Steller's jay and tanagers were easy to identify. No cardinals! I miss them.
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